A rant

[Bill E]

Just because I'm tired and annoyed. Sorry. This is copied from the documentation for the ZMachine, but it sums up my philosophy:

Minor rant

Well, ok, perhaps a major one.

For all the armchair 'purists', yes, there were modern tools used to develop this and it uses a PDP-1D instruction set along with some IOT features that do things no actual PDP-1 did. Fastload and zload completely bypass the PDP-1 and directly manipulate the core image and the drum.

If that offends you, well, don't use the ZMachine or pidp1-mods for that matter. However, true hackers of the era would have used any of these tools and features if they had them. They didn't sit around loading paper tapes because they enjoyed it. How do I know this? Because I was one of them. Were you?

The PDP-1 was the beginning of hacking, and PDP-1s were hacked constantly. The pidp1-mods general philosophy is, if it is plausible that a PDP-1 could have had a feature, then it's fine to have that feature, as long as the timing restrictions of the real hardware are honored.

The extras like fastload are present just as conveniences. Zloader is present for practical reasons, it would take an absurdly long time to load the drum from a paper tape. Finally, some changes bow to the reality that pidp-1 has to run in the modern world on a modern computer, such as the DCS2 embedded telnet handler. It, however, still supports the original DCS IOTs and functionality, the rest are new IOT subcommands.

But, the Microtape, Type 23 drum, the 1D instructions, and the BBN clock are all 100% authentic and were present on a real PDP-1.

Adopt the true spirit of the time.

End of rant, Bill

[Matthias Barthel]

Bill, 

you've done a great job with your pidp1-mod, unfortunately I haven't had time to test all the mods yet because I'm engrossed in my own pdp1 project. 

I'm thrilled with the speed with which you develop the features. 

Thank you for your work 👍

Best Matthias 

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[Glenn Babecki]

Bill,

I don't know if people were privately giving you grief for advancing the PiDP-1 suite of software you've developed, but I don't think you have to apologize for any of it.  I think it's clear you've done a mountain of work to advance the "-1" using current state of the art techniques and tools, all while maintaining the spirit of hacking from the past.  As we've touch on in other conversations, you've probably logged more time on the MIT PDP-1x than I ever did so you have a handle on the good, the bad, and the ugly side of that system.  Think of it as a form of "poetic license" (technical license?).

As you've allude to, there are alternatives to your contributions should someone want to adhere to the original design(s) and operation.  There is Angelo's original implementation, and if someone is so inclined, they can rework either designs to achieve what they want their "-1" to be.

I think it's a win-win situation as long as there are platforms available to run the historical software, port somewhat contemporary software, and develop new software. Your work sort of demonstrates "you can teach and old dog new tricks."

Keep the Phase!

Regards,

Glenn

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[Whit Turner]

I don't think I would be enjoying my PiDP-1 anywhere near as much if it were not for pidp1-mods! Please keep it up! Awesome work in the true hacker tradition...

(this is from someone who spent 40+ years in the computer biz, most of it at DEC).

Whit

[Bill E]

Thanks for all the support, both here and in private emails. I was more anticipating reaction than experiencing it, other than a few earlier private interactions. "Why are you implementing 1980's games on the 1960 PDP-1, that's not authentic!". The answers are simple:

If someone had thought about it back then, it would have been done.

To prove it could be done, there was much doubt that the full 1977 Adventure from the PDP-10 could possibly work, and similar for the ZMachine.

It ends up being a tribute to just what can be accomplished on a PDP-1 with what would have been available at the time.

Besides, I can now claim 2 firsts. As far as I can determine, neither of these have ever been done before. What fun!

Bill

[Glenn Babecki]

Hey, as long as you're having fun driving the wagon, we're willing to hang on for the ride. 😉

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[Matthias Barthel]

Bill,

The pdp1 is the computer for the hacker 👍 its so well documented, that you can add any device or any software you want. You work on the pidp1 is exactly for what this machine was build - keep on going !

Best matthias 

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