TUHS

tuhs@tuhs.org

6420 discussions

by mxs46＠k2.scl.cwru.edu

Dear PUPS/TUHS members, I have finally updated the Quasijarus Project WWW page so that now it's much more useful. You can find it at: http://minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au/Quasijarus/ Sincerely, Michael Sokolov Cellular phone: 216-217-2579 ARPA Internet SMTP mail: mxs46(a)k2.scl.cwru.edu

26 years

Re: 11/730 question

by mxs46＠k2.scl.cwru.edu

Kirk McKusick <mckusick(a)McKusick.COM> wrote: > I applaud your desire not to break old 4.2/4.3 machines. > I would be very resistant to losing support for a popular > machine like the 11/750. However, I think that losing support > for the 11/730 would be acceptable. You are not the first person I hear this from, and I wouldn't completely disagree. However, it always pains me very much when a system really ought to run on a machine and has all the necessary ingredients, but fails because of some tiny nit. This is exactly the case here. The CPU is supported, the console storage device is supported, all bootstrap scripts are already written, even the IDC is supported, but the standalone programs refuse to load because of a ucode botch! Now, I did look more carefully, and the boot.730 program does fit into 12.5 KB after all in 4.2 and 4.3 (copy.730 fits in 4.2 but not in 4.3, and format.730 doesn't fit even in 4.2). So I guess it would be possible after all to massage up the Makefile and the ifdefing in the sources to make the 4.3-Quasijarus standalone system build a small boot.730. However, the objections to this approach are: 1. Instead of tidying up the standalone system, this would make it an even worse mess. 2. In future Quasijarus releases I plan to retire the current standalone drivers for U/Q and BI MSCP and make the standalone system call DEC's own VMB for I/O from/to all MSCP devices, making it possible to support MSCP on more than just U/Q and BI. However, this means that all big VAX users with MSCP disks will now need a copy of DEC's VMB.EXE in addition to UNIX's native boot code. It will also have to be a recent enough version, and I'm sure as hell that the version that came with 11/730 is too old. A newer version of VMB can be pulled out of almost any VMS or Ultrix distribution, but the one I have seen was 40 KB long. Thus even if I manage to make a boot.730 that fits within 12.5 KB, you would still need the 40 KB VMB.EXE if your disk is RAxx (the most common type), and this obviously makes boot.730 squeezing an exercise in futility. Resolution: I will pitch the *.730 programs and add a note to the documentation that installation on a 730 requires a ucode upgrade that fixes this botch. If someone asks me where to obtain one (or how to write one if it doesn't exist), I'll redirect them to this list, as I have no idea. :-) Sincerely, Michael Sokolov Cellular phone: 216-217-2579 ARPA Internet SMTP mail: mxs46(a)k2.scl.cwru.edu

26 years

11/730 question

by mxs46＠k2.scl.cwru.edu

Dear PUPS/TUHS members, I wonder if any of you has some input on this issue. As I'm preparing for making my planned disk labeling improvements (making it possible to install the system on a fresh unlabeled disk in a more or less straightforward way), I first want to clean up some mess in the standalone system. One thing that annoys me in there is that for every standalone program that's supposed to go on the console media there are two versions built, a normal one and a "730" one. The comments say that 11/730 has a microcode botch that prevents it from loading programs larger than 12.5 KB, so supposedly all "730" standalone programs must be smaller than that. However, right now all standalone programs are around 30 KB, and the difference between the normal and "730" versions is only about 3 KB, even though the "730" versions do have the MASSBUS and BI code compiled out. Wondering if there is a way to make them smaller, I looked at older versions, and guess what, even in 4.2 the "730" versions are a little bit over the alleged 12.5 KB limit! That's right, 4.2BSD is the first release with 11/730 support, and its standalone programs are already over the alleged 11/730 microcode limit! This raises quite a few questions. First of all, does the 11/730 microcode really have this limitation, or is it just a hoax? If this limit does exist, when exactly does it apply? The BSD distribution TU58 cassette always used the full versions of the programs, not the "730" ones (the distribution cassette is also used for 750s), and yet apparently 730s could be bootstrapped from it. Maybe this limitation applies only to automatic bootstrap and not to manual loading? And if this is indeed a microcode botch, are there any patches available for it? I would appreciate it if someone here can provide some answers to these questions. I would really like to get rid of those "730" standalone programs, but I can't do it if this would break 11/730 support. (It's my responsibility as the 4.3BSD-* maintainer to only add features, but never break anything that works in plain 4.3 or 4.2.) Sincerely, Michael Sokolov Cellular phone: 216-217-2579 ARPA Internet SMTP mail: mxs46(a)k2.scl.cwru.edu Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) id LAA13144 for pups-liszt; Wed, 13 Jan 1999 11:00:18 +1100 (EST) >From Kirk McKusick <mckusick(a)mckusick.com> Wed Jan 13 06:18:13 1999 Received: from flamingo.McKusick.COM (root(a)flamingo.mckusick.com [209.31.233.178]) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id LAA13139 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au>; Wed, 13 Jan 1999 11:00:10 +1100 (EST) Received: from flamingo.McKusick.COM (mckusick@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by flamingo.McKusick.COM (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA10534; Tue, 12 Jan 1999 12:18:13 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199901122018.MAA10534(a)flamingo.McKusick.COM> To: mxs46(a)k2.scl.cwru.edu (Michael Sokolov) Subject: Re: 11/730 question cc: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 12 Jan 1999 18:18:35 EST." <199901122318.SAA04873(a)skybridge.scl.cwru.edu> Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 12:18:13 -0800 From: Kirk McKusick <mckusick(a)mckusick.com> Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au Precedence: bulk I applaud your desire not to break old 4.2/4.3 machines. I would be very resistant to losing support for a popular machine like the 11/750. However, I think that losing support for the 11/730 would be acceptable. It was a very feeble processor (0.3 of a 780) and very few of them were ever sold. We had only one at Berkeley (for porting purposes), and it was so slow that we were not even able to pawn it off on the undergrad CS organization when we were done with it. Kirk Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) id PAA13915 for pups-liszt; Wed, 13 Jan 1999 15:15:54 +1100 (EST)

26 years

Confirming machine hardware.

by BeLFrY

G'day all... I have a DEC-PRO/350. I believe it is a PDP8. Is there any way of confirming this? Thanks. Michael. Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) id BAA11300 for pups-liszt; Wed, 13 Jan 1999 01:27:45 +1100 (EST) >From "emanuel stiebler" <emu(a)ecubics.com> Wed Jan 13 00:26:39 1999 Received: from biz1.mailsrvcs.net (biz1.gte.net [207.115.153.50]) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id BAA11295 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Wed, 13 Jan 1999 01:27:36 +1100 (EST) Received: from p2350 ([208.254.195.48]) by biz1.mailsrvcs.net (Post.Office MTA v3.1.2 release (PO203-101c) ID# 0-40549L5000S0) with ESMTP id AAA22519; Tue, 12 Jan 1999 08:27:30 -0600 From: "emanuel stiebler" <emu(a)ecubics.com> To: "BeLFrY" <belfry(a)nsw.bigpond.net.au>, "\"\\\"PUPs\\\" PDP11 Unix Preservation group\"" <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au> Subject: Re: Confirming machine hardware. Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 07:26:39 -0700 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1161 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <19990112142726.AAA22519@p2350> Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au Precedence: bulk Hi Michael, ---------- > From: BeLFrY <belfry(a)nsw.bigpond.net.au> > To: "\"PUPs\" PDP11 Unix Preservation group" <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au> > Subject: Confirming machine hardware. > Date: Monday, January 11, 1999 11:34 PM > I have a DEC-PRO/350. which is nice ;-)) > I believe it is a PDP8. > Is there any way of confirming this? Sorry, there is no way to confirm this ;-)) (sorry, couldn't resist) the nearest "brother" of the pro/350 would be the pdp11/23, pdp11//23+ or pdp11/24, because the use the same CPU. (DCF11) hope it helps, emanuel Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) id GAA12405 for pups-liszt; Wed, 13 Jan 1999 06:43:32 +1100 (EST) >From Johnny Billquist <bqt(a)Update.UU.SE> Wed Jan 13 05:43:04 1999 Received: from Zeke.Update.UU.SE (IDENT:2026@Zeke.Update.UU.SE [130.238.11.14]) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id GAA12400 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Wed, 13 Jan 1999 06:43:22 +1100 (EST) Received: from localhost (bqt@localhost) by Zeke.Update.UU.SE (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id UAA09742; Tue, 12 Jan 1999 20:43:06 +0100 Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 20:43:04 +0100 (MET) From: Johnny Billquist <bqt(a)Update.UU.SE> To: BeLFrY <belfry(a)nsw.bigpond.net.au> cc: "\"\\\"PUPs\\\" PDP11 Unix Preservation group\"" <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au> Subject: Re: Confirming machine hardware. In-Reply-To: <369AECFA.87A55C4(a)nsw.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <Pine.VUL.3.93.990112204229.9487A-100000(a)Zeke.Update.UU.SE> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au Precedence: bulk On Tue, 12 Jan 1999, BeLFrY wrote: > G'day all... Hi there. > I have a DEC-PRO/350. > > I believe it is a PDP8. > > Is there any way of confirming this? No. However I can confirm that it is a pdp-11. Johnny Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt(a)update.uu.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

26 years

Re: EDU MAGAZINE

by Warren Toomey

In article by Lawrence Reinish: > I am looking for several issues of 'EDU MAGAZINE' from mid-1975 to 1976. > It was published by Digital Equipment Corporation. Any assistance would be > greatly appreciated. > > Lawrence Reinish Lawrence, I don't have any copies. I'll forward this on to some people who might be able to help you. Cheers, Warren

26 years, 1 month

Earliest UNIX source!

by Warren Toomey

All, Dennis has just passed to me the source to a UNIX kernel around the 3rd Edition (i.e around 1973). He says this is the oldest machine-readable UNIX source he has. I've just placed it in the PUPS archive at: Distributions/research/Dennis_v3 Cheers, Warren

26 years, 1 month

My mail screw-up

by mxs46＠k2.scl.cwru.edu

Hello everyone, Sorry for being away from the list lately, the machine I was doing my E-mail on (harrier.Uznet.NET) has been down for several days, and I have to assume that it's down forever. I have moved my mail back to my old address <mxs46(a)k2.scl.cwru.edu>. If any of you have sent any mail to msokolov(a)harrier.Uznet.NET in the past several days, please resend it to mxs46(a)k2.scl.cwru.edu, since harrier.Uznet.NET is probably down forever and everything in my mailbox is lost. (I have recovered the missed pups mail via the archive.) Sorry for this screw-up, but it's not my fault, I'm not that machine's admin. (The admin is Stacy Minkin, whom I can't contact because his address is also obviously on that machine.) Sincerely, Michael Sokolov Cellular phone: 216-217-2579 ARPA Internet SMTP mail: mxs46(a)k2.scl.cwru.edu Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) id OAA16866 for pups-liszt; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 14:39:00 +1100 (EST) >From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.edu.au> Thu Jan 7 13:39:39 1999 Received: from henry.cs.adfa.edu.au (henry.cs.adfa.oz.au [131.236.21.158]) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id OAA16861 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 14:38:52 +1100 (EST) Received: (from wkt@localhost) by henry.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) id OAA27637 for pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 14:39:39 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from wkt) From: Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.edu.au> Message-Id: <199901070339.OAA27637(a)henry.cs.adfa.edu.au> Subject: Re: V8's roots? (fwd) To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (Unix Heritage Society) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1999 14:39:39 +1100 (EST) Reply-To: wkt(a)cs.adfa.oz.au X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL43 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au Precedence: bulk ----- Forwarded message from dmr ----- I also got mail from Norman Wilson today about the discussion. This is mainly to confirm and fill out details of Wilson's account. The Eighth Edition system started with (I believe) BSD 4.1c and the work was done on VAX 11/750s -- our group did not get a 780 until a while later. Most of the operating system superstructure of BSD was retained (in particular no one (even the indefatigable Norman) wanted to get much into the paging code. Norman is also right that the competitor was John Reiser's (and Tom London's) 32V descendant from another group at the Labs. In structure this system had a lot to offer (in particular the buffer cache and the page pool were unified, but it was clear that their work was not being supported by their own management. It was used for a while on our first 750 and also our first 11/780 ("alice", a name that lives in netnews fame preceding the reach of Dejanews). The big change leading to V8 was the scooping-out and replacement of the character-device and networking part by the streams mechanism. Later, Peter Weinberger added the file-system switch that enabled remote file systems and prescient things ideas like /proc). Weinberger, as Norman said, also did a simple-minded FFS. The TCP/IP stack wasn't very important to us then and it has a mixed and murky history. Much of it came from early CSRG work, but it was converted to a streams approach by Robert Morris and subsequently fiddled over a lot. Likewise, as Norman said, the applications (/bin and whatnot) were somewhat of a mixture. Many were the locally-done versions, some were taken from BSD in some incarnation, some from System V. Dennis ----- End of forwarded message from dmr -----

26 years, 1 month

Re: V8's roots?

by norman＠nose.cita.utoronto.ca

The operating system kernel on the V8 distribution tape (which was sent to less than a dozen places, under special license) was indeed descended from one of the 4.1 BSD releases; I have a vague memory that it was 4.1a, but I wasn't there at the time, and don't know just what was in each of the intermediate 4.1s. As I understand the history (again, I wasn't there when this part happened), when the Computing Science Research Center decided to move its main computing world to VAX in the early 1980s, they wanted a reasonably stable, reasonably fast system with paging, and 4.1x (for whatever value of x it was) seemed the best available choice. The only real competitor was the paging descendant of 32/V done by John Reiser (who did the original 32/V port to the VAX, I believe), but that system seemed to have lost the evolutionary battle and was judged a bad bet. It may help to identify the kernel in question to know that it probably didn't have sockets yet, and certainly didn't have FFS. The 4.1x kernel was just used as a base, however. By the time I arrived at the Center in late 1984, a good bit had been added and replaced: the V7-heritage terminal IO subsystem had been kicked out in favour of Dennis Ritchie's stream I/O system; Peter Weinberger's simple disk file system speedups (4KB blocks and a bitmapped free list, nothing more) and network file system code and the corresponding file system switch had been added; Tom Killian's process file system had appeared. The commands in /bin and /usr/bin and whatnot had less obvious BSD influence, and I suspect they were mostly carried over from the system used internally on the PDP11s when the VAXes first arrived. Norman Wilson (six years in New Jersey drove me out of the country) Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) id KAA15731 for pups-liszt; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 10:29:31 +1100 (EST)

26 years, 1 month

Twist of Fate...

by Erin W. Corliss

So get this -- Matt Kjaer, a friend of a friend of mine and the person who originally got me interested in PDP's, works at the University of Oregon computing center. He claims that if he can dig it up, the University of Oregon has an original Unix license for PDP-11's. I'm not sure what version of Unix it is or if it's even from SCO, but assuming it is, where do we fax/mail/deliver/etc a copy of it to get access to the legendary protected FTP directory with the source codes? Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) id JAA15372 for pups-liszt; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 09:19:53 +1100 (EST) >From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.edu.au> Thu Jan 7 08:20:25 1999 Received: from henry.cs.adfa.edu.au (henry.cs.adfa.oz.au [131.236.21.158]) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id JAA15367 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 09:19:45 +1100 (EST) Received: (from wkt@localhost) by henry.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) id JAA19617; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 09:20:25 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from wkt) From: Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.edu.au> Message-Id: <199901062220.JAA19617(a)henry.cs.adfa.edu.au> Subject: Re: Twist of Fate... In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990106125635.20195A-100000(a)coffee.corliss.net> from "Erin W. Corliss" at "Jan 6, 1999 1: 6:48 pm" To: erin(a)coffee.corliss.net (Erin W. Corliss) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1999 09:20:25 +1100 (EST) Cc: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (Unix Heritage Society) Reply-To: wkt(a)cs.adfa.oz.au X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL43 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au Precedence: bulk In article by Erin W. Corliss: > > So get this -- Matt Kjaer, a friend of a friend of mine and the person who > originally got me interested in PDP's, works at the University of Oregon > computing center. He claims that if he can dig it up, the University of > Oregon has an original Unix license for PDP-11's. I'm not sure what > version of Unix it is or if it's even from SCO, but assuming it is, where > do we fax/mail/deliver/etc a copy of it to get access to the legendary > protected FTP directory with the source codes? Fax a copy to me (the pages giving the license owner, the license number, the list of operating systems covered, the list of CPUs covered, and the signatures), and then get Matt to email me! As per usual, I need to send back access details securely. A fax number or a means of obtaining a PGP key will allow me to do this. Cheers, Warren Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) id JAA15403 for pups-liszt; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 09:26:20 +1100 (EST) >From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.edu.au> Thu Jan 7 08:26:54 1999 Received: from henry.cs.adfa.edu.au (henry.cs.adfa.oz.au [131.236.21.158]) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id JAA15398 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 09:26:12 +1100 (EST) Received: (from wkt@localhost) by henry.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) id JAA19685; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 09:26:54 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from wkt) From: Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.edu.au> Message-Id: <199901062226.JAA19685(a)henry.cs.adfa.edu.au> Subject: Re: Twist of Fate... In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990106142501.20945A-100000(a)coffee.corliss.net> from "Erin W. Corliss" at "Jan 6, 1999 2:26:32 pm" To: erin(a)coffee.corliss.net (Erin W. Corliss) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1999 09:26:54 +1100 (EST) Cc: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (Unix Heritage Society) Reply-To: wkt(a)cs.adfa.oz.au X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL43 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au Precedence: bulk In article by Erin W. Corliss: > On Thu, 7 Jan 1999, Warren Toomey wrote: > > > Fax a copy to me (the pages giving the license owner, the license number, > > the list of operating systems covered, the list of CPUs covered, and the > > signatures), and then get Matt to email me! > > What's your fax number? Damn, I knew I'd forget to put that in! Warren: +61 2 6268 8581 Ciao, Warren Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) id KAA15593 for pups-liszt; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 10:00:00 +1100 (EST) >From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.edu.au> Thu Jan 7 09:00:40 1999 Received: from henry.cs.adfa.edu.au (henry.cs.adfa.oz.au [131.236.21.158]) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id JAA15588 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 09:59:53 +1100 (EST) Received: (from wkt@localhost) by henry.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) id KAA19815 for pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 10:00:40 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from wkt) From: Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.edu.au> Message-Id: <199901062300.KAA19815(a)henry.cs.adfa.edu.au> Subject: Bob Manners: new email addr? To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (Unix Heritage Society) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1999 10:00:40 +1100 (EST) Reply-To: wkt(a)cs.adfa.oz.au X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL43 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au Precedence: bulk Sorry to bother the list. Mail to Bob Manners rjm(a)swift.eng.ox.ac.uk is bouncing, and I know he'd like to stay on the PUPS list. Has anybody got a new address for him? Thanks, Warren Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) id KAA15622 for pups-liszt; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 10:04:51 +1100 (EST)

26 years, 1 month

Re: OK I got this here VAXen thingie.... what is it?

by mxs46＠k2.scl.cwru.edu

"User Rdkeys Robert D. Keys" <rdkeys(a)seedlab1.cropsci.ncsu.edu> wrote: > Machine: VAXstation 3500, no consoles or external boxes, only the tower. Will run my latest OS release, 4.3BSD-Quasijarus0, like a charm. > Tape Drive: TK70 Great! 4.3BSD-Quasijarus0 bootstraps from TK70s beaufifully. > Hard Drive: RA70 Also great! You are incredibly lucky here that 4.3BSD-* already knows about RA70 and thus you can install 4.3BSD-Quasijarus0 on this disk directly even when it's unlabeled. If you had third-party MSCP disks, you would have to install Ultrix first to label the disk. This is due to 4.3BSD-Quasijarus0's inability to install on unknown unlabeled disks. This limitation will be lifted in the next Quasijarus release, which I'm already working on. > 1 KA650 -BA A very nice CPU, rated at 2.8 VUPs. 4.3BSD-Quasijarus0 fully supports it (better than CSRG's Tahoe and Reno releases). KA650 support is present in the GENERIC kernel, so it will Just Boot (tm). The "-BA" part means that it has bit 1 set in the second longword of the EPROM, causing DEC proprietary OSes to treat it as a "single-user" machine. Research OSes like 4.3BSD-* ignore this bit. But if you do want to convert your machine to "multiuser" status, clear bit 1, set bit 0, and recalculate the checksum (you'll need an EPROM blaster). This will turn your CPU into a KA650-AA. You also have the option of upgrading this CPU to a KA655 (3.8 VUPs) or KA660 (5 VUPs). KA655 is also fully supported by 4.3BSD-Quasijarus0, and KA660 support is coming soon (100% guarrantee that I'll get it before NetBSD does). > 2 MS650 -AA > 3 MS650 -AA -AA is a 8 MB board, so you have a total of 16 MB of RAM. Note, though, that -AAs are old boards, and they work only with KA650 and KA640. If you decide to upgrade to KA655 or KA660, you'll need either DEC MS650-Bx or third-party MS650-compatible memory. These work with all KA650 series CPUs. > 4 DELQA -SA Ethernet. Fully supported by Berkeley UNIX since 4.3BSD. > 5 VCB02 > 6 VCB02 > 7 VCB02 QDSS video. 4.3BSD-Quasijarus0 should support this (untested), but since you don't have a VAXstation monitor or keyboard anyway, pull these three boards out and move everything else to the right (you can't leave empty Q-bus slots in the middle). > 8 CXY08 8-line asynchronous multiplexer (8-port serial interface). Not sure if 4.3BSD-* has a driver for it (I haven't touched this area and left it as it was in CSRG's Tahoe release). It has some drivers for DEC asynchronous multiplexers, but DEC made a lot of different ones, and I don't know where does CXY08 stand with respect to everything else DEC has produced. Ultrix supports it for sure, though. > 9 TQK70 Controller for TK70. > 10 KDA50 > 11 KDA50 Controller for RA70 (or any other SDI disks you may want to connect). > Any suggestions are appreciated. Hmm, it looks like you have already been brainwashed by one NutBSDist. Please don't listen to him. Running NetBSD is conduct unbecoming a PUPS/TUHS member. NetBSD is the worst OS a VAX can run. Its code is a total mess, and its "developers" are incompetent morons (I know, I've been on their list for 6 months or so). They have no clue as to how to write VAX OSes, and their list of supported hardware is as skinny as their brains. NetBSD is extremely flaky, and it's extremely bloated. My authoritative advice to you is to run 4.3BSD-Quasijarus0, my latest release made two weeks ago (I'm the maintainer of 4.3BSD-*). It comes with 100% complete source code, and, picture this, the entire system with all binaries _and full sources_ fits in 75 MB! It's absolutely True and Pure UNIX, nothing can be better. There is also Ultrix. No matter how much those losers insult it, it's one of the best OSes in the Universe, second only to 4.3BSD-Quasijarus. Despite what some incompetent morons may say, it is not a "4.2/4.3 mix", it's 100% 4.3. True, it has been interDIGITated by DEC, which makes it a little impure and bloated (and binary-only), but otherwise it's OK. It is bigger than a binary-only 4.3BSD-Quasijarus0 installation, but certainly much smaller than NutBSD. As for the DEC additions, just ignore them! Just because Ultrix optionally supports Sun YP, Hesiod, and other crap doesn't mean that you have to use it! In fact, it's already disabled by default! Just don't enable it, that's all! When /etc/svc.conf selects "local,bind" for hosts and "local" for everything else, Ultrix becomes indistinguishable from 4.3BSD! I can bet that if I show you two VAXen, one running 4.3BSD and the other running Ultrix, you won't be able to tell easily which is which. Also some Ultrix-specific features are really nice. Take NFS, for example. I will certainly add NFS to 4.3BSD-Quasijarus at some point. Also don't forget that Ultrix runs on almost every VAX ever made. I often run Ultrix instead of 4.3BSD-* when the latter doesn't run on the hardware in question. In fact, this is what Ultrix is best for: a fallback OS to replace 4.3BSD-* when it doesn't support the hardware. Of course 4.3BSD-Quasijarus is the best OS in the Universe, and you should always run it whenever possible, but when you can't Ultrix is a very good fallback because it's so close. But since you have a KA650, you don't have to worry about this, as 4.3BSD-Quasijarus0 will run on it like a charm. Best of luck with it. 4.3BSD-Quasijarus0 is in the PUPS archive in the Distributions/4bsd/43quasi0.vax directory. Sincerely, Michael Sokolov Cellular phone: 216-217-2579 ARPA Internet SMTP mail: mxs46(a)k2.scl.cwru.edu Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) id GAA14819 for pups-liszt; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 06:35:05 +1100 (EST)

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