[Simh] SIMH and physical hardware

[Will Senn]

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