New PDPjs blog post

_posts/2016-11-13-curious-pdp-11-features.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: Curious PDP-11 Features
+date: 2016-11-13 13:00:00
+permalink: /blog/2016/11/13/
+---
+
+Last week, I ran PDPjs through a series of early DEC PDP-11 diagnostic tests on paper tape.
+These tests were originally released in 1970 and are documented in such DEC publications as the
+[MAINDEC USER REFERENCE MANUAL](http://archive.pcjs.org/pubs/dec/pdp11/diags/MAINDEC_User_Reference_Manual_Oct73.pdf)
+(October 1973).
+
+[Tests 1-12](/apps/pdp11/tapes/diags/#tests-1-12), "MAINDEC-11-D0AA-PB" through "MAINDEC-11-D0LA-PB", 
+uncovered a couple of uninteresting bugs in the emulator that affected the ASRB and RORB instructions, both involving some
+incorrect masks.  But aside from those hiccups, the tests ran fine.  Ditto for [Test 13](/apps/pdp11/tapes/diags/#test-13).
+
+Things got much more interesting in [Test 14](/apps/pdp11/tapes/diags/#test-14).  For starters (and as DEC's documentation
+points out), the test will immediately fail (HALT) if run on a PDP-11/40 or PDP-11/45, because it tests the RESERVED
+instruction trap by using the MUL opcode, which was only reserved on early PDP-11's, like the PDP-11/20.
+
+After switching to a [PDP-11/20 configuration](/devices/pdp11/machine/1120/panel/debugger/), Test 14 uncovered a series of
+problems, including:
+
+- The DL11 transmitter must generate an interrupt *immediately* after being enabled
+- When a RESERVED instruction trap occurs with an invalid stack pointer, the RESERVED instruction trap must be immediately
+followed by a stack overflow trap
+- When a hardware interrupt occurs with an invalid stack pointer, the hardware interrupt trap must be immediately followed
+by a stack overflow trap (ie, before the first instruction of the hardware interrupt handler is executed)
+- When a BUS error occurs while fetching an opcode, the address of the opcode must be pushed by the trap handler
+- When a trap handler loads a new PSW that allows a hardware interrupt to be acknowledged, the acknowledgement must be delayed
+by one instruction
+
+And finally, the most interesting bug uncovered by Test 14 involved instructions like this:
+
+	MOV     R0,(R0)+
+
+Imagine that R0 contains 1000.  PDPjs (as well as several other emulators I tested) would write the value 1000 to address
+1000 after auto-incrementing R0 to 1002.
+
+Unfortunately, that's wrong.  Apparently, the PDP-11 performs both source and destination address calculations *before*
+reading and writing the source and destination values.  So, in the above example, the value 1002 must be written to address 1000.
+
+I should add that not all emulators get this wrong: [SimH](https://github.com/simh/simh), the gold standard of PDP-11
+emulators, handles it correctly.
+
+Don't confuse this behavior with the order in which the source and destination operands are processed (source operands
+are always decoded first, destination operands next), or with the fact that the auto-increment mode is actually a *post*-
+increment mode, whereas auto-decrement is a *pre*-decrement mode.  Those things are also true, but they have nothing to do
+with this bug.
+
+PDPjs resolved the bug by using a special (negative) value to indicate a register source operand, which is then converted
+to the register's current value after both operands have been decoded.  Test 14 now passes.
+
+Next up: Test 15!
+
+---
+
+It's worth noting that all these diagnostic paper tape images are in the [Absolute Loader](/apps/pdp11/tapes/absloader/) format,
+but unlike tapes like [PDP-11 BASIC](/apps/pdp11/tapes/basic/), they don't include a start address, so you have to read the
+documentation for each test to learn the starting procedure, including any switches that should be set first.
+
+However, PDPjs makes life a bit simpler for you.  As noted for other [DEC PDP-11 Tape Images](/apps/pdp11/tapes/), any
+"Absolute Format" tape can be loaded directly into RAM using the machine's "Load" button instead of "Attach", allowing you
+to bypass the usual three-step process of loading the [Bootstrap Loader](/apps/pdp11/boot/bootstrap/) in order to load the
+[Absolute Loader](/apps/pdp11/tapes/absloader/) in order to load the desired tape.
+
+Moreover, PDPjs' JSON-encoded paper tape images support an *exec* property that allows the start address to be explicitly
+set, which will override any start address inside the image.  For these diagnostics, I have set the start address (usually 200)
+via the *exec* property.
+
+*[@jeffpar](http://twitter.com/jeffpar)*  
+*Nov 13, 2016*