4 Aug
2023
4 Aug
'23
12:14 p.m.
Does anyone know if there are any surviving examples of SVR2 for the PDP-11? Various SVR2
manuals still make mention of the assembler, linker, etc. and the pdp11 variable is
present in machid(1)*. And on the note of the later years of the PDP-11, was there any
hope for SVR3 on the PDP? I presume the introduction of demand paging was the end of
things but I would be curious for anyone's recollections on the final years of System
V on the PDP-11.
- Matt G.
P.S. *interesting little 3B5 side note, found as I was checking references that machid(1)
in the "System V" branded manual from the initial System V commercial release
mentions the pdp11, vax, and u3b machines, the latter being the 3B20S. However, the
"Release 5.0" branded manuals also make mention of the u3b5 machine, the 3B5.
The System V manuals are from January 1983 and the Release 5.0 manuals are June 1982.
There isn't an earlier reference to cite as machid(1) was introduced in Release 5.0,
at least from the literature I have available. The 4.x series ran on at least the PDP-11,
VAX, and 3B20S computers at least, matching those listed in the System V manual. From what
I have available initial 3B5 literature was distributed in the form of small binders a
little different from the grey-on-black 1984 DEC Processor SVR2 binders, possibly right on
the cusp of the split of p_man from u_man as this 3B5 User's Manual that I have
contains sections 1-6 rather than just 1 and 6. They're dark grey with a large orange
square in the middle (I believe I've sent a photograph of the manual before).
5 Aug
5 Aug
2:13 a.m.
On Fri, Aug 4, 2023 at 2:14 AM segaloco via TUHS <tuhs(a)tuhs.org> wrote:
Does anyone know if there are any surviving examples
of SVR2 for the
PDP-11? Various SVR2 manuals still make mention of the assembler, linker,
etc. and the pdp11 variable is present in machid(1)*. And on the note of
the later years of the PDP-11, was there any hope for SVR3 on the PDP? I
presume the introduction of demand paging was the end of things but I would
be curious for anyone's recollections on the final years of System V on the
PDP-11.
- Matt G.
BTW Sometime around this time, Summit starts to stop full support for the
11. I want to say that by then, getting anything for the 11 out of the
Bell system was difficult. I do remember that by SVR3 time, the only thing
you could get officially from Summit was the 3B/WE32000-based tape as the
3B5 was the official reference for UNIX.
IIRC SVR1 and SVR2 the Vax was the reference implementation, and with R1,
you could still order a PDP-11 tape; but frankly, I've forgotten exactly
when they stopped but I seem to remember not for SVR2. I personally had
lost interest in the PDP-11 from AT&T by then. And if I could have
obtained a SVR3 tape for VAX, most of the workstation folks like me would
have ordered it, because we almost all had an 11/750 [usually running a
flavor of BSD] around. The running joke was that you knew you own UNIX
port was solid wen you could run UUCP and sendmail for you companies
external gateway. IIRC as a for instance, Eric Fair was running a Vax at
Apple since Apple's own UNIX product could not do it.
BTW: With SVR4 the Intel 386 family was the reference. AT&T had bought
NCR by then, and NCR had flipped to it's 'Seven Layer Stragety' which was
Intel ISA across each level and had kill off all their Motorola-based
products. After the purchase with the NCR folks running AT&T's computer
division, the 3B series began its demise even for AT&T and the RBOC. I was
an external consultant for them at that point, and I may even have a memo
from the Chief Architect (Lee Hovel - my boss/client in those days) that
killed it [I actually the analysis for him that killed off the 88000
machines - which made my name mud in Columbia, SC where there had developed
it - but I was not part of the 3B stuff].
P.S. *interesting little 3B5 side note, found as I was
checking references
that machid(1) in the "System V" branded manual from the initial System V
commercial release mentions the pdp11, vax, and u3b machines, the latter
being the 3B20S. However, the "Release 5.0" branded manuals also make
mention of the u3b5 machine, the 3B5.
The 20S was a bit larger than a Vax 11/780 - just half of the 20D [duplex],
which was developed to control the ESS#5 and was logic -- I don't remember
what family, but likely 74S series. So it was traditional 19" racks and 48v
telco-style power. While the 3B5 used a WE32000 chip as a 'desktop'
system and plugged into a standard NEMA 110v jack.
ᐧ
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segaloco