TUHS January 2002

tuhs@tuhs.org

43 participants
42 discussions

Re: [pups] Problems booting PDP11/40 using vtserver

by John Holden

As I and other people mentioned in previous postings, it's likely that your 11/40 is missing memory management or EIS cpu options. In case the legend is missing from your system box (not uncommon), I have updated my web page :- http://www.psych.usyd.edu.au/pdp-11/11_40.html to show board numbers and locations

22 years, 10 months

Re: [TUHS] So now that the source is finally out...

by Ken Wellsch

On Sun, Jan 27, 2002 at 02:03:40PM -0500, norman(a)nose.cs.utoronto.ca wrote: > > > Ken Wellsch: > > I'm fairly sure things like "=+" and so on were replaced with "+=" > > in the move from V6 to V7. > > The V7 C compiler accepted =+, but it still accepted += as well; there was > a lot of code written the old way, and nobody wanted to be forced to convert > everything all at once. Apologies, typical of my terse replies - I was actually concerned with clearing up the possible misconception that "=+" was a "feature" of V7 rather than an "obsolete" holdover from V6. I suppose historic accuracy in this context is of little use, I don't know. I certainly can believe one can find such artifacts in the existing V7 code 8-) Cheers, -- Ken

22 years, 10 months

Re: [pups] 2.11BSD disklabel-programm

by lothar felten

about the pdp-11/83: swapping cpu and memoryboard does work, but the performance stays the same: none, because i still don´t have any system by now. there is a small difference: the run led stays off all the time, but the system ODT works fine. i suppose this is a problem of passing the signals, but this is only a vague guess. when i boot the TK50 2.11BSD tape, i can get the disklabel program loaded. it asks: Disk? when i try to access the disks, the system hangs. when i access rl(0,0) (RL02 disk drive0) the system just hangs, no response. when i access ra(0,0) (RD54 disk drive0) i get a "menu": d(isplay) D(efault) m(odify) w(rite) q(uit)? i can enter D, then it should write the defaults to the disk. after this i get: d(isplay) D(efault) m(odify) w(rite) q(uit)? i enter d (to see what the program did), and i get: type:MSCP disk:RD54 flags: bytes/sector:512 sectors/track:17 tr (it stops right after tr) i suppose the program is asking the controller about drive parameters, and that´s where it fails. i can wait for hours, i´ll get no response. i can use all the menu, except d=display. i thought that maybe one of the controlles is broken and causes trouble on the qbus (maybe the RL02 controller). is there a way to check all this stuff? i do have some "winchester" controllers for PC/ISA, i could check the disks on a linux pc, no problem, but i don´t want to overwrite something "digital"-specific that i could not restore. those RD54-disks are regular ST506-mfm, right? maybe i should "downsize" the system to the basic elements i need to get it running maybe there really is a bus problem. i´d try this configuration: mem - cpu - rqdx3 - tqk50 (top-bottom) would this be ok? or, instead of using RD54 disks, should i try to use the rl02 as "pair" (one swap, one systemdisk)? i think step by step checking the hardware is the only thing i can do to get the pdp up and running. have a nice weekend -- lothar btw: does anyone know a good book/link about system-architecture, specially harvard- architecture ?

22 years, 10 months

[pups] Problems booting PDP11/40 using vtserver

by Michael Werner

Hi there, I have my PDP11/40 connected to a MicroVAX 2 (running NetBSD/vax 1.5.2) via serial line and want to boot a 2.9BSD or 2.11BSD using the vtserver software. When I toggle in vtserver's boot code, the first file is being loaded correctly by the PDP. Then, following the instructions in vtserver documentation, the serial line should be used as a serial console - and some text should appear! And this is the problem: I don't get any output. When manually sending characters from the PDP, there is no problem. I've set the serial line characteristics to: Speed 2400, Character Size 8, Modem Control enabled, and RTS/CTS flow control disabled. (I've changed these characteristics in many ways with stty, but still no success...) Using a break-out-box, I switched RTS/CTS and DTR/CTS flow control on and off, forced the CTS line to be on, etc., but it still didn't work. After successfully loading the bootloader via vtserver, the PDP's CPU goes into an endless loop. So, my question: Does anybody know what's going wrong here? Thanks in advance - Michi

22 years, 10 months

[pups] PDP 11/04

by P.M.Williams

I'm looking for someone in the UK that may have spares for a PDP- 11-04 (KY11-LA). This computer is still in daily use in the University of Sheffield but currently has some problems with the power regulator (H777) Any help would be greatly appreciated.

22 years, 10 months

Porting Unix v6 to i386

by Sven Dehmlow

Hi, The last few weeks I've thought a lot about porting Unix v6 to the PC. Here are my "results": 1. If you really want to do it, don't do it from scratch. Porting Unix 1:1 maybe the usual way but integrating your code step by step into another Unix or Unix-a-like operating system will surely become much easier as you can test the result in every stage of development. Another benefit is of course that with a little bit of luck you don't have to rewrite all the machine dependent stuff as it might already exist in the other os. If you want to do things this way ELKS (the Linux kernel subset for the 8088) might be a good candidate as it is very simple and by this very easy to understand. Also there is a big Linux/ELKS community which might help you with some problems. 2.Another question is if it is really necessary to port when so many good emulators for the PDP11 exist. Of course a ported Unix is faster than one running on a simulator but is fastness really so important in times where multi-processor machines exist that make your 1.5Ghz machine look like a fool? Also wouldn't a user who needs a professional fast Unix (or a-like) take the newest Linux or one of the BSDs instead of Unix v6? The main reason for porting is from my point of view to get access to the i86's hardware. But for reaching this aim a port isn't necessary. You can either develop the emulated machine further so that it has additional devices (and interupts, etc. for them) or you can try to give the os on the emulated machine direct access to the real machine. This may sound a little bit strange and unusual but will save much code in the emulator as you don't have to code for each device twice (one time in the emulator and one time in the os). Of course the os you're running your emulator on must give you the chance to get direct access to the real hardware, but I found a DOS port from Bob Supniks J-11 emulator so that is not a real problem. Currently I'm working on the latter idea (on the emulator which gives you direct access to the hardware), but in fact I haven't written a line of code yet as I'm still searching for the best way to integrate the interesting parts of PC's memory into PDP11's memory. The idea is to put the interesting parts of PC's memory behind PDP11's memory and to change some lines in Unix that for example malloc doesn't get the idea to give this pieces of memory away to user programs. Putting the PC's memory before the memory space of the PDP11 would as far as I can see make more changes especially in the code relevant for booting necessary. Other things like for example PC's interupts will surely make much less trouble. Suggestions, ideas, opinions, etc. are very welcome. If someone feels the urge to help me with this project it would be very kind if he would let me know ;-) BTW: if someone has patches to the v6 or ported programs it would be very kind if he would send them to me. If I get enough stuff I'll make something like a new Unix v6 distribution. Sven

22 years, 10 months

[pups] Problems booting PDP11/40 using vtserver

by Michael Werner

22 years, 10 months

So now that the source is finally out...

by Rob Becker

who is going to port 7th edition to the i386? (: Rob Becker

22 years, 10 months

Re: [pups] Problems booting PDP11/40 using vtserver

by John Holden

> I have my PDP11/40 connected to a MicroVAX 2 (running NetBSD/vax > 1.5.2) via serial line and want to boot a 2.9BSD or 2.11BSD using the > vtserver software. 2.11BSD won't work on a PDP11/40, although 2.9BSD should. If the secondary boot loaded, you should get a prompt '40Boot' for your processor. You haven't said how much memory you have. Also, the 11/40 has several cpu options, and the memory management and line time clock options are required for Unix to work. Check that there is a register at 772340. If it is not there, then the memory management options isn't installed. PS The only flow control settyings that will work is XON/XOFF. The DL style interfaces used on all PDP11 consoles, have no useful silo, and interupts for each character input or output. None of the kernels I know support the dataset signals, other than some will assert DTR on open.

22 years, 10 months

Re: [TUHS] So now that the source is finally out...

by norman＠nose.cs.utoronto.ca

Ken Wellsch: I'm fairly sure things like "=+" and so on were replaced with "+=" in the move from V6 to V7. I think structure assignments were added here too, and the much more obscure, being able to declare passed arguments in the function preamble as "register." I believe K&R reflects the C language as seen with V7... The V7 C compiler accepted =+, but it still accepted += as well; there was a lot of code written the old way, and nobody wanted to be forced to convert everything all at once. Similarly, the V7 compiler complained about implicit conversions between pointers of different types, or between ints and pointers, but they were treated as warnings, not fatal errors; you could still compile old code and just ignore the compiler's fussing. I recall that when I arrived at Bell Labs in 1984, it was apparently not long after the research group's C compiler had been changed to treat all the obsolete stuff as errors; certainly there was still code in /usr/src that hadn't been updated, and all of it had been recompiled recently to run on the VAX. A modern C compiler would choke even on some of the stuff that was legal in those days. Recently I recompiled tbl with lcc, and had a grand time cleaning out all the ideas we all thought were clever in the late 1970s but most of us would never think of doing now. For those with the virgin source handy, take a look at subroutine `point' and the way it is used and abused. Norman Wilson

22 years, 10 months

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TUHS January 2002