Hardware Hobbyists vs. Emulator Enthusiasts vs Replica Recreators

[Tony Duell]

> 
> Hi Tony,
> 
> 
> Tony Duell wrote:
> > For the machines I mentioned, the PDP8s, PDP11s, and Philips P800s have a 
> > hardware front panel that works even without any boot disks. You can 
> > toggle in short programs and run them -- certainly programs to cause 
> >   
> As soon as you do that, you're running software - even if your intention
> of interacting with it is only to cause output on a scope, even if it's
> one opcode at a time.  :-) 

Technically, that is of course correct. But the original thread was 
clearly about things like operating syustems, applications, languages, etc.

> Completely different from just powering up and admiring it (or using it
> as a space heater, or listening to the fans.)

Assming the CPU is not defective, and it's not being held in a reset or 
halt state, then it's executing instructions. Maybe just from random 
noise on the data bus, bnt it'll take that set of 1's and 0's as 
instructions. So a powered-up machines is probagly running some kind of 
'software'.

> > The former is obviously more
> > interesting (as I said, I do try to get boot disks for my classics), but 
> > the latter is a lot better than nothing.
> >   
> In the same way, running an emulator is a lot better than nothing, if
> you don't have the actual machine.  :-)

No arguemtn with that. 

Oe perhaps one little one... I'd rather spend my time working on the 
hardware of a machine I do own (and I am not short of things to do...) 
than running an emulator for a machine that I don't. 

You may feel differently. Fine. I'm not going to stop you.

-tony