TUHS March 2016

tuhs@tuhs.org

50 participants
52 discussions

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> > SPL 7 was only used by the clock interrupt Err, according to the 1975 Peripherals Handbook, both are BR6. (Sorry, only interested in accuracy.) > even the published Unibus spec was known to be wrong, in order to keep > 3rd-party kit out of it (it was something subtle to do with buss timing, > so sometimes the card worked, and sometimes it didn't, doing wonders for > your reputation). I don't know about that, but we built two UNIBUS DMA networking devices, relying on the UNIBUS description in the 1975 Peripherals Handbook, and they both worked fine (one became a product for Proteon). > Slightly longer? I think it was Lions himself who used to teach us that > a lost interrupt is nasty :-( The interrupt isn't lost, it's just that the OS does a WAIT when it should perhaps return and start up some user process - but that resumption of doing user computations is delayed by at most 1 clock tick (some other device may interrupt during the WAIT, before the clock does). > Anyone here remember overlapped seeks on the RK-11 failing under Unix I'd be interested in the details of this. The V6 RK driver didn't use them, but the RK11-D does claim to support them (having spent a modest amount of time looking at the drawings), so I'd very much like to know what the bug was. > I know that Kevin Dawson (I think) tried it on my /40 as well The 11/40 does not have the SPL instruction; see the '75-'76 PDP-11 Processor Handbook, pg. 4-5. (Again, sorry, just want to be accurate.) > Christ, but this is starting to sound like some religion or other. I am only interested in correct data. Noel

8 years, 9 months

Re: [TUHS] PDP-11/70 SPL

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Johnny Billquist > this also means that you must be at SPL 7 before any of this Yes, I assumed that (since it wouldn't make sense otherwise :-). > In general, I would say that this is not the way I would write code, but > ... 2.11BSD do an SPL 0 followed by WAIT. Right; even if one does something like have every interrupt set a flag (which is cleared while interrupts are disabled), and check that after lowering the priority, but before doing the WAIT, there's _still_ a window between that check, and the WAIT (although I guess it's less likely to be hit, since the interrupt request would have to be posted _in that window_, not be hanging around waiting to be serviced). The only way (that I can work out) to atomically lower the priority and wait is to do an RTI with the PC on the stack pointing to the WAIT instruction, but I'm not sure even that is guaranteed to work. I guess it all depends on the CPU implementation: does it check for pending interrupts before each instruction, or only at the end of each instuction, or what? If before, and there's an interrupt pending, it will go off before the WAIT is executed. Although I suppose if it's at the end, it would do the check at the end of the RTI, and do the interrupt then. And whether it's at the end, or the beginning, WAIT itself must be special cased, to check for pending interrupts during the execution (which can take an indeterminate amount of time). > 2.11BSD will work potentially with a slight degration if the SPL do not > block interrupts. It will still work fine, as you will, at a minimum, > get an interrupt at the next clock tick, which will wake it up. But it > might possibly be sitting in a WAIT slightly longer than required. Yes, exactly. > RSX in fact just loops after the WAIT. If an interrupt should cause the > system to be able to do something more productive, it will not return to > the idle loop. So yes, it also detects in the interrupt exit processing, > that it was/is in the idle loop. Does it detect if it was _before_ the WAIT instruction? I would assume it does, but I don't know anything sbout RSX. > But at least processor and chip manuals do not say that SPL will block > interrupts. Yes, I looked too, in a variety of places (PDP-11 Architecture, including in the 'model differences' table, 11/73 Tech Manual, etc). Crickets... Noel

8 years, 9 months

Re: [TUHS] Teletype simulator?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Warren Toomey > I thought it would be nice to get a feel for what it was like to use a > real tty Make sure it only prints 10 characters per second, then. (I think TTY's were 10 cps?) R-e-a-l-l-y s-l-o-w. Noel

8 years, 9 months

Re: [TUHS] Character sets (was: Command-line options)

by Johnny Billquist

On 2016-03-27 08:18, Greg 'groggy' Lehey<grog(a)lemis.com> wrote: > Isn't it wonderful that we no longer have issues with character > representation? I hope that comment was meant as a joke, ironic, cynical, or whatever... Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt(a)softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

8 years, 9 months

Re: [TUHS] PDP-11/70 SPL (was: Early non-Unix filesystems?)

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Johnny Billquist > It would also be interesting if anyone can come up with a good reason > why SPL should work that way. So that when doing: SPL 0 WAIT you don't lose by having the interrupt happen between the SPL and the WAIT? Noel

8 years, 9 months

Re: [TUHS] PDP-11/70 SPL (was: Early non-Unix filesystems?)

by Johnny Billquist

On 2016-03-27 03:50, Dave Horsfall<dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote: > > On Fri, 25 Mar 2016, Johnny Billquist wrote: > >>> > >Some instructions inhibit the "check for interrupts at the end of this >>> > >instruction" check. I'm most familiar with the 8080 EI instruction, >>> > >which enabled interrupts after the following instruction (so things >>> > >like EI;HLT didn't have a window). It seems the PDP-11 SPL behaves >>> > >the same. >> > >> >I don't think it should on the PDP-11, and the documentation do not >> >mention any such thing. > It most certainly did, at least on the 11/70 that I used... Do you have > experience otherwise? I do not have any experience either way. I have never checked this. I'm just saying that it don't make sense in my head, and the processor handbook do not describe such a property of SPL. But now that I know, I'm going to try and find out. It might be correct. I'm just surprised if so, since there is no technical need for SPL to act that way. And having SPL behave differently than all other instructions means extra work for the people who wrote the microcode. It would also be interesting if anyone can come up with a good reason why SPL should work that way. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt(a)softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

8 years, 9 months

Re: [TUHS] [GreenKeys] Teletype simulator? (fwd)

by Dave Horsfall

As attached, thanks to someone over on the RTTY list; not sure if it's exactly what he wanted. -- Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU) "Those who don't understand security will suffer." ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2016 18:52:59 -0700 From: tony.podrasky To: Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> Subject: Re: [GreenKeys] Teletype simulator? (fwd) Hi Dave; Attached is my TTY test program. It is fairly simple. The only thing that might be tricky is the type of UAR/T you are using. Let me know if it compiles. regards, tony On 03/26/2016 06:33 PM, Dave Horsfall wrote: > On Fri, 25 Mar 2016, tony.podrasky wrote: > > > What do you mean, "a non-Windoze" TTY simulator? > > One that's in source form, not binary... > > > One of the programs I have takes e-mail and prints it on a 5-level ITA#2 > > machine. > > > > It is written in "C", and at such a low-level that it should compile on > > ANY thing that runs "C". > > Got a copy you can send me to pass on? > -- "I read somewhere that 77 percent of all the mentally ill live in poverty. Actually, I'm more intrigued by the 23 per cent who are apparently doing quite well for themselves." -Jerry Garcia

8 years, 9 months

Re: [TUHS] Early non-Unix filesystems?

by Johnny Billquist

On 2016-03-24 03:00, "Ron Natalie"<ron(a)ronnatalie.com> wrote: > >> >Closest I've ever been murdered was when I "accidentally" filled the local >> >11/70 with an uninterruptible instruction sequence." > SPL instruction. The PDP-11 was odd that while SPL was a "privileged" > instruction, rather that trapping if you did it in user mode, it just > "ignored" it. > Well, what it ignored was the actual change of the processor level. What > it still implemented was the side effect was that interrupts were locked out > until the next instruction fetch. > If you filled your instruction space up with SPLs you could lock up the > computer so that even the HALT key didn't work (you had to do a bus RESET). Ok. Color me stupid, but I don't get it. I totally do not understand how this locks anything out. It is the normal behavior of any instruction that interrupts are not recognized until the next instruction fetch. This is how the microcode works, and it is also pretty much the same in any processor today. Except for instructions that take a long time, and which can be interrupted in the middle, the context preserved, and the instruction restarted and continued, instructions are normally atomic. You cannot get interrupts in the middle of an instruction. Second, I cannot understand how filling the memory with SPL instructions (or any other instruction) can lock out the CPU. As noted, they are individual instructions. You still get a fetch between each instruction, at which point, interrupts will be recognized. Now, if you instead talked about actually raising the CPU to SPL 7, then I agree that no interrupts will happen. But that is because you essentially disabled interrupts. The front panel still works though. It is not handled like an interrupt, but it is true that it do interact with the processor states, and normally if you pull HALT, it will only halt when it's going to fetch the next instruction. You can, of course, also set the front panel switch for single microcode instruction, at which point the CPU will halt at the next microcode instruction instead, and you can single step the microcode as well. The one CPU I know you can sunset is the KA10 (PDP-10). I'm sure there are others, but I have never seen how this could be done on a PDP-11, so I'm most curious about this, and if you can provide more details I would be most interested. As I also happen to know where a PDP-11/70 is standing, I intend to test this out next I get close to it. As for the KA10 (I think it was the KA10, but it might have been the PDP-6), the problem is related to the indirect addressing feature. Since memory is 36 bits, but addresses only 18, you have plenty of bits to play with. And one of them is the indirect bit. And if you refer to a memory location that also have the indirect bit set, you get another memory access to get the actual content. The fun thing happens if you set the indirect bit, and give your own address. This is then an infinite memory reference. And the KA10 can not be broken out of that lookup. The only solution is to pull the power plug. The CPU is essentially stuck in one state, just tightly reading memory, and then repeating reading memory. Later PDP-10 models have an explicit check in the microcode in this loop to be able to break out of this. Sorry for the offtopic content. :-) Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt(a)softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

8 years, 9 months

TTYs etc...

by Ronald Natalie

There is only one terminal that is explicitly (and unkindly) mentioned in the UNIX kernel. Leave poor tilde alone!

8 years, 9 months

Re: [TUHS] DEC filenames (was: Command-line options)

by Johnny Billquist

On 2016-03-26 20:43, Clem Cole<clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote: > > On Fri, Mar 25, 2016 at 11:09 PM, Charles Anthony < > charles.unix.pro(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >> >And Dec's RADIX-50, packing 3 characters into 16 bits. (IIRC the origin of >> >the 6.3 filenames. bit I can't document that.) > > Sort of.... before ASCII, DEC used a few other 5 bit codes that were > around such as baudot (look at the PDP-1/4 etc and KSR 28). RAD50 was a > natural scheme for storing file name and using bits efficiently. > > Which, of course, lead to the abomination of case folding - it's not a bug, > it's a feature 😂 > > RAD50 gave us the x.y file name form with the implied dot et al. 6.3 and > later 8.3 were natural directions from that coding. Using the .3 ext as a > type tag of course followed that naturally given that's all that was stored > in the disk "catalog." [And CP/M and PC/MS-DOS inherit that scheme - > including the case folding silliness even though by that time all keyboard > were upper and lower case and they stored the files in 8 bits]. Some other people already mentioned this, but... - SIXBIT. DEC might have used baudot in the very early machines, but I would say that SIXBIT dominated here for a long time. We see it both in the PDP-8, but also the PDP-6 and its follow ons. RAD50 was the natural extension of SIXBIT on a machine that did not have a word size that was a multiple of 6. The x.y filename, as well as the 6+3 pattern predate the PDP-11. I would say that in this area, the PDP-11 didn't come with anything new, but just made life more complicated. OS/8 for sure only have 6+2 filenames, but still in the x.y form. TOPS-10 have, I think, 6+3. And the Monitor (I think that was the name for the PDP-6 OS) was, I think, also 6+3. And it was all SIXBIT. And SIXBIT also give you the case folding. I say the PDP-11 complicated life just because DEC was already so much into having filenames stored more compact than normal text, and having a 6+3 pattern, so they came up with R50, which fits the bill, but it's more headache than it was worth, if you ask me. Since the PDP-11 have 8 bit bytes, it would have made much more sense to just store filenames as 8 bit bytes. It would have cost some more storage, but not that much. But it took time for DEC to realize that the space savings here were not really a good tradeoff. Old habits die hard, I guess. By the way, RSX (and early VMS) actually use 9+3 filenames. > UNIX of course, would put the "type" in the file itself (magic #) and force > the storing of the dot, but removed the strict mapping of name and type. > Having grown up in both systems, I see the value of each; but agree I think > I find UNIX's scheme better and lot more flexible. I think I agree on the point of having filenames in a free format. Not sure I really like storing the type in the file itself. So I'm sortof torn. Or rather, I would like to keep type separate from both. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt(a)softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

8 years, 9 months

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TUHS March 2016