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computers / comp.sys.transputer / Annotated CSA Mandelzoom loader worm

Annotated CSA Mandelzoom loader worm

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Subject: Annotated CSA Mandelzoom loader worm
From: stepleton@gmail.com (Tom Stepleton)
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by: Tom Stepleton - Fri, 30 Sep 2022 00:00 UTC

I've carried out a close reading of the "worm" in the CSA Mandelzoom source code: this is the code that distributes itself across a Transputer network and then loads and executes programs distributed to it by a host computer. The worm itself is not specific to Mandelzoom --- you could use it to load other programs if you wanted to.

The network initialisation and worm code are in three files, executed in this order:
SRESET.TAL -- reset the Transputer network
FLBOOT.TAL -- main worm and bootstrap loader
FLLOAD.TAL -- full loader for larger programs

I've annotated these source files with a play-by-play of what the worm is doing. The annotated files are found at the gist link below, regrettably in the opposite order to what's listed above:

https://gist.github.com/stepleton/e0181ecd11ade19124a2956da614caab

I hope this might be of interest to the rare enthusiast out there,
--Tom

Subject	Author
Annotated CSA Mandelzoom loader worm	Tom Stepleton