new software: rpdp - setup script for remote terminals into the PiDP-10

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oscarv

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May 1, 2024, 3:56:09 PM5/1/24
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Hi,

This is new, so please let me know of shortcomings. I only have the one laptop, and it might be that the install-remote script misses some dependencies. But trying will be harmless.
  • On your Linux desktop/laptop, this gets you comfortable terminals into the PiDP-10. 
  • will also work on another Pi that you perhaps want to use as a terminal for the PiDP-10.
  • should also work on Windows 11 with WSL subsystem (Ubuntu), but I cannot test. As Windows 11 does not want to run on any computer here. Windows 10 won't do.

So - on your laptop, not on your PiDP-10, do

cd /opt
/opt/rpdp/install/install-rpdp.sh

And afterwards, you can issue much the same terminal commands as on the PiDP-10:

rpdp tvcon
rpdp vt52
rpdp imlac
rpdp dp300

and rpdp alone will get you into the screen session of the simh simulator. As long as they're on the same network. Ctrl-A d to leave, as always.

It's nothing you could not do before. But I noticed many users didn't realise.

Kind regards,

Oscar.

oscarv

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May 1, 2024, 3:57:14 PM5/1/24
to PiDP-10
I forgot,

rdpd con (noisy Teletype)
rpdp telcon (peaceful Teletype)

Steve Pitcher

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May 1, 2024, 4:30:26 PM5/1/24
to PiDP-10
I bet that second to last one is "rpdp con".  I keep typing dpd, too.

Mitchell Wolrich

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May 1, 2024, 4:31:23 PM5/1/24
to oscarv, PiDP-10
Well, it's installed, and I ran through the install script.. but, it didn't put the name of my PiDP10 in correctly.
You can see it was trying to reach "pidp10.local", when I answered the config question "PiDP10-ITS"

pi@PiDP11-70:/opt/rpdp $ rpdp
remote connection to PiDP10-ITS.local
ssh into PiDP10-ITS.local.
 This will fail if the PDP-10 simulation is not running, or the user name on the PiDP-10 is not pi
ssh: Could not resolve hostname pidp10.local: Name or service not known
pi@PiDP11-70:/opt/rpdp $

Here's how I answered the install at the end of the script:

Modify config files with correct hostname and user name? y

----------------------------------------------------
Hostname of the PiDP-10 ?  PiDP10-ITS
User name on the PiDP-10 ? mitch
OK. Host name is PiDP10-ITS and user name is mitch
----------------------------------------------------
Correct? (y/n) ? y
...Done.
...Done.
pi@PiDP11-70:

The correct name is reachable

pi@PiDP11-70:/opt/rpdp $ ping PiDP10-ITS.local
PING PiDP10-ITS.local (192.168.10.165) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.10.165 (192.168.10.165): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.351 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.10.165 (192.168.10.165): icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.159 ms
Where are the config files, looks like I have to manually edit them..

Thanks,

Mitch


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oscarv

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May 1, 2024, 5:35:22 PM5/1/24
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Steve,


On Wednesday, May 1, 2024 at 10:30:26 PM UTC+2 stpit...@gmail.com wrote:
I bet that second to last one is "rpdp con".  I keep typing dpd, too.

Yes, pdp should be in my muscle memory by now, but dpd seems to be there alsmost as much...

oscarv

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May 1, 2024, 5:55:18 PM5/1/24
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Mitch,

Fixed, thank you!

Kind regards,

Oscar.

Mitchell Wolrich

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May 1, 2024, 10:03:20 PM5/1/24
to PiDP-10
did a "git pull", re-ran script, and it works now :-_

thanks for the quick fix Oscar

Mitch

Heinz-Bernd Eggenstein

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May 6, 2024, 10:56:56 AM5/6/24
to PiDP-10
Very cool and a good idea to break out these tools!

One suggestion: If this is meant to be completely stand-alone and independent of a PiDP-10 installation, maybe it should include the sound files and look for them in /opt/rpdp/bin/sounds instead of /opt/pidp-10/bin/sounds ?

P.S.: Not that I can stand the teletype sound for a prolonged time (how could anyone ???), but still... Makes you appreciate modern "terminals".

Cheers
HBE

oscarv

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May 9, 2024, 1:22:56 PM5/9/24
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HBE,

On Monday, May 6, 2024 at 4:56:56 PM UTC+2 hbep...@googlemail.com wrote:
One suggestion: If this is meant to be completely stand-alone and independent of a PiDP-10 installation, maybe it should include the sound files and look for them in /opt/rpdp/bin/sounds instead of /opt/pidp-10/bin/sounds ?

Urgh! Yes, of course. I get instant punshment for my lazy way of handling paths! I will fix in the coming days.

 
P.S.: Not that I can stand the teletype sound for a prolonged time (how could anyone ???), but still... Makes you appreciate modern "terminals".

I never use the noisy Teletype program myself, other than when demo'ing the PiDP-10. It is the ugliest of hacks, it was only intended for a VCF demo, but as it worked, and people responded to it quite a lot ('it makes you understand the age of this machine'), I left it in.

Kind regards,

Oscar.

Heinz-Bernd Eggenstein

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May 9, 2024, 5:27:11 PM5/9/24
to PiDP-10
> I never use the noisy Teletype program myself, other than when demo'ing the PiDP-10. 
> It is the ugliest of hacks, it was only intended for a VCF demo, but as it worked, and people 
> responded to it quite a lot ('it makes you understand the age of this machine'), I left it in.

Yeah don't get me wrong, I very much like the idea of recreating the original experience.
Because what strikes me is not just how unnerving the noise of these machines was, but also the
slow speed!! How was it possible to do any meaningful work with an interface like that?? It has
to be experienced to believe it.

Cheers
HB

Tim Radde

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May 9, 2024, 6:46:04 PM5/9/24
to PiDP-10
Love the sound of a TTY.  I had one when I had my Altair 8800 back in the day.  Gave it to a friend.  Wish I had kept it.  Nothing like the
sound and the smell of the TTY oil.

Malcolm Ray

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May 9, 2024, 7:01:24 PM5/9/24
to Heinz-Bernd Eggenstein, PiDP-10
The noise was horrendous, but you quickly got used to it. I suspect nowadays you'd be encouraged to wear ear plugs.
As for the speed, I didn't find it a significant limitation on input. For output, you would try to avoid sending long listings
to the teletype. Instead, you'd send them to a line printer. And if you think an ASR-33 is loud, wait till you hear a line
printer of that era!

There was something appealing about using a teletype. It had more personality, more physicality, than any VDU.
Kind of like the difference between a motorcycle and an electric car.
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DR

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May 9, 2024, 8:27:49 PM5/9/24
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What most think of as the 'regular' teletype, with or without the reader
and or punch, it was slow.  But after a long computation having it start
up was rewarding to hear and sort of a summons to go check on the
output, while working somewhere else on the main floor.


Anyway, there was an 'improved' version which was faster and also more
sonically insulated that some of the high ranking folks and professors
had in their offices and didn't drive everyone within a 1/2 mile crazy,
but I don't recall the model or version of it, but was much more
expensive (of course).


I've not gotten my -10 up and running yet, and don't have a speaker on
it anyway, so just how is it possible to hear that old familiar noise
again?  Does one hang a speaker on the -10/pi somehow?

Or just to satisfy the curious, is there an audio capture of what the
output that Oscar has programmed in sounds like, like an .mp3 or .wav
file that might satisfy the curiosity?

Dale


Heinz-Bernd Eggenstein

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May 9, 2024, 9:32:12 PM5/9/24
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If you use the rpdp tools discussed earler here, you can enjoy (?) the sound on your PC/notebook while it connects remotely over the network to the PiDP-10 somewhere else on your network. If you use the tool on the PiDP-10's Raspberry Pi itself, I guess you could configure the sound to be played over HDMI if your monitor has support for it, or via the headphones output jack (unless you have a Raspberry Pi 5 which no longer has that) or a USB sound card if you add one. 

 >  is there an audio capture of what the
> output that Oscar has programmed in sounds like, like an .mp3 or .wav
> file that might satisfy the curiosity?

Sure, this is covered near the beginning of Oscar's YouTube Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7sv9mpItPo

Cheers
HBE

DR

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May 9, 2024, 10:10:49 PM5/9/24
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Thanks.

What a fascinating video and after I get the PiDP-10 running will have
to study it more to get the fine points.


What a huge but important historical task, not only getting the MIT
machine running again, but to implement the software to run all those
things.

Thanks again.  Dale


oscarv

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May 10, 2024, 8:27:14 AM5/10/24
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Tim,

On Friday, May 10, 2024 at 12:46:04 AM UTC+2 timr...@gmail.com wrote:
Love the sound of a TTY.  I had one when I had my Altair 8800 back in the day.  Gave it to a friend.  Wish I had kept it.  Nothing like the
sound and the smell of the TTY oil.

Yes... the olfactory aspect.

This is certainly pushing things ridiculously far. But never mind, when you've found a good rabbit hole, just keep going:
my son somehow got interested in perfume-making... for his high school summer project, he wants to develop an 'old computer' scent.

Why say no? 

Kind regards,

Oscar.

oscarv

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May 10, 2024, 8:28:59 AM5/10/24
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Dale,

A HDMI TV will play the Teletype sound.
Or you could install the whole pidp10 software on a regular X86 linux machine, and unpack the X86 binaries. Not elegantly supported, but the X86 option came in handy during debugging, I left it in.

Kind regards,

Oscar.

DR

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May 10, 2024, 8:57:36 AM5/10/24
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Oscar:

Tell  your son in his quest for the ideal fragrance to NOT include the
smell of smoking resisters and exploded capacitors. Or at least make
that an alternative selection.

There is the special smell of any electronics, like opening  up a big
ham radio or audio gear and smelling the wire and component coatings and
all.


You know, he may be on to something!

Dale


Steve Pitcher

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May 11, 2024, 8:30:49 PM5/11/24
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My introduction to computing was Dartmouth Timesharing... and the birth of BASIC.  From over 100 miles away, via... you guessed it... ASR-33, Teletype.  Noise, and papertape.  110 baud, and 10 characters per second... It was awesome!!  I wasn't at Dartmouth, but at Bates College in Maine.  We had ONE terminal my Freshman year... Two my sophomore year.

What's really strange is that from that timesharing environment, I went on to cards and batch jobs with IBM 7040/7094 and eventually up to IBM 360!!!  What a let down!!  :-)

Believe me... I loved the noise!
- stp

Tim Radde

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May 11, 2024, 11:19:45 PM5/11/24
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What was Dartmouth Timesharing run on?  What type of machine?  I went from an 8i in junior and senior high to pdp-11 as Penn State.  And then later at Penn State the
KA-10 (beautiful machine).  Got my first job and it was mostly batch.  Yes, a let down indeed.

Lars Brinkhoff

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May 12, 2024, 1:06:32 AM5/12/24
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söndag 12 maj 2024 kl. 05:19:45 UTC+2 skrev timr...@gmail.com:
What was Dartmouth Timesharing run on?  What type of machine?
 
First a GE 225 with a DN 30 front end.  Users interacted with the front end, which sent batch jobs to the 225.  The 225 was soon upgraded to a 235, and later a considerably larger and faster 635.

Some software for the 235 is preserved, and for a while there was an emulator available online.  I haven't seen anything for the 635 version.

Tim Radde

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May 12, 2024, 10:49:14 AM5/12/24
to Lars Brinkhoff, PiDP-10
At the college with the 8i there was also a GE-115.  It was used by both students for training in COBOlL, and the school for payroll and other stuff.  That was fully batch.

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