TUHS

tuhs@tuhs.org

26 participants
6495 discussions

by Warren Toomey

http://osxbook.com/software/ancientfs/ Amit Singh has added support for a whole bunch of early UNIX filesystem and archive formats to FUSE. Cheers, Warren

16 years, 4 months

Re: [TUHS] Old UNIX Systems with netb (was Filesystems with FUSE)

by Norman Wilson

John Cowan: "Cannot yet" is good. Is there any hope of seeing the 10th Edition emerge from the shadows, ever? ======= Unless some energetic person skilled at nudging people in a friendly way takes on the cause, probably not. Even were Novell to release the source code to System V, that wouldn't of itself make 10/e open, since there's plenty in the latter system that differs substantially from the former--all the really interesting bits, in fact. As has been discussed here at some point in the past, someone would have to get (updated list of players) Novell, AT&T, and Alcatel all to agree to the release. The good news is that that would probably mostly require getting Novell to agree that there's nothing in the system worth protecting for commercial reasons, and the others just to officially say what is already likely true, that they don't care. The bad news is that that is probably substantial work, as he who talked what was then SCO into a hobbyist-source-license for 7/e and predecessors knows well. But Warren has already gone far beyond the call in his work (and cannot be thanked enough, so herewith I thank him yet again); and I'm old and tired and was never really good at talking to corporate types anyway; and in my humble but correct opinion, it is the combination of energy and dedication and ability to talk cheerfully to corporate times and to persist without losing either hope or patience or cordiality that is needed. That has always been a rare combination. If someone thinks he or she has the requisite skills and wants to have a go, I'll be glad to offer what little help I can, and I'm sure Warren likewise. But somehow I wonder whether it will actually happen before the world ends on 2038 January 18. Norman Wilson Toronto ON

16 years, 4 months

Re: [TUHS] Old UNIX Filesystems with FUSE

by Norman Wilson

John Cowan: > Does this depend heavily on OS X, or should it work on Linux and BSD as well? Warren Krun Toomey: No idea. I had a brief look at some of the code on the web site and it seems relatively neutral, but I have not downloaded it yet. I've sent an e-mail with the same question to Amit. ====== I keep meaning to poke about at FUSE, since it plays more or less the role of the file-server-implementation library setup I wrote for my own purposes 20 years ago (in the context of a UNIX variant that cannot yet be distributed freely). But I'd be surprised if the stuff was terribly MacOS X dependent. Certainly FUSE exists in Linux, and the libraries and requisite kernel module are even included in some Linux distributions (notably recent editions of Fedora), because sshfs is built atop FUSE. Norman Wilson Toronto ON

16 years, 4 months

/usr/bin/bs on HPUX?

by Jose R. Valverde

Bit of digging: > 1. "bs" was written at AT&T, probably at the Labs, at some time between > the release of 32V and System III. It was part of both System III and > at least some System V releases. And of course it is in TUHS! Remember we have 32V and SIII. For example, look into TUHS/Other/Distributions/Plexis_Sys3/ or TUHS/PDP-11/Distributions/usdl/SysIII/ The sources contain 'bs' under cmd/bs The latter one (under USDL) contains also the man page under usr/src/man/man1 (as 'bs.1'). So, there. You have it. This leads me to consider we would greatly benefit from an expanded and indexed TUHS repository tree. I made one on my mirror long ago, but a series of disk crashes ended with it. Maybe, if there is interest I could do it again. j -- EMBnet/CNB Scientific Computing Service Solving all your computer needs for Scientific Research. http://bioportal.cnb.csic.es http://www.es.embnet.org

16 years, 4 months

[pups] PDP-11 / vacuum tube interface

by Ross Tucker

Dear all, (This has got to be the strangest cross-post I've ever done.) I have just taken a bet from a friend to challenge my geekiness. I was telling him about my love of Vintage Technology and he proposed that I combine two hitherto separate hobbies and see what happens. The topics: the DEC PDP-11 minicomputer (vintage: 1970s) and vacuum-tube ham radios (vintage: 1960s). I do sincerely apologize for cross-posting, but I am rather younger than either of these technologies (vintage: 1984) and this seems like a monumental challenge. My question for y'all: how could I possibly design+build a project that uses both of these technologies? My thought is to port some radio receiver Digital Signal Processing (DSP) application into PDP-11 assembler, compile and run it via emulator on my PC, then use it with the vacuum-tube regenerative receiver that I built a few years ago... Does anybody know if PDP-11 UNIXes even had the capability for a "sound card"? Or, to get ambitious, I would LOVE to design some interface circuitry between PDP-11 digital circuitry and vacuum-tube electronics... The challenges are legion: the tube side of the circuit operates around 350V DC levels with radio-frequency (RF) signals at 7 MHz (almost the clock rate of some PDP-11s!) and I don't have the DEC Handbooks, but I'm pretty sure that even those ancient pre-TTL circuits operate below 350V! So... any, er, "ideas"? Best regards, Ross Tucker

16 years, 5 months

[pups] V7 boot tape files

by Brantley Coile

Hey there, I have two questions. First, does anyone have the original files from the Seventh Edition boot tape? Second, does simh support tape operations like writing file markers? No doubt you can see where I'm headed with this. I want to attach the original boot tape and install the original V7 tape onto simh. Thanks, Brantley Coile

16 years, 5 months

Re: [pups] PDP-11 / vacuum tube interface

by Fred N. van Kempen

I was bored, and ported my version of SimH (which is an older version, but with some stuff ripped out, and other stuff put in) to my operating system for my ARM-based MCU board. It now "acts" like a regular 11/83 when turned on, and will happily boot Ultrix-11 off the CF card :) Not as fast as running on a peecee, not half as much fun as running a real '11, but hey, it DOES fit into my backpack. --f -----Original Message----- From: pups-bounces(a)minnie.tuhs.org [mailto:pups-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org] On Behalf Of Jochen Kunz Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2008 6:15 PM To: pups(a)minnie.tuhs.org Subject: Re: [pups] PDP-11 / vacuum tube interface On Wed, 10 Dec 2008 19:09:34 +0100 "Fred N. van Kempen" <fred.van.kempen(a)microwalt.nl> wrote: > smiling @ his nano-11 system running Ultrix, all the size of > a matchbox.. nano-11? Please elaborate. -- tschüß, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ _______________________________________________ PUPS mailing list PUPS(a)minnie.tuhs.org https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/pups

16 years, 5 months

Re: [pups] PDP-11 / vacuum tube interface

by Fred N. van Kempen

> (This has got to be the strangest cross-post I've ever done.) You've got that right :P > I do sincerely apologize for > cross-posting, but I am rather younger than either of these > technologies (vintage: 1984) and this seems like a monumental > challenge. Well, several projects can be thought off in this scenario, but if you want to keep it mildly useful, try to do something with audio tubes connected to an '11 (OK, here's a spoiler: "you'll make a PDP11-driven music player using a tube-based audio backend"), or such. You could go into analog computing as well, but that can be kinda hairy. This more or less only requires building a usable D/A converter on the '11, which then interfaces to the tubes. I'd use a DMA- based 16-bit DA controller. Cheers, Fred (smiling @ his nano-11 system running Ultrix, all the size of a matchbox..)

16 years, 5 months

Re: [pups] PDP-11 / vacuum tube interface

by Jay Jaeger

Back in the 1970's Paul Pierce used a D/A converter on a PDP-11 at the UW Computer Systems Lab to generate music much like early PC sound cards did -- by combining harmonics in various ratios. Although he happened to have used RT-11, there is no reason why it could not be done under Unix. (The UW Computer Systems Lab also had a Votrax). So, sure, you could, with an A/D and D/A converter do something like that. I am not sure that the various emulators have done emulation for A/D or D/A, but in principle, it ought to be possible. AC coupling (via a capacitor) of the input or output would remove any concerns about the relatively high DC voltages. Besides, input signals ordinarily come into the grids of vacuum tube circuits by way of a transformer. Ditto for outputs from tube circuits. Jay Jaeger At 05:37 PM 12/9/2008 -0800, Carl Lowenstein wrote: >On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 4:00 PM, Ross Tucker <rjtucke(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > Dear all, > > (This has got to be the strangest cross-post I've ever done.) > > > > I have just taken a bet from a friend to challenge my geekiness. I was > > telling him about my love of Vintage Technology and he proposed that I > > combine two hitherto separate hobbies and see what happens. The > > topics: the DEC PDP-11 minicomputer (vintage: 1970s) and vacuum-tube > > ham radios (vintage: 1960s). I do sincerely apologize for > > cross-posting, but I am rather younger than either of these > > technologies (vintage: 1984) and this seems like a monumental > > challenge. > > > > My question for y'all: how could I possibly design+build a project > > that uses both of these technologies? My thought is to port some radio > > receiver Digital Signal Processing (DSP) application into PDP-11 > > assembler, compile and run it via emulator on my PC, then use it with > > the vacuum-tube regenerative receiver that I built a few years ago... > > Does anybody know if PDP-11 UNIXes even had the capability for a > > "sound card"? > >Well, you could look at "Votrax" on Wikipedia. Allegedly, the first >words spoken by a Unix system at Bell Labs, using its Votrax >synthesizer, were "file not found". > >Things that are now known as "sound cards" were called A:D and D:A >converters back in those days. And there were a fair variety of them >available for both Unibus and Qbus systems. > > > Or, to get ambitious, I would LOVE to design some > > interface circuitry between PDP-11 digital circuitry and vacuum-tube > > electronics... The challenges are legion: the tube side of the circuit > > operates around 350V DC levels with radio-frequency (RF) signals at 7 > > MHz (almost the clock rate of some PDP-11s!) and I don't have the DEC > > Handbooks, but I'm pretty sure that even those ancient pre-TTL > > circuits operate below 350V! > >The vacuum-tube circuits may be running from 350 VDC but somewhere >there are low-level inputs from which everything is amplified. Think >microphone. > > carl >-- > carl lowenstein marine physical lab u.c. san diego > clowenstein(a)ucsd.edu >_______________________________________________ >PUPS mailing list >PUPS(a)minnie.tuhs.org >https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/pups --- Jay R. Jaeger The Computer Collection cube1(a)charter.net

16 years, 5 months

Finding homes for old machines (in the UK)

by Tim Bradshaw

Sorry, this is a bit off-topic, but I'm not sure of anywhere better to ask. I used to have a number of HLH Orion machines, which were superminis (they ran BSD 4.2 / 4.3) made in the UK in the 80s and very early 90s. A friend of mine still has some, which I suspect may be the last ones extant, and a mass of documentation & media for them. He's retiring soon and needs to find homes for them. I think they're historically reasonably interesting machines - I suspect they may have been almost the last significant British computer design, and the earlier model was quite an interesting machine, with user-programmable microcode &c (the later model was, I think, not so interesting, if a lot faster). Does anyone know of any museum-type places which might be able to offer them a home? They are still working (we think, he needs to turn them on). I'm thinking of approaching the Bletchley Park people, but I'm wondering if anyone here has any better leads. Thanks! --tim

16 years, 6 months

Jump to page:

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

1996

1995

1994

1993

1992

1991

1990

TUHS