TUHS

tuhs@tuhs.org

55 participants
6336 discussions

by Warren Toomey

For those who were after RL02 support in the PDP-11 virtual tape server, it now works. Thanks also to John Holden for space-optimising the 1st stage boot code -- much less to hand-toggle in now. The next version is at: ftp://minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au/pub/PDP-11/Vtserver Cheers, Warren Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id SAA10966 for pups-liszt; Wed, 18 Feb 1998 18:07:04 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From Bob Lash <bob(a)wbs.net> Wed Feb 18 17:06:47 1998 Received: from webchat2.wbs.net (ws3.wbs.net [207.88.172.4]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id SAA10961 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Wed, 18 Feb 1998 18:06:51 +1100 (EST) Received: (from bob@localhost) by webchat2.wbs.net (8.8.6/8.8.6) id XAA06845; Tue, 17 Feb 1998 23:06:47 -0800 Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 23:06:47 -0800 (PST) From: Bob Lash <bob(a)wbs.net> To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Subject: RE: V7 on a PDP-11/23+ Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.91.980217225152.6625A-100000(a)webchat2.wbs.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk I wanted to express my gratitude to PUPS, and especially PUPS member Bob Armstrong, who transferred a copy of Seventh Edition UNIX onto an RL02 pack which worked immediately on my PDP-11/23+ ! :) Below is a copy of booting instructions that Bob provided for the 11/23+. These worked exactly as billed. If anyone needs some spare RL02 incandescent bulbs, I have a few on hand. Also, they are still availabe from Digikey at http://www.digikey.com. The part is a "CM 73" bulb, which is a T1 3/4 14V wedge base type. Best wishes, Bob Lash bob(a)wbs.net ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 9 Feb 98 21:06:31 PST From: Bob Armstrong <bob(a)poco-adagio.santa-clara.ca.us> To: bob(a)wbs.net Subject: RE: V7 on a PDP-11/23+ Here are the instructions for booting System 7, just in case I forget to tell you tomorrow: 1) Be sure your terminal is set to 7 bits, even parity. 2) Mount the pack, spin it up and hardware boot. The unix boot program will print an "@" almost immediately. [This is really annoying, because the 11/23 ODT also prompts with "@", so unless you expect this you'll think that the machine has crashed!] 3) Type "unix" and RETURN. This is the kernel name, and when you are able to build your own kernels you can type a different name. If you make any typos you'll have to reboot. The boot pretends that you can try again if you make a mistake, but don't believe it! 3) Unix will say "mem = ..." and then "SINGLE USER LOGIN:". Enter ^Z (not ^D!) to start time sharing. 4) It will prompt for the date and time. Note that the date doesn't give you the opportunity to enter a year - the system will think it's 1997 until you figure out how to change this (you didn't know that there'd be homework, did you :-) 5) You'll get a "login:" prompt. The password to root is "pdp". 6) You're on your own. Have fun! Two more tips: if you aren't sure your hardware works, I recommend you try your first boot with the pack write locked. Unix will panic right after it says "mem=..." with a write locked swap, but at least this way you won't risk corrupting your pack until you're reasonably sure the hardware works. Don't ever shut down the system without doing a couple of syncs first. This is unix, after all, and you'll eventually trash your file system if you shut down without syncing. Bob Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA13383 for pups-liszt; Thu, 19 Feb 1998 09:58:19 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From Bob Armstrong <bob(a)poco-adagio.santa-clara.ca.us> Tue Feb 10 15:06:31 1998 Received: from henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (henry.cs.adfa.oz.au [131.236.21.158]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA13378 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Thu, 19 Feb 1998 09:58:15 +1100 (EST) Received: (from wkt@localhost) by henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.7.5/8.7.3) id JAA09626 for pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au; Thu, 19 Feb 1998 09:59:04 +1100 (EST) From: Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Message-Id: <199802182259.JAA09626(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Subject: Re: V7 on a PDP-11/23+ To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (PDP Unix Preservation) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 09:59:04 +1100 (EST) In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.91.980217225152.6625A-100000(a)webchat2.wbs.net> from Bob Lash at "Feb 17, 98 11:06:47 pm" Reply-To: wkt(a)cs.adfa.oz.au X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL22 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk In article by Bob Lash: > I wanted to express my gratitude to PUPS, and especially PUPS member Bob > Armstrong, who transferred a copy of Seventh Edition UNIX onto an RL02 > pack which worked immediately on my PDP-11/23+ ! :) > > Below is a copy of booting instructions that Bob provided for the 11/23+. > These worked exactly as billed. > > If anyone needs some spare RL02 incandescent bulbs, I have a few on hand. > Also, they are still availabe from Digikey at http://www.digikey.com. The > part is a "CM 73" bulb, which is a T1 3/4 14V wedge base type. > > Bob Lash > bob(a)wbs.net Glad to hear that PUPS is of some help. There isn't really any official membership, though. If anybody joins the mailing list or signs the `I want a src license' petition, then I count 'em as members :-) On the source license front, Dion at SCO is still trying to push the legal section into producing something. I mailed him last week but haven't heard anything back. I've asked to establish some form of dialogue with the nay-sayers, to try & address their concerns about a personal src license. All this for a 20-year old piece of software! This list tends to be quiet. What did you all get up to over Christmas, and how are your PDP-11s going?! Did anybody ever get that tape from George Colouris in England and read its contents? Cheers all, Warren Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA14215 for pups-liszt; Thu, 19 Feb 1998 14:16:37 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f

26 years, 7 months

Re: Installing PDP-11 UNIX w. no tape - solution

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<> they can only because the '450 has a silo of 4 bytes < <The 16540 has only one byte buffer. Oops mixed it op with a compatable hybrid... < <> and the 550 it's either 16 or 32 bytes. < <The 16550 has 4 bytes, and the 16650 has (I think) 16 bytes. Some fo the super integration chips (FDC, IDE, 2SIO and parallel) have extended that to 32. <Have you modified the kernel? Normally disks will preempt ttys. This is RT-11 and RSTS and I don't have a UNIX on the q-buss -11s. I could recompile RT but, Qbus, interrupt priority is based on position relative to the cpu, In mine its memory, serial io and then all the rest in order of decreasing speed. Allison Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id SAA25982 for pups-liszt; Sun, 1 Feb 1998 18:47:10 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Sun Feb 1 17:47:25 1998 Received: from henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (henry.cs.adfa.oz.au [131.236.21.158]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id SAA25977 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Sun, 1 Feb 1998 18:47:04 +1100 (EST) Received: (from wkt@localhost) by henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.7.5/8.7.3) id SAA12606 for pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au; Sun, 1 Feb 1998 18:47:25 +1100 (EST) From: Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Message-Id: <199802010747.SAA12606(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Subject: Virtual PDP Tape - update To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (PDP Unix Preservation) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 18:47:25 +1100 (EST) Reply-To: wkt(a)cs.adfa.oz.au X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL22 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk All, The virtual tape drive seems to be working fine. I've added RL support, so you should be now able to install over a serial line to: RP04, RP05 and RP06 disks. RP03 disks. RK05 disks. RL01 and RL02 disks. Other disk support would require hacking the V7 kernel sources. I've back-ported uncompress to V7, and written a user-mode program to read from the tape, so I'm hoping that once the basic root filesystem is installed, you will be able to do: $ vtget /dev/tty1 5 | uncompress | tar vxf - and pull over compressed tar images. That should speed things up. I will consolidate the documentation, give it a damn good testing with Ersatz 2.0 tomorrow, and then put the whole thing up for ftp at: ftp://minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au/PDP-11/Vtserver I haven't heard from many of those who were `dying' for something like this last year. Hopefully someone will find it useful :-) Cheers, Warren Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA28785 for pups-liszt; Mon, 2 Feb 1998 14:44:07 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Mon Feb 2 13:44:29 1998 Received: from henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (henry.cs.adfa.oz.au [131.236.21.158]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA28780 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Mon, 2 Feb 1998 14:44:03 +1100 (EST) Received: (from wkt@localhost) by henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.7.5/8.7.3) id OAA23220 for pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au; Mon, 2 Feb 1998 14:44:29 +1100 (EST) From: Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Message-Id: <199802020344.OAA23220(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Subject: First Release of Virt Tape Software To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (PDP Unix Preservation) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 14:44:29 +1100 (EST) Reply-To: wkt(a)cs.adfa.oz.au X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL22 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk All, Ok, the alpha-cut of the virtual tape drive for installing 7th Edition UNIX onto PDP-11s is available at ftp://minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au/pub/PDP-11/Vtserver It works for RK05s, but I'm getting a `panic: iinit' error for RL02s. This indicates a bad kernel build for the RL02s, something I have to work on. I cannot test the software for RP03/04/05/06 disks, but this should be vanilla V7 and should work with no problems. A couple of people emailed me and said that they would rather get 2.11BSD (again on a PDP-11 with no tape drive). Steven, would you be prepared to add support for the virtual tape drive into 2.11BSD? Only the boot/install code would need to change. Would anyone with RL02s & experience with V7 kernels help me fix the RL02 problems?!! Cheers all, Warren Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA01650 for pups-liszt; Tue, 3 Feb 1998 09:03:54 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Tue Feb 3 08:04:20 1998 Received: from henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (henry.cs.adfa.oz.au [131.236.21.158]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA01645 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Tue, 3 Feb 1998 09:03:50 +1100 (EST) Received: (from wkt@localhost) by henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.7.5/8.7.3) id JAA24121 for pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au; Tue, 3 Feb 1998 09:04:20 +1100 (EST) From: Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Message-Id: <199802022204.JAA24121(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Subject: Swedish PUPS To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (PDP Unix Preservation) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 09:04:20 +1100 (EST) Reply-To: wkt(a)cs.adfa.oz.au X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL22 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk Did I send this PDP message on to the list? Warren ----- Forwarded message from beast(a)lintilla2.df.lth.se ----- From: beast(a)lintilla2.df.lth.se Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 14:38:52 +0100 Message-Id: <199801271338.OAA07788@sylvester.> To: wkt(a)cs.adfa.oz.au Subject: PUPS Membership Hi PDP lovers! My name is Lars Persson and I live in the south of Sweden. I am collecting various flavors of PDP11 systems. Mainly Q-bus based ones. Currently I have one system up running UNIX, namely an 11/23 with IDRIS. IDRIS is roughly V6-ish, btw. I also have in my collection a PDP11/73 with BSD 2.11 but this system is currently suffereing from a defective boot sector on its RD54 and my TK25 has burned to cinders.. Can anybody help? Other more or less workable systems are: 11/34, 11/03, 11/23s-/23PLUS, 11/53, PRO-350, VT103 (the VT100 with a built in Qbus for LSI PDPs) and also several VAXen (uVAX II, 11/730 and various VAX-stations). In my collection I also have much litterature, manuals and engineering drawings of PDP11s, spares, RL02 diskpacks, RK05 diskpacks, RX01/02 floppies and much more. Happy to help anybody who needs it. I have been fiddling with PDP11 computers for a considerable number of years and I have also worked with UNIX and networking for a long long time. =) Regards! /Lars Persson, HARLOSA Computer Center ----- End of forwarded message from beast(a)lintilla2.df.lth.se ----- Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA02592 for pups-liszt; Tue, 3 Feb 1998 15:49:37 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f

26 years, 7 months

Re: Installing PDP-11 UNIX w. no tape - solution

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<From: "Steven M. Schultz" <sms(a)moe.2bsd.com> <The TU58's lack of flow control (unless you were on the Vax-750 with <something I believed was called the MRSP roms) made them all but <useless except in a 'standalone' environment. As a boot device they <were just "slower than molasses in January". As a data storage device The tu58 also knows MRSP but the host still has to buffer a 128(plus wrapper) packet in one blast. It's assumption is that the host has plenty of ram and a suitable buffer should be no problem at most data rates. Call it a design error. It's also something that has to be dealt with in all cases of serial communication. As boot device, I used to take the average 750 console tape and rearrange it and on average cut the load time by 60% or more. Seeks are slow being 30 seconds end to end. The fewer the better also the ordder of files can make a difference. I use it to boot a PDT11/130 and also an 11/23 in a BA11va (four slot box). and it's accept able IF the files are in the best order for access. <I tried to use the TU58 on an 11/44 once and it just wouldn't work <reliably when trying to transfer a file from TU58 to disk. The first <time the system had to tape a couple milliseconds to write a block to <disk you had a DL11 overrun and the transfer was corrupt. I have some data and the problem was on the 11/44 console side. It could not keep up with the 9600 baud data from the tu58. <The DL-11 to which the TU58 was attached (could it be hooked up to <something a bit better? I would think so but don't know for sure) <had no buffering/silo - at 9600 there was only 1 millisecond to get <the character and that's cutting things a bit too fine on a ~.5 mips <machine, especially if other things are going on at the same time. I've run z80s/4mhz at 19.2k with no errors it's was the structure of the driver and a total level of hardware buffering of one byte. <Ummm, 'PC's I'm used to don't seem terribly upset at 10 or 20 thousand <interrupts per second - that should be sufficient to handle any 9600 <baud serial line I'd think. they can only because the '450 has a silo of 4 bytes and the 550 it's either 16 or 32 bytes. That's a whole lot of time before you must service it and then there is the matter of a few dozen mips of cpu behind it. <Not 'overhead' as much as just 'slowness'. An 11/44 is about .6 mips <(an 11/73 is about 15% less) - that's quite a bit less than even a <286. No comparison. My 11/23 runs just fine with the TU58 running at 38.4k. the difference is the 11/23 is not using a console processor inbetween. In that case the DLV11j is the higest priority in the bus. My 11/73 also uses the TU58 at 38.4 but the disks (RX02, RQDX3, RL02) are all lower priority. Again there is no problem unless the system is real busy and then the tu58 will do rereads for blocks that were not ack'd. You don't need a lot of mips to recieve data at 9600 and put it in a buffer for later use. Coding a routine to do it reliably is sometimes not as easy as it may look. Also coding in HLL (even C) can add overhead not anticipated and slows execution. the problem in most PDP-11s is the serial buffer in ram is rarely 140 bytes (data plus wrapper) so that 1mS you have then includes the whole file system and that takes a lot of mips to keep up with. <The biggest problem I ran into was the fact that the disk systems <all used SPL-5 while the serial ports (DL11,etc) were at 4. A disk <interrupt would (and did) come in and would delay things just enough <that the DL running at 9600 with no flow control would overrun. That would do it. Try using a DH or DZ interface as they have a silo and can sustain higher rates. <If it's not doing too much else. I don't see an 11/xx handling high <serial line rates without some form of RTS/CTS flowcontrol while a <kernel recompile is going on ;-) If you're using a DHV-11 the <data flow rate is quite a bit less than 38.4k - the bit timings are Its byte timing. the bits are handled at the uart. But your right my systems are lightly loaded and generally run RT11FB or XM. <that fast but the board can't handle it and the effective rate is <lower. A DHQ-11 is quite a bit better but all in all anything over <9600 requires hardware flow control, especially if the data has to <make its way to disk. The serial TU58 however does not have hardware flow control though it can be hacked on to the board. (hint inhibit the TX empty interrupt to the 8085.) FYI the PDT11/130 got around this by using a parallel interface tu58. The parallel interfaced tu58 cannot send a byte until the receiving system take the last one. At one time to prove a point I did do a hacked up tu58 with hardware flow control and a matching DLV card and ran it at 38.4, the performance was impressive even under heavy RSX11 loading. DEC did not do this as it would be a major redesign/requal of the product. They did know the problem well however. The key is look at interupt latency. PDP-11s are OK but when you add something like burst mode DMA where the CPU can be off the buss effectively for significant periods of time there can be performance hits. Allison Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA25353 for pups-liszt; Sun, 1 Feb 1998 13:46:09 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From Greg Lehey <grog(a)lemis.com> Sun Feb 1 12:45:58 1998 Received: from allegro.lemis.com (allegro.lemis.com [192.109.197.134]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA25348 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Sun, 1 Feb 1998 13:46:02 +1100 (EST) Received: from freebie.lemis.com (freebie.lemis.com [192.109.197.137]) by allegro.lemis.com (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA29575; Sun, 1 Feb 1998 13:15:59 +1030 (CST) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.8.8/8.8.7) id NAA08065; Sun, 1 Feb 1998 13:15:58 +1030 (CST) (envelope-from grog) Message-ID: <19980201131558.50751(a)lemis.com> Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 13:15:58 +1030 From: Greg Lehey <grog(a)lemis.com> To: Allison J Parent <allisonp(a)world.std.com> Cc: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Subject: Re: Installing PDP-11 UNIX w. no tape - solution References: <199801311818.AA26294(a)world.std.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.84e In-Reply-To: <199801311818.AA26294(a)world.std.com>; from Allison J Parent on Sat, Jan 31, 1998 at 01:18:24PM -0500 Organization: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk On Sat, Jan 31, 1998 at 01:18:24PM -0500, Allison J Parent wrote: >> From: "Steven M. Schultz" <sms(a)moe.2bsd.com> > >> The DL-11 to which the TU58 was attached (could it be hooked up to >> something a bit better? I would think so but don't know for sure) >> had no buffering/silo - at 9600 there was only 1 millisecond to get >> the character and that's cutting things a bit too fine on a ~.5 mips >> machine, especially if other things are going on at the same time. > > I've run z80s/4mhz at 19.2k with no errors it's was the structure of the > driver and a total level of hardware buffering of one byte. Sure. UNIX drivers have never been particularly optimized for high async interrupt performance. >> Ummm, 'PC's I'm used to don't seem terribly upset at 10 or 20 thousand >> interrupts per second - that should be sufficient to handle any 9600 >> baud serial line I'd think. > > they can only because the '450 has a silo of 4 bytes The 16540 has only one byte buffer. > and the 550 it's either 16 or 32 bytes. The 16550 has 4 bytes, and the 16650 has (I think) 16 bytes. > That's a whole lot of time before you must service it and then there > is the matter of a few dozen mips of cpu behind it. That's more to the point. Don't forget that a high-end Pentium is probably 1000 times the speed of an 11/20. I regularly get 50-60k interrupts per second when downloading fonts to my PostScript printer, and I think the printer is the limiting factor there. > >> Not 'overhead' as much as just 'slowness'. An 11/44 is about .6 mips >> (an 11/73 is about 15% less) - that's quite a bit less than even a >> 286. > > No comparison. My 11/23 runs just fine with the TU58 running at 38.4k. > the difference is the 11/23 is not using a console processor inbetween. > In that case the DLV11j is the higest priority in the bus. > > My 11/73 also uses the TU58 at 38.4 but the disks (RX02, RQDX3, RL02) > are all lower priority. Again there is no problem unless the system is > real busy and then the tu58 will do rereads for blocks that were not > ack'd. Have you modified the kernel? Normally disks will preempt ttys. > Its byte timing. the bits are handled at the uart. But your right > my systems are lightly loaded and generally run RT11FB or XM. Ah. Greg Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA25590 for pups-liszt; Sun, 1 Feb 1998 15:21:11 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f

26 years, 7 months

Re: Installing PDP-11 UNIX w. no tape - solution

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<I get some error messages with restor (``Missing address (header) block'' <which I believe are to do with the 10,240 byte record requests from resto <My code expects 512-byte requests, and I'm doing 20 a time to fulfill th <10,240 request, but still problems. Try slowing down. You may be overflowing the input buffer. This was a common problem on TU58s hooked to the 2nd DL on some systems at speeds above either 4800 or 9600. It only happend in the TU58 to host direction (read) as the opposite path expected a handshake every 128 bytes(to allow the tu58 to actually do the write to tape). It seems the tu58 would send a 512byte block as 4 128byte packets at a sustained rate fast enough to overrun the PDP-11 host input buffer; before it could be emptied. You may be emulating a similar problem. PCs do not service interrupts all that fast and OS overhead can make that longer. Note PDP-11s can have enough overhead and higher priority stuff ahead of the 2nd DL that it cannot take data at greater than 4800 baud (sustained rate) without some kind of handshake to allow processing in between. If the system is basically unloaded like my minimal 11/23 it can run at 38.4! The most likely time when this overrun can happen is while doing processing to write (via file system) to disk and recieving data at the same time. Allison Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA21620 for pups-liszt; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 09:06:40 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Sat Jan 31 08:06:42 1998 Received: from henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (henry.cs.adfa.oz.au [131.236.21.158]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA21615 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 09:06:37 +1100 (EST) Received: (from wkt@localhost) by henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.7.5/8.7.3) id JAA07375; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 09:06:43 +1100 (EST) From: Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Message-Id: <199801302206.JAA07375(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Subject: Re: Installing PDP-11 UNIX w. no tape - solution To: allisonp(a)world.std.com (Allison J Parent) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 09:06:42 +1100 (EST) Cc: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au In-Reply-To: <199801301446.AA19117(a)world.std.com> from Allison J Parent at "Jan 30, 98 09:46:31 am" Reply-To: wkt(a)cs.adfa.oz.au X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL22 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk In article by Allison J Parent: > > <I get some error messages with restor (``Missing address (header) block'' > <which I believe are to do with the 10,240 byte record requests from resto > <My code expects 512-byte requests, and I'm doing 20 a time to fulfill th > <10,240 request, but still problems. > > Try slowing down. You may be overflowing the input buffer. I found the problem - my dump image was corrupt :-). I now have a clean v7 dump of /, and there are no complaints from restor. I've had a few people volunteer to try out the code. I'll clean it up, finish off the docs, and put it up for ftp in a few days, with an email on the PUPS mailing list on how to retrieve it. Cheers, Warren Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA22547 for pups-liszt; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 16:52:16 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From "Steven M. Schultz" <sms(a)moe.2bsd.com> Sat Jan 31 15:36:05 1998 Received: from moe.2bsd.com (0(a)MOE.2BSD.COM [206.139.202.200]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id QAA22542 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 16:52:10 +1100 (EST) Received: (from sms@localhost) by moe.2bsd.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id VAA23209 for pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 21:36:05 -0800 (PST) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 21:36:05 -0800 (PST) From: "Steven M. Schultz" <sms(a)moe.2bsd.com> Message-Id: <199801310536.VAA23209(a)moe.2bsd.com> To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Subject: Re: Installing PDP-11 UNIX w. no tape - solution Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk Hi - I thought I'd chime in with my experience with "high" speed serial transfers... > From: allisonp(a)world.std.com (Allison J Parent) > > Try slowing down. You may be overflowing the input buffer. This was > a common problem on TU58s hooked to the 2nd DL on some systems at speeds > above either 4800 or 9600. It only happend in the TU58 to host direction The TU58's lack of flow control (unless you were on the Vax-750 with something I believed was called the MRSP roms) made them all but useless except in a 'standalone' environment. As a boot device they were just "slower than molasses in January". As a data storage device to be used while the system was up and doing other stuff the TU58 was quite poor. I tried to use the TU58 on an 11/44 once and it just wouldn't work reliably when trying to transfer a file from TU58 to disk. The first time the system had to tape a couple milliseconds to write a block to disk you had a DL11 overrun and the transfer was corrupt. > (read) as the opposite path expected a handshake every 128 bytes(to allow > the tu58 to actually do the write to tape). It seems the tu58 would send > a 512byte block as 4 128byte packets at a sustained rate fast enough to > overrun the PDP-11 host input buffer; before it could be emptied. You The DL-11 to which the TU58 was attached (could it be hooked up to something a bit better? I would think so but don't know for sure) had no buffering/silo - at 9600 there was only 1 millisecond to get the character and that's cutting things a bit too fine on a ~.5 mips machine, especially if other things are going on at the same time. > may be emulating a similar problem. PCs do not service interrupts all > that fast and OS overhead can make that longer. Ummm, 'PC's I'm used to don't seem terribly upset at 10 or 20 thousand interrupts per second - that should be sufficient to handle any 9600 baud serial line I'd think. > Note PDP-11s can have enough overhead and higher priority stuff ahead of > the 2nd DL that it cannot take data at greater than 4800 baud (sustained Not 'overhead' as much as just 'slowness'. An 11/44 is about .6 mips (an 11/73 is about 15% less) - that's quite a bit less than even a 286. The biggest problem I ran into was the fact that the disk systems all used SPL-5 while the serial ports (DL11,etc) were at 4. A disk interrupt would (and did) come in and would delay things just enough that the DL running at 9600 with no flow control would overrun. > rate) without some kind of handshake to allow processing in between. > If the system is basically unloaded like my minimal 11/23 it can run at > 38.4! The most likely time when this overrun can happen is while doing If it's not doing too much else. I don't see an 11/xx handling high serial line rates without some form of RTS/CTS flowcontrol while a kernel recompile is going on ;-) If you're using a DHV-11 the data flow rate is quite a bit less than 38.4k - the bit timings are that fast but the board can't handle it and the effective rate is lower. A DHQ-11 is quite a bit better but all in all anything over 9600 requires hardware flow control, especially if the data has to make its way to disk. Steven Schultz Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id FAA24275 for pups-liszt; Sun, 1 Feb 1998 05:19:03 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f

26 years, 7 months

Re: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<Who wouldn't? (As long as I could put Unix on it instead of VMS, of <course.) Maybe real Unix but I've deleted ultrix in favor of VMS! Maybe NetBSD will sort out some of the problems. Allison Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA00867 for pups-liszt; Mon, 5 Jan 1998 16:24:06 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From Erin Corliss <erin(a)corliss.com> Mon Jan 5 15:23:23 1998 Received: from mb1.mailbank.com (mb1.mailbank.com [204.244.193.15]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA00862 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Mon, 5 Jan 1998 16:23:54 +1100 (EST) Received: from p91.t0.rio.com [206.96.130.191] (HELO corliss.com) by mb1.mailbank.com (AltaVista Mail V2.0H/2.0H BL25H listener) id 0000_00a4_34b0_6e49_a57f; Sun, 04 Jan 1998 21:23:21 -0800 Message-ID: <34B06E4B.20CDBAA(a)corliss.com> Date: Sun, 04 Jan 1998 21:23:23 -0800 From: Erin Corliss <erin(a)corliss.com> Reply-To: erin(a)corliss.com Organization: GTA X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.03 [en] (WinNT; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Subject: ... Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk Hello. I have a free operating system directory at: http://rio.com/~zomad I have a link to the PUPS home page for PDP-11 Unix & was wondering if you can add a link to my page. Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA18889 for pups-liszt; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 15:40:48 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Fri Jan 30 14:40:50 1998 Received: from henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (henry.cs.adfa.oz.au [131.236.21.158]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA18884 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 15:40:44 +1100 (EST) Received: (from wkt@localhost) by henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.7.5/8.7.3) id PAA04976 for pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 15:40:50 +1100 (EST) From: Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Message-Id: <199801300440.PAA04976(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Subject: Installing PDP-11 UNIX w. no tape - solution To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (PDP Unix Preservation) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 15:40:50 +1100 (EST) Reply-To: wkt(a)cs.adfa.oz.au X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL22 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk Hi all, Last year I mentioned the idea of installing PDP-11 UNIX over a serial line, for those people who have real PDP-11s but no tape drives. I've written the code to do this over the past few days, and its time to pass it to someone who actually has a PDP-11 and no tape drive! The code is of course alpha-quality, but I'm using a PC running John Wilson's Ersatz to install 7th Edition on a simulated RK05 right now. I need someone who has a: + PDP-11 which _will_ run 7th Edition + Spare RK05, RP03, RP04, RP05 or RP06 disk + A DL/KL-11 serial port at vector 0176500 (i.e 2nd unit) + An RS-232 null modem with hardware handshaking lines + A machine running a 32-bit Unix to host the other end of the serial connection + Spare time, and a tendency for masochism :-) Someone who also has a PDP-11 running v7, and a source license would be a bonus, as they might be able to help with the debugging. I'm at the point where I can bring in the `boot' file (record 0) off the simulated UNIX install tape, load and run cat, mkfs, icheck and restor. I get some error messages with restor (``Missing address (header) block''), which I believe are to do with the 10,240 byte record requests from restor. My code expects 512-byte requests, and I'm doing 20 a time to fulfill the 10,240 request, but still problems. Once the code is solid, I'd like to add other disks (RL02s etc.), and write a user-mode program to read from the tape once UNIX has booted off disk. This will allow other tape formats (e.g tar) to be read in. If anybody would be willing to participate in getting this stuff to work well, could they e-mail me next week?! Thanks in advance, Warren wkt(a)cs.adfa.oz.au Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id BAA20201 for pups-liszt; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 01:46:41 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f

26 years, 9 months

Re: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<dog-mansion, but unless someone offered me a PDP-11 with a 64-bit data bus <that was made with modern chip manufacturing techniques and had a decent <user interface & peripherals, I'd still choose a PC over a PDP-11. The 32bit version is called a vax! I'll take a vax over a PC anyday. Come to mention it I have 6 Vaxen and 4 operating qbus pdp-11s. Allison Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA26050 for pups-liszt; Tue, 9 Dec 1997 13:20:17 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From Erin Corliss <zomad(a)rio.com> Tue Dec 9 12:21:45 1997 Received: from rio.com (rio.com [206.96.130.10]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA26045 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Tue, 9 Dec 1997 13:20:08 +1100 (EST) Received: from localhost (zomad@localhost) by rio.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA14664; Mon, 8 Dec 1997 18:21:46 -0800 (PST) Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 18:21:45 -0800 (PST) From: Erin Corliss <zomad(a)rio.com> To: Allison J Parent <allisonp(a)world.std.com> cc: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Subject: Re: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal In-Reply-To: <199712090117.AA23476(a)world.std.com> Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.95.971208182054.13496A-100000(a)rio.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk On Mon, 8 Dec 1997, Allison J Parent wrote: > > <dog-mansion, but unless someone offered me a PDP-11 with a 64-bit data bus > <that was made with modern chip manufacturing techniques and had a decent > <user interface & peripherals, I'd still choose a PC over a PDP-11. > > The 32bit version is called a vax! I'll take a vax over a PC anyday. > Come to mention it I have 6 Vaxen and 4 operating qbus pdp-11s. Who wouldn't? (As long as I could put Unix on it instead of VMS, of course.) Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA26200 for pups-liszt; Tue, 9 Dec 1997 14:33:16 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f

26 years, 9 months

Re: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<Does the DL11 port have an interrupt that is driven when data is <received, or do processes have to constantly poll it to receive data? Yes or you can poll. <Is the information stored on a PDP-11 disk in 8 or 9 bit words? How <many bits per word are transmitted/received by the DL11? Disks are 8bit (2 8bit, 1 word = 16bits) and the DL can be set to send 7 or 8 bits and with or with out parity. Allison Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id DAA15000 for pups-liszt; Sat, 6 Dec 1997 03:40:35 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From Neil Johnson <neil(a)skatter.usask.ca> Sat Dec 6 02:40:07 1997 Received: from skatter.USask.Ca (skatter.usask.ca [128.233.14.1]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id DAA14993 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Sat, 6 Dec 1997 03:40:26 +1100 (EST) Received: (from neil@localhost) by skatter.USask.Ca (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA05287; Fri, 5 Dec 1997 10:40:07 -0600 (CST) Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 10:40:07 -0600 (CST) From: Neil Johnson <neil(a)skatter.usask.ca> Message-Id: <199712051640.KAA05287(a)skatter.USask.Ca> To: wkt(a)cs.adfa.oz.au, zomad(a)rio.com Subject: Re: PDP-11 Unix v5 Cc: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk It may be difficult to find a Q-bus RK05 controller. RL01/RL02 drives and controllers are a lot more common, and bigger, so might be a better choice. You might have to switch to v6 Unix to get the RL support though. Neil Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id DAA15046 for pups-liszt; Sat, 6 Dec 1997 03:54:13 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From Tim Shoppa <shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca> Sat Dec 6 02:53:53 1997 Received: from alph02.triumf.ca (alph02.Triumf.CA [142.90.114.18]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id DAA15041 for <pups(a)minnie.CS.ADFA.OZ.AU>; Sat, 6 Dec 1997 03:54:09 +1100 (EST) Received: by alph02.triumf.ca; id AA01585; Fri, 5 Dec 1997 08:53:53 -0800 From: Tim Shoppa <shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca> Message-Id: <9712051653.AA01585(a)alph02.triumf.ca> Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal (fwd) To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 08:53:53 -0800 (PST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL22] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk > Ok, it would be nice to have a way of installing Unix onto a PDP-11 without a > tape drive. Here's a proposal: please comment on it (i.e shoot it down!). I > actually wrote a very similar system to move files off my Apple ][ once. > > The PDP-11 is connected serially to another computer, using a DL11 port. The > other computer will simulate one or more disk drives which are acessible by > commands sent over the serial line. > [Protocol description] > Do we need a more sophisticated protocol with checksums, multiple outstanding > commands, acknowledgments, framing bytes etc.? Your proposal sounds very similar to the existing protocol (RSP) used to access remote block-addressable devices (TU58's) over a DL11 port. Why not just choose the RSP protocol? It has the advantages of already being defined and it already has support in most DEC OS's. It could be easily extended to support larger devices. And RSP-servers already exist for BSD-ish systems - see, for example, ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/utils/tu… Tim. (shoppa(a)triumf.ca) Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA19692 for pups-liszt; Sun, 7 Dec 1997 15:15:38 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Sun Dec 7 14:15:41 1997 Received: from henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (henry.cs.adfa.oz.au [131.236.21.158]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA19687 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Sun, 7 Dec 1997 15:15:34 +1100 (EST) Received: (from wkt@localhost) by henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.7.5/8.7.3) id PAA06858; Sun, 7 Dec 1997 15:15:41 +1100 (EST) From: Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Message-Id: <199712070415.PAA06858(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Subject: Re: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal To: robin(a)falstaf.demon.co.uk (Robin Birch) Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 15:15:41 +1100 (EST) Cc: erin(a)corliss.com, pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au In-Reply-To: <57g$OAAVC8h0Ewlc(a)falstaf.demon.co.uk> from Robin Birch at "Dec 5, 97 08:51:33 am" Reply-To: wkt(a)cs.adfa.oz.au X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL22 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk In article by Robin Birch: > This shouldn't be a problem. Thinking from a 2.11 point of view, if > something that could load the standalone kernel was written and an > additional deveice driver included that would talk over the serial line > once the standalone stuff was up you could treat the PC, or whatever, as > a tape drive. Whilst this doesn't give all the frills of full disc > access it has a couple of good thigs to it: I was thinking of simulating a disk, as then we could manipulate the disk image using an emulator on the PC end, and still use it on the PDP-11 end. I've made some changes to the suggestions I emailed, and if I get some time just after Xmas, I'll try to get something working under v6. Then I can port it up to v7 and 2BSD. Warren Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA19707 for pups-liszt; Sun, 7 Dec 1997 15:17:19 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Sun Dec 7 14:17:16 1997 Received: from henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (henry.cs.adfa.oz.au [131.236.21.158]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA19702 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Sun, 7 Dec 1997 15:17:15 +1100 (EST) Received: (from wkt@localhost) by henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.7.5/8.7.3) id PAA06883; Sun, 7 Dec 1997 15:17:16 +1100 (EST) From: Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Message-Id: <199712070417.PAA06883(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Subject: Re: PDP-11 Unix v5 To: neil(a)skatter.usask.ca (Neil Johnson) Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 15:17:16 +1100 (EST) Cc: wkt(a)cs.adfa.oz.au, zomad(a)rio.com, pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au In-Reply-To: <199712051640.KAA05287(a)skatter.USask.Ca> from Neil Johnson at "Dec 5, 97 10:40:07 am" Reply-To: wkt(a)cs.adfa.oz.au X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL22 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk In article by Neil Johnson: > It may be difficult to find a Q-bus RK05 controller. RL01/RL02 drives > and controllers are a lot more common, and bigger, so might be a better > choice. You might have to switch to v6 Unix to get the RL support though. Given how close v6 and v6 were, backporting the RL driver to v5 shouldn't present too many problems. I hope :-) Warren Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA19719 for pups-liszt; Sun, 7 Dec 1997 15:18:32 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Sun Dec 7 14:18:42 1997 Received: from henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (henry.cs.adfa.oz.au [131.236.21.158]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA19714 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Sun, 7 Dec 1997 15:18:28 +1100 (EST) Received: (from wkt@localhost) by henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.7.5/8.7.3) id PAA06903; Sun, 7 Dec 1997 15:18:42 +1100 (EST) From: Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Message-Id: <199712070418.PAA06903(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Subject: Re: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal (fwd) To: shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa) Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 15:18:42 +1100 (EST) Cc: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (PDP Unix Preservation) In-Reply-To: <9712051653.AA01585(a)alph02.triumf.ca> from Tim Shoppa at "Dec 5, 97 08:53:53 am" Reply-To: wkt(a)cs.adfa.oz.au X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL22 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk In article by Tim Shoppa: > Your proposal sounds very similar to the existing protocol (RSP) used > to access remote block-addressable devices (TU58's) over a DL11 port. > Why not just choose the RSP protocol? It has the advantages of already > being defined and it already has support in most DEC OS's. It could > be easily extended to support larger devices. And RSP-servers > already exist for BSD-ish systems - see, for example, > > ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/utils/tu… > > Tim. (shoppa(a)triumf.ca) How complex is the tu58 protocol? I wanted something that we could hand-toggle the boot code, if necessary. I'll pull that file and have a look. Thanks Tim, Warren Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA19870 for pups-liszt; Sun, 7 Dec 1997 16:17:32 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From Tim Shoppa <shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca> Sun Dec 7 15:17:23 1997 Received: from alph02.triumf.ca (alph02.Triumf.CA [142.90.114.18]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA19865 for <pups(a)minnie.CS.ADFA.OZ.AU>; Sun, 7 Dec 1997 16:17:27 +1100 (EST) Received: by alph02.triumf.ca; id AA22184; Sat, 6 Dec 1997 21:17:23 -0800 From: Tim Shoppa <shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca> Message-Id: <9712070517.AA22184(a)alph02.triumf.ca> Subject: Re: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Date: Sat, 6 Dec 1997 21:17:23 -0800 (PST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL22] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk > How complex is the tu58 protocol? I wanted something that we could > hand-toggle the boot code, if necessary. Many (most) Q-bus processors have TU58 bootstraps in firmware. Certainly all 11/73B, 11/83, 11/93, 11/84, and 11/94 have the bootstraps. Later Unibus processors (11/24, 11/44) often had TU58 bootstrap PROMs to boot diagnostics from TU58. The TU58 drivers aren't as simple as RK05 drivers (is anything as simple as a RK05 driver?) but they are comparable with, say, RL01/02 and RX02 drivers. One thing we don't want people doing is thinking that the TU58 protocol can be used as a poor man's system disk. Yes, it is flexible enough to be used as such, but it would be cruel to allow anyone to do that to themselves :-) Tim. (shoppa(a)triumf.ca) Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id EAA21405 for pups-liszt; Mon, 8 Dec 1997 04:19:06 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From "Pete Turnbull <pnt103(a)cs.york.ac.uk>" <pete(a)indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk> Mon Dec 8 03:18:36 1997 Received: from indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk (ppp6.york.ac.uk [144.32.4.106]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id EAA21400 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Mon, 8 Dec 1997 04:18:57 +1100 (EST) Received: by indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk (940816.SGI.8.6.9/940406.SGI.AUTO) for pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au id RAA01057; Sun, 7 Dec 1997 17:18:47 GMT From: "Pete Turnbull <pnt103(a)cs.york.ac.uk>" <pete(a)indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk> Message-Id: <9712071718.ZM1055(a)indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk> Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 17:18:36 +0000 Reply-To: pnt103(a)cs.york.ac.uk X-Mailer: Z-Mail (3.2.2 10apr95 MediaMail) To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Subject: Re: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk On Dec 6, 21:17, Tim Shoppa wrote: > Many (most) Q-bus processors have TU58 bootstraps in firmware. > Certainly all 11/73B, 11/83, 11/93, 11/84, and 11/94 have the > bootstraps. Are you sure, Tim? My 11/73 doesn't, and according to my microPDP-11 Maintenance Manual, only the 11/23+ and microPDP-11/23 have TU58 -- the only tape devices listed for 11/73 and 11/83 are TK25 and TK50 (my manual is too old to include 11/53 and 11/93). -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id FAA21591 for pups-liszt; Mon, 8 Dec 1997 05:05:40 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From Tim Shoppa <shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca> Mon Dec 8 04:05:23 1997 Received: from alph02.triumf.ca (alph02.Triumf.CA [142.90.114.18]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id FAA21582 for <pups(a)minnie.CS.ADFA.OZ.AU>; Mon, 8 Dec 1997 05:05:29 +1100 (EST) Received: by alph02.triumf.ca; id AA01939; Sun, 7 Dec 1997 10:05:24 -0800 From: Tim Shoppa <shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca> Message-Id: <9712071805.AA01939(a)alph02.triumf.ca> Subject: Re: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 10:05:23 -0800 (PST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL22] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk > > Many (most) Q-bus processors have TU58 bootstraps in firmware. > > Certainly all 11/73B, 11/83, 11/93, 11/84, and 11/94 have the > > bootstraps. > > Are you sure, Tim? My 11/73 doesn't Is this a KDJ11A (dual-height, no boot ROMs on the CPU board) or a KDJ11B (quad-height, boot ROMs on the CPU board)? If you have a KDJ11A, then your boot ROM resides in a MXV11, a BDV11, or elsewhere (possibly a third-party controller) in your system. (You'll notice that I said "11/73B" in my above message, because the KDJ11A has no boot ROMs at all...) My KDJ11B has the following built in bootstraps (listed through "Setup" in the boot menu or with a "Boot" followed by a "?"): DU 0-255 CPU ROM RDnn, RXnn, RC25, RAnn DL 0-3 CPU ROM RL01, RL02 DX 0-1 CPU ROM RX01 DY 0-1 CPU ROM RX02 DD 0-1 CPU ROM TU58 DK 0-7 CPU ROM RK05 MU 0-255 CPU ROM TK50, TU81 MS 0-3 CPU ROM TK25, TS05 XH 0-1 CPU ROM DECNET ETHERNET NU 0-15 CPU ROM DECNET DUV11 NE 0-15 CPU ROM DECNET DLV11-E NF 0-15 CPU ROM DECNET DLV11-F If your KDJ11B doesn't allow you to see the above list, then the boot menu has been disabled and it has been set to only auto-boot. I can tell you how to reconfigure to get at the boot menu. > and according to my microPDP-11 > Maintenance Manual, only the 11/23+ and microPDP-11/23 have TU58 -- the only > tape devices listed for 11/73 and 11/83 are TK25 and TK50 (my manual is too > old to include 11/53 and 11/93). Part of the confusion may lie in the fact that TU58's appear to the system to be disk (block-addressable) instead of tape devices :-). The downside, of course, is that it's a disk with a 30-second seek time! I certainly don't want anyone to think that I'm extolling the TU58 as a perfect wonderful device. There are lots of reasons to *not* use them. My point was mainly that the RSP (radial serial protocol) used to speak to them is well-defined and already exists; there's no use in re-inventing the wheel. Tim. (shoppa(a)triumf.ca) Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id IAA21994 for pups-liszt; Mon, 8 Dec 1997 08:11:11 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From "Pete Turnbull <pnt103(a)cs.york.ac.uk>" <pete(a)indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk> Mon Dec 8 07:10:43 1997 Received: from indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk (ppp5.york.ac.uk [144.32.4.105]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id IAA21989 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Mon, 8 Dec 1997 08:10:59 +1100 (EST) Received: by indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk (940816.SGI.8.6.9/940406.SGI.AUTO) for pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au id VAA01507; Sun, 7 Dec 1997 21:10:53 GMT From: "Pete Turnbull <pnt103(a)cs.york.ac.uk>" <pete(a)indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk> Message-Id: <9712072110.ZM1505(a)indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk> Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 21:10:43 +0000 In-Reply-To: Tim Shoppa <shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca> "Re: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal" (Dec 7, 10:05) References: <9712071805.AA01939(a)alph02.triumf.ca> Reply-To: pnt103(a)cs.york.ac.uk X-Mailer: Z-Mail (3.2.2 10apr95 MediaMail) To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Subject: Re: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk On Dec 7, 10:05, Tim Shoppa wrote: > > > Many (most) Q-bus processors have TU58 bootstraps in firmware. > > > Certainly all 11/73B, 11/83, 11/93, 11/84, and 11/94 have the > > > bootstraps. > > > > Are you sure, Tim? My 11/73 doesn't > Is this a KDJ11A (dual-height, no boot ROMs on the CPU board) or Well, my KDJ11 systems are somewhat non-standard, so it's possibly not relevant. I can't easily check ATM, as they're running live Unix systems :-) My point was that I didn't think the TU58 was in all revisions of the bootstrap ROMs. I know how to get the information (from a variety of revisions and CPUs) because I not only have the documentation, I used to be employed as a maintenance 'engineer' on QBus systems. > Part of the confusion may lie in the fact that TU58's appear to the system > to be disk (block-addressable) instead of tape devices :-). Indeed, but we both know that DD means tape :-) > The downside, > of course, is that it's a disk with a 30-second seek time! But still better than some systems. (Fond memories of TU56's on a PDP8, and not-so-fond memories of friends' Commodore disks, which seemed slower even than that). And as Tim points out, RSP is well-defined, tried, and tested. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id LAA22424 for pups-liszt; Mon, 8 Dec 1997 11:15:07 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From Tim Shoppa <shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca> Mon Dec 8 10:14:41 1997 Received: from alph02.triumf.ca (alph02.Triumf.CA [142.90.114.18]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id LAA22416 for <pups(a)minnie.CS.ADFA.OZ.AU>; Mon, 8 Dec 1997 11:14:57 +1100 (EST) Received: by alph02.triumf.ca; id AA24774; Sun, 7 Dec 1997 16:14:41 -0800 From: Tim Shoppa <shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca> Message-Id: <9712080014.AA24774(a)alph02.triumf.ca> Subject: Re: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 16:14:41 -0800 (PST) Cc: shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL22] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk > Well, my KDJ11 systems are somewhat non-standard, so it's possibly not > relevant. I can't easily check ATM, as they're running live Unix systems :-) > My point > was that I didn't think the TU58 was in all revisions of the bootstrap ROMs. > > I know how to get the information (from a variety of revisions and CPUs) > because I not only have the documentation, I used to be employed as a > maintenance 'engineer' on QBus systems. OK, then, I *think* the most complete official summary of hardware bootstraps is Micronote #15, something that every Q-bus maintenance engineer ought to have readily available... If our esteemed list-owner will allow me to post an excerpt from it: *begin excerpt* +============+======================================================+ | | | | BOOT | DESCRIPTION | | DEVICE | | | | | +============+======================================================+ | BDV11 | Bus Terminator, Bootstrap & Diagnostic ROM | | | used primarily with older LSI-11 configurations | +------------+------------------------------------------------------+ | MXV11-A2 | Bootstrap ROM set designed for MXV11-A board | +------------+------------------------------------------------------+ | MXV11-B2 | Bootstrap ROM set designed for MXV11-BF & MRV11-D | +------------+------------------------------------------------------+ | KDF11-BA | Bootstrap ROM on board PDP-11/23+ systems | +------------+------------------------------------------------------+ | KDF11-BE | Bootstrap ROM on board MicroPDP-11/23 systems | +------------+------------------------------------------------------+ | KDF11-BF | New Bootstrap ROM for PDP-11/23+ and MicroPDP-11/23 | +------------+------------------------------------------------------+ | KXT11-A2 | Bootstrap ROM on board Falcon | +------------+------------------------------------------------------+ | KXT11-A5 | Bootstrap ROM on board Falcon-Plus | +------------+------------------------------------------------------+ | KDJ11-B | Bootstrap ROM on board MicroPDP-11/73 CPU | +------------+------------------------------------------------------+ | uVAX I | Bootstrap ROM on board MicroVAX I CPU | +============+======================================================+ Page 2 BOOTSTRAP DEVICE SUPPORT +==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+ | DEVICE | BDV11 | MXV11-A2 | MXV11-B2 | KDF11-BA | KDF11-BE | | | | | | | | | | Rev A | |see Note 2| part no | part no. | | | | | | 23-339E2| 23-157E4| | |see Note 1| | | 23-340E2| 23-158E4| +==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+ | RX01 | X | X | X | X | X | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | RX02 | X | X | X | X | X | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | TU58 |see Note 1| X | X | X | X | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | RL01/2 | X | X | X | X | X | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | MRV11-C | | X | | X | | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | MRV11-D | | | | | | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | RK05 | X | X | | | | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | RX50 | | | X | | X | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | RD51 | | | X | | X | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | RD52 | | | | | | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | TSV05 | | | X | | | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | TK25 | | | | | | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | RC25 | | | | | | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | DEQNA | | | | | | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | DLV11-E | X | | X | X | | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | DLV11-F | X | | X | X | | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | DUV11 | X | | X | X | | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | DPV11 | | | X | | | +==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+ Page 3 BOOTSTRAP DEVICE SUPPORT +==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+ | DEVICE | KDF11-BF | KXT11-A2 | KXT11-A5 | KDJ11-B | uVAX I | | | | | | | | | | part no | | |available |available | | | 23-183E4| | | on CPU | on CPU | | | 23-184E4| | |board only|board only| +==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+ | RX01 | X | X | X | X | | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | RX02 | X | X | X | X | | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | TU58 | X | X | X | X | | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | RL01/2 | X | | X | X | | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | MRV11-C | | | | | | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | MRV11-D | | | | | X | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | RK05 | | | | X | | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | RX50 | X | | X | X | X | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | RD51 | X | | X | X | X | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | RD52 | X | | | X | X | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | TSV05 | X | | | | | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | TK25 | X | | | X | | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | RC25 | X | | |See note 3|See note 3| +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | DEQNA | X | | | X | X | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | DLV11-E | | | | X | | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | DLV11-F | | | | X | | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | DUV11 | | | | X | | +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | DPV11 | | | | | | +==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+ Page 4 NOTES: ------ (1) The information in the BDV11 column refers to the Rev A chips. There were also Rev O chips and an additional TU58 chip that can be added to the board: Rev O: Part numbers 23-010E2, 23-011E2 Does NOT support: DLV11-F, RX02 as bootable devices TU58 ROM: Part number 23-126F3 Inserted into socket XE40. Other ROM must be Rev A. Allows use of the TU58 DECtape II as a bootable device. *end excerpt* It looks to me like the only devices with more complete than TU58 hardware bootstrap support in the Q-bus world are RX01 and RX02... and RX02 is already supported for the standalone utilities in BSD2.11, thanks to the efforts of someone who will here go nameless :-) Tim. Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id CAA24287 for pups-liszt; Tue, 9 Dec 1997 02:01:48 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From Erin Corliss <zomad(a)rio.com> Tue Dec 9 01:03:34 1997 Received: from rio.com (rio.com [206.96.130.10]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id CAA24282 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Tue, 9 Dec 1997 02:01:43 +1100 (EST) Received: from localhost (zomad@localhost) by rio.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id HAA29933 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Mon, 8 Dec 1997 07:03:34 -0800 (PST) Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 07:03:34 -0800 (PST) From: Erin Corliss <zomad(a)rio.com> To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Subject: Re: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal In-Reply-To: <9712070517.AA22184(a)alph02.triumf.ca> Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.95.971208064741.29193B-100000(a)rio.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk On Sat, 6 Dec 1997, Tim Shoppa wrote: > One thing we don't want people doing is thinking that the TU58 > protocol can be used as a poor man's system disk. Yes, it is > flexible enough to be used as such, but it would be cruel to > allow anyone to do that to themselves :-) Ummm.... I'd just like to point out here that if I was intending to put PDP-11 Unix to any meaningful use (which *would* be a terrible thing to do to myself) I'd just run an emulator on one of my other computers. What I'm looking for here is a project I can kill some of my weekends on. I was thinking eventually I could wire the /usr/games/chess up to my web page so people could "Play a game of chess with the PDP-11!", you know, as kind of a freak show act.... Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id EAA24704 for pups-liszt; Tue, 9 Dec 1997 04:46:07 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From "Daniel A. Seagraves" <dseagrav(a)bsdserver.tek-star.net> Tue Dec 9 03:35:02 1997 Received: from bsdserver.tek-star.net ([206.29.81.10]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id EAA24699 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Tue, 9 Dec 1997 04:46:01 +1100 (EST) Received: from localhost (dseagrav@localhost) by bsdserver.tek-star.net (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id LAA09165; Mon, 8 Dec 1997 11:35:03 -0600 (CST) Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 11:35:02 -0600 (CST) From: "Daniel A. Seagraves" <dseagrav(a)bsdserver.tek-star.net> To: Erin Corliss <zomad(a)rio.com> cc: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Subject: Re: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.95.971208064741.29193B-100000(a)rio.com> Message-ID: <Pine.BSI.3.95.971208113224.9085A-100000(a)bsdserver.tek-star.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk On Mon, 8 Dec 1997, Erin Corliss wrote: > Ummm.... I'd just like to point out here that if I was intending to put > PDP-11 Unix to any meaningful use (which *would* be a terrible thing to > do to myself) I'd just run an emulator on one of my other computers. What > I'm looking for here is a project I can kill some of my weekends on. I > was thinking eventually I could wire the /usr/games/chess up to my web > page so people could "Play a game of chess with the PDP-11!", you know, as > kind of a freak show act.... Freak show? Actually, an emulator on a PC would be more of a freak show! I have come to the conclusion that PCs are freaks - REAL computers come in racks! The bigger the better, unless I can't store it... (Speaking of which: Anyone want an IBM S/34 in running condition with software? [Loads of 8" floppies]) Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA25478 for pups-liszt; Tue, 9 Dec 1997 09:17:15 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From Erin Corliss <zomad(a)rio.com> Tue Dec 9 08:19:01 1997 Received: from rio.com (rio.com [206.96.130.10]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA25473 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Tue, 9 Dec 1997 09:17:11 +1100 (EST) Received: from localhost (zomad@localhost) by rio.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA28217; Mon, 8 Dec 1997 14:19:01 -0800 (PST) Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 14:19:01 -0800 (PST) From: Erin Corliss <zomad(a)rio.com> To: "Daniel A. Seagraves" <dseagrav(a)bsdserver.tek-star.net> cc: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Subject: Re: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSI.3.95.971208113224.9085A-100000(a)bsdserver.tek-star.net> Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.95.971208135352.26457B-100000(a)rio.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk On Mon, 8 Dec 1997, Daniel A. Seagraves wrote: > Freak show? Actually, an emulator on a PC would be more of a freak show! Well, personally I think it's the *realness* of the thing that sells tickets to freak shows. You can paint all the pictures of two headed babies you want, but the guy who has a living one in a jar is the one who draws the crowd. 8^) > I have come to the conclusion that PCs are freaks - REAL computers come in > racks! The bigger the better, unless I can't store it... I'm not going to argue for PC's. My roommate & I have about 20 of them lying around and we've been working furiously lately to consolidate them into one big rackmounted, networked Linux system. In fact one of the projects that's been slowly moving toward the front of my mind is to modify the forking and piping system in Linux so that the OS can dynamically allocate networked motherboards when it needs to run new tasks... Like if you run two tasks from the console it will run one on the local machine and pick a remote machine on the network to run the next one, then pipe the output from both of them back to the console so they both appear to have been run on the local machine. It wouldn't increase the "BogoMips" but it would be nice for graphics rendering, inexpensive multiuser systems, or anything else that needs or can use multiple processes. But I digress. Yes, PC's are built like a psychotic dog-mansion, but unless someone offered me a PDP-11 with a 64-bit data bus that was made with modern chip manufacturing techniques and had a decent user interface & peripherals, I'd still choose a PC over a PDP-11. Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA25634 for pups-liszt; Tue, 9 Dec 1997 10:18:59 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From Tim Shoppa <shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca> Tue Dec 9 09:16:11 1997 Received: from alph02.triumf.ca (alph02.Triumf.CA [142.90.114.18]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA25629 for <pups(a)minnie.CS.ADFA.OZ.AU>; Tue, 9 Dec 1997 10:18:52 +1100 (EST) Received: by alph02.triumf.ca; id AA10544; Mon, 8 Dec 1997 15:16:11 -0800 From: Tim Shoppa <shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca> Message-Id: <9712082316.AA10544(a)alph02.triumf.ca> Subject: Re: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal To: zomad(a)rio.com (Erin Corliss) Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 15:16:11 -0800 (PST) Cc: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.95.971208064741.29193B-100000(a)rio.com> from "Erin Corliss" at Dec 8, 97 07:03:34 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL22] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk > Ummm.... I'd just like to point out here that if I was intending to put > PDP-11 Unix to any meaningful use (which *would* be a terrible thing to > do to myself) I'd just run an emulator on one of my other computers. What > I'm looking for here is a project I can kill some of my weekends on. I > was thinking eventually I could wire the /usr/games/chess up to my web > page so people could "Play a game of chess with the PDP-11!", you know, as > kind of a freak show act.... Well, if you just want a minimal system that can play simple games through the console port, you don't need any of the Unices. RT-11 is perfectly servicable and will boot from floppy or TU58 quite nicely; it's even possible to have a working TCP/IP implementation on a 11/03 this way. Tim. Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA25904 for pups-liszt; Tue, 9 Dec 1997 12:17:18 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f

26 years, 9 months

PDP-11, VAX, etc. hardware in Italy or near

by S. Sigala

Hi, I'm interested in buying old hardware like PDP-11, VAX, Sun, etc., if possible near Italy (or in E.U.). Can someone subscribed to this list suggest me [someone|a company|a university] that sells this type of hardware, please? Regards, Sandro Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA15858 for pups-liszt; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 09:00:59 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Fri Oct 10 09:00:59 1997 Received: from henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (henry.cs.adfa.oz.au [131.236.21.158]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA15853 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 09:00:55 +1000 (EST) Received: (from wkt@localhost) by henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.7.5/8.7.3) id JAA02541 for pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 09:00:59 +1000 (EST) From: Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Message-Id: <199710092300.JAA02541(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Subject: PDP-11 Xenix To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (PDP Unix Preservation) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 09:00:59 +1000 (EST) Reply-To: wkt(a)cs.adfa.oz.au X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL22 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk I just received this email from Frank Wortner. Anybody have a copy of PDP-11 Xenix? Warren ----- Forwarded message from Frank Wortner ----- From: "Frank Wortner" <fwortner(a)prodigy.net> To: <wkt(a)cs.adfa.oz.au> Subject: Re: Request to Join PUPS I've sent off email to a friend of mine who preserved some materials from a now-defunct software company we used to work for. He *might* have that tape. I regret not keeping track of it, but fifteen years have elapsed since I last booted it. Too bad. PDP-11 Xenix had a number of nice features. o It was based on the Seventh Edition. o It ran on everything from a PDP-11/23 on up. o It could simulate split instruction and data space on non I&D machines. (*) o It had a complete shutdown procedure (an elaborate /etc/shutdown script) o The kernel was delivered as an archive library (".a" file), so you could reconfigure without source. Perhaps someone at SCO (or Microsoft) may still have a tape of it. Most software firms archive their products in secure vaults, so it might still exist in some warehouse. (*) The scheme involved paging the instructions while the data remained resident. The first 8K of the program was always resident and contained a jump table and supporting software. The next 8K held whatever instructions were executing at the time, while the remaining 48K was reserved for the data and stack segments. Building a simulated I&D executable required the user to link once as a pure executable, once as a split executable, and finally running both executables through a program which built the final simulated split I&D executable. The compiler had an option ('-j' if I recall correctly) that performed these three links automatically. Sorry for the rambling note, but I'm just a bit overwhelmed by nostalgia. ;-) Frank ----- End of forwarded message from Frank Wortner ----- Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA16074 for pups-liszt; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 10:58:50 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From "Frank Wortner" <fwortner(a)prodigy.net> Fri Oct 10 10:58:40 1997 Received: from europe.std.com (europe.std.com [199.172.62.20]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA16069 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 10:58:45 +1000 (EST) Received: from world.std.com by europe.std.com (8.7.6/BZS-8-1.0) id UAA27221; Thu, 9 Oct 1997 20:58:40 -0400 (EDT) Received: by world.std.com (5.65c/Spike-2.0) id AA13113; Thu, 9 Oct 1997 20:58:40 -0400 Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 20:58:40 -0400 From: allisonp(a)world.std.com (Allison J Parent) Message-Id: <199710100058.AA13113(a)world.std.com> To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Subject: Re: PDP-11 Xenix Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk <I just received this email from Frank Wortner. Anybody have a copy of PDP-1 <Xenix? < < Warren Well yes, sorta. It's on the net, John Wilson has it on ftp.dbit.com. The however is it's for the PRO350/380 systems. I don't know if it can be moved to more standard PDP-11 configurations. Allison Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA16364 for pups-liszt; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 13:20:26 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From "David C. Jenner" <djenner(a)halcyon.com> Fri Oct 10 13:20:01 1997 Received: from mgate.nwnexus.com (mgate.nwnexus.com [206.63.63.100]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA16359 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 13:20:19 +1000 (EST) Received: from halcyon.com (blv-lx103-ip6.nwnexus.net [206.63.41.56]) by mgate.nwnexus.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA14086; Thu, 9 Oct 1997 20:19:57 -0700 Message-ID: <343D9EE1.1E1F32E4(a)halcyon.com> Date: Thu, 09 Oct 1997 20:20:01 -0700 From: "David C. Jenner" <djenner(a)halcyon.com> Reply-To: djenner(a)halcyon.com X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.03 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Allison J Parent <allisonp(a)world.std.com> CC: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Subject: Re: PDP-11 Xenix References: <199710100058.AA13113(a)world.std.com> Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------9AECC2A19114B8324D6E2D6A" Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------9AECC2A19114B8324D6E2D6A Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I don't think John has it at ftp.dbit.com. And I doubt that XENIX is anywhere on the net. I don't even know if there was a PDP-11 XENIX. (It was originally MS, afterall. They "sold" it to SCO way back, before SCO collected everything else.) There is, however, VENIX (no commercial relation to XENIX other than a common parent) on ftp.update.uu.se. This version of XENIX is for the DEC Pro350/380, which is, essentially, a PDP-11. There was also a VENIX for "real" PDP-11s. Dave Allison J Parent wrote: > > <I just received this email from Frank Wortner. Anybody have a copy of PDP-1 > <Xenix? > < > < Warren > > Well yes, sorta. It's on the net, John Wilson has it on ftp.dbit.com. The > however is it's for the PRO350/380 systems. I don't know if it can be moved > to more standard PDP-11 configurations. > > Allison --------------9AECC2A19114B8324D6E2D6A Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii; name="vcard.vcf" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Description: Card for David C. Jenner Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="vcard.vcf" begin: vcard fn: David C. Jenner n: Jenner;David C. adr: 3153 N.E. 84th Street;;;Seattle;WA;98115-4717;USA email;internet: djenner(a)halcyon.com tel;fax: 206-527-2019 tel;home: 206-527-2018 x-mozilla-cpt: ;0 x-mozilla-html: FALSE version: 2.1 end: vcard --------------9AECC2A19114B8324D6E2D6A-- Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA16464 for pups-liszt; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 14:12:58 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f

26 years, 10 months

Re: PDP-11 Xenix

by allisonp＠world.std.com

Dave, <I don't think John has it at ftp.dbit.com. And I doubt that XENIX is <anywhere on the net. I don't even know if there was a PDP-11 XENIX. (It <was originally MS, afterall. They "sold" it to SCO way back, before SCO <collected everything else.) Your right, drain beth, err brain death. Sometimes all those *nixs are the same to me. Especially after configuring three vaxen for VMS and installing it. I know heresy but, Netbsd has proven uninstallable here on all four systems. <DEC Pro350/380, which is, essentially, a PDP-11. There was also a VENIX <for "real" PDP-11s. Well venix on the pro350 runs far better than POS! In fact it's the only *nix running here as even slackware has had problems (bad CD!). That however is news! Is there a version of venix for "real" PDP-11s? on the net? Allison Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA16515 for pups-liszt; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 14:46:48 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From Greg Lehey <grog(a)lemis.com> Fri Oct 10 14:46:33 1997 Received: from freebie.lemis.com (gregl1.lnk.telstra.net [139.130.136.133]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA16510 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 14:46:43 +1000 (EST) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.8.7/8.8.5) id OAA22633; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 14:16:33 +0930 (CST) Message-ID: <19971010141633.30732(a)lemis.com> Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 14:16:33 +0930 From: Greg Lehey <grog(a)lemis.com> To: Allison J Parent <allisonp(a)world.std.com> Cc: djenner(a)halcyon.com, pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Subject: Re: PDP-11 Xenix References: <199710100412.AA13660(a)world.std.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.84e In-Reply-To: <199710100412.AA13660(a)world.std.com>; from Allison J Parent on Fri, Oct 10, 1997 at 12:12:45AM -0400 Organisation: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8250 Fax: +61-8-8388-8250 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Fight-Spam-Now: http://www.cauce.org Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk On Fri, Oct 10, 1997 at 12:12:45AM -0400, Allison J Parent wrote: > Dave, > > <I don't think John has it at ftp.dbit.com. And I doubt that XENIX is > <anywhere on the net. I don't even know if there was a PDP-11 XENIX. (It > <was originally MS, afterall. They "sold" it to SCO way back, before SCO > <collected everything else.) I thought SCO developed XENIX right from the word go, only in those days they belonged to Microsoft. > Your right, drain beth, err brain death. Sometimes all those *nixs are the > same to me. Especially after configuring three vaxen for VMS and installing > it. I know heresy but, Netbsd has proven uninstallable here on all four > systems. Interesting. What was the problem? Greg Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id BAA17679 for pups-liszt; Sat, 11 Oct 1997 01:02:58 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From "Frank Wortner" <fwortner(a)prodigy.net> Sat Oct 11 00:57:18 1997 Received: from mail1w-int.prodigy.net (pimout1-ext.prodigy.net [198.83.18.53]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id BAA17674 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Sat, 11 Oct 1997 01:02:51 +1000 (EST) Received: from seeker.prodigy.com (seeker.prodigy.com [199.4.137.72]) by pimout1-int.prodigy.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA81722 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 10:57:23 -0400 From: "Frank Wortner" <fwortner(a)prodigy.net> To: "PDP-11 Unix Preservation Society" <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au> Subject: Re: PDP-11 Xenix (LONG) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 10:57:18 -0400 Message-ID: <01bcd58c$ce268560$488904c7(a)seeker.prodigy.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.71.1712.3 Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk Since I'm the one that started this --- albeit indirectly --- let me try to explain. Way back when --- about 1981 or 82 --- I worked for a small (now defunct) software company. We owned 2 PDP-11/23s. Initially, we ran a distribution of the Sixth Edition on them. That came from a company in New York --- that's where I am geographically, BTW --- called Yourdon. The system was called UV6. After a while, we decided to upgrade to V7. At the time, we had begun a relationship with another (now defunct) firm called Lifeboat Associates (also in New York, later in Tarrytown, NY). They distributed microcomputer software, principally CP/M-based. They were a Microsoft distributor. Microsoft had just started Unix development at the time. Lifeboat sold us a V7 system: Microsoft PDP-11 Xenix. I know it was Microsoft because the tape lables said so, and I remember that the line printer printed release notes contained a banner page that indicated that they came from Microsoft's DEC 20(!) (cheerfully named "Microsoft Heating Plant"). PD.-11 Xenix was essentially V7, but it had a few added features. Processor support included all models of PDP-11 with MMUs: 23s, 34s, 40s, 45s, 55s, 60s, and 70s. It had split I&D space emulation --- borrowed, I believe from 2.something BSD. That emulation required a grand total of three(!) link passes, but the compiler driver was modified to do this automatically if you specified the "-j" option. Instead of source, the kernel was delivered mostly as .o files and .a libraries, so you could reconfigure the OS without source. The reconfigure programs just spat out some assembly language and C "glue" that you compiled and linked with the .o and .a files. In fact, this was pretty much automated. The system also had a rather extensive /etc./shutdown shell script which calmly and thoroughly brought the system to a quiescent state and could optionally reboot or halt it. Although the OS was pretty big --- I find it amazing that I thought of it as "big" ;-) --- you could, with some effort build a boot floppy on a RX02 diskette. That could run exactly 1 (one) process --- the RX02 system had *no* swap space. I remember system recovery sessions in which I constantly had to boot the floppy, see the shell prompt, and then "exec fsck" and watch as fsck finished its run, and init respawned the shell! Anyhow, I know I *used to have* the release notes and I *might* have had the tape, but both, sadly, are probably lost. I was wondering if anyone else might have seen or, even better, still has a tape of this rare version of V7. Perhaps there's an archive at Microsoft or SCO that harbors a tape. Most software firms do have some sort of policy about placing products in escrow with a third party. Maybe this still exists. If not, that's OK. If SCO is kind enough to allow source licensing to individuals for noncommercial use, then this largely becomes a moot issue. Full source V7 (or even better 2BSD) is probably a more "interesting" system from a hobbyist or preservationist point of view, particularly if you're like me and don't have or care to own actual PDP-11 hardware. I'm quite happy to run John Wilson's and Bob Supnick's wonderful emulator programs with whatever software I can obtain. They let me have the PDP-11 models I worked on (23, 34, 45) as well as those I'd like to have had (70) without the hassle and expense of maintaining the actual hardware. BTW, if John or Bob reads this list, l'd like to say "Thank you" to both of them. Also thanks to Warren for his work preserving the old Unix software. It's a great deal of fun to see old "friends" again, and I think it will be just as much fun to see software and "hardware" combinations that I didn't have access to in the "good old days." Thanks also to SCO for binary licenses for these "historic" systems; I hope that they will be able to license source code in the near future. Sorry for the long ramble and thanks for reading! Frank Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id DAA17931 for pups-liszt; Sat, 11 Oct 1997 03:15:43 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f >From "Steven M. Schultz" <sms(a)moe.2bsd.com> Sat Oct 11 02:55:45 1997 Received: from moe.2bsd.com (0(a)MOE.2BSD.COM [206.139.202.200]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id DAA17926 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>; Sat, 11 Oct 1997 03:15:37 +1000 (EST) Received: (from sms@localhost) by moe.2bsd.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA20665; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 09:55:45 -0700 (PDT) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 09:55:45 -0700 (PDT) From: "Steven M. Schultz" <sms(a)moe.2bsd.com> Message-Id: <199710101655.JAA20665(a)moe.2bsd.com> To: fwortner(a)prodigy.net, pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Subject: Re: PDP-11 Xenix (LONG) Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk Howdy - > From: "Frank Wortner" <fwortner(a)prodigy.net> > Since I'm the one that started this --- albeit indirectly --- let me try to And I hate to see a fellow talk to himself without interruption ;-) > PD.-11 Xenix was essentially V7, but it had a few added features. > Processor support included all models of PDP-11 with MMUs: 23s, 34s, 40s, I remember (not terribly fondly) running V7 on an 11/23. We hacked in an overlay scheme to the kernel (but not user programs). Just enough resources to run 1 user and a couple processes - do an "ls" and the shell got swapped out, when 'ls' finished the shell would get swapped back in. Wheee! ;) > 45s, 55s, 60s, and 70s. It had split I&D space emulation --- borrowed, I > believe from 2.something BSD. That emulation required a grand total of Not having used Xenix I'd never heard the term "split I&D space emulation". What we hacked in to V7 and BSD later implemented was an even older concept: overlays. 2.9 was the first version I know of that had 'overlay' support. The overlays were memory resident and switching between them was done by flipping MMU registers. It is (present tense since 2.11BSD uses the same method today) done with a single link phase (no "-j" option or multiple link edits). In 2.9 there was a limit of 7 overlay segments plus the base segment. Later on (the 1985 update to 2.9) the limit was increased to 15 overlays which has proven to be adequate since then. For the kernel the overlays could only be 8kb (1 page register) but user mode programs could have larger (but still multiple of 8kb) overlays. In 2.9 there was a separate libc.a that you did need to link with because the callframe had an extra word (the overlay number) and 'csv, cret' had a couple extra instructions to switch overlays. Later (2.10 and up) the callframe was changed to always have the extra word This made life easier (at the expense of an extra 3microseconds per function call) by not having to maintain/build two versions of all the libraries. > three(!) link passes, but the compiler driver was modified to do this > automatically if you specified the "-j" option. Instead of source, the > kernel was delivered mostly as .o files and .a libraries, so you could A multiphase link IS currently used to build the 2.11 networking though. The networking code (4.3BSD's TCP/IP stack) runs in supervisor mode. The kernel, at boot time, loads /netnix into supervisor space. The /netnix image is built in a similar manner to what was mentioned for Xenix's emulated I&D space - first build the unix image (with undefined references to the networking code), then build the netnix image (with undefined references to the kernel code), then cross reference the two images for undefineds and create .s stub files to satisfy the undefineds. Assemble the two .s files and then link unix with d.netnix.o and netnix with d.unix.o and voila a kernel and an image it can load into supervisor space. > reboot or halt it. Although the OS was pretty big --- I find it amazing > that I thought of it as "big" ;-) --- you could, with some effort build a Even V7 had trouble fitting on a non split I/D machine. The problem is that the kernel has to map the I/O page which removes an extra MMU page from being used for data. Then the 'u' area needs a page (for the kernel stack and per process context). And you need a page to perform copyin/copyout with (and to map the buffer cache if that has been moved external to the kernel) - that leaves only 40kb for everything else (and on a nonsplit I/D machine with overlays you'd need two or three pages for the base segment and an overlay, that leaves just 2 pages or 16kb for all the data). > Full source V7 (or even better 2BSD) is probably a more "interesting" system > from a hobbyist or preservationist point of view, particularly if you're > like me and don't have or care to own actual PDP-11 hardware. I'm quite An 11/73 takes up less space than some PC tower cases and uses about the same amount of electricity. > happy to run John Wilson's and Bob Supnick's wonderful emulator programs > with whatever software I can obtain. They let me have the PDP-11 models I I can't speak for John's emulator (only runs on top of DOS and my place is a MS-free zone ;)) but I have booted up 2.11BSD under Bob's. Only went to the single user state and ran a couple simple commands. Seems to work ok that far, but 'vi' doesn't run right - I suspect it's something to do with overlaid programs flipping MMU registers about but haven't had the time to look into it further (besides which I've a 11/73 and a 11/93 to use). > worked on (23, 34, 45) as well as those I'd like to have had (70) without > the hassle and expense of maintaining the actual hardware. A Q-bus system such as an 11/83 combines the best of both worlds - it's got the address space and the speed (cpuwise) of a 70 but the convenience of no UNIBUS map (like the 45). Maintenance thus far over the last 6 years has consisted of replacing an M8192 when the cache developed a parity error. Well, I suppose I should get back to work before the boss wanders by and sees me having fun instead of getting his work done ;-) Steven Schultz

26 years, 11 months

Re: PDP-11 Xenix (LONG)

by David C. Jenner

OK, Frank is likely correct. But I still don't think you'll find it anywhere on the 'net! It would be nice if it were in the PUP archives, though. Getting it there might be hard because MS might still have some rights to it. I did some digging, and here are some relevant dates: 8/25/80 Microsoft announced DEC PDP-11 XENIX (along with versions for several other machines--Intel 8086, Zilog Z8000, and Motorola M68000). [This would have to be Version 7 based.] 10/01/80 Microsoft notes PDP-11 XENIX is "scheduled for release". [It's not clear if this means it was actually released on that date.] 12/08/81 Microsoft and SCO signed a letter of intent for SCO to be a second- source of XENIX. [No mention of PDP-11; just that XENIX was being upgraded to System III at that time.] 1/22/85 Microsoft and AT&T announce plans for compatible future releases of XENIX and UNIX [based on System V]. 1/31/86 Microsoft and SCO announce new agreements for SCO to be prime distrubutor of XENIX System V to VAR and VAD channels. 2/15/89 Microsoft makes 20% minority investment in SCO. [I seem to recall that SCO got (all?) XENIX rights at this time.] So it looks like there was a window of about a year when a Version 7 based XENIX was probably available. Certainly starting in 1983 Microsoft announced all sorts of versions of XENIX for other hardware, including IBM System 9000 (yes, there really was a HAL 9000 (Motorola MC68000-based)--I had a couple), IBM PC/AT, AT&T UNIX PC and PC 6300, and Compaq machines. Dave Frank Wortner wrote: > > Since I'm the one that started this --- albeit indirectly --- let me try to > explain. > > Way back when --- about 1981 or 82 --- I worked for a small (now defunct) > software company. We owned 2 PDP-11/23s. Initially, we ran a distribution > of the Sixth Edition on them. That came from a company in New York --- > that's where I am geographically, BTW --- called Yourdon. The system was > called UV6. > > After a while, we decided to upgrade to V7. At the time, we had begun a > relationship with another (now defunct) firm called Lifeboat Associates > (also in New York, later in Tarrytown, NY). They distributed microcomputer > software, principally CP/M-based. They were a Microsoft distributor. > Microsoft had just started Unix development at the time. Lifeboat sold us a > V7 system: Microsoft PDP-11 Xenix. I know it was Microsoft because the > tape lables said so, and I remember that the line printer printed release > notes contained a banner page that indicated that they came from Microsoft's > DEC 20(!) (cheerfully named "Microsoft Heating Plant"). > > PD.-11 Xenix was essentially V7, but it had a few added features. snip > BTW, if John or Bob reads this list, l'd like to say "Thank you" to both > of them. Also thanks to Warren for his work preserving the old Unix > software. It's a great deal of fun to see old "friends" again, and I think > it will be just as much fun to see software and "hardware" combinations that > I didn't have access to in the "good old days." Thanks also to SCO for > binary licenses for these "historic" systems; I hope that they will be able > to license source code in the near future. > > Sorry for the long ramble and thanks for reading! > > Frank

26 years, 11 months

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