Now I have no BlinkenLitz

[DR]

First, with the help of all those with my IP address search, I found the
'new' IP assigned to my PiDP-10 and edited the VNC and connected.


I updated all the Pi OS files, then did a reboot and having the scripts
set to run the DEC panel that Oscar has set  up (the one with the
choices for terminals with a background of a guy standing with papers in
his hand in front of a sketch of a mainframe 10 and another person
sitting in a chair, I don't  know what else to call it.

Even with the switches all set to zero (esp position 35) I get no
blinkies.  Clicking on the choices on the screen to open a terminal
window seems to work OK, as well as the basic PiOS choices and the GUI
file  function, terminal window, etc.


But no lights on the  panel.

I had it working for months just sitting on the desk, so I know it
worked at one time.  I haven't moved it or dropped it etc. but I  hate
to start taking the back panel off and poke around to see if there is a
bad ribbon cable, etc. connection.


Question:  Is there a command I can enter into a terminal window or
choose from the GUI file explorer type tool to start Blinkie?


Question:  ARe there other programs in the suite of things that were
loaded which powers the display to present something to test to see if I
have good connections and all to the front panel before I get it torn
apart looking for a bad connection etc?


The fact that it did drop  into the Blinkie action every  time I turned
it on before is reassuring.  I guess I could reformat,, reinstall the
PiOS for a Rap Pi 5 and then do the load of the SIMH system again.

Once again, thanks for any additional help at this time.  Dale

[Francis King]

To start Blinkie, type pdpcontrol start 0

To test connections, I can offer you the test program that you used during the build process:

pdpcontrol stop
sudo /opt/pidp10/bin/pidp10-test

Which version of the operating system are you using? There have been problems with some versions of the Pi operating system in the recent past.

[DR]

Francis:

I took your direction and started the test program which practically lit
up the room with panel lights.

Thank  you.  I'd sort of forgotten to try that test instruction, and all
works.


The problem is now that I may need to  to locate an older release and go
back a few steps since  you menioned that some releases may not be
comptatible.


I get version 13, Trixie and in more detail,  13.2.

Do you know the last 'good' release of PiOS to look for which is a known
good  OS to work with the PiDP-10 programs.

Thanks.  This has been very helpful and at least I don't have to go
taking panels off to look for a wiring problem.

Dale

[Francis King]

The version I have is version 12, 64-bits, Bookworm.

It is a known issue. I don't know what the status is.

[DR]

Just as a follow up,

I found that the PiOS site had the old version of 12 (Bookworm) on it
and used that to create a brand new microSD card, installed PiDP-10 from
scratsch and all is now running perfectly.


It appears as if I'm one of those who (or does everyone) have a problem
running BlinkenLights with 13, Trixie?  This works fine, so I'm staying
here.

Thanks again to all the help and reassurance.  BlinkingLights is so much
more fun than ScratchenHead.   Dale

[oscarv]

Apologies! This made a few people suffer in the past 2 weeks.

I fixed the problem in the github repository. But do let me know on oscar.v...@hotmail.com if you bump into any issues. 

Kind regards,

Oscar.

[DR]

Oscar,


Thank you. I was able to recover the primary function of my PiDP-10 by
going back a version (I'm glad the PiOS folks had that easily available).

Thanks for the work, but without getting too far afield, there are those
of us who are curious as to what  happened, and what did you have to do
to fix it?


Was it changed call names?  Lack of services loaded?  How did you tidy
things up?

Dale

[oscarv]

Dale,

On Saturday, December 20, 2025 at 11:53:18 PM UTC+1 daleea...@gmail.com wrote:

Thanks for the work, but without getting too far afield, there are those
of us who are curious as to what  happened, and what did you have to do
to fix it?

The problem was the use of the  libpcre.so.3 library dropping out of Trixie. 

As to what did I have to do? Well, Richard Cornwell had already fixed that over the past year in his branch! I was on the trailing end of technology.

Kind regards,

Oscar.

[Layton Graye]

So, I have the  bookworm version and it DOES NOT load the blinky or the various OS's.  Others have said this is the right version.  Here, I think you are saying you have fixed something related to "Trixie" version of the raspberry OS.  Does this mean that the BOOKWORM version still does not work, but the TRIXIE version didn't either, BUT, you now have the Trixie version working?

So much frustration, for over a year.  I should think back then (Aug 2025) the version I loaded should have been working fine.  Surely SOMETHING MUST WORK, how are you and the others commenting on their TOPS-10 and ITS progress  even getting in???

Layton

[Layton Graye]

Just finished cutting the SD with Trixie version of OS, 64-bit.  I will be trying it out with a fresh reload of the PiDP software Tue, Feb 3rd, 2026.  I am not sure if anyone has had success with this yet.  The bookworm version wasn't currently working completely, and a follower here suggested the software had recently become Trixie relient.  So, time to give it a try.

[Charles Ess]

I did this recently, after giving up trying to make the current PiDP-10 software, as now kindly fixed for Trixie by Oscar, somehow work with Bookworm. 
With many thanks and due credit to Oscar, first of all, for the note extensively incorporated here, and to ChatGPT (despite way too many hallucinations and unnecessary rabbit holes along the way) - here are the summary notes from a successful on Debian 13 (Trixie).

The short version is: on Trixie, the standard install is not sufficient; you must manually build and install the PDP-10 emulator from the newer src/pidp10 tree, per Oscar’s note. There is also an essential step of changing the default environment from Wayland to X11.
I hope this proves to be a useful recipe for you!

corrections and emendations welcome, of course.

Best of luck - charles

[Bradford Miller]

IIRC, this was required for Bookworm as well.

[Charles Ess]

I take it all back. I just ran the standard install  - 

cd /opt

sudo git clone https://github.com/obsolescence/pidp10

cd /opt/pidp10

this time on the new Raspberry Pi USB 3.0 flash drive with Trixie; made sure to switch to X11 as noted; rebooted - BAM! worked straight out of the box, as it were - including booting into ITS with SW35 depressed during boot.

Apologies! I thought I was taking good notes - and by now I should know not to trust ChatGPT to "remember" with any great accuracy either. But no, no need to go through the additional steps of manually building the PDP-emulator, etc.

I will say: booting from the USB 3.0 drive, running the installation, and then taking the PiDP-10 through some of its paces - it's all going markedly, markedly faster than with the high performance microsSD, much less the standard microSDs I was using previously. 

Best of luck with your install!

[Charles Ess]

Quick follow-up.  The new Raspberry Pi USB 3 stick diagnoses as follows (SD Card Speed Test):

  Sequential write speed 342671 KB/sec (target 10000) - PASS
  Random write speed 22185 IOPS (target 500) - PASS
  Random read speed 9781 IOPS (target 1500) - PASS
  Test PASS

That very large sequential write speed number is 10+ x faster than the original microSD and 7+ x faster than the high speed Sandisk max pro microSD also recommended for this application;

random write speed is 55+ x / 23+ x faster;

random read speed is 8 x / 4 x faster.

In various ways - from exceedingly fast boot and software load times, retrieving software from github, and _no_ noticeable latency with RealVNC - my experience is of a respectably capable contemporary machine that can perfectly well serve many day-to-day applications/services, starting with email and web browsing. All the while PiDP-10 applications run and the Blinkenlights hum along.

Yes, the stick is not cheap - ca. 30.00 GBP for 128GB; but if your budget can squeeze it in, I can recommend giving it a spin.

[terri-...@glaver.org]

On Thursday, February 5, 2026 at 2:03:25 AM UTC-5 charl...@gmail.com wrote:

Quick follow-up.  The new Raspberry Pi USB 3 stick diagnoses as follows (SD Card Speed Test):

  Sequential write speed 342671 KB/sec (target 10000) - PASS
  Random write speed 22185 IOPS (target 500) - PASS
  Random read speed 9781 IOPS (target 1500) - PASS
  Test PASS

That very large sequential write speed number is 10+ x faster than the original microSD and 7+ x faster than the high speed Sandisk max pro microSD also recommended for this application;

I am using the Pimoroni NVMe Base ($12) and a Dell 04HX2W Kioxia 256GB NVMe SSD (was $25 on Amazon, but the seller jacked up the price to $43 recently - still $30 on eBay) and these are my numbers:

Raspberry Pi Diagnostics - version 0.20
Thu Feb  5 22:25:07 2026

Test : SD Card Speed Test
Sequential write speed 821768 KB/sec (target 10000) - PASS
Random write speed 134020 IOPS (target 500) - PASS
Random read speed 194468 IOPS (target 1500) - PASS
Test PASS

A few notes - 
1) You need something like the NVMe Base as a HAT won't work - the PiDP *is* the hat.

2) The reported USB write speed is probably due to a front-end DRAM cache on the USB stick.

3) I assume one of the improvements in the official Pi USB stick is wear leveling - normal SD cards and USB sticks don't do wear leveling, and the writing of the same locations over and over will wear out the card/stick, sometimes leading to "sudden death" of the card/stick.

4) All of the 04HX2W cards I've seen (several dozen, for various uses) have out-of-rev firmware. While Kioxia does not provide end-user firmware updates. you can get them from Dell. You probably need a Dell system (and an NVMe slot - I uses a PCIe to NVMe add-in card) to flash the firmware update.

[Charles Ess]

Wowsers! Thanks for the details - very inspiring!

Yes - I was inspired by your earlier posting on a different thread, complete with a photo of your Pimoroni  flipped to the side of the Pi, and was within a hair of ordering it along with an NMVe. But I decided to try the Raspberry Pi USB stick first, as less expensive and more straightforward, while still having some of the advantages of a modern SSD, including SMART, TRIM, over-provisioning, internal wear leveling, and pSLC caching. 
I'm guessing that you use your Dell for your everyday work - but that your PiDP-10 would be even more that much faster, etc. and so could also serve as an everyday work machine as well?  

Again, thanks on all fronts.

[terri-...@glaver.org]

On the PiDP-11 you have to "open book" the NVMe Base, while on the PiDP-10 you can just add it to the stack in the back. One caution about any kind of Pi stacking hardware is that all vendors seem to assume you're using 100% their hardware, so you get screws and nuts. I've had to fabricate sections of just threaded bits (no screw heads) to get stuff to stack. A good selection of hex spacers (either with posts or just threaded hex spacers) can also come in handy. I recently had the displeasure of working with a newly-purchased Pi 3B+ metal case with fan. If I were to review it, it would be something like "This is the absolute perfect case - except that they managed to get every single thing wrong". But choices for Pi 3B+ metal cases with fans are few and far between these days, as the world has moved on.

My desktop systems are all Windows (10 LTSC, so I have full support until 2029 and don't have to worry about Microsoft changing the UI when I'm not looking - as I tell people, "Microsoft thinks my PCs are MRI machines and leaves them alone". And they're all skinned to look like Windows 7.) A typical desktop PC for me would be a Xeon E-2286G 4GHz CPU with 32GB RAM and a 1TB NVMe SSD.

The "big" server systems are mostly completely homebuilt - see https://www.glaver.org/raidzilla25 Of course, 512TB at home was a lot more unusual 10+ years ago when I built them.

In addition to a PiDP-10 and two PiDP-11s, I also have a "RetroRack" with six Pi 5's running various emulations - a pair of VAX 8650s running VMS 7.3 in a cluster, an 11/70 running RSTS/E V10.1, and another 11/70 running 2.11BSD. Another Pi 5 runs pyDECnet so everything is on HECnet and the sixth is a hot spare (I've only had one failed Pi, but you never know...). There are two more open spaces ready for more Pi 5s if I decide to expand my emulation. These are all running with the NVMe cards I mentioned - the Pimoroni NVMe Base on the PiDPs and the regular Pi 5 NVMe HAT+ in the RetroRack.

The RetroRack also has a mint DECserver 700-8 (those are incredibly rare as the case plastic has crumbled and the power supplies failed on most of them). I admit that the RetroRack's Ethernet switch with 20Gbit/sec connection to the Internet is a bit excessive. And eight Pi 5 "wall wart" adapters is silly, so I'm using a pair of 20A Meanwell medical-grade power supplies (four Pi 5's on each):

[DR]

I understand the SD card is the original and mainstay of the Pi series.

I hear the new board with NMVe is a worthwhile add on, but needs some
special configuring to get it it work.

Where does USB fall in this spectrum of external memory?


Is is faster than SD (I think it said so in one of the discussions).  Is
it natively supported, that is you can build a RaspOS on it and it just
runs like the SD card does, or ar ether some tricky drivers to install
and configure?


Just curious.  Dale

[sunnyboy010101]

I build my PiDP10 back in summer 2024. At the time I chose a Raspberry Pi-5 and added the NVME hat that supports M.2 ssd drives. To fit a PiDP-10 without resorting to GPIO extension cables, you need a BOTTOM mount NVME hat. There are several that work.

As a quick summary, you build your Raspbian on an SD card same as always. With the NVME attached and SSD installed, insert the SD card and turn on the R-Pi. When it comes up, go through final setup as if you were going to use the SD card. (I even installed the PiDP-10 software from Oscar and tested it out  as this was before my kit arrived). Then there's a documented process to move the software from the SD card to the M.2 SSD - my hat came with  instructions but there's also lots on the internet esp. on the Raspberry Pi forums and help pages etc. If the copy is successful, you switch from booting off SD card to booting off SSD on the hat.

Once that works (and I found it wasn't any problems at all with the hat I bought) then you shutdown the PI, remove the SD card and power back up and it's working off the SSD.

Yes, the SSD is significantly faster at least on my system. Mine was also larger - at the time SSDs were much cheaper for the capacity than equivalent SD card but that was 2024.

I don't regret the change at all. My PiDP-10 has been running 24/7 since summer 2024 with this configuration without issues.

In fact, I just bought the PiDP-1 kit and did the same thing. The only difference is back in 2024 I bought a 'top hat' NVME for a second Pi-5, and of course that would not work with the PiDP-1 either. I didn't buy the same NVME bottom hat as it was way more money in fall 2025, so bought a cheaper one instead. After some issues getting the tiny ribbon cable properly inserted, the new bottom NVME hat booted the same SSD as I'd configured for the top had without any issues. The PiDP-1 is running 24/7 since early January without issues.

I don't think I'd run a Raspberry Pi-5 without an SSD and NVME hat (probably bottom hat as they are more versatile) at this point.

-R

[DR]

Wow, thank you very much.  I hadn't picked up on the fact that the SD
image can be transferred to the SSD, avoiding having to go through a
complete re-installation from scratch.

You have been very helpful and encouraging.   Thanks.  Dale

[Charles Ess]

Yes, the Raspberry USB 3.0 stick is "natively supported," if by that you mean it works just like the microSD in the sense that you flash the appropriate Raspian OS with the Raspberry Pi Imager. 

Plug the stick into one of the two USB 3 ports (closest to the ethernet port: if you're paranoid as I am, I would also power off the machine first), and set the boot order using 

sudo raspi-config

go to Advanced Options and then A4 Boot Order; select the 2nd option (B2) which will start the boot from either NVMe and then try the USB (and if that fails, the microSD) 

(and while you're in Advanced Options, don't forget to switch from Wayland to X11 if you haven't already done so under A7 Wayland)

finish and reboot, and the Pi will boot from the USB stick. 

The USB is 7-10x faster than the even a high performance microSD - and offers many of the same advantages of using an NVMe SSD, including wear-leveling protection, etc. 

But the NVMe, as terri's numbers above indicate, is ca. 2.4 / 6.0 / 20 times faster on sequential write speed / random write speed / random read speed respectively. 
In my mind, the additional speeds of the NVMe, along with (likely) greater reliability and (possibly) ease of replacement in case of failure down the road were offset by the greater expense of the NVMe setup (ca. 2.+ x compared to the USB stick, but that is somewhat variable given my location in Norway: sourcing is more difficult and expensive, thanks to customs and import fees, as a start) and the physical fiddling of installing the Pimoroni NVMe Base - such that the USB 3.0 stick seems like a good compromise between the slower and more vulnerable microSD and an NVMe install.

Still very satisfied with the USB stick, FWIW - but will admit to no little techno-envy in response to terri's most recent description and pictures. Thanks in turn, terry!

[DR]

Thank  you again for a very helpful disccussion.

I'm thinking that a couple of the very low profile USB plugs I have
might work out well.  I hate long things hanging off a card and possibly
get snagged or hit something and then bend or ruin the rest of the card
(I don't treat them badly but  you know how things happen.)

I'll get a USB3 plug (the little USB type of unit with just a few
millimeters of extension beyond the plug to try your solution. Thank 
you.  Dale

[DR]

One more question, if anyone knows.

For the USB 3 type drives/chips, their capacity exceeds what (unless 
you are running a NAS or server of some type) one may ever need  in a
Pi5 environment.

The cost for more space is quite small, actually.

Question:  Do these chips incorporate the technology to spread out the
usage of the chip so one part doesn't get written to continuously, thus
shortening the life cycle of read/writes?  I know my Samsung SSD in the
desktop purports to do this, and some magic built into the control chip
allows it to spread things out.


I wonder if the thumb drives do that?


Final question then.  IF they do have the smarts to move stuff around to
equalize the read/write cycles, would buying a bigger than needed
capacity make the chip last longer, by having more space to have it move
things to?

Just a question.  I'm probably going to go before my chips do.

[Todd Goodman]

Most non-crap (i.e., don't buy the cheapest stuff you can find, buy reputable, name brands and "newer" devices) micro SD cards, USB sticks, and certainly SSDs support wear-leveling and bad block remapping.

Also buying crap flash devices can end up with their stated capacity being higher than their actual capacity.  This causes writes past the actual device capacity to "wrap around" and overwrite the lower logical blocks.

It's mostly down to speed at this point if you're comparing name brand devices.  NVMe > USB 3 > SD Cards usually.  To me, NVMes are the biggest bang for the buck to speed up a system that wasn't using them previously (obviously assuming the HW is "good enough" to make use of them.)

Todd

[DR]

Thanks for the information.  I don't know the inner workings of more
recent chip storage devices, so this helps.


I buy so few SD cards and such that I pay the premium for the best that
I can find, SanDisk, Samsung, etc.

I use them for my camera and I'm not jeopardizing the images for a few
cents and for some computer stuff where a failed card can mean hours of
work to rebuild.

Dale

[R Clark]

I run several of my RPI-5s off of USB 3.0 SSD drives.  I like the Samsung T5s and T7s.  They have been really reliable in operation. My PiDP-10 has a USB boot 500GB SSD drive, a 4TB SSD data drive, and a 6TB HDD for local backup drive (I use the RPI powered 4 port USB hub). I don't use the SD card or PCIe connector.  Obviously not 'scale' for a PDP-10 in its day!  Works for me though to have a 'data server' sitting up and out of the way on a shelf with the PiDP-10 front panel hiding the 'details' running 24x7  :) .

[terri-...@glaver.org]

Now all we need is for someone to create a PCIe x1 to Massbus adapter for the Pi 5.

Don't laugh - I heard of someone with an IBM Z-series mainframe using fiber optic connections to FICON and ESCON  converters to a channel adapter (fiber channel to "bus & tag" cables, each about 1" across) to an IBM 2821 (built in 1967 for the IBM 360) control unit that ran a 1403N1 line printer (built in 1962, for the IBM 1401 computer) connected to the 2821 with 2 cables about 3" across and connectors the size of my feet).

Now we just need someone crazy enough to do it and write a Linux RM/RP driver. 

[Eric Brown]

Something like a Unibone in reverse?

Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 8, 2026, at 6:00 PM, terri-...@glaver.org <terri-...@glaver.org> wrote:

Now all we need is for someone to create a PCIe x1 to Massbus adapter for the Pi 5.

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