16 Jun
2014
16 Jun
'14
12:19 a.m.
Jay Forrester, who invented core memory, first described it in
a lab notebook 65 years ago today.
(Thanks to the Living Computer Museum, through whose Twitter
feed I learned this tidbit. It's a place--the real museum,
not just the Twitter feed--many on this list might enjoy:
among their aged-but-working computers are a Xerox Star and
a PDP-7.)
Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
16 Jun
16 Jun
10:13 p.m.
Small correction: not a Star, an Alto. :-)
Sent from my android device.
-----Original Message-----
From: Norman Wilson <norman(a)oclsc.org>
To: tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org
Sent: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 11:19 AM
Subject: [TUHS] Happy birthday, core dumped
Jay Forrester, who invented core memory, first described it in
a lab notebook 65 years ago today.
(Thanks to the Living Computer Museum, through whose Twitter
feed I learned this tidbit. It's a place--the real museum,
not just the Twitter feed--many on this list might enjoy:
among their aged-but-working computers are a Xerox Star and
a PDP-7.)
Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
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TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org
https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
17 Jun
17 Jun
4:01 a.m.
Hello!
Interesting.
I know I've seen the Star system rig before. But the Xerox Alto one is
new to me. Wasn't the PDP-7 the fellow where UNIX really got its start
on before they moved it to a PDP-11?
-----
Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8(a)gmail.com
"This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."
On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 12:13 PM, <iking(a)killthewabbit.org> wrote:
Small correction: not a Star, an Alto. :-)
Sent from my android device.
-----Original Message-----
From: Norman Wilson <norman(a)oclsc.org>
To: tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org
Sent: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 11:19 AM
Subject: [TUHS] Happy birthday, core dumped
Jay Forrester, who invented core memory, first described it in
a lab notebook 65 years ago today.
(Thanks to the Living Computer Museum, through whose Twitter
feed I learned this tidbit. It's a place--the real museum,
not just the Twitter feed--many on this list might enjoy:
among their aged-but-working computers are a Xerox Star and
a PDP-7.)
Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
_______________________________________________
TUHS mailing list
TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org
https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
_______________________________________________
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7:38 a.m.
Gregg Levine scripsit:
I know I've seen the Star system rig before. But
the Xerox Alto one is
new to me. Wasn't the PDP-7 the fellow where UNIX really got its start
on before they moved it to a PDP-11?
It was. The 18-bit systems were the red-headed stepchild of the DEC world.
The PDP-1, PDP-4, and PDP-7 systems had no DEC-supplied operating system,
and the PDP-9 only a minimal one, about like OS/8. Not until the terminal
18-bit system, the PDP-15, were PDP-11 class operating systems provided.
Consequently, the Bell Labs PDP-7 was essentially useless.
--
John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan(a)ccil.org
Awk!" sed Grep. "A fscking python is perloining my Ruby; let me bash
him with a Cshell! Vi didn't I mount it on a troff?" --Francis Turner
7:56 a.m.
On Monday, 16 June 2014 at 21:38:40 -0400, John Cowan wrote:
Gregg Levine scripsit:
Sounds like it was crying out for somebody to write an operating
system for it :-)
Greg
--
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I know I've seen the Star system rig before.
But the Xerox Alto one is
new to me. Wasn't the PDP-7 the fellow where UNIX really got its start
on before they moved it to a PDP-11?
It was. The 18-bit systems were the red-headed stepchild of the DEC world.
The PDP-1, PDP-4, and PDP-7 systems had no DEC-supplied operating system,
and the PDP-9 only a minimal one, about like OS/8. Not until the terminal
18-bit system, the PDP-15, were PDP-11 class operating systems provided.
Consequently, the Bell Labs PDP-7 was essentially useless.
9:13 a.m.
Well, the University of Oregon might disagree with you about the PDP-7. They ran the
DECsys monitor, which ISTR was the first such software product from DEC outside the
36-bit line (the PDP-6 and -7 were introduced in the same year). U of O took delivery of
their -7 in 1966 and it saw active service for at least three decades, with over thirty
doctorates earned based on research performed on the system. Hardly useless....
It's always been a bit of a mystery to me why Thompson and Ritchie decided they
needed to write a new executive - UNICS - rather than use DECsys. True, DECsys isn't
anything to shout about and Unix is clearly more useful - but IMHO Spacewar! could have
been coded in the DECsys 'environment'. I infer that they saw broader utility
and application in a more capable executive - which obviously turned out to be true!
The U of O PDP-7 is the one currently residing at the Living Computer Museum (I used to
maintain it).
And what's wrong with OS/8? Minimal, yes - what do you want, Windows Vista? :-) -
Ian
Sent from my android device.
-----Original Message-----
From: John Cowan <cowan(a)mercury.ccil.org>
To: Gregg Levine <gregg.drwho8(a)gmail.com>
Cc: tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org
Sent: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 6:38 PM
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Happy birthday, core dumped
Gregg Levine scripsit:
I know I've seen the Star system rig before. But
the Xerox Alto one is
new to me. Wasn't the PDP-7 the fellow where UNIX really got its start
on before they moved it to a PDP-11?
It was. The 18-bit systems were the red-headed stepchild of the DEC world.
The PDP-1, PDP-4, and PDP-7 systems had no DEC-supplied operating system,
and the PDP-9 only a minimal one, about like OS/8. Not until the terminal
18-bit system, the PDP-15, were PDP-11 class operating systems provided.
Consequently, the Bell Labs PDP-7 was essentially useless.
--
John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan(a)ccil.org
Awk!" sed Grep. "A fscking python is perloining my Ruby; let me bash
him with a Cshell! Vi didn't I mount it on a troff?" --Francis Turner
_______________________________________________
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6:14 p.m.
iking(a)killthewabbit.org scripsit:
Well, the University of Oregon might disagree with you
about the PDP-7.
They ran the DECsys monitor,
Ah, I didn't know about that. Still, pretty sub-minimal: Fortran II,
assembler, editor, period. It made OS/8 look quite rich by comparison.
Hardly useless....
However, according to the manual, DECsys required an 8Kword PDP-7, whereas
the "Space Travel" (not "Spacewar!") machine had only 4Kwords.
And what's wrong with OS/8?
Nothing. Indeed, I cut my teeth on it on a PDP-8/M with 8K and a single
DECtape with the driver in ROM. I was using the term descriptively to
indicate the kind of OS available for the PDP-9. A modified version also
ran on the '15, it seems. But the native OSes were DOS-15 (roughly RT-11)
and RSX-15 (a classic DEC RSX).
--
John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan(a)ccil.org
"Not to know The Smiths is not to know K.X.U." --K.X.U.
18 Jun
18 Jun
10:21 p.m.
On Jun 17, 2014, at 5:14 AM, John Cowan wrote:
Yes, thanks for the correction - a slip of the virtual tongue. I
didn't realize the Bell Labs machine was so basic - in fact, it was
my understanding that the basic machine was 8Kwords. The machine at
LCM actually has 16K, with a DEC field mod to allow it to be
addressed in PDP-9/15 fashion.
OK, we're good then. :-) I have a soft spot for the 12-bit
machines, if it doesn't show. -- Ian
iking(a)killthewabbit.org scripsit:
U of O also had FOCAL running on it, which may have been a local port
- I'll have to find out.
Well, the University of Oregon might disagree
with you about the
PDP-7.
They ran the DECsys monitor,
Ah, I didn't know about that. Still, pretty sub-minimal: Fortran II,
assembler, editor, period. It made OS/8 look quite rich by
comparison. Hardly useless....
However, according to the manual, DECsys required an 8Kword PDP-7,
whereas
the "Space Travel" (not "Spacewar!") machine had only 4Kwords.
And
what's wrong with OS/8?
Nothing. Indeed, I cut my teeth on it on a PDP-8/M with 8K and a
single
DECtape with the driver in ROM. I was using the term descriptively to
indicate the kind of OS available for the PDP-9. A modified
version also
ran on the '15, it seems. But the native OSes were DOS-15 (roughly
RT-11)
and RSX-15 (a classic DEC RSX).
3839
days inactive
3842
days old
7 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
-
Greg 'groggy' Lehey -
Gregg Levine -
Ian King -
iking＠killthewabbit.org
-
John Cowan -
Norman Wilson