Planning a new releasse in time for VCF East in April 2026.

[William Cattey]

An actual release is like 5 years overdue. There is SO much that users of the published trunk source are getting that everyone should get.

So I'm ramping up my hardware at home, and my understanding of the build tools.

I want to ship out a new PiDP-8i release in time for VCF East in April.

Really, the only outstanding item is a yay or nay on the Inverted Deposit software option. Everything else, I think is in place.

See the current Changelog at: https://tangentsoft.com/pidp8i/file?name=ChangeLog.md&ci=tip

Questions?

Comments?

-Bill

[AndyB]

That's a ton of work.  Outstanding.

[William Cattey]

Thanks.  I will need some testers when I have Release Candidate images.

[William Cattey]

Warren, the original author of the image creation tool, recommended I consider adopting rpi-image-gen as a replacement for his bosi image creation tool.

But I've tripped over an interesting problem.  rpi-image-gen is forward looking. It doesn't support the old ARMv6 Pi Zero platform.

We had previously put a fair bit of work into the low-overhead NLS blinking light support, and the previous release did distribute an ARMv6 Pi Zero image.

How prevalent are the Pi Zero configurations out there? I'd very much like to keep supporting EVERYBODY with the newest software.

Please reply to this thread with opinions.

Oscar, if you're listening, I know you sell a lot of PiDP-8s these days with people putting Pi4 and Pi5 processors in them. Do you have a sense of the footprint of legacy ARMv6/ Pi Zero systems out there?

-Bill

[Bill Wenrich]

My PiDP-8 does use a Pi Zero W, but I have other Pi Zero 2 W & Pi 4 available.

People who already use the Pi Zero (1) or Pi 1 can keep doing what they've been doing. If the existing install-from-source-control instructions still work, that feels sufficient.

In my opinion, new 32-bit builds should be discouraged in the project documentation. Raspberry Pi has an unusually long EOL on their hardware (I think they are promising to sell Pi Zero 1 and Pi 1 at least until *2030*), but I don't think it's practical to expect community support for all that time.

RasPi has been shipping 64-bit boards for a decade now and IMO as a hobby project, I'm willing to assume anyone building a kit can also afford a Pi Zero 2.

-Bill

[William Cattey]

That datapoint about your willingness to migrate to a newer platform is encouraging. Thanks!

[William Cattey]

Status report:  I've migrated our image builder from Warren's bosi tool to the modern rpi-image-gen tool chain.

I built a deployment image based on the current trunk and successfully booted headless on a Pi3b, Pi3b+, and a Pi4.
I've checked this work into trunk so it's canon going forward.

The current plan is to consider NLS and the 32 bit Pi platforms legacy. If there is outcry, doing a bosi build for some of this stuff is possible, albeit time consuming, and fiddly.

My next milestone is to do the work to convert trunk to using the OS/8 Combined Kit completely built from source as the new default boot environment.

While I'm working on that, others are looking to see if we can get the inverted deposit switch code sorted out to make the cut for the new release.

-Bill

[William Cattey]

Status update:

The trunk is now pretty much how I want it for the new release.

Images are building to my satisfaction.

The default boot image has been changed from the binary OS/8 v3d to the built-from-source OS/8 Combined Kit.

The remaining open question is if the invert-deposit option can be included.

Would people please check out trunk and see if anything has been missed while I dig in on the invert-deposit testing?

-Bill

[Steve Tockey]

Is there any planned documentation update to go along with the new release? In particular, with Cycle Realistic, Oscar's original use of the Sing Step and Sing Inst switches for USB media and the like have changed. I wrote up instructions in the PiDP-8 group message announcing availability of the new version. I could find that if needed. Anyway, just a reminder that if the documentation that goes along with the planned new release is to be updated then the switch function documentation should also be updated. I can help with that, if needed.

-- steve

[William Cattey]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for checking in.  Here's what we have documented now:

https://tangentsoft.com/pidp8i/wiki?name=Major+Differences

Are these switch instructions correct?

-Bill

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[Steve Tockey]

Bill,

Looks good, thanks. Only one recommended tweak: In the section titled, "Booting a Different OS or Mounting USB Media", the very next line of text is,

"Set the DF and IF switches as before to select your target, then:"

If possible, could you please make some (e.g., "as before") or all of that line of text a hot-link to where in the documentation those switch mappings are described? I'm not finding any of that on the TangentSoft site, but Oscar does talk about it here:

https://obsolescence.dev/pidp-8-how-to-use.html

Giving the reader a clickable hot-link would make it much easier to get to.

-- steve

[Michael J. Kupec]

Hey all! 

Getting ready to drag my PiDP8 out of the dust bin/webs, update it’s Debian to Trixie then the latest software, then finalize installing the various jacks on the back of the bamboo case. Was something that made me put it away during my back injury/recovery. 

I’m assuming the latest and greatest is on the Tangentsoft.com site and to ignore the dozens of other wannabe sites out there? 

The folks here maintaining the PDP OS on the Tangentsoft site do seem to have the best interests at heart with helping Oscar keep it updated. Kudos to all the hard work! 

Have a nice day!

Michael Kupec

Sent from my iPad as its keyboard is so much easier to type on!😆

On Apr 14, 2026, at 2:33 PM, Steve Tockey <steve...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Mike Katz]

For anyone who wants to install the new trunk you can use the script in the link below.  This script will work on both a newly imaged SD card or an existing card.  If using this on an existing PiDP-8/I installation, please be sure to do a pidp8i stop prior to running the script.

PiDP8I_TrunkSetup

The script does the following:

• Updates the operating system to the latest release of the version installed (bookworm to bookworm, trixie to trixie).
• Installs any per-requisites for the installer or SiMH
• Clones the repository
• Gets the trunk branch
• Builds SiMH
• Builds the SiMH mass storage images (RK05, TD8E, etc.)
• Installs SiMH to /opt/pidp8i
• Configures Linux to autostart SiMH on boot

To run the script:

download it from the link below to your home directory.  Enter the following commands in your home directory:

chmod +777 PiDP8I_TrunkSetup
./PiDP8I_TrunkSetup

Note:  This has only been tested on the Bookworm and Trixie versions of Raspberry Pi Debian Linux

This will create a logfile in case of any install problems.

Please let me know if you have any problems or questions.

           Mike

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pidp-8/F136612F-DDB7-4E76-9179-CFF65EE1EDF2%40gmail.com.

[John Kennedy]

Seemed to work fine on my Trixie / Model 4 Pi, with the exception of 

Running script file: ./scripts/misc/focal69-tu56.os8

PAL8 Error:

FOCAL. BN<DTAO: FOCAL.ZM, DTAO: FLOAT.ZM

RD C100 +0001

Non-fatal error encountered at focal69-tu56.os8, line 20: pal8 FOCAL. BN<DTAO: FOCAL.ZM, DTAO: FLOAT.ZM

[William Cattey]

Yes. That's a known, documented benign error.  When you build U/W FOCAL, one of the overlay modules redefines that symbol.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pidp-8/6a8765a8-9d25-426b-a009-7973059ad47bn%40googlegroups.com.

[William Cattey]

It's official!  We have a release! Welcome to the 2026 Tax Day release!

Changelog: https://tangentsoft.com/pidp8i/file?name=ChangeLog.md&ci=tip

Image you can burn onto a MicroSD card for your 64 bit Pi: https://tangentsoft.com/dl/pidp8i-2026-04-15-trixie.img.xz

(It's 272 Meg.)

Special thanks to Mike Katz for important testing, and for Warren Young for his significant efforts to make sure this release had its hair combed and its tie on straight.  Also high praise goes to Warren for carrying the system so far for so long!

-Bill

[ggrinton]

Thanks Bill.

A couple of observations: When I followed the update instructions at https://tangentsoft.com/pidp8i/wiki?name=Home to update my running system, I noted the following during the "make install" step: 

• after creating /home/gg/pidp8i/bin/ock-patched.rk05, while applying patches:

Applying patches unique to the Combined Kit:
Applying patch ABSLDR-21.29.1M-v6C.patch8...    Old value: 0006 does not match 1757. Aborting patch.
Applying patch PAL8-35.14.1M-V13B.patch8...Success.
Applying patch BLOAD-35.51.1M-v5C.patch8...Success.

•  bit later:

Installing os8-cp...
Installing system files and programs...
Setting real-time priority capabilities on pidp8i-sim...
Setting real-time priority capabilities on pidp8i-sim-ils...
Setting real-time priority capabilities on pidp8i-sim-nls...
Setting real-time priority capabilities on pidp8i-test...
install: cannot stat '/opt/pidp8i/etc/pidp8i.service': No such file or directory

after which the process came to a sudden halt. 

Acting on a suggestion from Bill, I did a full rebuild from scratch, and neither of these issues appeared.

Geoffrey

[Steve Tockey]

Bill,

One more minor suggested tweak to that web page, please. It says,

The introduction of Cycle Accurate (also called Cycle Realistic) operation in this release changed the behavior of the Sing_Step and Sing_Inst switches fundamentally: they now behave as they did on a real PDP-8/I. 

It's not just to make the switches work, it also makes the Fetch, Defer, and Execute lights behave realistically. This makes the PiDP-8/I front panel behave the same as described in Chapter 2 of the Small Computer Handbook of 1970 (http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/dec/pdp8/handbooks/SmallComputerHandbook_1970.pdf).

Thanks,

-- steve

[Carlo Valpiani]

Hi,

I hit an issue with the fresh image install from https://tangentsoft.com/dl/pidp8i-2026-04-15-trixie.img.xz and instructions at https://tangentsoft.com/pidp8i/doc/trunk/doc/OS-images.md

It all worked but appears the pre-built config has mDNS disabled on the wlan interface. The ssh pid...@pidp8i.local command doesn't resolve the .local domain. It all works if the IP address is used. Lots-o-Googling helped resolve the issue.

Thanks for all the work done.

Carlo

[Obsolescence]

Bill,

On Friday, March 6, 2026 at 5:42:09 AM UTC+1 bill....@gmail.com wrote:

Warren, the original author of the image creation tool, recommended I consider adopting rpi-image-gen as a replacement for his bosi image creation tool.

The simpler way that I used for my disk images: just use a small SD card, do a full install, then use dd to make an image. Or, much better: if you do not have a small SD card anymore, partition it to shrink the root partition. You can do that on a Linux laptop using gparted.

Oscar, if you're listening, I know you sell a lot of PiDP-8s these days with people putting Pi4 and Pi5 processors in them. Do you have a sense of the footprint of legacy ARMv6/ Pi Zero systems out there?

I do not really know. But like you, I *really* like the idea that you can use an old Pi Zero that is too old for anything else and make a glorious PDP-8 out of it. There's millions of unused old Raspberry Pi's in hobbyist drawers, this is a good home for them. To loosely quote from an email I once got from Eben Upton.

Using a Pi 5 really needs a line like 'set throttle 400k' or so in the simh ini files. The Pi 5 is just silly fast.

To shoot of a loosely formed idea... these days, an esp32 would be a good replacement option for the PiDP-8. I keep telling myself that I should make a shim PCB with an esp32 or Pico W on it. Like Angelo did it for the PiDP-1, you can just use a tiny web server and let a laptop deal with the terminal and graphics display over wifi. Shrinking down simh to run on the esp32 is feasible, spriteTM (aka Jeroen Domburg) did it for simh PDP-11.

One more thing on the infinite to-do list. Make the PiDP-8 Slow Again!

Kind regards,

Oscar.