Suits and old software. (was RE: Re: native Dup sync line revisited --> revisited Dup test on pdp11 --> problem solved: Simh KG11 emulation probably defective) - HECnet

1 Feb 2022

If only one could get into contact with the relevant 'suit' seeking old
software.
A while back I mentioned Algol68RS and the VAX/VMS version of the compiler I used during
my university days...
And how I wish I knew where that TK50 was containing a backup I made in... 1987? Ah
well.
The RS version of the compiler was the work of RSRE Malvern (a Ministry of Defence unit)
and the VAX code generator
was written at University of Oxford.
Significant bits of the RS compiler were released to the public domain as part of Ella and
there's a transliterator to C available.
It isn't the RS compiler though. Moreover, it is the VAX/VMS version of the
compiler.
I've been in contact with the two (or is it three) companies, Oxford University,
Liverpool University (where I last used that compiler)
and in each case, the conversation (if such a word could be used) has dwindled to nothing
pretty quickly.
In the case of the companies, I can only assume the suits saw no potential profit in it,
assuming they knew what 'compiler', VAX, VMS
or Algol68 meant. My communication with Oxford may not have gone beyond their 'call
management system' and Liverpool's archives in
that area don't go back that far and/or the tapes are unreadable.... or Sandra the
operator burned the toast again causing halon and
sprinkler damage some time in the past.

Blah

-----Original Message-----
From: Johnny Billquist [mailto:bqt@softjar.se] 
Sent: 01 February 2022 02:39
To: hecnet(a)lists.dfupdate.se
Subject: [HECnet] Re: native Dup sync line revisited --> revisited Dup test on pdp11
--> problem solved: Simh KG11 emulation probably defective

On 2022-02-01 03:10, Dave McGuire wrote:
...
  On 1/31/22 8:28 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
    Because for some people, that "near zero
risk" is maybe not so 
 "near zero", and that have actual implications for actual people.

    Yes, but they've been poorly (and selfishly) prioritized.

 Yeah. Tell that to their kids when they are thrown into the street.

    I do see your point, but it's an increasingly hypothetical point.

That might be. And I probably agree with it. But each person has to do his own assessment
on that point. And it might not look the same for all.

...
     You seem to
really just treat it as "there is no risk, so why 
 aren't people just doing whatever I think they should do", without 
 considering that for others the situation might actually look very 
 different.

    You've jumped to a conclusion about what I think, and (with
 respect) you're incorrect.  I think risking some suit in a glass 
 building getting angry with me, or even filing a lawsuit against me, 
 is not, and will never be, more important than a piece of history 
 that stands to be lost forever.

 Seems you just described exactly what I tried do describe above. So 
 how did I get it wrong?

    What I'm saying is that it's better to do something for the greater 
 good, than to "play it safe" with some hypothetical "risk" that some

 suit at HPE (or whomever) will somehow come after you about 
 decades-old software that they've never even heard of.

    I mean, come on.  Yes, the potential consequence is huge, but the 
 risk is vanishingly small.  Yes, it has happened, I'm well aware of 
 that.  But the risk is still vanishingly small.

Dave obviously was *very* worried about potential risks that he was not willing to take.
The amount of papers I had to sign before I got access should tell you something.

And he have (had?) information I don't have. So I prefer to not second guess him, but
just trust that he made his decisions based on the information he had, and they made sense
for him. And I'll just accept that, and respect his decisions.

...
     If you've
experienced that recently, then I am a little amazed. 
 Because that means people have been hanging on to things for a
 *long* time, but now they don't care. Which for me sounds like an 
 unusual situation.
 But of course, everything is possible.

    Then be amazed.  It happened most recently just a few months ago, 
 and several times last year.  This is a lot more common in the real 
 world than you've assumed.

 Hmm. Maybe we're talking about something else than PDP-11 software now?

    Actually it hasn't come up about PDP-11 software; it was VAX 
 software most recently.

Ah. Yes. VAX is a different story. There things are still fresh, so it's a different
ballpark.

So I apologize. I was very much PDP-11 focused in my responses.

VAX, in a way, seems to be falling down into the same pit the PDP-11 is in. But it's
far more recent, so a lot of stuff is still around at a different scale. And of course,
VMS as such isn't dead, which is kind of a different situation as well.

...
   Considering
that I'm usually even more overlooked than you are, you 
 can go with that complaint somewhere else.

    I will (sorry) but everyone who knows what a PDP-11 is knows your 
 name. ;)

Not even that. It's not too uncommon that I get into some discussion and people have
no clue. This mailing list and environment isn't exactly representative for people in
general out there. Just go check on VCF (or whatever the name is, I can't even
remember - vintage computing
something...)

...
   Take PDP-8
stuff for example - I've been around the block, done more, 
 seen more, and have more information and stuff than most everyone on 
 those lists nowadays. But I don't actually care anymore. They can 
 talk and do things as much as they want. I don't need them, and they 
 don't even know I exist. Their problem. Not mine. And since it's also 
 not a problem for them, it's not a problem at all.

    I'm with you on that.  But passing knowledge on is important, and 
 far too few people do it.  The excuse I hear most often is "nobody's 
 interested in this stuff".

 From my point, it's more that it's so much a club for internal admiration. People
are more interested in their turf than actually finding information.

Take the ftp site of Update. It's been around since the early 90s. 
Still, most people don't know about it. And lots of stuff have been copied out from
there elsewhere, and that's where people find various bits and pieces.

And a bunch of PDP-8 stuff there are things that I dragged out of numerous disks and
DECtapes I have. Most of it done in the 90s. Some of it still totally unknown by others.

And various software that I've written as well...

...
   It's only
a problem when you want attention and recognition.

    Or if you just want to be kept in the damn loop once in a while.

That mostly happens by accident, unless you are in the center.

...
   I'm daily
facing the same dilemma. I have done so much improvements 
 to RSX. I'd like to release V5.0, which I have sitting here. But I can't.
 I signed documents with XX2247 that limits what I can do, and I am 
 not willing to break the trust Dave put in me. Even though that 
 improved version have lots of stuff that would be really fun to share.

 Instead I'm trying to find ways of resolving the problem. Meanwhile 
 it's sitting at my place, and nowhere else.

    I will run that within *minutes* of its release.  Assuming I'm 
 still breathing, of course!

Who knows when I can do it. I keep hoping... But every year, there will be fewer
interested.

...
     Until the day
I die... Who knows what happens then.

    Well, I'm trying to get more (and younger) people interested in 
 PDP-11s, and I'm having pretty good success at that.  You could try 
 that too.

 I'll leave that to others. I'm busy just fixing things in RSX...
 If someone really interested comes along, I'm happy to help with 
 information and guidance, but I'm not trying to enlighten people.

    Well, we do that a lot at LSSM.  In particular, there's a teenage 
 kid who lives in Michigan who is OBSESSED with PDP-11s.  He's writing 
 code in assembler and running it under simh.  He doesn't know this 
 yet, but the next time his parents bring him down here for a visit, 
 I'm going to give him a PDP-11/73.

That should be exciting. :-)
Also, will be interesting if it carries over to working on real hardware as compared to
simh.

   Johnny

-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt(a)softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
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