[HECnet] SIMH VAX config changes

[Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm]

On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 6:29 AM, David Moylan wrote:
> I thought the same re: old version of SIMH, but Bob refers to the downloads
> on the trailing-edge.com site as "Classic". His version 3.11 is dated February
> 2020.
> Mark's github is constantly being updated, however.

Bob's "Classic" stuff is visible in the "Supnik-Current" branch of the Github simh repo.

It contains the base simulators that Bob wrote originally (and thus is the primary 
maintainer).  All changes made to Bob's base simulators either are a consequence of
feedback that inspired changes in the master branch simulators or are changes 
he introduces out of the blue (very rare) that are then merged back into the 
master branch.  Anything which works in a 3.x simulator is guaranteed to work
in the related master branch simulator.  The simh base framework (aka SCP) 
is functionally the same since around the 3.8 timeframe some 12 years ago.

> I've always built SIMH from github and not used the other downloads as I
> thought Bob's releases might be getting a bit stale. I noticed some updated
> networking code for the VAX network adapters as well as some console
> access and some funky paper tape handling in github. I wondered if all that
> existed in Bob's release as well.

The networking code (and XQ and XU device simulators) were written and 
maintained by others (Dave Hittner and myself), and are directly maintained
in the master branch and exist essentially unmodified in the Supnik-Current
branch.

If you have network issues or questions, you'll get support and direction 
when working with the master branch codebase.

- Mark

> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE <owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE> On
> Behalf Of Johnny Billquist
> Sent: Tuesday, 28 July 2020 11:23 PM
> To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE; Boyanich, Alastair
> <Alastair.Boyanich at au.fujitsu.com>; Paul Koning
> <paulkoning at comcast.net>
> Subject: Re: [HECnet] SIMH VAX config changes
> 
> It might not be that old. I've not really kept up to date, but as far as I
> know/remember, simh now exists in two branches. There is the V4 version,
> managed by Mark, which is on github, and then Bob have continued V3
> development on his own, which *might* be at 3.11...
> 
>    Johnny
> 
> On 2020-07-28 15:09, Paul Koning wrote:
> > 3.11?  That sounds very old.
> >
> > I don't know if there are formal releases of SIMH any longer.  It's on
> > Github.  There's been a lot of work ongoing, it may well be that the
> > trouble you saw has been fixed.  In any case, it's more likely you can
> > get effective help if you run the current code.
> >
> > I use the pdp11 emulator with pcap and it works well.
> >
> > BTW, there's a list for SIMH: simh at trailing-edge.com
> > <mailto:simh at trailing-edge.com>
> >
> > paul
> >
> >> On Jul 28, 2020, at 1:59 AM, Boyanich, Alastair
> >> <Alastair.Boyanich at au.fujitsu.com
> >> <mailto:Alastair.Boyanich at au.fujitsu.com>> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hello All,
> >> I’ve just cycled one of my old systems which in addition to regular
> >> duties also ran my VMS on SIMH system which participated with some of
> >> my real VAXen and Alpha systems. I’ve built v3.11 of simh  ...
> 
> --
> Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
>                                    ||  on a psychedelic trip
> email: bqt at softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
> pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol