[Simh] A new version...

[Terry Newton]

--- On Sat, 9/20/08, Philipp Hachtmann <hachti at hachti.de> wrote:
> downtime? The latest version is
> http://hachti.de/simh/readline-hack-08092001.zip

Found it after my post.

If v3.81 make for Windows is used I get the following
error message...

Command>build_mingw

! was unexpected at this time.

mingw32-make: *** [NOVA/nova_sys.o] Error 255


This occurs with both the first /sihm/Makefile you posted
and also with the makefile from ..08092001.zip (slightly
edited to take out the readline support, not testing that
yet), and exactly the same error occurs whether run in
a real install of XP Home using mingw-make.exe or running
in my virtual install with a totally different build
of v3.81 make.exe (not from the mingw project).

So basically v3.80 make gives a "virtual memory exausted"
error, and v3.81 gives a "! was unexpected" error,
regardless of whether I'm running virtually or not and
regardless of which build of make is used. At least
based on a limited sample size I've tried, but I think
I see a pattern... complex stuff breaks under Windows.

Of course it could simply be a bug...

> It is available. And will stay available. I'm open for
> suggestions, too.

Cool. One option is to simply don't try to make it work
under Windows, that operating system is targeted towards
more normal uses, and is often not approprate for complex
development tasks unless certain precautions are taken,
such as using simple makefiles. There are inherent limits
on string sizes etc in Windows that don't apply to Linux.

The only suggestion I can think of is to create a
SimH project page with descriptions and links to the
latest versions of a Makefile set up to work with the
stock SimH archive and to the readline modification
(or just the readline mod, editing the makefile to
work with the stock setup appears to be trivial but
maybe a note about what to do, and testing status).
Perhaps linked from your homepage so people
searching for it can find it.

> My problem is that I don't have those exotic systems
> SIMH could be built 
> on. I have only my Linux - and small minicomputers like
> PDP8 etc.

So long as it's not made the default for everyone, then
it is not necessary to do all that testing. Just do what
you think is appropriate for your system, fix what you
can and don't worry about systems you can't test for.
Let the users of those systems fix it themselves if
they want to use it (and hopefully contribute the
fixes back to the project).

Terry