I noticed in v6 source that putch in prf.c - the system kernel printf's character routine, only prints to the console if the Console Switch Register is non-zero.

My question is - how did y'all run things - with CSR zero and no kernel messages (seems dangerous to me, being naive and all) or with CSR non-zero and kernel messages.

On my FreeBSD instance, I value the messages that show up on console as they've alerted me to big problems in the past, but on my Mac, not as much (sure you can run Console and see them, but they aren't immediate).

Oh, BTW, I know I've seen this noted elsewhere, but I can't remember where. Dennis's v6 doesn't have the Western Electric message:

mem = 435
RESTRICTED RIGHTS

Use, duplication or disclosure is subject to
restrictions stated in Contract with Western
Electric Company, Inc.

It was a bit of a head scratcher as I was trying to read from the Dennis version of the distro on my mac while running Wellsch's tape on simh. I spent quite a while spinning my wheels looking for "Western" in the files to no avail. I thought something was screwy with the files or my mac.