<Ok, there is a Wilson emulator: E11 which (apparently) runs on DOS
<boxen.
Have it but, the point is to run it on a hardware -11 afterall, I have one.
<KSERVE is the name, as a previous poster has pointed out (thanx).
Went and got it, now I have to transfer it and asm it.
<If the image is on another machine, then use KERMIT + KSERVE.
<
<If not, I guess COPY /DEVICE FOO.IMG DL2:
Bingo.
Allison
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There are a few good tricks to get PDP11 with odd configurations to load. The
first is the venerable paper tape bootstrap. It consists of only 8 instructions
(28 bytes) and works on serial ports. It then loads the 'absolute loader'
which will load formatted data (paper tape!). The format is trival
and has checksums and stop/transfer blocks. The trick is to convert the
unix secordary boot loader from V7 or BSD 2.9-2.11 and then you have
mini loader with lots of device drivers. I can provide some of these
programs including the paper tape listings and images (heck, I still have
a working paper tape reader/punch). You can load ANY PDP-11 this way!
Another approach if you have any of the LSI-11 based cpus with microcoded
console emulator is to use the Xinu suite. It does an initial bootstrap
by sending console commands and then loading a binary boostrap.
On the subject of bad blocks, V6 and V7 offered no bad block strategies.
The DEC spec for RK05's was 200 tracks by 12 sectors by 2 surface plus 3
bad block tracks for 4800 blocks plus 72 spare. The media was generally pretty
good, and all Unix versions used 4872 block filesystems. Files-11 (IAS/RSX) was
the only system to offer bad block replacement (I cannot be sure for RSTS).
When bigger disk drives started showing up, like the RM02/3's and RM05, the
usual practive was to buy packs with 'zero' defects.
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Re Heriot-Watt stripped-down 7th Edition...
Warren wrote:
> Anybody in the UK able to read Pete's tape? Pete, can you kermit the files
> off those RL02s?
I did once attempt to read the tape on our department's Kenedy drive
(now disposed of) and managed to get all but a few blocks near the
beginning. It seems to be a pretty standard distribution tape, with a
layout as described in the Unix Programmer's Manual Vol.2 (Jan.1979).
I have a 1600bpi copy (modulo the bad blocks) somewhere (I wonder where
I put it?). I wouldn't bother about making another copy; if anyone
deparately wants to try, I guess I might loan the original. But AFAIK
there's only a couple of Makefiles that differ, and I have those on the
RL02s.
I don't have any version of kermit that will run under 7th Edition on
an 11/23 (the normal versions are too big), but text files are perfectly
easy to copy.
Pete
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<From: Johnny Billquist <bqt(a)Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE>
<Oh, certainly, the source was available. I would say that that, along
<with the fact that you got it for free, were the only two reasons for
<its rise to fame.
Th paraphrase Lions, It's one we can look at the dirty parts of and the good
ones too. Yes it has warts and we can see them for what they are,
engineering compromizes of the time.
<If you compare Unix with the systems you mention above, most of the
<DEC stuff have had some stuff since the '70s that Unix only got in the
<90s... (Shared libraries and microkernels for instance.)
It begs the question of what is required and what si nice to have?
<What I meant was that development have gone backwards with regards to
<operating systems in the last twenty years. :-)
Yes. Very unfortunate too. Good design is far more rare.
<(Okay, so this is the list for Unixes on the PDP-11, so I'll defend
<that particualr Unix. It's still clean and mean, which was the purpose
<of the design, and not the overbloated monster called Unix
<nowadays...)
Somehow I find that to be the central point. I apply the same rule to CP/M
for z80s.
Fully thing there is a groups doing an embedded linux kernal (ELKS) and
they act like doing it on a 16bit machine is majik and something like a
z80 means far to stripped to be of use. Seems they missed the point.
Allison
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<For my 11/34A with 2 RL01 I made with an emulator a bootable V7-RL01-diskim
<I downloaded it under RT-11 with KSERVE from John Wilson (dunno where I
<ftped it) over a serial line onto the second disk. It took some hours,
<but it worked.
How did you write it to the RL01 and what would it take to write it to rl02
assuming rt/kserve. Did you use guarenteed no bad block media?
Allison
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>From Johnny Billquist <bqt(a)minsk.docs.uu.se> Sun Sep 14 04:01:55 1997
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From: Johnny Billquist <bqt(a)minsk.docs.uu.se>
Date: Sat, 13 Sep 97 21:01:55 +0300 (MET DST)
Reply-To: bqt(a)minsk.docs.uu.se
To: wkt(a)cs.adfa.oz.au
Cc: pnt103(a)ugrad.cs.york.ac.uk,
pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (PDP Unix Preservation)
Subject: Re: Old PDP-11 UNIX Paper Docs?
In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 12 Sep 1997 09:13:31 +1000 (EST)
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>In article by pnt103(a)ugrad.cs.york.ac.uk:
>> Warren wrote:
>> > I've got some AUUG newsletters ... One of them mentions
>> > a `Heriot-Watt stripped down 7th Edition',
>>
>> If this is the version I have, which not only came from HWU, but is
>> running on one of their old machines, it's fairly standard. It was
>> build for a 'small machine', meaning one without separate I&D space,
>> such as an 11/34 (mine's on an 11/23 with 128KW and RL02s). There
>> are some extra drivers to support RX02s and stuff, but I think these
>> are just well-known additions from sources such as Boston. There's a
>> makefile to configure and build for a small machine.
>>
>> It's missing some of the larger pieces of software, such as troff (nroff
>> is there, and the troff source AFAIR) and Fortran, and the tty driver is
>> modified (bigger!), but most other things seem to be 'normal'.
>>
>> I have the source on 800bpi magtape (pity my drive is only 1600bpi) and
>> also most of it on RL02, though the RL02s are a bit disorganised.
>>
>> Pete
>
>Anybody in the UK able to read Pete's tape? Pete, can you kermit the files
>off those RL02s?
If the need is large enough, I can roll out a TU77 and connect it to Magica
to read the stuff. That means Sweden, though...
Johnny
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
CS student at Uppsala University || on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt(a)minsk.docs.uu.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
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>From Johnny Billquist <bqt(a)minsk.docs.uu.se> Sun Sep 14 04:09:43 1997
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From: Johnny Billquist <bqt(a)minsk.docs.uu.se>
Date: Sat, 13 Sep 97 21:09:43 +0300 (MET DST)
Reply-To: bqt(a)minsk.docs.uu.se
To: allisonp(a)world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
Cc: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au
Subject: Re: Bootstrap Idea
In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 11 Sep 1997 22:43:28 -0400
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>Not true. They all did as bad blocks have been a fact of life for all
>computers since day one. Some of the ealy unixes used crude methods
>from a perfomance standoint but, the bad block replacement was there.
Well, not day one, but that come pretty early. Quality of the magnetic
media wasn't really that good back then, so you usually *had* to
expect a few bad spots on any disk.
On PDP-11's, I would supect that Unix went with DEC's BAD144 standard
pretty fast. (When did that standard come, btw?)
>Do read LIONS commentary. I was able to get a copy from the local library
>here in eastern MA (USA) along with several books on BSD design. Unix was
>really ahead of the pack on many things.
Not to be a pain in the ass or so, but in what ways was Unix ahead of
anything?
Unix was just a small hack inspired by Multics, and looking at contemporary
operating systems, I'd say there were some that were way ahead of Unix (and
still are...)
Operating systems in the last twenty years have really retro-developed. :-)
Johnny
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
CS student at Uppsala University || on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt(a)minsk.docs.uu.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
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>From Johnny Billquist <bqt(a)minsk.docs.uu.se> Sun Sep 14 04:22:21 1997
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From: Johnny Billquist <bqt(a)minsk.docs.uu.se>
Date: Sat, 13 Sep 97 21:22:21 +0300 (MET DST)
Reply-To: bqt(a)minsk.docs.uu.se
To: allisonp(a)world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
Cc: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au
Subject: Re: UNIX for PDP-11: moving on to media
In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 13 Sep 1997 13:26:17 -0400
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><For my 11/34A with 2 RL01 I made with an emulator a bootable V7-RL01-diskim
><I downloaded it under RT-11 with KSERVE from John Wilson (dunno where I
><ftped it) over a serial line onto the second disk. It took some hours,
><but it worked.
>
>How did you write it to the RL01 and what would it take to write it to rl02
>assuming rt/kserve. Did you use guarenteed no bad block media?
Most RL02 are pretty good. Usually they don't have any bad spots in my
experience.
Johnny
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
CS student at Uppsala University || on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt(a)minsk.docs.uu.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
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<Most RL02 are pretty good. Usually they don't have any bad spots in my
<experience.
They were low in defects<frequently none> but there was remaping so platters
with bad blocks were invisible to the system mangler/user. I just tossed a
pack that had developed more bad blocks then could be managed.
Allison
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>From Johnny Billquist <bqt(a)minsk.docs.uu.se> Sun Sep 14 08:49:54 1997
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From: Johnny Billquist <bqt(a)minsk.docs.uu.se>
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 97 1:49:54 +0300 (MET DST)
Reply-To: bqt(a)minsk.docs.uu.se
To: allisonp(a)world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
Cc: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au
Subject: Re: UNIX for PDP-11: moving on to media
In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 13 Sep 1997 17:58:38 -0400
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>
><Most RL02 are pretty good. Usually they don't have any bad spots in my
><experience.
>
>They were low in defects<frequently none> but there was remaping so platters
>with bad blocks were invisible to the system mangler/user. I just tossed a
>pack that had developed more bad blocks then could be managed.
No exacly invisible... The operating system had to be aware of the bad spots,
and invent some scheme or other to hide the spots from the user.
OS/8's solution is rather hairy. I know, since I didn't have a "formatter"
program, so I needed to write one, given the source of the device driver...
Bad spots on MSCP disks on the other hand are totally invisible.
Johnny
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
CS student at Uppsala University || on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt(a)minsk.docs.uu.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
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>From Johnny Billquist <bqt(a)minsk.docs.uu.se> Sun Sep 14 08:55:55 1997
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From: Johnny Billquist <bqt(a)minsk.docs.uu.se>
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 97 1:55:55 +0300 (MET DST)
Reply-To: bqt(a)minsk.docs.uu.se
To: allisonp(a)world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
Cc: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au
Subject: Re: Bootstrap Idea
In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 13 Sep 1997 17:58:31 -0400
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><Unix was just a small hack inspired by Multics, and looking at contemporar
><operating systems, I'd say there were some that were way ahead of Unix (an
><still are...)
>
>yes, but as hacks go it was more public in code than other OSs of value in
>that time frame. I'm not saying was the best. Also I've never used
>multics. My experience in chronological order is OS/8, TOPS-10, CP/M-80,
>NS*dos<z80>, RT-11, RSTS, RSX-11, VMS, Ultrix. So those are what I have to
>look at when thinking in terms of 1970s OSs like Unix of the time.
Oh, certainly, the source was available. I would say that that, along
with the fact that you got it for free, were the only two reasons for
its rise to fame.
If you compare Unix with the systems you mention above, most of the
DEC stuff have had some stuff since the '70s that Unix only got in the
90s... (Shared libraries and microkernels for instance.)
><Operating systems in the last twenty years have really retro-developed. :-
>
>If you mean what I think the answer is not here. If anything my view is
>more of when will dos/winders perform as well as some of those OSs of the
>time. Then again, I had VMS4.6 running decwindows and four users on a
>microvaxII with 9meg and 3 RD53s in 1989.
What I meant was that development have gone backwards with regards to
operating systems in the last twenty years. :-)
Who knows how many things Microsoft has reinvented in the last few
years, and Unix hasn't been much better either...
(Okay, so this is the list for Unixes on the PDP-11, so I'll defend
that particualr Unix. It's still clean and mean, which was the purpose
of the design, and not the overbloated monster called Unix
nowadays...)
Johnny
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
CS student at Uppsala University || on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt(a)minsk.docs.uu.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
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<Unix was just a small hack inspired by Multics, and looking at contemporar
<operating systems, I'd say there were some that were way ahead of Unix (an
<still are...)
yes, but as hacks go it was more public in code than other OSs of value in
that time frame. I'm not saying was the best. Also I've never used
multics. My experience in chronological order is OS/8, TOPS-10, CP/M-80,
NS*dos<z80>, RT-11, RSTS, RSX-11, VMS, Ultrix. So those are what I have to
look at when thinking in terms of 1970s OSs like Unix of the time.
<Operating systems in the last twenty years have really retro-developed. :-
If you mean what I think the answer is not here. If anything my view is
more of when will dos/winders perform as well as some of those OSs of the
time. Then again, I had VMS4.6 running decwindows and four users on a
microvaxII with 9meg and 3 RD53s in 1989.
Allison
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On Fri, 12 Sep 1997, Warren Toomey wrote:
> All,
> I had an idea about bootstrapping images into PDP-11s, please shoot
> it down! Ok, I don't know much about the -11 hardware, how hard would it
> be to bootstrap as follows:
>
> hand-toggle in a small bit of code, which
> sucks in a bigger bootstrap over a serial line, which
> then can pull in a disk image over the serial line & write to disk
Well I've started to use this approach allready and have written most of
the code. My scenario is that I have an 11/34 with one RK05, and no other
operating systems. I have access to almost unlimited number of PDP-11
serial cards, and other unix boxes.
The PDP 11 is configured with two serial ports, one the standard serial
console, the other a 9600 baud serial line. These go to the two serial
ports on my PC running (which incendtally runs linux). First I send a
program (binary) as console emulator instructions to the PDP on the
console line. This program is basically a hacked version of
/mdec/tboot.s (TU10 boot) which provides getc() and putc() and other bits
and bobs. It reads in from console a number (rather than a file name)
which is the length of the program to load. This is read in from the
second serial port and loaded into memory. I then jump to this and start
going.
So the procedure is (1) Load tboot.s via console (2) load RKF to format
RK-05 (this works fine) (2) load the copy program whose name escapes me at
the moment, and transfer the tape image to the RK-05. (3) Boot the RK-05.
This seemed to work, and progress was only interupted by the need to move
the PDP-11 from Cambridge to home! I have copies of all the programs
which need a little finishing off, but I could let people have copies if
they are interested. Incidentally I assembled the on Supnik's emulator
and then punched them out to the virtual PTP.
In fact I also have a longish document which goes through the entire
process with all the code (and some new comments) to try and explain how
it all works.
All this was done using V5 unix code btw.
>
> Flaws: need different bootstraps for different disks
> need different bootstraps for different serial hardware
> how to deal with bad blocks?
> very slooow
>
> Other problems: 5th, 6th Edition came as RK05 images. We could probably
> build images for different drives.
> 7th Edition did a mkfs during installation, but I don't know if
> bad blocks were ever dealt with.
>
> Anyway, this solution would allow a simple program + disk images to be
> put on your nearby PC running Linux/whatever, so no tapes or tape drives
> would be required.
It is slow -- but that doesn't matter if you can go somewhere else while
it happens (as long as your RK-05 doesn't catch fire)
Alan
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>All,
> I had an idea about bootstrapping images into PDP-11s, please shoot
>it down! Ok, I don't know much about the -11 hardware, how hard would it
>be to bootstrap as follows:
>
> hand-toggle in a small bit of code, which
> sucks in a bigger bootstrap over a serial line, which
> then can pull in a disk image over the serial line & write to disk
Well, for what it's worth here's my contribution. I have been able to
set up working v5 and v6 systems on my 11/34c (which uses an RK05
drive) uisng the distributed images (thanks Warren).
The key here I think is to make use of the excellent work that has
been already done on the various PDP-11 emulators. The emulator I use
is that of Bob Supnic, which runs wonderfully on my Linux box.
v6 is available as an image of a tape. The docs helpfully say:
This is a copy of the Sixth Edition distribution tape which was sent
to me by Ken Wellsch. The file v6.tape.gz is the tape image, with the
first 100 512-byte tape blocks containing tape bootstrap stuff. Blocks
100 - 4099 are the RK05 root image, blocks 4100 - 8099 are the /usr
RK05 image, and the blocks 8100 - 12099 are the /doc RK05 image.
It is trivial with the UNIX command dd to split the tape image into
its constituent parts:
1) Tape bootstap (useless for me)
2) RK05 root image
3) RK05 /usr image
4) RK05 /doc image
I can then start the Supnic emulator, attach the three RK05 images to
drives 0, 1 and 2 and boot. My system has only a single RK05 drive. As
a result I had to mess around in the emulator to create a fresh RK05
image containing a useful subset of the root and /usr images. In
practice it's not too hard to get v6 onto a single RK05 pack -- I
think it's only necessary to lose stuff like the spell disctionary and
so on.
I also wanted support for a second DL11 serial line, so I used the
emulator (and some extra emulated disk space) to rebuild the kernel.
Once I was happy with the disk image I'd created, it was time to
transfer it to real hardware. My 11/34c runs RT11 and I was able to
get hold of a small stripped down Kermit server-only program from John
Wilson. I forget the name of this utility, but it's available from
ftp.dbit.com. The stardard RT11 Kermit that I have is unable to
transfer entire disk images, the Wilson implementation can do so.
Booting the 11/34c from RX01 floppy (one RK05 drive only, remember) I
ran the Kermit server. From the PC end it was straightforward to
transfer the image: "PUT imagefile.img RK01:". Aside from a
spectacular RK05 head crash that put my machine out of action for a
while, all was well.
For v7, I started with a single RL02 image. That would boot on the
simulator. I added a couple of emulated RK05s to the emulator set up
and proceded to build a single RK05 which would (just!) hold a
bootable v7 image. I warn you that v7 on a 2.5Mb disk is tight, but it
can be done. Having built the image, I rebuilt the kernel to enable
RK05 support (and a second serial line, again) and disable the other
disk drivers. That kernel went onto my new image. Again, the same
Kermit trick enabled the image to be transferred to the 11/34a.
If anyone wants these RK05 bootable image files, please let me know
(rjm(a)swift.eng.ox.ac.uk - not this address)!
A few points though:
1) RK05s packs _can not have_ bad blocks. There is no bad block
revectoring on these drives. A bad block on a pack suggests the pack
is ready for the dumpster. This makes life a little easier. I'm not
sure how you'd deal with bad block revectoring on an RL01/RL02 for
example. I guess it's not too hard, but I shan't speculate there.
2) My 11/73, on the other hand, uses an RD53 (last time I looked). I'm
not sure if the emulator can deal with these kind of drives. In any
case, support for MSCP drives only came with 2BSD, which I've not
played with. Maybe the same emulator tricks can be employed to get
RDxx images, modulo the bad blocks problem.
3) If you don't have a PDP-11 operating system running, the Kermit
approach won't be much use. There may be a stand-alone file transfer
program that can write to raw devices. No idea -- perhaps someone
needs to write this (both for the PDP and the PC ends).
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Bob
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Manners (My REAL address is: rjm(a)swift.eng.ox.ac.uk)
BOB'S COMPUTER MUSEUM: http://swift.eng.ox.ac.uk/rjm/museum.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi,
<Allison, you got a copy? I emailed Dan Ts'o to get a copy, but haven't hear
<back from him yet.
I got it off the net in one of the archive sites. I have the sources (in C)
for it.
<The early Unixes didn't have a concept of bad blocks. This will always
<be a pain.
Not true. They all did as bad blocks have been a fact of life for all
computers since day one. Some of the ealy unixes used crude methods
from a perfomance standoint but, the bad block replacement was there.
Do read LIONS commentary. I was able to get a copy from the local library
here in eastern MA (USA) along with several books on BSD design. Unix was
really ahead of the pack on many things.
Allison
