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nigwil_ | 1 year ago | on: PiDP-10 – a modern replica of the PDP-10

Richard Cornwell's emulator is implemented within the OpenSimH framework, and forms the basis of PiDP-10:

https://github.com/rcornwell/sims/tree/master?tab=readme-ov-...

From the GitHub entry: The KA10 sim has successfully run Tops 10 4.5, 5.03 and 6.03, ITS and WAITS. The KI10 sim has successfully run Tops 10 6.03 with VMSER. The KL10 sim has successfully run Tops 10 6.03-7.03, ITS and Tops 20 V2-V7. The KS10 sim has successfully run Tops 10, Tops 20 and ITS.

PiDP-10 can run a variety of PDP-10 operating systems, although the front-panel is specific to the early KA10 model.

nigwil_ | 2 years ago | on: Disc Brakes Took over the Cycling World. Here's Why That Was a Mistake

The reason some of us MTBers switched: a single outing with rim-brakes in wet/muddy/dusty conditions would grind a set of pads to nothing (adding $25+ per outing for replacements), along with the wheel rim being ground thin to the point where the wheel wall would fail. Disc brakes last repeated use in adverse conditions and braking force remained consistent over many hours.

nigwil_ | 3 years ago | on: Make it Simple: A Tale about Robert Dewar (2015)

I think it is worth mentioning that this was Robert Dewar's second or third Ada implementation (depending on how you want to count them). Robert was involved with the original Ada/Ed implementation from the late 1970s/early 1980s at NYU (targeting VAX minicomputers), and the re-implementation of that into a C-based implementation that ran on MS-DOS. Ada/Ed was the first validated Ada implementation, and it used SETL as its implementation language which Robert was actively involved in through the 1970s (so he had a long track record of language implementations).

What we are missing about the Ada story is the long line of languages and tools that inspired the Green design that lead to Ada, that is the language LIS (Pascal/Simula inspired) and its toolchain that Jean Ichbiah and associates used as inspiration for the Ada design.

nigwil_ | 4 years ago | on: Who keeps an eye on clipboard access?

Could use Automator with AppleScript:

  x@Mac-mini-M1 ~ % cat ClearClipboard.scpt 
  on run
   tell application "System Events" to set the clipboard to ""
  end run
  x@Mac-mini-M1 ~ %

nigwil_ | 4 years ago | on: Burroughs B 5500 Infomration Processing System (1964) [pdf]

Unisys has been very supportive of our efforts to find and preserve early Burroughs software and generously provided corporate time to arrange licensing and provide copies of anything they still had. Burroughs B5000 series now has a rich library of software and several emulator implementations (web-browser, simh and standalone). However the B6000/7000 family software recovery is sparse with critical pieces still missing, we are unable to bootstrap a working MCP as yet.

nigwil_ | 4 years ago | on: An Armful of CHERIs

"In the case of CHERI, this was to change the user-visible abstract machine exposed by hardware in a way that hasn’t been done for mainstream hardware since the PDP-11." - the authors should take the time to familiarise themselves with the Burroughs B6700 (designed in the 1960s) which provided tagged memory, and a similar mechanism to CHERI architectural capabilities through the B6700 descriptor mechanism.

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burroughs_large_systems_descriptors
The PDP-11 minicomputer was a low-cost and undoubtably successful for its time system but a low bar for architectural sophistication or an exemplar for state of the art in computer architecture particularly in terms of memory design.

CHERI is a welcome development in producing safer systems, but it is packaging ideas that have been around for 50+ years, long overdue of course, but finally hardware costs have commoditised such that these ideas can be baked into mass produced hardware.

nigwil_ | 4 years ago | on: Just Say No to Paxos Overhead: Replacing Consensus with Network Ordering (2016)

"PCI-e is descendant from Infiniband which in turn is decendant from ServerNet ..." When you say PCIe descended from IB, at the signalling layer or a higher layer? Can you suggest a starting place to understand this lineage please, was it in the PCIe standards group discussions? I've not heard of this relationship before and I'm not having much luck finding the original discussion.

nigwil_ | 5 years ago | on: Exploring Borland DBase IV for DOS (2020)

In computing history claims like "first" and "commercial success" need to be qualified and defined, and therein things become difficult since timing and thresholds matter to meet a generally acceptable standard of either claim.

In the 1960s, several companies were selling commercial database management systems (as a distinct product), for example: IBM IMS, Univac DMS and General Electric IDS. These ideas were established to a level that there was a database standard committee known as CODASYL active from 1959 onward.

There is a good overview of the 1960s here: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-0-387-3474...

nigwil_ | 5 years ago | on: The Illiac IV Computer

I have been attempting to locate software for the Illiac IV. I corresponded with as many of the people involved with it I could easily find online and with NASA Ames (which has a history office!).

I've been looking for software such as this:

ASK - assembler for the Illiac IV on the Burroughs B5500 and later B6700

SSK - simulator for the Illiac IV on the Burroughs B5500 and later B6700

CFD - a FORTRAN like language targeted at CFD

Glypnir - ALGOL like language, likely not used at Ames

VECTORAL - vector processing language used at Ames

So far nothing has been found except the manual for CFD.

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