Simulator FAQ

Home

Bugs and Features

Here are some bugs and features that I know about.

If you discover other problems, please send me an E Mail: (nbauers at samphire dot demon dot co dot uk)

I will cure the easy bugs and list the hard ones here.

Is there a Discussion Forum?

No - It has been closed. The forum attracted little traffic and lots of spam.

What is the difference between an io port, a register and memory location?

A register is located on the CPU chip. This is the fastest of all memory locations. It is also the most expensive. There are only a few registers on the CPU chip. The simulator has only four general purpose and three special purpose registers.

RAM memory is located on plug-in modules. RAM memory is much cheaper than CPU memory and it has a much greater capacity. It is also a lot slower than CPU based memory. RAM usually has its own dedicated bus connecting it to the CPU chip. This is faster than the main system bus.

Ports are located on plug-in expansion cards (or might be integrated onto the mother board). These are similar to RAM locations but they have a special purpose. As well as storing data, they interface the data to the outside world. Ports are slower than RAM because they rely on data transferred across the relatively slow system bus.

Why is my display messed up?

The simulator was developped using the default windows fonts, colours and borders. Some combinations of colours, fonts and window borders have caused problems. The symptoms include invisible text, text that won't fit inside the window, labels that don't line up with the item they are supposed to label and stretched bitmap images that look untidy. The cure is to use Windows default settings or compatible settings.

Where are my windows?

Beginners and some experts might hit another problem. With the display in a high resolution mode, the simulator windows can be moved towards the bottom right. When the display is restored to a lower resolution and the simulator is re-started, all its windows will be off screen where thay can't be seen or controlled. The cure is to close the simulator and delete Sms32V50.INI. The simulator will restart with its windows in default visible positions.

Why won't this file save? "Sms32v50.Ini"

This is common on a network installation. Make sure the working directory is one that you have permission to write to.

Why can't I save my work?

Make sure you are saving to a folder or directory where you have write permission. This problem usually occurs when you are running the simulator from a network installation.

Home