<> 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
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>From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Sun Feb 1 17:47:25 1998
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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)
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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
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>From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Mon Feb 2 13:44:29 1998
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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)
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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
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>From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Tue Feb 3 08:04:20 1998
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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)
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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 -----
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<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
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>From Greg Lehey <grog(a)lemis.com> Sun Feb 1 12:45:58 1998
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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>
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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
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<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
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>From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Sat Jan 31 08:06:42 1998
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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"
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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
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>From "Steven M. Schultz" <sms(a)moe.2bsd.com> Sat Jan 31 15:36:05 1998
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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
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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
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<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
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>From Erin Corliss <erin(a)corliss.com> Mon Jan 5 15:23:23 1998
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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.
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>From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Fri Jan 30 14:40:50 1998
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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)
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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
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<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
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>From Erin Corliss <zomad(a)rio.com> Tue Dec 9 12:21:45 1997
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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>
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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.)
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<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
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>From Neil Johnson <neil(a)skatter.usask.ca> Sat Dec 6 02:40:07 1997
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From: Neil Johnson <neil(a)skatter.usask.ca>
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Subject: Re: PDP-11 Unix v5
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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
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>From Tim Shoppa <shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca> Sat Dec 6 02:53:53 1997
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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)
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> 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)
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>From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Sun Dec 7 14:15:41 1997
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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"
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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
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>From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Sun Dec 7 14:17:16 1997
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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"
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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
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>From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Sun Dec 7 14:18:42 1997
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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"
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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
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>From Tim Shoppa <shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca> Sun Dec 7 15:17:23 1997
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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)
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> 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)
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>From "Pete Turnbull <pnt103(a)cs.york.ac.uk>" <pete(a)indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk> Mon Dec 8 03:18:36 1997
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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
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>From Tim Shoppa <shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca> Mon Dec 8 04:05:23 1997
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From: Tim Shoppa <shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca>
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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)
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> > 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)
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>From "Pete Turnbull <pnt103(a)cs.york.ac.uk>" <pete(a)indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk> Mon Dec 8 07:10:43 1997
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From: "Pete Turnbull <pnt103(a)cs.york.ac.uk>" <pete(a)indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>
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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>
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Subject: Re: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
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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
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>From Tim Shoppa <shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca> Mon Dec 8 10:14:41 1997
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From: Tim Shoppa <shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca>
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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)
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> 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.
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>From Erin Corliss <zomad(a)rio.com> Tue Dec 9 01:03:34 1997
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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>
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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....
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>From "Daniel A. Seagraves" <dseagrav(a)bsdserver.tek-star.net> Tue Dec 9 03:35:02 1997
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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>
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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])
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>From Erin Corliss <zomad(a)rio.com> Tue Dec 9 08:19:01 1997
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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
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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.
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>From Tim Shoppa <shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca> Tue Dec 9 09:16:11 1997
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Subject: Re: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
To: zomad(a)rio.com (Erin Corliss)
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> 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.
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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
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>From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Fri Oct 10 09:00:59 1997
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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)
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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 -----
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>From "Frank Wortner" <fwortner(a)prodigy.net> Fri Oct 10 10:58:40 1997
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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
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<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
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>From "David C. Jenner" <djenner(a)halcyon.com> Fri Oct 10 13:20:01 1997
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From: "David C. Jenner" <djenner(a)halcyon.com>
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To: Allison J Parent <allisonp(a)world.std.com>
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Subject: Re: PDP-11 Xenix
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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
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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
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>From Greg Lehey <grog(a)lemis.com> Fri Oct 10 14:46:33 1997
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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
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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
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>From "Frank Wortner" <fwortner(a)prodigy.net> Sat Oct 11 00:57:18 1997
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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
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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
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>From "Steven M. Schultz" <sms(a)moe.2bsd.com> Sat Oct 11 02:55:45 1997
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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)
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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
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
All,
Given that some of you have found KSERVE, the TU11 emulator code,
and other bootstrap bits & pieces, would it be possible for you for ftp
upload them to one of my machines so I can add them into the PUPS archive?
Address is minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au, ftp in as anonymous, you will find
/incoming world-writable (for a few days anyway!). A README.XXX would also
be helpful!
Thanks again,
Warren
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>From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Wed Sep 17 13:14:48 1997
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From: Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>
Message-Id: <199709170314.NAA01259(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>
Subject: Also, PDP-11 URLs
To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (PDP Unix Preservation)
Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 13:14:48 +1000 (EST)
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Also, while I'm thinking, email in your hotlist of PDP-11 related URLs,
both http:// and ftp:// sites. I just went to look for KSERVE myself and
haven't found it yet. Having a set of URLs to try would be nice!
Warren
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>From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Wed Sep 17 14:51:36 1997
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From: Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>
Message-Id: <199709170451.OAA01580(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>
Subject: Updated PUPS ftp & web areas
To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (PDP Unix Preservation)
Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 14:51:36 +1000 (EST)
Reply-To: wkt(a)cs.adfa.oz.au
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All,
I've got both the TU58 emulator and KSERVE, and placed them
along with the PDP-11 emulators and the tools I have for extracting
files from old tapes/disk images at:
ftp://minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au/pub/PDP-11
The PUPS web pages have also been rearranged, with details of how
to set up 6th and 7th Edition UNIX and also 2.11BSD. Web page at:
http://minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au/PUPS/
Warren