Development log

[Angelo Papenhoff/aap]

I'm making this thread so new features or bug fixes to the software will be easily visible for everyone in hopefully more friendly manner than the raw git log.

Feedback, suggestions and discussion are welcome.

[Angelo Papenhoff/aap]

Recent changes from my side:

* fullscreen in web interface fixed (was more of a placeholder before)

* pdp1_periph now has keyboard commands for mounting/saving paper tapes

* typewriter font size can also be controller now (and is saved to the config)

[Angelo Papenhoff/aap]

Time to revive this, it's been a while.
finally added lightpen support, only tested with pdp1_periph so far, the web interface does *not* support it currently

[MICHAEL GARDI]

A not so subtle reminder if you are working on the Type 30 display code:

https://github.com/obsolescence/pidp1/issues/5#issue-3613056149

Mike

[Bill E]

I recently added a size parameter to the type 30 in my branch. Not sure this is what is needed, but it lets you set a size other than 1024x1024 and everything is scaled to fit in that new size square.

You can try it out if the spirit moves you and let me know. The size is set in the /opt/pidp-mods/pidp.config file, it's documented in that.

Bill

[Angelo Papenhoff/aap]

* re-thought the whole sequence break stuff. 1 and 16 channel sequence break should be usable now

   some (admittedly not too heavy) testing suggested it is working

* infrastructure for high speed break cycle implemented as well, but no devices that use it yet

* fixed the pidp1 install script not to pull the latest submodules but the appropriate version

so now i can start implementing devices that use the high speed break cycle, the drum in particular. would be so nice to have schematics for it

[Angelo Papenhoff/aap]

So i figured i will need more time to think through the whole drum situation, so instead:

* implemented type 33 symbol generator

That was really fun! spent the whole day understanding the schematics and translating them into C. after just a little bit of debugging it seemed to work fine :) Bill's example code worked perfectly, thanks a lot for that!!

We have also now switched to an approach where i push my latest changes to aap/blincolnlights and the new new branch of obsolescence/pidp1. once oscar is confident in the changes (hopefully with feedback from you guys!), we'll merge it into main.

this means: until this is merged, check out the dev branch of obsolescence/pidp1 to test the new symbol generator.

[Angelo Papenhoff/aap]

meant s/new new branch/new dev branch/ of course. also this may interest people

* fixed some embarrassing issue in p7sim and pdp1_periph where the display would draw random dots while aging the display. forgot an 'else' -.-

that one is already on main.

[Angelo Papenhoff/aap]

I'm not ready to push anything new yet, but just to keep you updated i started reworking pdp1_periph to be more flexible and become a unified pdp_periph. with support for pdp1, pdp6 and whatever else might come up (dectape will be needed for the 6). i've also helped a bit with TENEX restoration for the arpanet project (https://github.com/larsbrinkhoff/bbn-tenex/issues/1).

also put lua into my pdp6 emulator, which was exactly the right thing to do as it gets rid of a lot of UI woes. i will bring the pdp1 up to pdp6 standards once everything is working smoothly. i think things are looking promising, but they're still cooking

[Angelo Papenhoff/aap]

Some updates. nothing for the pdp1 yet i'm afraid, but i've finally pushed some stuff:
* put the code for my pdp6 emulator into the blincolnlights repo. works with a virtual pdp6 panel (also pushed) and a physical pidp10
* pushed new pdp_periph into blincolnlights as well (screenshot attached)

All of this is still a bit in flux, especially pdp_periph. i had to rip some things out again for the purpose of restructuring the code. also i have this obsession with lua recently so right now there a lua interpreter compiled in, but i'm not entirely sure what to do with it yet. i think i'll be more useful once the program grows up a bit and supports multiple PDPs and configurations.

As i mentioned in the previous message, my current ibdea is to get all the pdp6 stuff a bit more polished and usable so that i can then pull the pdp1 (and other systems) along with it.
The microtape visualization is kinda bare bones right now, but as with the paper tape visualization it just improves the experience so much when you actually *see* the tapes spin.


On the more human level i'm currently somewhere in Sheffield with Oscar and Lars for some PiDP- and ARPAnet-evangelism.

cheers