> From: Warren Toomey <wkt(a)tuhs.org>
>> have been kicking around the idea of repairing the11/45 I scored some
>> years ago (11/45 system number 273 from Stanford University)
>> ..
>> Any pointers to who has parts and troubleshooting knowledge would be a
>> big help.
Anyone seriously working on bringing old hardware back to life needs to get
in touch with the Classic Computer Talk list:
http://www.classiccmp.org/mailman/listinfo/cctalk
A wealth of experience and knowledge on every conceivable topic involved in
old hardware is available there, and people are very helpful.
Noel
> The machine is a Codata 300
Wow.
I went to Leeds Poly (as it was then) in the mid 1980s.
There where two Codatas in the electronics dept., one in its
original plastic case and one 19inch rackmount - built as a
IEEE 488 controller; I assume what you have is one of those.
The former machine was loaded with Whitesmiths cross compilers
and I learnt z80 assembly language on it ☺
It ran V7 indeed, and was a friend of the Interdata/Perkin Elmer
3210, the main electronics teaching machine. If it is this
machine then it should have the V7 source from the 3210 (Xelos
as it was called) and the source for the drivers for the
codata (which we gained by "accident").
I may be able to remember some other snippets - contat me
off-list with specific questions. I can give you the names
of the lecturers who would know most about it but I guess they
are now retired (though they may still be Headingly somwhere).
(fondly remembers Leeds).
-Steve
Hi All.
This is really gonna stretch the memories. (I may have even asked about
it on this list before.)
At one of the earlier USENIX conferences that I attended, maybe in
Atlanta, there was a contest to make up humorous new errno values.
The one that won, which I remember to this day was:
EMISTERED:
A host is a host from coast to coast,
and no-one can talk to host that's close,
unless the host that isn't close
is busy, hung, or dead.
I have quoted this is the gawk doc for many years.
I'm wondering if there is a way to find out who was the author
of this gem? I'd like to give him/her credit.
Thanks,
Arnold
I just received a new TUHS subscription request along with
an interesting query. Can anybody help Michael with his problem?
Cheers, Warren
----- Forwarded message from "Engel, Michael" -----
Dear Warren,
Could you please subscribe me to the TUHS mailing list?
I haven't worked with old Unix systems for quite some time, but I was appointed as a
Senior Lecturer at Leeds Beckett University (UK) two months ago and - to my big
surprise - I found an old Unix machine collecting dust in a corner..
The machine is a Codata 300, a Multibus-based system using a licensed clone of the
original Sun 100U CPU board and a number of additional Multibus controllers. The
machine seems to be complete, including two 8" SMD disks and a Cipher 9-track
tape drive, we also seem to have a set of replacement boards and the CPU board
manual (including schematics and code snippets explaining how to access the onboard
devices - some Codata documentation can also be found on bitkeeper).
We haven't tried to power up the machine yet (and, built around 1983, it certainly needs
a close examination of the power supply and capacitors). From information on the net,
this machine runs a Unisoft port of 7th Edition Unix - similar to the Sun 1 machines and
probably a Whitesmiths C compiler (there's a Whitesmiths license badge attached to the
case). Definitely a very interesting and probably quite rare machine and we would like
to revive it (and, if things go well, create a FPGA reimplementation of the system in
the context of a student design project).
Now, I would love to know more details about the implementation of 7th Edition Unix on
the 68000 and the use of the custom MMU built out of fast SRAM and TTL logic.
I do not think that source code to any of the various 68k 7th Edition ports produced by
Unisoft is available somewhere - do you know of a possible source?
Alternatively, do you think it would be worthwhile asking Unisoft for the source code or
do you know if anyone has tried this already? According to the Unisoft history web page
(http://www.unisoft.com/history.html) they still seem to know that they were porting Unix
30 years ago...
The only remotely related source code I could find in my archives is the A/UX 0.7 source
(SVR2, if I'm not mistaken), which probably already required a 68020 with 68851 MMU.
Best regards,
Michael Engel
----- End forwarded message -----
> From: arnold(a)skeeve.com
> it was clear at the time that UNIX and what was happening was extremely
> special .. Those of you who were there really were part of a "golden
> age".
I once observed to Jerry Saltzer that when I started at the MIT CS labs, I
had been bummed because I had missed what I considered their 'Golden Age' -
the work on CTSS and Multics.
When I showed up there, I did a deal where they let me use a PDP-11/40 to
explore some OS ideas I had, if I woule write diagnostics on it for a ring
interface they were working on - part of a project on networking that
included work on something called internetworking.
I had no idea what I was getting into!
And of course the networking work soon sucked me in completely. In that
message to Jerry, I said something to the effect of 'clearly I've lived
through a second golden age, and only now am I understanding that'.
Noel
TMG was in v2-v6, sometimes in man1 and sometimes in man6.
I have an apparently complete source listing. The year is
uncertain. (Back then date headings from pr didn't mention the year!)
The accompanying manual, though, is dated 1972. There is also, besides
the TMGL definition of TMGL, a TMGL definition of pig Latin as a
simple test case.
None of this is useful, though, without a PDP-11 binary for tmg--
the usual chicken-and-egg problem with a full-blown compiler written
in its own language.
Doug
> >Speaking of TMG, is there an implementation for FreeBSD/Mac/Linux? Or do
> > I have to find a CDC/PDP-7 emulator first? :-)
> >
> >-- Dave
>
> TMG is mentioned in the v3 manual:
>
> /sys/tmg/tmgl.o -- the compiler-compiler
>
> There's no files for it for v5 but it is in v6 and it seems to
> disappear after that.
> On TUHS V6/usr/source/tmg/tmgl.t would seem to be a source file.
>
> I did manage to get something running for pdp-7 on simh and got to the
> GA prompt.
> Didn't get it to do much beyond printing "CAB DECSYS7 COPY 15 JUNE 1966"
>
> Mark
> From: Doug McIlroy <doug(a)cs.dartmouth.edu>
> None of this is useful, though, without a PDP-11 binary for tmg
There seems to be be binary for TMG on the V6 distribution.
Noel
