Ok, I looked around for the instructions on how to assemble the Unix
v1 kernel and couldn't find anything so I tried:
as u0.s u1.s u2.s u3.s u4.s u5.s u6.s u7.s u8.s u9.s ux.s
and that made a.out and I stripped it and it looked like it was around
the same size as /etc/core (it was 16400 bytes rather than 16448 for
some reason).
I'm not sure where Unix v1 is loading the kernel from. I'm guessing
it's /etc/core and if that's the case then I must have been successful
building the kernel. In all the other versions of Unix there was
always a file like 'unix' in the root directory but I guess Unix v1
was different?
Mark
> From: Sergey Lapin
> Is there some archives of project Athena?
> I'd like to see how it was back then...
There is an _very_ extensive online archive of stuff here:
http://web.mit.edu/afs/
and what you're looking for might be in there _somewhere_.
If not, I know some people I can ask (I never used it myself). But, if so, a
bit more detail? Athena was huge, presumably you don't want all the students'
files! But just the operating system? (IIRC it was initially mostly 4.3BSD,
with some minor extensions.) Or the tools and applications they wrote as well?
(E.g. X-Windows, IIRC, came from Athena.) Most of that does seem to be in
that archive.
Noel
To tell whether Ken installed v6 or a copy of his home
system, look at /usr/dict/words. On the home system
that file is the wordlist from Webster's Collegiate
Dictionary, 7th edition, licensed for Bell Labs use
only. On distribution systems we substituted the wordlist
for "spell". The latter list contains many more proper
names, acronyms, etc than the dictionary did, in
particular names that appear in Unix documentation
such as Ritchie, Kernighan, and McIlroy. It also lacks
lots of trivially derivable words like "organizationally".
If you do have the Webster file rather than the spell
file, please don't propagate it.
Doug
I'm experimenting with adapting Unix history and lore using the new
EXPECT/SEND feature in simh. My favorite guinea pig is the story of Ken
Thompsons sabbatical at Berkeley where he brings up V6 on new 11/70 with
Bob Kridle and Jeff Schriebman. Any details not yet recorded in obvious
places[1] are of course more than welcome!
One of the things I'm trying to get right is what they actually brought
up there initially in 1975. This must have been standard V6 or the
Bell UNIX Ken brought with him, but I can't figure it out.
Salus has Schriebman, Haley and Joy installing the fixes on the 50 bugs
tape late summer 1976. This suggests it was stock V6 initially, but they
might have been playing on a different system or working from a fresh
install in 1976.
If it was stock V6 initially, what were they waiting for? Legal stuff?
If it was 1975 Bell UNIX, can I reconstruct this using the 54 patches
collected by Mike O'Brien[2], or is that going to be way off from what
Thompson left in Urbana-Champaign with Greg Chesson in 1975?
[1] http://www.tuhs.org/books.html minus the Bell journals for example
[2] Hidden in /usr/sys/v6unix/unix_changes in one of the Spencer tapes
http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Applications/Spencer_Tapes/unsw3.tar.gz
> Does anything at all exist of PDP-7 Unics? All I know about is that
> there was a B language interpreter. Maybe a printout of the manual has
> survived?
There was no manual.
doug
Ok, the first question is:
Has anyone got Unix sysv running on PDP-11 via simh?
I downloaded some files from archive.org which included the file
'sys_V_tape' but so far I haven't got anywhere with it. Looks
interesting though.
Second question is:
What is the deal with Unix version 8? Except for the manuals v8 seems
to have disappeared into the twilight zone. Wikipedia doesn't say
much, only "Used internally, and only licensed for educational use".
So can we look at the source code? Was it sold in binary form only?
Ok, now the big question:
Does anything at all exist of PDP-7 Unics? All I know about is that
there was a B language interpreter. Maybe a printout of the manual has
survived?
Mark
Mark Longridge:
What is the deal with Unix version 8? Except for the manuals v8 seems
to have disappeared into the twilight zone. Wikipedia doesn't say
much, only "Used internally, and only licensed for educational use".
So can we look at the source code? Was it sold in binary form only?
=======
The Eighth Edition system was never released in any general way,
only to a few educational institutions (I forget the number but
it was no more than a dozen) under specific letter agreements that
forbade redistribution. It was never sold, in source or binary or
any other form; the tape included a bootstrap image and full source
code.
I was involved in all this--in fact one of the first nontrivial
things I did after arriving at Bell Labs was to help Dennis assemble
the tape--but that was more than 30 years ago and the details have
faded. The system as distributed ran only on the VAX-11/750 and
11/780. The bootstrap image on the tape was probably more restrictive
than that; if one of the licensees needed something different to
get started we would have tried to make it, but I don't remember
whether that ever happened.
Later systems (loosely corresponding to the Ninth and Tenth editions
of the manual) ran on a somewhat wider set of VAXes, in particular
the MicroVAX II and III and the VAX 8700 and 8550 (but not the dual-
processor 8800). There was never a real distribution of either of
those systems, though a few sites made special requests and got
hand-crafted snapshots under the same restrictive letter agreement.
So far as I know, no Research UNIX system after 7/e has ever been made
available under anything but a special letter agreement. There was
at one point some discussion amongst several interested parties
(including me and The Esteemed Warren Toomey) about strategies to
open up the later source code, but that was quashed by the IBM vs
The SCO Group lawsuit. It would likely be very hard to make happen
now, because I doubt there's anyone left inside Bell Labs with both
the influence and the interest, though I'd be quite happy to be
proven wrong on that.
I know of one place in the world where (a descendant of) that
system is still running, but I am not at the moment in a position
to say where that is. I do know, however, of at least two places
where there are safe copies of the source code, so it is unlikely
to disappear from the historic record even if that record cannot
be made open for a long time.
Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
(Computing Science Research Centre, Bell Labs, 1984-1990)
There was a posting on the SIMH list today from Joerg Hoppe
<j_hoppe(a)t-online.de> about a project to build a microfiche scanner
that has now successfully converted 53,545 document pages to
electronic form, and the files are being uploaded to the PDP-11
section of bitsavers.org. The scanner is described here:
http://retrocmp.com/projects/scanning-micro-fiches
There are links on that page to the rest of the story. It is an
amazing piece of work for a single person.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Nelson H. F. Beebe Tel: +1 801 581 5254 -
- University of Utah FAX: +1 801 581 4148 -
- Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB Internet e-mail: beebe(a)math.utah.edu -
- 155 S 1400 E RM 233 beebe(a)acm.org beebe(a)computer.org -
- Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ -
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Claude Shannon passed away on this day in 2001.
Regarded as the Father of Information Theory, I doubt whether you'll go
through a day without bumping into him: computers, electronics, file
compression, audio sampling, you name it and he was probably behind it.
Please take a moment to remember him.
--
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU) "Bliss is a MacBook with a FreeBSD server."
http://www.horsfall.org/spam.html (and check the home page whilst you're there)
> From: Mark Longridge
> There's no reason for it to be mode 777 is there?
Not that I know of. Once UNIX has booted, it has no use for 'unix' (or
whatever file it booted from), and the boot loader doesn't even read the mode.
I think I habitually set mine to 644. (The 'execute' bits are, of course,
pointless...)
Noel
I just had it brought to my attention that the unix kernel is mode 777
in Unix v5 and v6:
ls -l /unix
-rwxrwx 1 root 27066 Mar 23 1975 /unix
There's no reason for it to be mode 777 is there? It seems rather dangerous.
In Unix v7 it defaults to mode 775 and in 32v it is 755. I figure it
setting it to mode 755 will work and so far it seems fine in v5.
Mark
> From: Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org>
>> Once UNIX has booted, it has no use for 'unix' (or whatever file it
>> booted from)
> Didn't "ps" try and read its symbol table?
Sorry, meant 'UNIX the monolithic kernel'; yes, ps and siblings (e.g. iostat)
need to get the running system's symbol table.
> I had fun days when I booted, say, "/unix.new", and "ps" wouldn't
> sodding work...
Know that feeling! I added the following to one of the kernel data files:
char *endsys &end;
and then in programs which grab the system's symbol table, I have an nlist()
entry:
"_endsys",
with the follwing code:
/* Check that the namelist applies to the current system.
*/
checknms(symfile)
char *symfile;
{ char *chkloc, *chkval;
if (nl[0].type == 0)
cerror("No namelist\n");
chkloc = nl[ENDSYS].value;
chkval = rdloc(chkloc);
if (chkval != nl[END].value) {
cerror("Symbol table in %s doesn't match running system\n",
symfile);
}
}
on the theory that pretty much any change at all is going to result in a
change in the system's size (and thus the address of 'end').
Although in a split I/D system, this may not be true (you could change the
code, and have the data+BSS remain the same size); I should probably check
the location of 'etext' as well...
Anyway, a rebuilt system may result in the address of 'endsys' changing, and
thus the rdloc() won't return the contents of the running system's 'endsys',
but the chances of an essentially-random fetch being the same as the value of
'end' in /unix are pretty slim, I would say...
Noel
> From: Jacob Ritorto
> found a copy here, i think..
Ah, thanks.
You might want to look around in the parent directory; apparently there are
two differences between the 11/34 and 11/40, other than the clock and switch
register: the stack limit register, and different handling of
segmentation-violation aborted instructions (which affects instruction
restart on stack extension).
I don't know about 2.9, maybe it knows about these. For V6, the SLR won't be
an issue; the SLR is an option on the 11/40, so not all machines had it, and
m40.s in V6 doesn't use it. The instruction restart thing sounds like it will
be an issue with running V6 on a /34.
Noel
Would anyone know if it's still possible to just replace the platters and
clean the heads?
If the heads are really crashed, the only safe course is
to replace both the damaged heads and the damaged disk pack.
Anything else admits a substantial risk of carrying the
crash forward.
Cleaning the heads probably isn't an option; when they
crash, they don't just pick up material from the disk
platter, they may themselves be damaged enough that sharp
bits of the heads themselves are sticking out.
Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
> From: Noel Chiappa
> apparently there are two differences between the 11/34 and 11/40, other
> than the clock and switch register
Too early in the morning here, clearly... I was thinking of the 11/23 and the
11/40 here in the clock/SR comment, not the /34 and the /40.
_Iff_ the 11/34 is using the standard DL11-W console interface board (which
includes an LTC), there's no difference that I know of between the 11/34 and
the 11/40 on the LTC front (although the LTC is an option in the /40, so a /40
might not have one, in which case the V6 will panic on trying to boot unless
it has a KW11-P).
As for the switch register... I guess that on machines with a KY11-A, there
is no switch register? (Too lazy/busy to go read the manual(s) to confirm...)
Noel
> From: Jacob Ritorto
> I think it's something to do with the fact that he compiled it to run on
> an 11/23. Maybe it lacks unibus support.
No, the UNIBUS and QBUS appear (from the programming level) to be identical.
There are subtle differences (the /23 and its devices can address more than
256KB of memory, and some devices have minor differences between the QBUS and
UBIBUS - e.g. the QBUS DZ has only 4 lines, not 8), but in general, they
should be interchangeable.
> Maybe something to do with clock differences.
Again, if it boots at all, that's not it. (The vanilla /23 doesn't have a
software-controllable clock, and when booting Unix on one, one has to leave
the clock switched off till UNIX is running - at least, for the early versions
of UNIX.)
> I fired 2.9MSCP up in simh emulating an 11/23 and it works fine. Just to
> corroborate my hardware experience of it on the '34, I switch the cpu
> emulation to 11/34 and got a mostly identical crash sequence as with my
> real hardware.
Ah. Now we're getting somewhere! If the simulator crashes in the same way, it's
not flaky hardware (my first guess as to the cause).
What are the symptoms (in as much detail as you can give us)? What, if anything,
is printed before it dies?
> I changed ...
> UNIBUS_MAP = 0
> to
> UNIBUS_MAP = 1
The /34 doesn't have a UNIBUS map.
Noel
> From: Jacob Ritorto
> I jiggled the memory board and the seqfault went away.
Ugh. A flaky. I hate those....
> So now the real box is behaving more like the simh and just hanging,
> not panicing anymore.
Does it _always_ hang at the same point in time? If so, what are the
circumstances, - have you just tried to start multi-user operation, or what?
> How can I find this startup() you mention?
It's in machdep.c in sys/sys.
Noel
> From: Jacob Ritorto
> I set simh to 11/34 and I managed to get actual panics before (that I
> didn't record)
Ah.
> now I'm just getting hangs, mostly when hitting ctrl-D to bring system to
> mutiuser.
The fact that it boots to the shell OK indicates things are mostly OK. I
wonder what it's trying to do, in going to multi-user, that's wedging the
system?
> Same if I mount -a in single user and then try to access /usr (works for
> a while, then hangs.).
Ah. That sounds very much like a 'lost' interrupt. The process is waiting
(inside the kernel) for the device to complete, and ..... crickets.
> When hung, I can still get character echo to my terminal
So the machine is still running OK (most echoing is done inside the TTY
interrupt handler).
> but can't interrupt or background the running command, etc.
Like I said, it's sleeping inside the kernel, and missed the wakeup event.
If you have another console logged in, it would be interesting to see if that
one is frozen too. If not, we can use tools like 'ps', running on the second
line, to look at the first process and see what it's waiting for.
Single user, the following hack:
sh < /dev/ttyX > /dev/ttyX &
can be used to start a shell on another tty line (since going full multi-user
seems to wedge it).
> Would it help if I traced memory and single-stepped through the
> (apparently) infinite loop?
No, because it's very likely not a loop! ;-)
> here are some examples of crashes on the real pdp11/34 (booting via
> vtserver, then bringing in system from the MSCP disk), with the original
> 2.9bsd-MSCP kernel (the one specifically built for 11/23):
>
> CONFIGURE SYSTEM:
> ka6 = 2200
> aps = 141572
> pc = 50456 ps = 30250
> __ovno = 7
> trap type 11
> panic: trap
That's a segmentation fault. Very odd trap to get! 2.9 uses overlays right?
Maybe there's a problem with how some overlay fits, or something? I don't know
much about the overlay feature, never used it, sorry.
Most of the other data (PS address, PC, KDSA6 contents, etc) aren't much use
without a dump.
> and another: plain boring old hang at boot when trying to size devices.
> Can't even echo characters this time.
If the init process hasn't got as far an opening the TTY, you might not get
character echoing.
If that randomly lost interrupt got lost very early on, you might could see
this sort of behaviour.
> One thing I think is interesting is that it's claiming 158720KW of
> memory. Is that weird? ... Where's it getting that odd number? Vanilla
> 2.9.1 on the real 11/34 boots with
>
> Berkeley UNIX (Rev. 2.9.1) Sun Nov 20 14:55:50 PST 1983
> mem = 135872
No idea where it's coming from, but remember Beowulf Schaeffer's advice to
Gregory Pelton in "Flatlander".
And now that I think about it, if the system thinks it has more memory than it
actually does, that would definitely cause problems.
Probably you should put some printf()'s in startup() and see where it's coming
from.
Noel
> From: Cory Smelosky <b4(a)gewt.net>
> Only the 11/23+ can, early rev 11/23s couldn't go above 256K.
Correctamundo on the last part, but not the first. I have both 11/23+'s and
11/23's, and I can assure you that Rev C and later 11/23's (the vast majority
of them) can do more than 256KB. See:
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/hardwar…
for more.
Noel
Hi,
Since my Fuji160 drive is rather head-crashed, I've replaced it with an
M2333k, which is a smaller SMD rig with more sectors than the 160.
Unfortunately, after many dip switch settings and config changes, I have to
conclude that the sc21 just doesn't work with this new disk.
I've plugged in my SC41 controller that speaks MSCP and supports the
M2333k correctly. So now it's a matter of getting a unix small enough to
run on the 11/34 that can also speak MSCP. Enter Jonathan Engdahl's
2.9bsd-MSCP.
I managed to restor a root dump from his distribution and am able to
occasionally boot it on my 11/34, but it crashes very soon after booting
and I don't understand why. I think it's something to do with the fact that
he compiled it to run on an 11/23. Maybe it lacks unibus support. Maybe
something to do with clock differences. Not sure. But I was thinking that I
could make it work by recompiling the kernel with 11/34 support.
I fired 2.9MSCP up in simh emulating an 11/23 and it works fine. Just to
corroborate my hardware experience of it on the '34, I switch the cpu
emulation to 11/34 and got a mostly identical crash sequence as with my
real hardware.
So I switched the emulation back to '23, rebooted and edited the assym.s
file found in Jonathan's /usr/src/sys/RA directory. I changed
PDP11 = 23.
to
PDP11 = 34.
as well as
UNIBUS_MAP = 0
to
UNIBUS_MAP = 1
and recompiled with 'make unix,' then copied the resultant unix to /unix.
I switched simh back to emulating an 11/34 and rebooted. It crashes
randomly just as it did before the kernel recompile.
Any idea what I'm missing here? My hope was to simply move this
freshly-compiled 11/34-friendly kernel onto my real 11/34 and have a
working hardware system.
thx
jake
Ok folks,
I've uploaded what I call Unix v5a to:
http://www.maxhost.org/other/unix-v5-feb-2015.tar.gz
I use simh on Linux to emulate the PDP-11/70.
The tarball contains:
unix_v5_rk.dsk
unix_v5_rk1.dsk
unix_v5_rk2.dsk
pdp11-v5.ini
readme-v5.txt
unix-v5a.sh
The original file is uv5swre.zip if anyone wants to compare them.
Mark
