GNU MDK 1.1 released

[Jose A. Ortega Ruiz]

GNU MDK 1.1 has been released.  It is available from
ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/mdk/ and mirrors of that site (see list of
mirror sites at http://www.gnu.org/order/ftp.html) [0].

GNU MDK provides a simulator of D. Knuth's MIX computer, and a
development environment to write, run and debug MIXAL programs on it.

New in this release:

* Version 1.1 (12/06/04)

** The typewriter device (19) is now input/output, so that you can
   read characters from standard input (mixvm) or a popup dialog
   (gmixvm) in your MIXAL programs (see samples/echo.mixal for a
   simple usage sample).

** Input character device files may now contain lines with less than the
   required block size; the virtual machine pads the missing
   characters in memory using 0 (MIX char 'space').

** The paper tape device (20) was incorrectly defined as an output
   device. It is now an input char device (cf. TAOCP vol.1 p. 133,
   where it is mentioned as the 'paper tape reader'; thanks to Michael
   Talbot-Wilson).

** Listings produced by mixasm improved: better layout, and correct
   identification of 'ALF' and 'CON' instructions (including those
   added by the compiler as a result of local constant definitions and
   future references.

** Local constants can now be modified by a field spec or an index,
   as in, say, CMPA =0=,1(3:2) (closes #5654).

** The virtual machine reader is now case-insensitive, i.e., it
   automatically converts lowercase characters in input char device
   files to their uppercase counterparts (which are the only ones
   admitted by MIX). The ASCII representation for MIX chars delta,
   sigma and pi is now ~, [ and #.

** Bug fix: mixvm prompt's ending whitespace is now correctly set.

** Bug fix: blocks in input char devices (e.g. the card reader) are
   now expected to be separated by newlines, mirroring char output,
   which is done so (i.e. with one ASCII line per block).

** Improved virtual machine error messages (bad memory address, device
   no., fspec, etc.).

** Bug fix: undefined symbols are transformed to new addresses just
   before the end of a compiled program (as per TAOCP v1 p. 156;
   thanks to WeiZeng).

** Bug fix: the vm no longer blows up on memory access violations
   (thanks to Joel R. Holveck; closes #5649).

** Bug fix: LDAN, LDXN and LDiN always negate the result, even if zero
   (thanks to Ruslan Batdalov; closes Debian's #247392).

Visit the MDK home page at http://www.gnu.org/software/mdk/mdk.html.

Bug reports should go to address@hidden

Enjoy!


[0] GNU MDK source and binary packages can also be downloaded from
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=13897&release_id=245275

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