Installing linux-x64/amd64 and pidp-10 on an amd64-laptop
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stephan küppers
Nov 7, 2025, 4:04:41 AMNov 7
to PiDP-10
Hello!
After successfully building and running a PiDP-10,
I would like to use an old laptop currently running Windows 7 x64/amd64
to completely convert it to Linux amd64 (not WSL)and then install PiDP10/PDP-10 on it.
I have the following questions:
1. Which Linux amd64 operating system and version should I use?
2. What do I need to be aware of when installing PiDP-10/PDP10?
3. Which terminal emulators can I use?
The Systems User Guide, page 47, only mentions Linux-x86!
Sincerely,
Stephan
After successfully building and running a PiDP-10,
I would like to use an old laptop currently running Windows 7 x64/amd64
to completely convert it to Linux amd64 (not WSL)and then install PiDP10/PDP-10 on it.
I have the following questions:
1. Which Linux amd64 operating system and version should I use?
2. What do I need to be aware of when installing PiDP-10/PDP10?
3. Which terminal emulators can I use?
The Systems User Guide, page 47, only mentions Linux-x86!
Sincerely,
Stephan
terri-...@glaver.org
Nov 7, 2025, 4:35:17 AMNov 7
to PiDP-10
The architecture of the PiDP products allows the front panel driver code (server) to run on a different system from the actual emulator (client). Of course, the client is trying to drive the front panel as a real-time device and network latency or other delays may cause the front panel to be less responsive than running the client on the same system as the server.
Given that a Raspberry Pi 5 is quite a few times faster than an actual PDP-10 and you need a Pi inside the case anyway, most people don't bother with running the emulator on different hardware and that code path has only been lightly tested, if at all. Working on the PiDP-11, I've found several things that are broken when they are running on different hardware. I don't know if the same is true on the PiDP-10.
You should probably use Debian Bookworm on your laptop if you decide to proceed with this. You may find that either the install or operation of the PiDP software doesn't work the first time - going by the PiDP-11 code, there are quite a few assumptions that packages will already be present on a default OS install. While the Pi uses Debian Bookworm, it has had quite a few additional packages added to the standard Raspberry Pi OS distribution that aren't present on a vanilla Debian install.
As far as terminal emulators, if they work when the client and server are on the same system, they should continue to work when the client and server are on different systems. The terminal emulators basically do either a "screen -d -r" or a "telnet localhost <some-port-number>" and they are doing that to communicate with the emulator running on the same host.
Given that a Raspberry Pi 5 is quite a few times faster than an actual PDP-10 and you need a Pi inside the case anyway, most people don't bother with running the emulator on different hardware and that code path has only been lightly tested, if at all. Working on the PiDP-11, I've found several things that are broken when they are running on different hardware. I don't know if the same is true on the PiDP-10.
You should probably use Debian Bookworm on your laptop if you decide to proceed with this. You may find that either the install or operation of the PiDP software doesn't work the first time - going by the PiDP-11 code, there are quite a few assumptions that packages will already be present on a default OS install. While the Pi uses Debian Bookworm, it has had quite a few additional packages added to the standard Raspberry Pi OS distribution that aren't present on a vanilla Debian install.
As far as terminal emulators, if they work when the client and server are on the same system, they should continue to work when the client and server are on different systems. The terminal emulators basically do either a "screen -d -r" or a "telnet localhost <some-port-number>" and they are doing that to communicate with the emulator running on the same host.
Clem Cole
Nov 7, 2025, 5:08:57 PMNov 7
to stephan küppers, PiDP-10
below
On Fri, Nov 7, 2025 at 4:04 AM stephan küppers <stephank...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello!
After successfully building and running a PiDP-10,
I would like to use an old laptop currently running Windows 7 x64/amd64
to completely convert it to Linux amd64 (not WSL)and then install PiDP10/PDP-10 on it.
I have the following questions:
1. Which Linux amd64 operating system and version should I use?
Ubuntu's latest is what OpenSIMH is tested against. I have all of the simulators in the set, including Richard's PDP-10 flavors, and all of them "just work" on my Ubuntu system (as well as my M1-based Mac). If you go to the OpenSIMH website, follow the link to the GitHub repository, clone, and then type make. It will take a few minutes to build, but it's reasonably fast on reasonably contemporary HW.
2. What do I need to be aware of when installing PiDP-10/PDP10?
The simulators in Oscar's PiDP 8/11/10 are forked from a slightly earlier version of the SIMH and modified to "hook" in the "Blinken Lights." Since you will not have such hardware on your laptop, you will need to replace the ARM64 binaries in /opt/pidp10/bin with the Intel*64-based binaries you just built for Richard's simulators. If you want to use things like the ASR33 emulator, you'll also have to go into /opt/pidp10/src and rebuild those programs and put thuse binaries in /opt/pidp10/bin [I did not find any real issues when I did that a while ago, but did the compiles on ana early version of Oscars tree and have not updated on the Mac or Linux systems since].
Another option is to navigate to the /opt/pidp10/src/pdp10 directory and attempt to rebuild the simulators there. However, those Makefiles are set to assume the Raspberry Pi OS, which is slightly different (it's a custom distribution based on Debian, but not exactly the same). I suspect that this path is not too hard, but I've never tried it.
3. Which terminal emulators can I use?
I've built them all on my Mac without any adverse effects, but have not tried them on the Linux box. That said, I would not expect many issues that are not easily corrected. I've also rebuilt cool-retro-term [ https://github.com/Swordfish90/cool-retro-term ] and have used that with my PiPD-11. I don't see any reason why it will not work on the PiPD-10
The other thing you will probably want/need to do is for each of the boot.ini files you find in the system directory for ITS, Tops 10, and Tops 20, ensure that they are set up reasonably, given this is not a RPi with Oscar's blinkenlites
Clem
Francis King
Nov 7, 2025, 5:11:32 PMNov 7
to PiDP-10
I have the PiDP software running on Linux Mint, on a Lenovo Thinkpad with 8 GB of memory. It works enough to be quite useful, although it's not entirely functional. When I run pdpcontrol start 1 I get the Type 340 display. I can then run pdp view and pdp tvcon, but for some reason not pdp con, even though con is part of view. Still trying to figure out if I can get ftp to work.
Francis King
Nov 8, 2025, 5:11:06 AMNov 8
to PiDP-10
Ubuntu's latest is what OpenSIMH is tested against.
Which is the latest version, please, in this context?
- 24.04.03 LTS
- 25.10
Francis.
Clem Cole
Nov 8, 2025, 9:44:43 AMNov 8
to Francis King, PiDP-10
below
On Sat, Nov 8, 2025 at 5:11 AM Francis King <francis...@gmail.com> wrote:
Ubuntu's latest is what OpenSIMH is tested against.Which is the latest version, please, in this context?
- 24.04.03 LTS
- 25.10
Francis.
clemc@orc:~$ cd simh
clemc@orc:~/simh$ cat /etc/os-release PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 25.04"
NAME="Ubuntu"
VERSION_ID="25.04"
VERSION="25.04 (Plucky Puffin)"
VERSION_CODENAME=plucky
ID=ubuntu
ID_LIKE=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://help.ubuntu.com/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/"
PRIVACY_POLICY_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/privacy-policy"
UBUNTU_CODENAME=plucky
LOGO=ubuntu-logo
clemc@orc:~/simh$ BIN/pdp10
PDP-10 simulator Open SIMH V4.1-0 Current git commit id: 4d383732
sim> quit
Goodbye
terri-...@glaver.org
Nov 8, 2025, 9:05:40 PMNov 8
to PiDP-10
Given that the PiDP software is using an older version of SIMH with Blinkenbone mods
the 'reference platform' of Open-SIMH isn't particularly relevant unless you're not using
the PiDP installer.
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