SIMH on low overhead platform

[Chris Hanson]

On Aug 18, 2020, at 5:50 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> 
> On 8/17/20 5:34 PM, Chris Hanson via cctalk wrote:
>> One thing that would make it much easier to experiment with SIMH in scenarios like this is if its build system wasn't horribly redundant.
> 
> Why are you mentioning SIMH's /build/ system in a thread discussion boot times?

Did you miss the part where I said it would make it much easier to experiment with it if the build system was better? For example, switching between different networking implementations can require a rebuild.

> I wouldn't object if SIMH's /build/ took 20 minutes if it's something that only happens every 3-12 months while starting on a tiny Linux / *BSD / et al. system that /boots/ in a low number of seconds.


SIMH improves quickly enough that you won't want to do a 20 minute build every 3-12 months, but instead perform new builds with some regularity.

Between that and ease of experimenting (or the lack thereof) a bad build system can really hold back a project.

  -- Chris