Warren, <assuming I [ have RT-11/ RSX / no operating system ] on the PDP-11 already This is the tough part as PDP-11s run a wide variety of OSs. If you have RT-11 (most common) you likely ok. But even then it can influence you choice of devices. IE: RTv4 knows nothing of TK50 and RQDXn controllers and v5.1 does. This is true for RSTS and RSX too. The other is how to get it onto the required media. CDrom is largely PC hardware. If the disk is readable using dos/linux it's fairly easy, though the right supplied utility can help if not. PCs with the right hardware and software can create RX50 and RX33 media, TU58 has been done, RX01 with more effort. SCSI disk are not common on PDP-11s so that is a low yeild path though they also can be done. The PDP-11 world peripheral wise divides across what bus you have Q or U and that influences what peripherals you likely to have. The how of taking one of those binaries and moving to the PDP-11 has eluded me for a while. I have been told it is not possible as they are image files and if you copy an image of an RL02 to an RL02 you better have then same or fewer bad blocks as the image may land on one making it useless. I have been going through some of these gyrations with netBSD for the VAX and they have set of problem that would be common to PDP-11. Check out their FAQs on this for hints and solutions. Allison Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id CAA09350 for pups-liszt; Fri, 12 Sep 1997 02:09:25 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f Received: from mail1.halcyon.com (mail1.halcyon.com [206.63.63.40]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id CAA09345 for &lt;pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au&gt;; Fri, 12 Sep 1997 02:09:19 +1000 (EST) Received: from halcyon.com (blv-lx102-ip30.nwnexus.net [206.63.41.30]) by mail1.halcyon.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA24800; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 09:09:00 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: &lt;341815C8.39585882(a)halcyon.com&gt; Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 09:01:12 -0700 From: "David C. Jenner" &lt;djenner(a)halcyon.com&gt; Reply-To: djenner(a)halcyon.com X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.02 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Warren Toomey &lt;wkt(a)cs.adfa.oz.au&gt; CC: Allison J Parent &lt;allisonp(a)world.std.com&gt;, pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Subject: Re: UNIX for PDP-11: moving on to media References: &lt;199709110449.OAA17004(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au&gt; Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk Warren, I think you are exactly correct when you say these are the first two eminent, and imminent questions about PDP-11 Unix. They have frequently occurred to me as I drool in anticipation over the possibility of running 2.11BSD on an 11/73! Maybe you or a 2.11BSD expert (Steve Schultz?) could find the "release notes" for 2.11BSD and post them, if that's legal now. That would answer a lot of questions about how to configure a machine or whether a particular machine could handle it. Maybe the release notes from two or three different versions could cover a great majority of potential users; your survey might answer that. It will be great to have everything on a CD-ROM, but that probably won't help a majority of users bootstrap up a system, since most won't have a CD-ROM or maybe even no operating system to start with. We are going to have to find someone(s) who is (are) willing to make up a standard distribution tape (9-track or otherwise) or floppies (is that possible?). This could really be the biggest hurdle to getting a system running on many machines. Dave Warren Toomey wrote: Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id EAA09835 for pups-liszt; Fri, 12 Sep 1997 04:43:59 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f