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Talking to Peripherals

As covered in section "I/O Architecture", peripherals (connected to channels) are expected to have two internal registers: DATA and CONTROL. Once the desired channel is selected in the Console, it is possible, when the computer is halted, to read or write to that peripheral (either DATA or CONTROL register) directly from the Console.

To do that, press the CH button in the Source Panel. As soon as you press that button, a read operation is performed on that channel (either DATA or CONTROL register, depending of the position of the CH DTA/CTL swich) into the DATA DISPLAY.

Pressing the CH button repeatedly will cause successive readings from the same peripheral, which may result in different readings depending of the design and current state of that peripheral in particular.

Pressing the STO button near the DATA DISPLAY, if CH is still selected, causes the machine to perform a write operation to that peripheral (to either DATA or CONTROL register, depending of the position of the CH DTA/CTL swich).