On 2/9/16 11:41 PM, Zachary Kline wrote:
This is around 50% humorous, but it’s still a thing I’ve been thinking about
lately. From a newbie’s perspective, all SIMH machines are very similar. The
worst thing about emulation is that the “feel,” of the original hardware
doesn’t seem to be there. Simh can emulate tons of hardware from different
manufacturers, but none of that will tell me what it was like to actually use
the devices in a physical sense.
As a blind user, I’m doubly interested in this kind of physicality because I
experience the world through touch and sound. I have little conception of the
shape or size of many of these notional machines, and they are all reduced to
various abstractions at a console prompt. It’s hard to imagine a thing I was
far too young to experience.
I was reminded of an Apple II emulator I saw once, sadly not accessible, which
made the appropriate disk drive noises in use. Its kind of useless from a
practical standpoint, but a lot of my interest in these machines isn’t
practical to begin with. I want to explore an earlier kind of computing, but
don’t expect to get a job with it or have anything beyond some entertainment.
I really don’t know what, if anything, can be done to bridge this weird
disconnect. Actual hardware is probably gradually fading out, and in any case
probably wouldn’t be accessible from my perspective anyway.
Any thoughts? Apologies for the disjointed post, it’s rather late. ;)
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Zach,
I feel much the same way. I'm old enough to potentially have worked with
these computers. But, I didn't and for about the first 6 months or so, I
had a heck of a time imagining what an RK05, or an ASR33 were and this
was incredible frustrating, really. I thought an RK05 was something like
a cd changer, with disks and an ASR33 was like an IBM selectric
typewriter. Neither conception was that far off, but after I saw and
heard them in action, my imaginings became a whole lot more accurate and
useful for my current exploration with the simulator. Even so, you talk
about hearing these in operation. Again, what I imagined failed to match
reality. I though, wow, wouldn't it be neat to find a PDP-11/40 or
something and put it in my office with my imac and such. Uh, bad, bad
idea. If you think a dell sounds like an airplane engine, a PDP-11 and
it's peripherals in operation sound like a freight train. Here's a link
for your listening pleasure (it's a youtube video, but really, it's the
sound track that's awesome). It is entitled "PDP-11/40 Computer and
ASR-33 Teletype":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4IztV7M3jI
Maybe at some point, someone could add a really low threshold audio loop
to the simulator (sort of like a whitenoise generator) that is
reminiscent of the machine(s) in operation as an assistive technology
enhancement?
Regards,
Will
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