On 2015-06-11 03:25, Timothe Litt wrote:
There are quite a few Y2K divots to tackle. One tricky issue is DAP, as
that's cross-OS. (And now there's VMSSOFTWARE (the company) to
consider.) In general, some thought needs to be given to what
categories of change are acceptable, and where. The main thrust of the
simulator effort has been preserving history. So there may be different
branches for "last DEC release + bug fixes", "last DEC release +
completing unfinished or internal use but never released work" (e.g. my
unfinished KS10 ethernet driver), and "new features/extensions".
DAP is good until 2070 or so. If the DAP implementation on
Tops-10/TOPS-20 don't do things right at the moment, it's just a local
bug within those OSes then. RSX and VMS (maybe others) have had DAP Y2K
secure for many years.
Legally - so far as I know, the rights to TOPS10/20 belong to HP. Which
part of HP gets them in the upcoming split is unknown. Logically it
would be HP Enterprise, but logic requires knowledge and knowledge of
36-bits is in short supply at HP. The DEC archives at CHM include the
36-bit engineering environments; I promised to sort through them and
determine what can be released. [Things like personal e-mails in the
system backups can't be.] (Also, HP has sold off a lot of DEC's IP.
It's possible that HP sold some or all of the 36-bit technology.)
I thought the Tops-10/TOPS-20 stuff was handed over to XKL, but maybe
someone with better knowledge than me can clarify this.
As for other OSs - I'm not taking those on...
The legal jungle around the PDP-11 software is a nightmare. The PDP-10
stuff is easy in comparison, I think.
Johnny
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