Simulating a Machine From the 80s

Posted4 months agoActive3 months ago

roman-mazur

77 points

12 comments

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RetrocomputingEmulationVintage Computers

Key topics

Retrocomputing

Emulation

Vintage Computers

The author simulates a vintage computer from behind the Iron Curtain, sparking interest and nostalgia in the HN community for retrocomputing and vintage machines.

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84-96h

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01Story posted
Sep 18, 2025 at 4:03 PM EDT
4 months ago
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02First comment
Sep 22, 2025 at 1:52 AM EDT
3d after posting
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03Peak activity
7 comments in 84-96h
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04Latest activity
Sep 24, 2025 at 5:05 AM EDT
3 months ago
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Discussion (12 comments)

Showing 12 comments

jcims

3 months ago

3 replies

Off-topic but I used to do security assessments and had a bunch of small banks for customers. One of them was still running the banking software they had when they first got computerized and it ran on an HP3000 from the 70s. Over the years reliable hardware became impossible to find, so they bought some emulator software and ran it on Windows. I don't know why but it always made me chuckle.

That thing did *not* like port scans. (I warned 'em! :D)

iberator

3 months ago

2 replies

Interesting fact: hp3000 is an example of very few mainframe/mini computers based on stack architecture instead of registers:)

I'm currently writing assembler for my own virtual cpu hehe. Stack based of course

tdeck

3 months ago

1 reply

I think the Burroughs machines also had a stack-based architecture

https://www.hoa.org/blog/jack-allweiss/evolution-of-burrough...

arethuza

3 months ago

1 reply

I had to use a Burroughs mainframe for development during the first year of my CS course in 1983 - might have been interesting hardware but the user experience was ghastly - some awful thing called CANDE = although I did get a laugh out of all of the references to the MCP.

In retrospect I do wonder if they did that so that when we moved to Unix machines later in the course we'd really appreciate them!

satiated_grue

3 months ago

MCP is still available from Unisys, which was formed by the "merger" of Burroughs and Sperry Univac.

It was first released in 1961 - is there any other software, particularly an OS, still in production after that long?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burroughs_MCP

nathan_douglas

3 months ago

I did a similar project as an independent study for my CS degree. It was a ton of fun! I haven't tried it but I think you can then write a Forth for it very simply too.

hn92726819

3 months ago

1 reply

> That thing did not like port scans

What do you mean? As a security feature or would it crash or something if you port scanned it?

jcims

3 months ago

It immediately froze up.

bitwize

3 months ago

The Swiss Military Museum maintains an exhibit with a 1970s tank simulator that guests can try out. It consists of a tank cockpit in a hydraulically mounted chamber that can pitch and roll with the changing terrain. The operator drives a little camera around a large diorama providing a first-person view of simulated terrain; a "foot" on the camera senses the terrain which is then translated into movements of the chamber. Apparently all of the equipment is original except the computer; as computer parts became harder to replace, eventually they just used a Raspberry Pi.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AcQifPHcMLE

aa-jv

3 months ago

1 reply

Great work! Its always very interesting to hear about the machines made behind the iron curtain, and that there is still indeed an enthusiastic scene keeping those machines alive.

My favourite machine of the 80's - the Oric-1/Atmos system - was cloned in the Eastern bloc countries by Pravetz, and became known as the Pravetz 8D. It was quite an interesting day when support for that clone dropped into the Oric emulator scene (Oricutron) and we could see how 'the other side' hacked on the architecture. Something about having Cyrillic where the lower-case character set should be, just tickles my hacker heart.

(I'd love to have a Pravetz 8D machine in my retro-collection, in case anyone sees one somewhere.. ;)

tzot

3 months ago

1 reply

> Something about having Cyrillic where the lower-case character set should be, just tickles my hacker heart.

We did the same on the ZX Spectrum in Greece for our programs: replace the lowercase latin letters with the keyboard-matching greek letters.

I still remember the vulgar ΣΨΡΟΛΛ? when the screen filled up and the machine asked your permission to scroll!

aa-jv

3 months ago

Ah yes, that often amuses me too .. I've gotten the Orics "Ready" prompt burned into my eyeballs after all these years, to see the same thing in Cyrillic is kind of hilarious and triggers my inner hacker nerd every single time.

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ID: 45294297Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 3:25:59 PM

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