I have written about a number of projects that I have done in recreating old computers like the HP2000/Access and the DEC PDP-10. To give this some impact and a sense of how these might have been used in the past, I have done a couple of videos for the /r/retrobattlestations reddit.
This first one show an emulated HP2000/Access system running a graphical 3D noughts and crosses game on an emulated Tektronix 4014.
This second one shows the startup of DEC PDP-10 TOPS-10 7.04 and the execution of the worlds first multi user dungeon, Essex university MUD, on a simulated old CRT terminal.
Thanks for the nice demo! I’m trying hard to get this image working in SIMH. Would it be possible to provide a ready-made image?
Sure, are you wanting a working HP Access or DEC Tops-10? The tektronix was done using xterm -t, so real simple.
The TOPS-10 demo of MUD1 looks great; the ./pdp10_start command, is that a shell script mounting the tape image ? Thanks !
No, the shell script only mounts the disk images. You will need to mount the tape yourself.
Looking good on my side, users just login as ‘mud’ then “run mud[2011,2776]”
so everyone share the same land from richard’s PPN.
On my side, I can login as richard and step in as archwiz.
I’m trying to find a way to force the login user to step into the mud automatically
(ie: british-legends.com)
I know it’s a long shot, but it seems we can control the login user up to
a certain degree with react:
.r react
REACT>change [2011,2011]
USER>program-to-run MUD.EXE[2011,2076]
USER>done
User [2011,2011] MUD changed
A total of one user changed
Then on the telnet side:
.login mud
Job 12 PDP10 TTY0
Password:
[LGNLAS Last access to [2011,2011] succeeded on 26-Jan-122:22:46:38]
22:57 26-Jan-122 Wednesday
?MUD.EXE not found
Actually I found that if you use legit? commands like HELP or SYSTAT as “program-to-run”,
it works well. Do you know any trick to run the mud “as a command”?
(not sure if I explain this properly)
Cheers,
OK, that’s not how I have set up on my PDP and it looks to me like you have the wrong PPN in the program-to-run clause of the account. I have the MUD executable and data files in [2011,2011] and I have a MUDGUEST account in [2653,2653]. The MUD executable should have 055 as the protection. So my account setup for MUDGUEST looks like this:
PPN: [2653,2653]
User name: MUDGUEST
Profile default: [2653,%] or [%,%]
* Personal name: -none-
* Distribution location: -none-
* Mailing address: -none-
* Expiration date: never
* LOGIN times: Weekdays 0:23 Weekends 0:23
* Access types: Local, Remote, Subjob of batch, Batch
Requirements for LOGIN:
Account and remark strings are not required
Name is not required
Password is not required
Password change not required
Minimum password length: -none-
Password change interval: -none-
Password changes are prohibited
* Schedular type: 0
Program to run: DSK:MUD.EXE[2011,2011]
* Context-quotas: Contexts 4, Total pages 1000
* Core Limits: Physical 512, Virtual 512
* ENQ/DEQ quota: 100
* IPCF quotas: Send 2, Receive 5, PIDs 2
* Privileges: -none-
* Spooled device bits: -none-
* Watch bits: -none-
* Structure quotas:
Structure Quota in Quota out Reserved Status
--------- ----------- ---------- ---------- ----------
DSKB -infinite- -infinite- 0
Administrative data:
Profile last changed by [1,2] at 14-Dec-18 16:45:03
Last access succeeded on 14-Dec-18 16:43:35
Last password change at 14-Dec-18 16:43:25
You’re right, the proper PPN to run the MUD should be the [2011,2011] one.
If Richard wants to step in as archwiz, he has to “run mud[2011,2011]” from his PPN.
The “DSK:MUD.EXE[2011,2011]” line in REACT is doing exactly what I want.
Thank you !
Would Love to get an Essex MUD running (being Essex Mud Wizard No. 63), struggled with SIMH get a working DEC-10, is their a image/directory I could perhaps use?
Hi Dave
First things first, get a DEC-10 running on simh. I assume you have downloaded and build simh from GitHub. I suggest you use a Linux or MacOS host for this rather than Windows as it will make life a bit easier in terms of tooling and compatibility.
Can you get to the PDP-10 simh prompt? It should look something like this:
$ ./pdp10PDP-10 simulator V4.0-0 Current git commit id: fa10e1de
sim>
If you have that working then I suggest you try the pre-configured disk packs and follow the set up instructions at https://steubentech.com/~talon/pdp10/
If you can get yourself to the PDP-10
BOOT>prompt, then you are in business and I can help more if you dont know what to do after that. Once that’s all done, I can help with the MUD86 restore, which is relatively straightforward.Hi Dave
A follow up on this, take a look at https://www.quentin.org.uk/2018/02/14/building-a-dec-pdp10-using-simh/ and see if that helps you too.
Many thanks for that, I am on Windows at the moment, I have the PDP-10 up and running, I started going thru the above to get it up and running fully, it’s seem very finiky tho, but it’s a good challendge
Krgds
Seems I have done the first part and got the tape images loaded and installed, Blimey I forgot how bad SOS was, I remember at Southbank we manage to get SED installed in VT100’s thankfully