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The Computer History Simulation Project

Posted by michael on from the remembering-the-bad-old-days dept.

ChunKing writes "The Computer History Simulation Project is a loose Internet-based collective of people interested in restoring historically significant computer hardware and software systems by simulation. The goal of the project is to create highly portable system simulators and to publish them as freeware on the Internet, with freely available copies of significant or representative software. I can't wait 'til someone fixes me an OS/390 emulator to remind me of the days when I used to be an Ops Analyst for a major bank..."

5 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. Bob Supnik rocks! by jarkko · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I like Mr. Supniks emulators a lot. Even though
    they lack visually to a real PDP-11 or a VAX
    I like to use the simulators instead of the
    real hardware. Call me a heretic but I'd rather
    save on my electricity bill and I do take my
    older systems out on a test drive once in a while.

    OTOH, I'd love to get a real HP 2100 instead of an emulator :)

    Oh yeah, you can boot NetBSD on the VAX simulator, dmesg
    here..

  2. Non-US systems ignored... by earthy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How very interesting to note once again that Americans tend to think that everything important in computers has been American. For instance, I don't see the Electrologica machines, the X1 and X8, mentioned anywhere, even though they were the first to incorporate interrupts. Oh well. :)

    Oh, some more information is at the University of Amsterdam's Computer Museum's Electrologica X1 and X8 site.

    1. Re:Non-US systems ignored... by SnarfQuest · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually, what you call an American bias here is more of a Digital Equipment bias. The main author, Robert Supnik, was once a VP at DEC, and has used his connections to get enough stuff made available to make the emulators useful (like operating systems, languages, etc). If you want to see more non-US emulators included, get busy and write them. The documentation, software, and user experience is going to be much easier for you to find, being in the country they were built in, than they would be to an American. Robert already has enough work on the emulators he is developing right now to keep him busy for a long time.

      --
      Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
  3. Beh by enneff · · Score: 3, Insightful
    The thing about nostalgia is that you can pine for something that is long gone, but as soon as you get it back you suddenly wonder why you wanted it back in the first place.

    This applies especially to computing, where I often find myself in an environment from yesteryear only to hear myself say "wow, this really sucked!"

  4. How about being constructive? by mikosullivan · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Instead of being accusatory, how about being constructive? If you feel some important machines have been left out, join in and help. Accusations are great for revving up emotions, but if you really want an international perspective then accusations and slurs are hardly the way to go.

    --
    Miko O'Sullivan