[Simh] DZ11 vs DZV/DZQ11

[Mark Pizzolato]

On Monday, April 9, 2018 at 11:57 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> I think the whole concept of deriving the number of controllers based on units
> in simh is wrong.
> I think one should configure each controller separately, including being able to
> tell what CSR and vector it has, and how many units should be connected one
> way or another, and any other relevant information. 

Well, that was not how these things were written long ago.   What you're 
suggesting would require a rather dramatic rewrite of essentially all of the 
Unibus and Qbus devices.  If you've got the time, please go head.  :-)

> For serial ports, that
> obviously means that you might connect one line to a physical line, another to
> a telnet listener, and another one not connected to anything at all. 

You can actually do that right now.  Each line on any multiplexer device can 
have a separate TCP listener or be connected to a remote TCP port or to a 
local serial port, or be part of the pool of ports which may optionally be 
configured to listen for the mux device.

> And exactly
> how many units/lines the controller have should also be a factor here then.
> 
> This also comes back to disks, where I might not want to configure four disks
> on one controller, but maybe one controller per disk.

The device simulation for DEC's disk controllers usually default to the 
maximum number of disk devices each controller was capable of supporting.
Each of those device units can be disabled so if you want one controller per 
disk, you absolutely can.

Up to 4 separate MSCP controllers can be configured today (with up to 16 
separate drives).  A single RP controller with up to 8 drives is available.

This functionality has solved most user problems without issue.  If you've 
got a simulation need for more than this, you can extend or rewrite what's 
there now.  Since configurations that can be simulated today can far exceed 
what was ever possible on any real system, it seems like a lot of work to 
address the theoretical flexibility you're asking for.  :-)

- Mark