In order to avoid booting First Steps every time, we use the facility known as configuration checkpointing or simply checkpointing. This enables Simics to save the entire state of the simulation to disk. The files are saved in a portable format and can be loaded at a later time.
To write a checkpoint, use the write-configuration command. The command expects a filename as argument. Name the checkpoint after_boot.conf.
[control-C] simics> write-configuration after_boot.conf simics>
The state is now saved, and you can safely terminate the simulation.
simics> quit joe@computer: simics-workspace$All that remains of the simulation is the checkpoint we just created. To load the checkpoint, use the -c flag when starting Simics.
joe@computer: ebony$ ./simics -c after_boot.conf [...] simics>
The terminal contents is also restored and you should end up in the same state as before. Remember to resume the simulation (by entering continue) before typing more commands at the console.
You can read more about configuration and checkpointing in chapter 6.