[rescue] The Soul of that old Machine

[Lionel Peterson]

Speaking of simulating classic hardware:

Years ago I bought two kits from a fellow named Oscar in Switzerland, his
PiDP-8 and PiDP-11, they are RPi-based SimH boxes designed to look like
classic PDP-8 and PDP-11/70 control panels with working switches and LEDs at
2/3rds scale.

While these devices would likely only appeal to a certain kind of person, he's
apparently sold several thousand of each.

I built my PiDP-11 kit a week ago, but (ignorantly) soldered the switches
upside down (having never worked a 'real' PDP-11 I just assumed the
address/data switches toggled 'down' not 'up'), now I'm trying to figure out
proper desoldering tools to fix the switches...

The kits are pricey, but they are well-designed and result in a quality piece
of blinking light artwork.

The SimH software can be run on a standalone RPi (no control panel) and
accessed over serial, usb, or ssh sessions. My discovery/recovery of my VT420
terminal motivated me to pick up my soldering iron and have a go at the kit.
The PiDP-8 is on-deck for assembly over the holiday weekend.

The PiDP-11 took about 6 hours to build incorrectly, it shouldn't take any
longer if you follow the instructions.

PiDP-8: https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-8

PiDP-11: https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11

To get back on-topic, I don't think DG had anywhere near the 'fanatic'
following PDP-8 and PDP-11 systems had, maybe they lacked the blinkenlights?

Ken

> On Nov 24, 2021, at 09:12, Jonathan Patschke <jp at celestrion.net> wrote:
>
> o;?On Wed, 24 Nov 2021, John Hudak wrote:
>
>> Simh is an emulator for a number of machines, including DEC and DG.
>
> Simh is rather nice.  It's long been my go-to for PDP11 and VAX
> emulation.  Hacking on it about 15 years ago to have better battery
> performance (mostly spinlock-hunting) on OS X was fun, too.  It tends to
> feel very "abstract," though, because every machine goes through the
> same interface.
>
> Most of what made, for example, using Hercules not feel like just
> running another VM is that so much of the console experience is
> preserved (albeit at some necessity because of how IBM mainframes treat
> the consoles as extra-special).  I guess I was hoping for something less
> like simh and more like Hecules.
>
> --
> Jonathan Patschke
> Austin, TX
> USA
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