Hill's Blinky(nlights)

[Curtis Vaughan]

Was interested in getting Hill's Blinky working on my PiDP-8. 

My understanding was that it would be sufficient to just copy over BLINKY8.txt (/opt/pidp8i/share/media/). Drop down to simh and type in "do BLINKY8.txt". But it comes back with: 

Initializing SIMH for BLINKY-8 ...
/opt/pidp8i/share/media/BLINKY8.txt-211> set realcons disconnected
%SIM-ERROR: Non-existent device: REALCONS

According to an LLM: 

● That error means the SIMH binary you're running was built without the realcons    
  device, but the BLINKY8 boot script (BLINKY8.txt) expects it and tries set realcons
   disconnected on startup.                                                          
                                                                                     
  On a PiDP-8/I install this usually means SIMH was rebuilt/replaced with a vanilla  
  pdp8 rather than the PiDP-8/I patched version. A few options:                      
                                                                                     
  1. Rebuild the patched SIMH (recommended). From the pidp8i source tree:            
  cd ~/src/pidp8i    # or wherever you cloned it
  ./configure && make && sudo make install                                          
  1. The PiDP-8/I build adds the REALCONS device that drives the front-panel        
  LEDs/switches.                                                                    
  2. Quick workaround — edit the boot script so it doesn't reference realcons:      
  sudo sed -i 's/^set realcons.*/; &/' /opt/pidp8i/share/media/BLINKY8.txt          
  2. This comments out the offending line. BLINKY will run in SIMH but won't drive  
  the physical panel.                                                                
  3. Check which binary is being launched — which pdp8 and pdp8 -v (or whichever    
  launcher pidp8i uses) to confirm you're not picking up a stock SIMH from          
  /usr/local/bin ahead of /opt/pidp8i/bin. 

So was there something I did wrong when setting up my PiDP (btw, I reinstalled everything in Dec. 2025).

[Curtis Vaughan]

OMG, I finally noticed at the very beginning of Hill's site off to the left it says: "Note 20260315 on zip file:
from PiDP-8/10 simh scripts,
remove all 'realcons' lines
before running."

[R Clark]

Took me a bit to figure this out as following instructions didn't seem to work.  Found out first there was a directory problem for 'finding' the script. Problem #1....  Then found I had to load it first, and then run it.  command 'do BLINK8.txt' did not work.  Nor did the 'load BLINKY8.ptp'.

The directory the program BLINKY8.* needed to be in was:

       /opt/pidp8i/share/media

       sim> do BLINKY8.txt LOAD
       sim> run 0200

Hope that helps someone else.  My PiDP-8 is currently blinking away!