From pnt103 at ugrad.cs.york.ac.uk Mon Sep 1 00:18:51 1997 From: pnt103 at ugrad.cs.york.ac.uk (pnt103 at ugrad.cs.york.ac.uk) Date: Mon, 1 Sep 97 00:18:51 Subject: PDP-11 Unix CD-ROM archive burn Message-ID: Warren wrote: : If you don't have RK05 or RL02s, someone should be able to build : a suitable disk image for you. I think you'll need to go 6th Edition : as you have a /23. 7th Edition runs fine on an 11/23 or 11/34, providing you build the 'small machine' version. I've had 7th on my 11/23 with 256K and 2xRL02 for years. Pete From Kevin.Wright at VITREX.com Tue Sep 2 11:25:46 1997 From: Kevin.Wright at VITREX.com (Kevin Wright) Date: Mon, 1 Sep 1997 19:25:46 -0600 Subject: PDP-11 hardware liquidation Message-ID: 1-SEP-97 As owner of a PDP-11/23+ system, I know how difficult it can be to find hardware for older PDP-11's. I'd like to inform you that I've found a terrific source in Utah for used DEC hardware including PDP-11 related items. This person has a 2400 sq ft warehouse (about 3 semi truck loads) quite literally brimming with computer hardware which has been collected and stored over the past 10 years. He is currently in the process of liquidating it at very, very low prices. Tons of miscellaneous computer equipment is available, much of which was manufactured by DEC. It would be impossible to list even a fraction of what he has available, but he has told me that his inventory includes approximately 1000 Q-Bus and Unibus boards, plus peripheral devices such as disk and tape drives. I've not been to the warehouse in person yet , but I will be visiting the site in about 2 weeks time from now. If interested, you should be aware that he is in the process of getting rid of EVERYTHING! It sounds like it will all be gone in the next 3 to 4 weeks. Opportunities like this very seldom come along, so please contact me via email if you are interested in finding out more. I'll be happy to forward to you, any needed information that I can. Please feel free to forward this notice to anyone you think might be interested. Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA24452 for pups-liszt; Wed, 3 Sep 1997 16:22:33 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au Wed Sep 3 16:23:06 1997 From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey) Date: Wed, 3 Sep 1997 16:23:06 +1000 (EST) Subject: PUPS Mailing List - Now Majordomo Message-ID: <199709030623.QAA07853@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> All, I've just moved the PUPS (old PDP-11 Unix) mailing list over to run under MajorDomo. I'm still learning MajorDomo, so there might be some teething troubles. The new list is called: pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Can you update any aliases that point to this list. I will keep the original /etc/aliases mailing list oldunix at cs.adfa.oz.au around for a while until I'm sure the new one works fine. As with MajorDomo, you can send messages to get off the mailing list. Please let me know of any problems. Updates: SCO Petition, CD-R writers etc. ---------------------------------------- Ok, we're still chatting with SCO. I got a summary of internal mail which shows that there are 2 sides in SCO, those who think it's a good idea (PR-wise at least) and those who can't see the point & who think it's a can of worms. I feel that the people on our side are winning. I've been trying to explain the history of some of the UNIX flavours to their legal eagle, who must know recent history only. I think we can iron things out. Several people from Europe & the US said that they had access to a CD-R writer, & could write CDs, if that became the distribution method for passing on the PUPS archive. I will probably go buy a new X-Gig disk to give the archive a proper FTP home. I've come up with a new archive layout & will pass it on to you all for comments. Anyway, it looks like progress is being made & we should be able to buy personal UNIX licenses soon :-). More updates to the list as things happen. Thanks for your suport!! Warren wkt at cs.adfa.oz.au From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au Mon Sep 8 10:01:22 1997 From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey) Date: Mon, 8 Sep 1997 10:01:22 +1000 (EST) Subject: Searchable PUPS Mail Archive Message-ID: <199709080001.KAA11261@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> I've set up a searchable archive of the mail from the PDP-11 Unix mailing list, at http://minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au/cgi-bin/pups.cgi Let me know of any problems with it. Updates to the archive will be done manually until I iron out some script bugs! Warren From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au Thu Sep 11 11:08:51 1997 From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 11:08:51 +1000 (EST) Subject: SysIII UNIX for PDP-11 In-Reply-To: <009BA147.996F2660.9@mail.all-net.net> from Robert Byer at "Sep 10, 97 07:57:07 am" Message-ID: <199709110108.LAA16675@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> [Robert has got a copy of System II for PDP-11 on tapes] > If I had a way to copy the tapes, I would have no problem and i'm not > even sure what is exactly on the tapes or if they are still good as I've > never really used them as the Unix III was already loaded on disks when I > got them PDP-11/34 from Bell Labs. > > (The sytem was used here in Bell Labs here in Indianapolis, IN to help > develope the first speech recognition system and I still have most of > the software "somehwere" on RL01/02 packs, so I'm kinda attached to the > tapes.) > > And, I have a gentleman here that is going to come pick up all my PDP > stuff in the next month or so for a computer museum he is putting together. > > So, if you can copy the tapes, I might be talked in to releasing the > tapes to you for copying for a good cause. Robert, I forgot to cc my reply to the others on the PUPS mailing list. Would anybody in the US be able to look at Robert's tapes to see if we can recover System III? John Holden just donated System V to the PUPS archive, so System III would also be a good addition. Please email to Robert & the mailing list if you are willing to look at the tapes. Thanks in advance, Warren Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA02864 for pups-liszt; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 13:14:17 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From allisonp at world.std.com Thu Sep 11 13:14:05 1997 From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 23:14:05 -0400 Subject: UNIX for PDP-11 Message-ID: <199709110314.AA29315@world.std.com> Hello, Curiousity, How does one get a license for a PDP-11 version of unix these days? I've had an 11/73 I've been itching to run unix on. Allison Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA03054 for pups-liszt; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 14:41:19 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From allisonp at world.std.com Thu Sep 11 14:41:08 1997 From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 00:41:08 -0400 Subject: UNIX for PDP-11 Message-ID: <199709110441.AA09464@world.std.com> from Allison J Parent at "Sep 11, 97 00:41:08 am" Message-ID: <199709110449.OAA17004@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> In article by Allison J Parent: > > > I've done the petition. > > > I also know of the binaries for v6 and v7 at several sites for emulator use. > > What is unclear is how to get those binaries onto a real PDP-11 such as my > 11/73 and if the devices I have are even supported. Sorry for the misunderstanding Allison! Actually, that's a very good question. As I'm not a hardware person, I'll pass this over to the other PUPS mailing list members. If/when SCO start selling licenses & we make CD-ROMs or FTP sites available, this question is going to come up an awful lot: Question 1 ---------- How do I get a Unix distribution onto: - a tape, because I have a tape drive - a disk drive, as I don't have a tape drive assuming I [ have RT-11/ RSX / no operating system ] on the PDP-11 already. Question 2 ---------- I have [ this particular CPU and this list of other peripherals ]. What version(s) of Unix can I run on this PDP-11? Can anybody help out with answers to Question 1? Bits & pieces of Question 2 are answered on the PUPS web pages, but they need expanding. Thanks in advance for any information, and any programs (boot code etc) that I can add in to the PUPS archive!! Warren From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au Thu Sep 11 15:39:39 1997 From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 15:39:39 +1000 (EST) Subject: Old PDP-11 UNIX Paper Docs? Message-ID: <199709110539.PAA17152@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> All, While I'm thinking of it, does anybody have any old Usenix, EUUG, AUUG etc. newsletters, papers, conference proceedings? Some of these have details about fitting various UNIX flavours onto various PDP-11s, plus other useful information. Anyone care to scan stuff in? I've got some AUUG newsletters dating from 1980 onwards. One of them mentions a `Heriot-Watt stripped down 7th Edition', which looks like it comes from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, UK. Does anybody have any knowledge of this version of 7th Edition? Warren From grog at lemis.com Thu Sep 11 16:36:54 1997 From: grog at lemis.com (Greg Lehey) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 16:06:54 +0930 Subject: Old PDP-11 UNIX Paper Docs? In-Reply-To: <199709110539.PAA17152@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>; from Warren Toomey on Thu, Sep 11, 1997 at 03:39:39PM +1000 References: <199709110539.PAA17152@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Message-ID: <19970911160654.56158@lemis.com> On Thu, Sep 11, 1997 at 03:39:39PM +1000, Warren Toomey wrote: > All, > While I'm thinking of it, does anybody have any old Usenix, EUUG, > AUUG etc. newsletters, papers, conference proceedings? Some of these have > details about fitting various UNIX flavours onto various PDP-11s, plus other > useful information. Anyone care to scan stuff in? > > I've got some AUUG newsletters dating from 1980 onwards. One of them mentions > a `Heriot-Watt stripped down 7th Edition', which looks like it comes from > Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, UK. Does anybody have any knowledge of > this version of 7th Edition? I believe I might have a copy of it. I got it along with an 11/73 from some friends, who had brought the software via Novosibirsk, where they had studied computer science. They gave me the machine in April of this year, along with a whole lot of RL02s, and I haven't put it together yet. If anybody in the Adelaide area is interested in helping me, we might find something interesting on it. Greg Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id XAA08832 for pups-liszt; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 23:46:13 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From allisonp at world.std.com Thu Sep 11 23:45:41 1997 From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 09:45:41 -0400 Subject: UNIX for PDP-11: moving on to media Message-ID: <199709111345.AA22220@world.std.com> Warren, Message-ID: <341815C8.39585882@halcyon.com> 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: > > In article by Allison J Parent: > > > > > > > I've done the petition. > > > > > > > > > I also know of the binaries for v6 and v7 at several sites for emulator use. > > > > What is unclear is how to get those binaries onto a real PDP-11 such as my > > 11/73 and if the devices I have are even supported. > > Sorry for the misunderstanding Allison! > > Actually, that's a very good question. As I'm not a hardware person, I'll > pass this over to the other PUPS mailing list members. If/when SCO start > selling licenses & we make CD-ROMs or FTP sites available, this question > is going to come up an awful lot: > > Question 1 > ---------- > > How do I get a Unix distribution onto: > > - a tape, because I have a tape drive > > - a disk drive, as I don't have a tape drive > > assuming I [ have RT-11/ RSX / no operating system ] on the PDP-11 already. > > Question 2 > ---------- > > I have [ this particular CPU and this list of other peripherals ]. > What version(s) of Unix can I run on this PDP-11? > > Can anybody help out with answers to Question 1? Bits & pieces of Question 2 > are answered on the PUPS web pages, but they need expanding. > > Thanks in advance for any information, and any programs (boot code etc) > that I can add in to the PUPS archive!! > > Warren Received: (from major at 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 at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From allisonp at world.std.com Fri Sep 12 04:43:46 1997 From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 14:43:46 -0400 Subject: UNIX for PDP-11: moving on to media Message-ID: <199709111843.AA28167@world.std.com> from "pnt103@ugrad.cs.york.ac.uk" at "Sep 11, 97 09:21:25 am" Message-ID: <199709112313.JAA08771@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> In article by pnt103 at ugrad.cs.york.ac.uk: > Warren wrote: > > I've got some AUUG newsletters ... One of them mentions > > a `Heriot-Watt stripped down 7th Edition', > > If this is the version I have, which not only came from HWU, but is > running on one of their old machines, it's fairly standard. It was > build for a 'small machine', meaning one without separate I&D space, > such as an 11/34 (mine's on an 11/23 with 128KW and RL02s). There > are some extra drivers to support RX02s and stuff, but I think these > are just well-known additions from sources such as Boston. There's a > makefile to configure and build for a small machine. > > It's missing some of the larger pieces of software, such as troff (nroff > is there, and the troff source AFAIR) and Fortran, and the tty driver is > modified (bigger!), but most other things seem to be 'normal'. > > I have the source on 800bpi magtape (pity my drive is only 1600bpi) and > also most of it on RL02, though the RL02s are a bit disorganised. > > Pete Anybody in the UK able to read Pete's tape? Pete, can you kermit the files off those RL02s? Warren Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA10611 for pups-liszt; Fri, 12 Sep 1997 09:31:15 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au Fri Sep 12 09:31:22 1997 From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 09:31:22 +1000 (EST) Subject: Bootstrap Idea Message-ID: <199709112331.JAA09209@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> All, I had an idea about bootstrapping images into PDP-11s, please shoot it down! Ok, I don't know much about the -11 hardware, how hard would it be to bootstrap as follows: hand-toggle in a small bit of code, which sucks in a bigger bootstrap over a serial line, which then can pull in a disk image over the serial line & write to disk Flaws: need different bootstraps for different disks need different bootstraps for different serial hardware how to deal with bad blocks? very slooow Other problems: 5th, 6th Edition came as RK05 images. We could probably build images for different drives. 7th Edition did a mkfs during installation, but I don't know if bad blocks were ever dealt with. Anyway, this solution would allow a simple program + disk images to be put on your nearby PC running Linux/whatever, so no tapes or tape drives would be required. I've used this method on another hardware platform to move disk images in/out. It is slow, but it works. Warren Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id LAA00163 for pups-liszt; Fri, 12 Sep 1997 11:39:17 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From allisonp at world.std.com Fri Sep 12 11:38:58 1997 From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 21:38:58 -0400 Subject: Bootstrap Idea Message-ID: <199709120138.AA13555@world.std.com> Hi, RE: booting < hand-toggle in a small bit of code, which < sucks in a bigger bootstrap over a serial line, which < then can pull in a disk image over the serial line & write to disk Depending on the hardware many of the qbus 11s have ODT, MOP(serial line), MOP(sync line), TU58, rx01/2 and tu58 boots in rom. It's handy to untilize this. I will not comment on unibus machines as I'm not experinced on those. I favor the MOP boot with a mop responder on a PC to load a loader. The key is to load small program by hand that loads a more complex loader. Hi, Message-ID: On Fri, 12 Sep 1997, Warren Toomey wrote: > All, > I had an idea about bootstrapping images into PDP-11s, please shoot > it down! Ok, I don't know much about the -11 hardware, how hard would it > be to bootstrap as follows: > > hand-toggle in a small bit of code, which > sucks in a bigger bootstrap over a serial line, which > then can pull in a disk image over the serial line & write to disk Well I've started to use this approach allready and have written most of the code. My scenario is that I have an 11/34 with one RK05, and no other operating systems. I have access to almost unlimited number of PDP-11 serial cards, and other unix boxes. The PDP 11 is configured with two serial ports, one the standard serial console, the other a 9600 baud serial line. These go to the two serial ports on my PC running (which incendtally runs linux). First I send a program (binary) as console emulator instructions to the PDP on the console line. This program is basically a hacked version of /mdec/tboot.s (TU10 boot) which provides getc() and putc() and other bits and bobs. It reads in from console a number (rather than a file name) which is the length of the program to load. This is read in from the second serial port and loaded into memory. I then jump to this and start going. So the procedure is (1) Load tboot.s via console (2) load RKF to format RK-05 (this works fine) (2) load the copy program whose name escapes me at the moment, and transfer the tape image to the RK-05. (3) Boot the RK-05. This seemed to work, and progress was only interupted by the need to move the PDP-11 from Cambridge to home! I have copies of all the programs which need a little finishing off, but I could let people have copies if they are interested. Incidentally I assembled the on Supnik's emulator and then punched them out to the virtual PTP. In fact I also have a longish document which goes through the entire process with all the code (and some new comments) to try and explain how it all works. All this was done using V5 unix code btw. > > Flaws: need different bootstraps for different disks > need different bootstraps for different serial hardware > how to deal with bad blocks? > very slooow > > Other problems: 5th, 6th Edition came as RK05 images. We could probably > build images for different drives. > 7th Edition did a mkfs during installation, but I don't know if > bad blocks were ever dealt with. > > Anyway, this solution would allow a simple program + disk images to be > put on your nearby PC running Linux/whatever, so no tapes or tape drives > would be required. It is slow -- but that doesn't matter if you can go somewhere else while it happens (as long as your RK-05 doesn't catch fire) Alan Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA04307 for pups-liszt; Sat, 13 Sep 1997 13:07:30 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From rjm at swift.eng.ox.ac.uk Fri Sep 12 19:07:35 1997 From: rjm at swift.eng.ox.ac.uk (Bob) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 10:07:35 +0100 (BST) Subject: Bootstrap Idea In-Reply-To: <199709112331.JAA09209@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> from "Warren Toomey" at Sep 12, 97 09:31:22 am Message-ID: >All, > I had an idea about bootstrapping images into PDP-11s, please shoot >it down! Ok, I don't know much about the -11 hardware, how hard would it >be to bootstrap as follows: > > hand-toggle in a small bit of code, which > sucks in a bigger bootstrap over a serial line, which > then can pull in a disk image over the serial line & write to disk Well, for what it's worth here's my contribution. I have been able to set up working v5 and v6 systems on my 11/34c (which uses an RK05 drive) uisng the distributed images (thanks Warren). The key here I think is to make use of the excellent work that has been already done on the various PDP-11 emulators. The emulator I use is that of Bob Supnic, which runs wonderfully on my Linux box. v6 is available as an image of a tape. The docs helpfully say: This is a copy of the Sixth Edition distribution tape which was sent to me by Ken Wellsch. The file v6.tape.gz is the tape image, with the first 100 512-byte tape blocks containing tape bootstrap stuff. Blocks 100 - 4099 are the RK05 root image, blocks 4100 - 8099 are the /usr RK05 image, and the blocks 8100 - 12099 are the /doc RK05 image. It is trivial with the UNIX command dd to split the tape image into its constituent parts: 1) Tape bootstap (useless for me) 2) RK05 root image 3) RK05 /usr image 4) RK05 /doc image I can then start the Supnic emulator, attach the three RK05 images to drives 0, 1 and 2 and boot. My system has only a single RK05 drive. As a result I had to mess around in the emulator to create a fresh RK05 image containing a useful subset of the root and /usr images. In practice it's not too hard to get v6 onto a single RK05 pack -- I think it's only necessary to lose stuff like the spell disctionary and so on. I also wanted support for a second DL11 serial line, so I used the emulator (and some extra emulated disk space) to rebuild the kernel. Once I was happy with the disk image I'd created, it was time to transfer it to real hardware. My 11/34c runs RT11 and I was able to get hold of a small stripped down Kermit server-only program from John Wilson. I forget the name of this utility, but it's available from ftp.dbit.com. The stardard RT11 Kermit that I have is unable to transfer entire disk images, the Wilson implementation can do so. Booting the 11/34c from RX01 floppy (one RK05 drive only, remember) I ran the Kermit server. From the PC end it was straightforward to transfer the image: "PUT imagefile.img RK01:". Aside from a spectacular RK05 head crash that put my machine out of action for a while, all was well. For v7, I started with a single RL02 image. That would boot on the simulator. I added a couple of emulated RK05s to the emulator set up and proceded to build a single RK05 which would (just!) hold a bootable v7 image. I warn you that v7 on a 2.5Mb disk is tight, but it can be done. Having built the image, I rebuilt the kernel to enable RK05 support (and a second serial line, again) and disable the other disk drivers. That kernel went onto my new image. Again, the same Kermit trick enabled the image to be transferred to the 11/34a. If anyone wants these RK05 bootable image files, please let me know (rjm at swift.eng.ox.ac.uk - not this address)! A few points though: 1) RK05s packs _can not have_ bad blocks. There is no bad block revectoring on these drives. A bad block on a pack suggests the pack is ready for the dumpster. This makes life a little easier. I'm not sure how you'd deal with bad block revectoring on an RL01/RL02 for example. I guess it's not too hard, but I shan't speculate there. 2) My 11/73, on the other hand, uses an RD53 (last time I looked). I'm not sure if the emulator can deal with these kind of drives. In any case, support for MSCP drives only came with 2BSD, which I've not played with. Maybe the same emulator tricks can be employed to get RDxx images, modulo the bad blocks problem. 3) If you don't have a PDP-11 operating system running, the Kermit approach won't be much use. There may be a stand-alone file transfer program that can write to raw devices. No idea -- perhaps someone needs to write this (both for the PDP and the PC ends). Hope this helps. Cheers, Bob -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bob Manners (My REAL address is: rjm at swift.eng.ox.ac.uk) BOB'S COMPUTER MUSEUM: http://swift.eng.ox.ac.uk/rjm/museum.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From m at mbsks.franken.de Thu Sep 11 18:31:26 1997 From: m at mbsks.franken.de (Matthias Bruestle) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 10:31:26 +0200 (MET DST) Subject: UNIX for PDP-11: moving on to media In-Reply-To: <199709110449.OAA17004@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> from Warren Toomey at "Sep 11, 97 02:49:53 pm" Message-ID: Mahlzeit According to Warren Toomey: > Question 1 > ---------- > > How do I get a Unix distribution onto: > > - a tape, because I have a tape drive > > - a disk drive, as I don't have a tape drive > > assuming I [ have RT-11/ RSX / no operating system ] on the PDP-11 already. For my 11/34A with 2 RL01 I made with an emulator a bootable V7-RL01-diskimage. I downloaded it under RT-11 with KSERVE from John Wilson (dunno where I ftped it) over a serial line onto the second disk. It took some hours, but it worked. Mahlzeit endergone Zwiebeltuete -- insanity inside Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id DAA06433 for pups-liszt; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 03:26:28 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From allisonp at world.std.com Sun Sep 14 03:26:17 1997 From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 1997 13:26:17 -0400 Subject: UNIX for PDP-11: moving on to media Message-ID: <199709131726.AA14996@world.std.com> >In article by pnt103 at ugrad.cs.york.ac.uk: >> Warren wrote: >> > I've got some AUUG newsletters ... One of them mentions >> > a `Heriot-Watt stripped down 7th Edition', >> >> If this is the version I have, which not only came from HWU, but is >> running on one of their old machines, it's fairly standard. It was >> build for a 'small machine', meaning one without separate I&D space, >> such as an 11/34 (mine's on an 11/23 with 128KW and RL02s). There >> are some extra drivers to support RX02s and stuff, but I think these >> are just well-known additions from sources such as Boston. There's a >> makefile to configure and build for a small machine. >> >> It's missing some of the larger pieces of software, such as troff (nroff >> is there, and the troff source AFAIR) and Fortran, and the tty driver is >> modified (bigger!), but most other things seem to be 'normal'. >> >> I have the source on 800bpi magtape (pity my drive is only 1600bpi) and >> also most of it on RL02, though the RL02s are a bit disorganised. >> >> Pete > >Anybody in the UK able to read Pete's tape? Pete, can you kermit the files >off those RL02s? If the need is large enough, I can roll out a TU77 and connect it to Magica to read the stuff. That means Sweden, though... Johnny Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus CS student at Uppsala University || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id FAA06768 for pups-liszt; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 05:10:34 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se Sun Sep 14 04:09:43 1997 From: bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 97 21:09:43 +0300 (MET DST) Subject: Bootstrap Idea In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 11 Sep 1997 22:43:28 -0400 Message-ID: >Not true. They all did as bad blocks have been a fact of life for all >computers since day one. Some of the ealy unixes used crude methods >from a perfomance standoint but, the bad block replacement was there. Well, not day one, but that come pretty early. Quality of the magnetic media wasn't really that good back then, so you usually *had* to expect a few bad spots on any disk. On PDP-11's, I would supect that Unix went with DEC's BAD144 standard pretty fast. (When did that standard come, btw?) >Do read LIONS commentary. I was able to get a copy from the local library >here in eastern MA (USA) along with several books on BSD design. Unix was >really ahead of the pack on many things. Not to be a pain in the ass or so, but in what ways was Unix ahead of anything? Unix was just a small hack inspired by Multics, and looking at contemporary operating systems, I'd say there were some that were way ahead of Unix (and still are...) Operating systems in the last twenty years have really retro-developed. :-) Johnny Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus CS student at Uppsala University || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id FAA06799 for pups-liszt; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 05:23:01 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se Sun Sep 14 04:22:21 1997 From: bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 97 21:22:21 +0300 (MET DST) Subject: UNIX for PDP-11: moving on to media In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 13 Sep 1997 13:26:17 -0400 Message-ID: > >How did you write it to the RL01 and what would it take to write it to rl02 >assuming rt/kserve. Did you use guarenteed no bad block media? Most RL02 are pretty good. Usually they don't have any bad spots in my experience. Johnny Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus CS student at Uppsala University || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id HAA07202 for pups-liszt; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 07:58:41 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From allisonp at world.std.com Sun Sep 14 07:58:31 1997 From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 1997 17:58:31 -0400 Subject: Bootstrap Idea Message-ID: <199709132158.AA29962@world.std.com> , RT-11, RSTS, RSX-11, VMS, Ultrix. So those are what I have to look at when thinking in terms of 1970s OSs like Unix of the time. but there was remaping so platters with bad blocks were invisible to the system mangler/user. I just tossed a pack that had developed more bad blocks then could be managed. Allison Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA07502 for pups-liszt; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 09:50:10 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se Sun Sep 14 08:49:54 1997 From: bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Sun, 14 Sep 97 1:49:54 +0300 (MET DST) Subject: UNIX for PDP-11: moving on to media In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 13 Sep 1997 17:58:38 -0400 Message-ID: > > >They were low in defects but there was remaping so platters >with bad blocks were invisible to the system mangler/user. I just tossed a >pack that had developed more bad blocks then could be managed. No exacly invisible... The operating system had to be aware of the bad spots, and invent some scheme or other to hide the spots from the user. OS/8's solution is rather hairy. I know, since I didn't have a "formatter" program, so I needed to write one, given the source of the device driver... Bad spots on MSCP disks on the other hand are totally invisible. Johnny Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus CS student at Uppsala University || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA07523 for pups-liszt; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 09:56:09 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se Sun Sep 14 08:55:55 1997 From: bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Sun, 14 Sep 97 1:55:55 +0300 (MET DST) Subject: Bootstrap Idea In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 13 Sep 1997 17:58:31 -0400 Message-ID: > >yes, but as hacks go it was more public in code than other OSs of value in >that time frame. I'm not saying was the best. Also I've never used >multics. My experience in chronological order is OS/8, TOPS-10, CP/M-80, >NS*dos, RT-11, RSTS, RSX-11, VMS, Ultrix. So those are what I have to >look at when thinking in terms of 1970s OSs like Unix of the time. Oh, certainly, the source was available. I would say that that, along with the fact that you got it for free, were the only two reasons for its rise to fame. If you compare Unix with the systems you mention above, most of the DEC stuff have had some stuff since the '70s that Unix only got in the 90s... (Shared libraries and microkernels for instance.) > >If you mean what I think the answer is not here. If anything my view is >more of when will dos/winders perform as well as some of those OSs of the >time. Then again, I had VMS4.6 running decwindows and four users on a >microvaxII with 9meg and 3 RD53s in 1989. What I meant was that development have gone backwards with regards to operating systems in the last twenty years. :-) Who knows how many things Microsoft has reinvented in the last few years, and Unix hasn't been much better either... (Okay, so this is the list for Unixes on the PDP-11, so I'll defend that particualr Unix. It's still clean and mean, which was the purpose of the design, and not the overbloated monster called Unix nowadays...) Johnny Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus CS student at Uppsala University || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id LAA07772 for pups-liszt; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 11:51:49 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From pnt103 at ugrad.cs.york.ac.uk Sun Sep 14 02:51:15 1997 From: pnt103 at ugrad.cs.york.ac.uk (pnt103 at ugrad.cs.york.ac.uk) Date: Sun, 14 Sep 97 02:51:15 Subject: Old PDP-11 UNIX Paper Docs? Message-ID: Re Heriot-Watt stripped-down 7th Edition... Warren wrote: > Anybody in the UK able to read Pete's tape? Pete, can you kermit the files > off those RL02s? I did once attempt to read the tape on our department's Kenedy drive (now disposed of) and managed to get all but a few blocks near the beginning. It seems to be a pretty standard distribution tape, with a layout as described in the Unix Programmer's Manual Vol.2 (Jan.1979). I have a 1600bpi copy (modulo the bad blocks) somewhere (I wonder where I put it?). I wouldn't bother about making another copy; if anyone deparately wants to try, I guess I might loan the original. But AFAIK there's only a couple of Makefiles that differ, and I have those on the RL02s. I don't have any version of kermit that will run under 7th Edition on an 11/23 (the normal versions are too big), but text files are perfectly easy to copy. Pete Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA07850 for pups-liszt; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 12:24:44 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From allisonp at world.std.com Sun Sep 14 12:24:31 1997 From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 1997 22:24:31 -0400 Subject: Bootstrap Idea Message-ID: <199709140224.AA03277@world.std.com> from Allison J Parent at "Sep 13, 97 01:26:17 pm" Message-ID: Mahlzeit According to Allison J Parent: > How did you write it to the RL01 and what would it take to write it to rl02 > assuming rt/kserve. Did you use guarenteed no bad block media? I ran kserve on RT-11 and kermit on my PC (and a 4-wire seriell line in between). kserve (unlike the other kermits for RT-11) can write directly with a put to a disk. The RL01 disk pack I used had no bad blocks. This should the same way work with RL02 disks. In some blocks on the disk pack should be written, if it has bad blocks. But I don't know which. I didn't try it with media with bad blocks, because I had only this disk pack free. (On the other is the RT-11 and my third has a red shock watch.) Mahlzeit endergone Zwiebeltuete -- insanity inside Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA10961 for pups-liszt; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 09:21:15 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From johnh at psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au Mon Sep 15 09:21:07 1997 From: johnh at psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au (John Holden) Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 09:21:07 +1000 Subject: Bootstrap Idea Message-ID: <199709142321.JAA10208@psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au> There are a few good tricks to get PDP11 with odd configurations to load. The first is the venerable paper tape bootstrap. It consists of only 8 instructions (28 bytes) and works on serial ports. It then loads the 'absolute loader' which will load formatted data (paper tape!). The format is trival and has checksums and stop/transfer blocks. The trick is to convert the unix secordary boot loader from V7 or BSD 2.9-2.11 and then you have mini loader with lots of device drivers. I can provide some of these programs including the paper tape listings and images (heck, I still have a working paper tape reader/punch). You can load ANY PDP-11 this way! Another approach if you have any of the LSI-11 based cpus with microcoded console emulator is to use the Xinu suite. It does an initial bootstrap by sending console commands and then loading a binary boostrap. On the subject of bad blocks, V6 and V7 offered no bad block strategies. The DEC spec for RK05's was 200 tracks by 12 sectors by 2 surface plus 3 bad block tracks for 4800 blocks plus 72 spare. The media was generally pretty good, and all Unix versions used 4872 block filesystems. Files-11 (IAS/RSX) was the only system to offer bad block replacement (I cannot be sure for RSTS). When bigger disk drives started showing up, like the RM02/3's and RM05, the usual practive was to buy packs with 'zero' defects. Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id LAA11254 for pups-liszt; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 11:20:27 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From allisonp at world.std.com Mon Sep 15 11:20:16 1997 From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent) Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 21:20:16 -0400 Subject: Bootstrap Idea Message-ID: <199709150120.AA07683@world.std.com> [ The following email came from Steven Schultz, but didn't make it into the PUPS mail list as it was too big! I've extracted the included PostScript file and put it on the PUPS web page. Warren ] Greetings - > = "David C. Jenner" > occurred to me as I drool in anticipation over the possibility of > running 2.11BSD on an 11/73! It is a lot of fun - well worth drooling over ;-) > Maybe you or a 2.11BSD expert (Steve Schultz?) could find the "release You rang? ;) > notes" for 2.11BSD and post them, if that's legal now. That would Hmmm, the Install/Setup docs have the old style BSD copyright notice on them ("subject to the terms of your BSD license") rather than the later "do what you want but leave our credits present". I suppose it wouldn't be too risky to post the formatted documentation (rather than the raw nroff source). It is quite large (I hope Postscript is acceptable to everyone) but gzip'd it should be of reasonable size. [ It's now at http://minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au/PUPS/2bsdsetup.ps.gz - Warren ] > 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 For quite a while it didn't occur to me what all the fuss was about. I assumed that folks would do what I do - put the CD into a BSD/OS|FreeBSD|Linux|usw box and write the images out to a 4mm or 9-track and then cable the tape drive up to the PDP-11 and proceed. It finally dawned on me that most folks won't have invested in a Qbus SCSI adaptor (it's really a VERY handy thing to have, makes possible sharing of tape drives, using inexpensive new disks instead of old slow RD5{3,4} drives, etc). For _some_ folks (those a bit more "serious") getting a SCSI adaptor would be a "good thing". They're cheaper now than they used to be (I about choked when a new Emulex UC08 was $1500 - and that's with a 30% discount - but went ahead with it back in 1991 and have never regretted it). A used UC08 (or similar CMD product) is from what I have seen about $900 today. A TAPE ONLY CMD adaptor is "just" $300 - that's not too bad, is it? Since in many cases the systems have been obtained free (or cheaply) as they were being tossed out and it is beginning to look like the software will be almost free ($100 or so isn't a whole lot of money) perhaps investing some money into the hobby in the form of a SCSI adaptor would be a wise choice (at least for some folks). Everything can't be free all the time, can it? DEC used to make a SCSI adaptor (RQZX1) and a TZ30 (SCSI variant of the TK50) but I have no idea how available those are on the used parts market these days. Other folks I would hope could find a Vax (or similar) system around with a TK50 or whatever and perhaps write the images to tape that way. You don't want floppies ;) RX50 floppy media is expensive and only holds 800kb per diskette (not to mention that RX50 drives are flakey). RX33s can get 1.2mb per disk but the Teac model of 5.25" drive that can be adapted to the RQDX3 controller is getting _scare_ and newer models (from what I understand) can not be adapted for use with RQDX3 controller. I suppose a person could get an RX23 or RX26 from DEC but heaven knows what that would cost. Besides which a complete 2.11 kit would take somewhere between 80 and 100 floppies (depending on how full each one could be packed). TK25s are another possibility but I don't know how many folks have (or want) one of those - they're rather awkward physically and while they use DC600A tapes aren't interchangeable with any other system. 9-track tape was the traditional distribution mechanism for 2BSD up until 2.10.1BSD at which time TK50s (TMSCP) support was added. The kit was 2 tapes at 1600bpi but the system has grown enough that a 3rd tape might be required today. At 6250bpi everything fits quite nicely on a single tape (might be a bit tight at 3200bpi though). Attached below is the Setup/Installation document from 2.11BSD (last revised in June 1995). It is a gzip'd postscript file uuencoded for safe transit thru the mail. [ It's now at http://minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au/PUPS/2bsdsetup.ps.gz - Warren ] Steven Schultz Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id WAA12969 for pups-liszt; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 22:20:29 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From m at mbsks.franken.de Mon Sep 15 22:14:02 1997 From: m at mbsks.franken.de (Matthias Bruestle) Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 14:14:02 +0200 (MET DST) Subject: Setup Instructions for 2.11BSD In-Reply-To: <199709150517.PAA26739@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> from Warren Toomey at "Sep 15, 97 03:17:59 pm" Message-ID: Mahlzeit According to Steven Schultz: > a BSD/OS|FreeBSD|Linux|usw box and write the images out to a 4mm (Is usw also used in English?) > regretted it). A used UC08 (or similar CMD product) is from > what I have seen about $900 today. A TAPE ONLY CMD adaptor is "just" > $300 - that's not too bad, is it? Since in many cases the systems US$300 may be not bad, but I would rather buy a new monitor. (A 14-year-old 14" colour monitor with "some" "small" defects or a 14" grayscale monitor are not the best.) I could also buy RAM for my M70: 1MB US$550. That's way to much for me. > You don't want floppies ;) RX50 floppy media is expensive and A bootable RT-11 floppy with kserve is fine if you have a disk image. If I find a "DU-ready" BSD (I'm not that good in C.) I will try this floppy solution to install it on my M70. That is also my only possibility without spending hundreds of dollars, unless someone writes a serial tape emulator or something like that. Btw. my M70 has two monitors: SBC M70-V3.0 DX DY DL DU DM DB MS MT M70> and 173244 @ Is the second a debugger? Mahlzeit endergone Zwiebeltuete -- insanity inside Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id XAA13177 for pups-liszt; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 23:38:42 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From djenner at halcyon.com Mon Sep 15 23:30:22 1997 From: djenner at halcyon.com (David C. Jenner) Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 06:30:22 -0700 Subject: Setup Instructions for 2.11BSD References: <199709150517.PAA26739@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Message-ID: <341D386E.EB41CC9A@halcyon.com> It occurred to me that adding another peripheral was an option. That's why I asked the experts! Steven Schultz said: > For _some_ folks (those a bit more "serious") getting a SCSI adaptor > would be a "good thing". They're cheaper now than they used to be > (I about choked when a new Emulex UC08 was $1500 - and that's with > a 30% discount - but went ahead with it back in 1991 and have never > regretted it). A used UC08 (or similar CMD product) is from > what I have seen about $900 today. A TAPE ONLY CMD adaptor is "just" > $300 - that's not too bad, is it? Since in many cases the systems > have been obtained free (or cheaply) as they were being tossed out > and it is beginning to look like the software will be almost free > ($100 or so isn't a whole lot of money) perhaps investing some money > into the hobby in the form of a SCSI adaptor would be a wise choice (at > least for some folks). Everything can't be free all the time, can it? > > DEC used to make a SCSI adaptor (RQZX1) and a TZ30 (SCSI variant of > the TK50) but I have no idea how available those are on the used > parts market these days. > Can someone qualify exactly which controllers (or class of controllers) would work here? And which tape drives? By the time you add up a controller and a drive, it could approach $1000, though. And the drive must be supported on your other (Linux) system. > TK25s are another possibility but I don't know how many folks have > (or want) one of those - they're rather awkward physically and while > they use DC600A tapes aren't interchangeable with any other system. > I have one of these, although it has been flakey as of late. Is anyone prepared to make up (bootable) 2.11BSD tapes on TK25 cartridges? Thanks, Dave -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: vcard.vcf Type: text/x-vcard Size: 330 bytes Desc: Card for David C. Jenner URL: From allisonp at world.std.com Tue Sep 16 01:14:11 1997 From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent) Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 11:14:11 -0400 Subject: Setup Instructions for 2.11BSD Message-ID: <199709151514.AA18495@world.std.com> That is some form of boot rom and those are the devices you can boot. <173244 <@ < from Allison J Parent at "Sep 15, 97 11:14:11 am" Message-ID: Mahlzeit According to Allison J Parent: > What is a M70? PDP11/70 or ? A M70 is from Mentec and something like a 11/73. On my quad-high board are 512kB RAM and 4 serial ports. Mahlzeit endergone Zwiebeltuete -- insanity inside From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au Wed Sep 17 12:15:09 1997 From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey) Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 12:15:09 +1000 (EST) Subject: Kserve, TU11 Emulator, upload? Message-ID: <199709170215.MAA01160@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> 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 Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA19408 for pups-liszt; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 13:14:47 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au Wed Sep 17 13:14:48 1997 From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey) Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 13:14:48 +1000 (EST) Subject: Also, PDP-11 URLs Message-ID: <199709170314.NAA01259@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> 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 Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA19885 for pups-liszt; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 14:51:35 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au Wed Sep 17 14:51:36 1997 From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey) Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 14:51:36 +1000 (EST) Subject: Updated PUPS ftp & web areas Message-ID: <199709170451.OAA01580@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> 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 From pnt103 at ugrad.cs.york.ac.uk Mon Sep 1 00:18:51 1997 From: pnt103 at ugrad.cs.york.ac.uk (pnt103 at ugrad.cs.york.ac.uk) Date: Mon, 1 Sep 97 00:18:51 Subject: PDP-11 Unix CD-ROM archive burn Message-ID: Warren wrote: : If you don't have RK05 or RL02s, someone should be able to build : a suitable disk image for you. I think you'll need to go 6th Edition : as you have a /23. 7th Edition runs fine on an 11/23 or 11/34, providing you build the 'small machine' version. I've had 7th on my 11/23 with 256K and 2xRL02 for years. Pete From Kevin.Wright at VITREX.com Tue Sep 2 11:25:46 1997 From: Kevin.Wright at VITREX.com (Kevin Wright) Date: Mon, 1 Sep 1997 19:25:46 -0600 Subject: PDP-11 hardware liquidation Message-ID: 1-SEP-97 As owner of a PDP-11/23+ system, I know how difficult it can be to find hardware for older PDP-11's. I'd like to inform you that I've found a terrific source in Utah for used DEC hardware including PDP-11 related items. This person has a 2400 sq ft warehouse (about 3 semi truck loads) quite literally brimming with computer hardware which has been collected and stored over the past 10 years. He is currently in the process of liquidating it at very, very low prices. Tons of miscellaneous computer equipment is available, much of which was manufactured by DEC. It would be impossible to list even a fraction of what he has available, but he has told me that his inventory includes approximately 1000 Q-Bus and Unibus boards, plus peripheral devices such as disk and tape drives. I've not been to the warehouse in person yet , but I will be visiting the site in about 2 weeks time from now. If interested, you should be aware that he is in the process of getting rid of EVERYTHING! It sounds like it will all be gone in the next 3 to 4 weeks. Opportunities like this very seldom come along, so please contact me via email if you are interested in finding out more. I'll be happy to forward to you, any needed information that I can. Please feel free to forward this notice to anyone you think might be interested. Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA24452 for pups-liszt; Wed, 3 Sep 1997 16:22:33 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au Wed Sep 3 16:23:06 1997 From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey) Date: Wed, 3 Sep 1997 16:23:06 +1000 (EST) Subject: PUPS Mailing List - Now Majordomo Message-ID: <199709030623.QAA07853@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> All, I've just moved the PUPS (old PDP-11 Unix) mailing list over to run under MajorDomo. I'm still learning MajorDomo, so there might be some teething troubles. The new list is called: pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Can you update any aliases that point to this list. I will keep the original /etc/aliases mailing list oldunix at cs.adfa.oz.au around for a while until I'm sure the new one works fine. As with MajorDomo, you can send messages to get off the mailing list. Please let me know of any problems. Updates: SCO Petition, CD-R writers etc. ---------------------------------------- Ok, we're still chatting with SCO. I got a summary of internal mail which shows that there are 2 sides in SCO, those who think it's a good idea (PR-wise at least) and those who can't see the point & who think it's a can of worms. I feel that the people on our side are winning. I've been trying to explain the history of some of the UNIX flavours to their legal eagle, who must know recent history only. I think we can iron things out. Several people from Europe & the US said that they had access to a CD-R writer, & could write CDs, if that became the distribution method for passing on the PUPS archive. I will probably go buy a new X-Gig disk to give the archive a proper FTP home. I've come up with a new archive layout & will pass it on to you all for comments. Anyway, it looks like progress is being made & we should be able to buy personal UNIX licenses soon :-). More updates to the list as things happen. Thanks for your suport!! Warren wkt at cs.adfa.oz.au From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au Mon Sep 8 10:01:22 1997 From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey) Date: Mon, 8 Sep 1997 10:01:22 +1000 (EST) Subject: Searchable PUPS Mail Archive Message-ID: <199709080001.KAA11261@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> I've set up a searchable archive of the mail from the PDP-11 Unix mailing list, at http://minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au/cgi-bin/pups.cgi Let me know of any problems with it. Updates to the archive will be done manually until I iron out some script bugs! Warren From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au Thu Sep 11 11:08:51 1997 From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 11:08:51 +1000 (EST) Subject: SysIII UNIX for PDP-11 In-Reply-To: <009BA147.996F2660.9@mail.all-net.net> from Robert Byer at "Sep 10, 97 07:57:07 am" Message-ID: <199709110108.LAA16675@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> [Robert has got a copy of System II for PDP-11 on tapes] > If I had a way to copy the tapes, I would have no problem and i'm not > even sure what is exactly on the tapes or if they are still good as I've > never really used them as the Unix III was already loaded on disks when I > got them PDP-11/34 from Bell Labs. > > (The sytem was used here in Bell Labs here in Indianapolis, IN to help > develope the first speech recognition system and I still have most of > the software "somehwere" on RL01/02 packs, so I'm kinda attached to the > tapes.) > > And, I have a gentleman here that is going to come pick up all my PDP > stuff in the next month or so for a computer museum he is putting together. > > So, if you can copy the tapes, I might be talked in to releasing the > tapes to you for copying for a good cause. Robert, I forgot to cc my reply to the others on the PUPS mailing list. Would anybody in the US be able to look at Robert's tapes to see if we can recover System III? John Holden just donated System V to the PUPS archive, so System III would also be a good addition. Please email to Robert & the mailing list if you are willing to look at the tapes. Thanks in advance, Warren Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA02864 for pups-liszt; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 13:14:17 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From allisonp at world.std.com Thu Sep 11 13:14:05 1997 From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 23:14:05 -0400 Subject: UNIX for PDP-11 Message-ID: <199709110314.AA29315@world.std.com> Hello, Curiousity, How does one get a license for a PDP-11 version of unix these days? I've had an 11/73 I've been itching to run unix on. Allison Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA03054 for pups-liszt; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 14:41:19 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From allisonp at world.std.com Thu Sep 11 14:41:08 1997 From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 00:41:08 -0400 Subject: UNIX for PDP-11 Message-ID: <199709110441.AA09464@world.std.com> from Allison J Parent at "Sep 11, 97 00:41:08 am" Message-ID: <199709110449.OAA17004@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> In article by Allison J Parent: > > > I've done the petition. > > > I also know of the binaries for v6 and v7 at several sites for emulator use. > > What is unclear is how to get those binaries onto a real PDP-11 such as my > 11/73 and if the devices I have are even supported. Sorry for the misunderstanding Allison! Actually, that's a very good question. As I'm not a hardware person, I'll pass this over to the other PUPS mailing list members. If/when SCO start selling licenses & we make CD-ROMs or FTP sites available, this question is going to come up an awful lot: Question 1 ---------- How do I get a Unix distribution onto: - a tape, because I have a tape drive - a disk drive, as I don't have a tape drive assuming I [ have RT-11/ RSX / no operating system ] on the PDP-11 already. Question 2 ---------- I have [ this particular CPU and this list of other peripherals ]. What version(s) of Unix can I run on this PDP-11? Can anybody help out with answers to Question 1? Bits & pieces of Question 2 are answered on the PUPS web pages, but they need expanding. Thanks in advance for any information, and any programs (boot code etc) that I can add in to the PUPS archive!! Warren From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au Thu Sep 11 15:39:39 1997 From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 15:39:39 +1000 (EST) Subject: Old PDP-11 UNIX Paper Docs? Message-ID: <199709110539.PAA17152@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> All, While I'm thinking of it, does anybody have any old Usenix, EUUG, AUUG etc. newsletters, papers, conference proceedings? Some of these have details about fitting various UNIX flavours onto various PDP-11s, plus other useful information. Anyone care to scan stuff in? I've got some AUUG newsletters dating from 1980 onwards. One of them mentions a `Heriot-Watt stripped down 7th Edition', which looks like it comes from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, UK. Does anybody have any knowledge of this version of 7th Edition? Warren From grog at lemis.com Thu Sep 11 16:36:54 1997 From: grog at lemis.com (Greg Lehey) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 16:06:54 +0930 Subject: Old PDP-11 UNIX Paper Docs? In-Reply-To: <199709110539.PAA17152@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>; from Warren Toomey on Thu, Sep 11, 1997 at 03:39:39PM +1000 References: <199709110539.PAA17152@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Message-ID: <19970911160654.56158@lemis.com> On Thu, Sep 11, 1997 at 03:39:39PM +1000, Warren Toomey wrote: > All, > While I'm thinking of it, does anybody have any old Usenix, EUUG, > AUUG etc. newsletters, papers, conference proceedings? Some of these have > details about fitting various UNIX flavours onto various PDP-11s, plus other > useful information. Anyone care to scan stuff in? > > I've got some AUUG newsletters dating from 1980 onwards. One of them mentions > a `Heriot-Watt stripped down 7th Edition', which looks like it comes from > Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, UK. Does anybody have any knowledge of > this version of 7th Edition? I believe I might have a copy of it. I got it along with an 11/73 from some friends, who had brought the software via Novosibirsk, where they had studied computer science. They gave me the machine in April of this year, along with a whole lot of RL02s, and I haven't put it together yet. If anybody in the Adelaide area is interested in helping me, we might find something interesting on it. Greg Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id XAA08832 for pups-liszt; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 23:46:13 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From allisonp at world.std.com Thu Sep 11 23:45:41 1997 From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 09:45:41 -0400 Subject: UNIX for PDP-11: moving on to media Message-ID: <199709111345.AA22220@world.std.com> Warren, Message-ID: <341815C8.39585882@halcyon.com> 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: > > In article by Allison J Parent: > > > > > > > I've done the petition. > > > > > > > > > I also know of the binaries for v6 and v7 at several sites for emulator use. > > > > What is unclear is how to get those binaries onto a real PDP-11 such as my > > 11/73 and if the devices I have are even supported. > > Sorry for the misunderstanding Allison! > > Actually, that's a very good question. As I'm not a hardware person, I'll > pass this over to the other PUPS mailing list members. If/when SCO start > selling licenses & we make CD-ROMs or FTP sites available, this question > is going to come up an awful lot: > > Question 1 > ---------- > > How do I get a Unix distribution onto: > > - a tape, because I have a tape drive > > - a disk drive, as I don't have a tape drive > > assuming I [ have RT-11/ RSX / no operating system ] on the PDP-11 already. > > Question 2 > ---------- > > I have [ this particular CPU and this list of other peripherals ]. > What version(s) of Unix can I run on this PDP-11? > > Can anybody help out with answers to Question 1? Bits & pieces of Question 2 > are answered on the PUPS web pages, but they need expanding. > > Thanks in advance for any information, and any programs (boot code etc) > that I can add in to the PUPS archive!! > > Warren Received: (from major at 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 at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From allisonp at world.std.com Fri Sep 12 04:43:46 1997 From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 14:43:46 -0400 Subject: UNIX for PDP-11: moving on to media Message-ID: <199709111843.AA28167@world.std.com> from "pnt103@ugrad.cs.york.ac.uk" at "Sep 11, 97 09:21:25 am" Message-ID: <199709112313.JAA08771@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> In article by pnt103 at ugrad.cs.york.ac.uk: > Warren wrote: > > I've got some AUUG newsletters ... One of them mentions > > a `Heriot-Watt stripped down 7th Edition', > > If this is the version I have, which not only came from HWU, but is > running on one of their old machines, it's fairly standard. It was > build for a 'small machine', meaning one without separate I&D space, > such as an 11/34 (mine's on an 11/23 with 128KW and RL02s). There > are some extra drivers to support RX02s and stuff, but I think these > are just well-known additions from sources such as Boston. There's a > makefile to configure and build for a small machine. > > It's missing some of the larger pieces of software, such as troff (nroff > is there, and the troff source AFAIR) and Fortran, and the tty driver is > modified (bigger!), but most other things seem to be 'normal'. > > I have the source on 800bpi magtape (pity my drive is only 1600bpi) and > also most of it on RL02, though the RL02s are a bit disorganised. > > Pete Anybody in the UK able to read Pete's tape? Pete, can you kermit the files off those RL02s? Warren Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA10611 for pups-liszt; Fri, 12 Sep 1997 09:31:15 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au Fri Sep 12 09:31:22 1997 From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 09:31:22 +1000 (EST) Subject: Bootstrap Idea Message-ID: <199709112331.JAA09209@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> All, I had an idea about bootstrapping images into PDP-11s, please shoot it down! Ok, I don't know much about the -11 hardware, how hard would it be to bootstrap as follows: hand-toggle in a small bit of code, which sucks in a bigger bootstrap over a serial line, which then can pull in a disk image over the serial line & write to disk Flaws: need different bootstraps for different disks need different bootstraps for different serial hardware how to deal with bad blocks? very slooow Other problems: 5th, 6th Edition came as RK05 images. We could probably build images for different drives. 7th Edition did a mkfs during installation, but I don't know if bad blocks were ever dealt with. Anyway, this solution would allow a simple program + disk images to be put on your nearby PC running Linux/whatever, so no tapes or tape drives would be required. I've used this method on another hardware platform to move disk images in/out. It is slow, but it works. Warren Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id LAA00163 for pups-liszt; Fri, 12 Sep 1997 11:39:17 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From allisonp at world.std.com Fri Sep 12 11:38:58 1997 From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 21:38:58 -0400 Subject: Bootstrap Idea Message-ID: <199709120138.AA13555@world.std.com> Hi, RE: booting < hand-toggle in a small bit of code, which < sucks in a bigger bootstrap over a serial line, which < then can pull in a disk image over the serial line & write to disk Depending on the hardware many of the qbus 11s have ODT, MOP(serial line), MOP(sync line), TU58, rx01/2 and tu58 boots in rom. It's handy to untilize this. I will not comment on unibus machines as I'm not experinced on those. I favor the MOP boot with a mop responder on a PC to load a loader. The key is to load small program by hand that loads a more complex loader. Hi, Message-ID: On Fri, 12 Sep 1997, Warren Toomey wrote: > All, > I had an idea about bootstrapping images into PDP-11s, please shoot > it down! Ok, I don't know much about the -11 hardware, how hard would it > be to bootstrap as follows: > > hand-toggle in a small bit of code, which > sucks in a bigger bootstrap over a serial line, which > then can pull in a disk image over the serial line & write to disk Well I've started to use this approach allready and have written most of the code. My scenario is that I have an 11/34 with one RK05, and no other operating systems. I have access to almost unlimited number of PDP-11 serial cards, and other unix boxes. The PDP 11 is configured with two serial ports, one the standard serial console, the other a 9600 baud serial line. These go to the two serial ports on my PC running (which incendtally runs linux). First I send a program (binary) as console emulator instructions to the PDP on the console line. This program is basically a hacked version of /mdec/tboot.s (TU10 boot) which provides getc() and putc() and other bits and bobs. It reads in from console a number (rather than a file name) which is the length of the program to load. This is read in from the second serial port and loaded into memory. I then jump to this and start going. So the procedure is (1) Load tboot.s via console (2) load RKF to format RK-05 (this works fine) (2) load the copy program whose name escapes me at the moment, and transfer the tape image to the RK-05. (3) Boot the RK-05. This seemed to work, and progress was only interupted by the need to move the PDP-11 from Cambridge to home! I have copies of all the programs which need a little finishing off, but I could let people have copies if they are interested. Incidentally I assembled the on Supnik's emulator and then punched them out to the virtual PTP. In fact I also have a longish document which goes through the entire process with all the code (and some new comments) to try and explain how it all works. All this was done using V5 unix code btw. > > Flaws: need different bootstraps for different disks > need different bootstraps for different serial hardware > how to deal with bad blocks? > very slooow > > Other problems: 5th, 6th Edition came as RK05 images. We could probably > build images for different drives. > 7th Edition did a mkfs during installation, but I don't know if > bad blocks were ever dealt with. > > Anyway, this solution would allow a simple program + disk images to be > put on your nearby PC running Linux/whatever, so no tapes or tape drives > would be required. It is slow -- but that doesn't matter if you can go somewhere else while it happens (as long as your RK-05 doesn't catch fire) Alan Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA04307 for pups-liszt; Sat, 13 Sep 1997 13:07:30 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From rjm at swift.eng.ox.ac.uk Fri Sep 12 19:07:35 1997 From: rjm at swift.eng.ox.ac.uk (Bob) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 10:07:35 +0100 (BST) Subject: Bootstrap Idea In-Reply-To: <199709112331.JAA09209@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> from "Warren Toomey" at Sep 12, 97 09:31:22 am Message-ID: >All, > I had an idea about bootstrapping images into PDP-11s, please shoot >it down! Ok, I don't know much about the -11 hardware, how hard would it >be to bootstrap as follows: > > hand-toggle in a small bit of code, which > sucks in a bigger bootstrap over a serial line, which > then can pull in a disk image over the serial line & write to disk Well, for what it's worth here's my contribution. I have been able to set up working v5 and v6 systems on my 11/34c (which uses an RK05 drive) uisng the distributed images (thanks Warren). The key here I think is to make use of the excellent work that has been already done on the various PDP-11 emulators. The emulator I use is that of Bob Supnic, which runs wonderfully on my Linux box. v6 is available as an image of a tape. The docs helpfully say: This is a copy of the Sixth Edition distribution tape which was sent to me by Ken Wellsch. The file v6.tape.gz is the tape image, with the first 100 512-byte tape blocks containing tape bootstrap stuff. Blocks 100 - 4099 are the RK05 root image, blocks 4100 - 8099 are the /usr RK05 image, and the blocks 8100 - 12099 are the /doc RK05 image. It is trivial with the UNIX command dd to split the tape image into its constituent parts: 1) Tape bootstap (useless for me) 2) RK05 root image 3) RK05 /usr image 4) RK05 /doc image I can then start the Supnic emulator, attach the three RK05 images to drives 0, 1 and 2 and boot. My system has only a single RK05 drive. As a result I had to mess around in the emulator to create a fresh RK05 image containing a useful subset of the root and /usr images. In practice it's not too hard to get v6 onto a single RK05 pack -- I think it's only necessary to lose stuff like the spell disctionary and so on. I also wanted support for a second DL11 serial line, so I used the emulator (and some extra emulated disk space) to rebuild the kernel. Once I was happy with the disk image I'd created, it was time to transfer it to real hardware. My 11/34c runs RT11 and I was able to get hold of a small stripped down Kermit server-only program from John Wilson. I forget the name of this utility, but it's available from ftp.dbit.com. The stardard RT11 Kermit that I have is unable to transfer entire disk images, the Wilson implementation can do so. Booting the 11/34c from RX01 floppy (one RK05 drive only, remember) I ran the Kermit server. From the PC end it was straightforward to transfer the image: "PUT imagefile.img RK01:". Aside from a spectacular RK05 head crash that put my machine out of action for a while, all was well. For v7, I started with a single RL02 image. That would boot on the simulator. I added a couple of emulated RK05s to the emulator set up and proceded to build a single RK05 which would (just!) hold a bootable v7 image. I warn you that v7 on a 2.5Mb disk is tight, but it can be done. Having built the image, I rebuilt the kernel to enable RK05 support (and a second serial line, again) and disable the other disk drivers. That kernel went onto my new image. Again, the same Kermit trick enabled the image to be transferred to the 11/34a. If anyone wants these RK05 bootable image files, please let me know (rjm at swift.eng.ox.ac.uk - not this address)! A few points though: 1) RK05s packs _can not have_ bad blocks. There is no bad block revectoring on these drives. A bad block on a pack suggests the pack is ready for the dumpster. This makes life a little easier. I'm not sure how you'd deal with bad block revectoring on an RL01/RL02 for example. I guess it's not too hard, but I shan't speculate there. 2) My 11/73, on the other hand, uses an RD53 (last time I looked). I'm not sure if the emulator can deal with these kind of drives. In any case, support for MSCP drives only came with 2BSD, which I've not played with. Maybe the same emulator tricks can be employed to get RDxx images, modulo the bad blocks problem. 3) If you don't have a PDP-11 operating system running, the Kermit approach won't be much use. There may be a stand-alone file transfer program that can write to raw devices. No idea -- perhaps someone needs to write this (both for the PDP and the PC ends). Hope this helps. Cheers, Bob -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bob Manners (My REAL address is: rjm at swift.eng.ox.ac.uk) BOB'S COMPUTER MUSEUM: http://swift.eng.ox.ac.uk/rjm/museum.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From m at mbsks.franken.de Thu Sep 11 18:31:26 1997 From: m at mbsks.franken.de (Matthias Bruestle) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 10:31:26 +0200 (MET DST) Subject: UNIX for PDP-11: moving on to media In-Reply-To: <199709110449.OAA17004@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> from Warren Toomey at "Sep 11, 97 02:49:53 pm" Message-ID: Mahlzeit According to Warren Toomey: > Question 1 > ---------- > > How do I get a Unix distribution onto: > > - a tape, because I have a tape drive > > - a disk drive, as I don't have a tape drive > > assuming I [ have RT-11/ RSX / no operating system ] on the PDP-11 already. For my 11/34A with 2 RL01 I made with an emulator a bootable V7-RL01-diskimage. I downloaded it under RT-11 with KSERVE from John Wilson (dunno where I ftped it) over a serial line onto the second disk. It took some hours, but it worked. Mahlzeit endergone Zwiebeltuete -- insanity inside Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id DAA06433 for pups-liszt; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 03:26:28 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From allisonp at world.std.com Sun Sep 14 03:26:17 1997 From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 1997 13:26:17 -0400 Subject: UNIX for PDP-11: moving on to media Message-ID: <199709131726.AA14996@world.std.com> >In article by pnt103 at ugrad.cs.york.ac.uk: >> Warren wrote: >> > I've got some AUUG newsletters ... One of them mentions >> > a `Heriot-Watt stripped down 7th Edition', >> >> If this is the version I have, which not only came from HWU, but is >> running on one of their old machines, it's fairly standard. It was >> build for a 'small machine', meaning one without separate I&D space, >> such as an 11/34 (mine's on an 11/23 with 128KW and RL02s). There >> are some extra drivers to support RX02s and stuff, but I think these >> are just well-known additions from sources such as Boston. There's a >> makefile to configure and build for a small machine. >> >> It's missing some of the larger pieces of software, such as troff (nroff >> is there, and the troff source AFAIR) and Fortran, and the tty driver is >> modified (bigger!), but most other things seem to be 'normal'. >> >> I have the source on 800bpi magtape (pity my drive is only 1600bpi) and >> also most of it on RL02, though the RL02s are a bit disorganised. >> >> Pete > >Anybody in the UK able to read Pete's tape? Pete, can you kermit the files >off those RL02s? If the need is large enough, I can roll out a TU77 and connect it to Magica to read the stuff. That means Sweden, though... Johnny Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus CS student at Uppsala University || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id FAA06768 for pups-liszt; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 05:10:34 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se Sun Sep 14 04:09:43 1997 From: bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 97 21:09:43 +0300 (MET DST) Subject: Bootstrap Idea In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 11 Sep 1997 22:43:28 -0400 Message-ID: >Not true. They all did as bad blocks have been a fact of life for all >computers since day one. Some of the ealy unixes used crude methods >from a perfomance standoint but, the bad block replacement was there. Well, not day one, but that come pretty early. Quality of the magnetic media wasn't really that good back then, so you usually *had* to expect a few bad spots on any disk. On PDP-11's, I would supect that Unix went with DEC's BAD144 standard pretty fast. (When did that standard come, btw?) >Do read LIONS commentary. I was able to get a copy from the local library >here in eastern MA (USA) along with several books on BSD design. Unix was >really ahead of the pack on many things. Not to be a pain in the ass or so, but in what ways was Unix ahead of anything? Unix was just a small hack inspired by Multics, and looking at contemporary operating systems, I'd say there were some that were way ahead of Unix (and still are...) Operating systems in the last twenty years have really retro-developed. :-) Johnny Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus CS student at Uppsala University || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id FAA06799 for pups-liszt; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 05:23:01 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se Sun Sep 14 04:22:21 1997 From: bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 97 21:22:21 +0300 (MET DST) Subject: UNIX for PDP-11: moving on to media In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 13 Sep 1997 13:26:17 -0400 Message-ID: > >How did you write it to the RL01 and what would it take to write it to rl02 >assuming rt/kserve. Did you use guarenteed no bad block media? Most RL02 are pretty good. Usually they don't have any bad spots in my experience. Johnny Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus CS student at Uppsala University || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id HAA07202 for pups-liszt; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 07:58:41 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From allisonp at world.std.com Sun Sep 14 07:58:31 1997 From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 1997 17:58:31 -0400 Subject: Bootstrap Idea Message-ID: <199709132158.AA29962@world.std.com> , RT-11, RSTS, RSX-11, VMS, Ultrix. So those are what I have to look at when thinking in terms of 1970s OSs like Unix of the time. but there was remaping so platters with bad blocks were invisible to the system mangler/user. I just tossed a pack that had developed more bad blocks then could be managed. Allison Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA07502 for pups-liszt; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 09:50:10 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se Sun Sep 14 08:49:54 1997 From: bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Sun, 14 Sep 97 1:49:54 +0300 (MET DST) Subject: UNIX for PDP-11: moving on to media In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 13 Sep 1997 17:58:38 -0400 Message-ID: > > >They were low in defects but there was remaping so platters >with bad blocks were invisible to the system mangler/user. I just tossed a >pack that had developed more bad blocks then could be managed. No exacly invisible... The operating system had to be aware of the bad spots, and invent some scheme or other to hide the spots from the user. OS/8's solution is rather hairy. I know, since I didn't have a "formatter" program, so I needed to write one, given the source of the device driver... Bad spots on MSCP disks on the other hand are totally invisible. Johnny Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus CS student at Uppsala University || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA07523 for pups-liszt; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 09:56:09 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se Sun Sep 14 08:55:55 1997 From: bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Sun, 14 Sep 97 1:55:55 +0300 (MET DST) Subject: Bootstrap Idea In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 13 Sep 1997 17:58:31 -0400 Message-ID: > >yes, but as hacks go it was more public in code than other OSs of value in >that time frame. I'm not saying was the best. Also I've never used >multics. My experience in chronological order is OS/8, TOPS-10, CP/M-80, >NS*dos, RT-11, RSTS, RSX-11, VMS, Ultrix. So those are what I have to >look at when thinking in terms of 1970s OSs like Unix of the time. Oh, certainly, the source was available. I would say that that, along with the fact that you got it for free, were the only two reasons for its rise to fame. If you compare Unix with the systems you mention above, most of the DEC stuff have had some stuff since the '70s that Unix only got in the 90s... (Shared libraries and microkernels for instance.) > >If you mean what I think the answer is not here. If anything my view is >more of when will dos/winders perform as well as some of those OSs of the >time. Then again, I had VMS4.6 running decwindows and four users on a >microvaxII with 9meg and 3 RD53s in 1989. What I meant was that development have gone backwards with regards to operating systems in the last twenty years. :-) Who knows how many things Microsoft has reinvented in the last few years, and Unix hasn't been much better either... (Okay, so this is the list for Unixes on the PDP-11, so I'll defend that particualr Unix. It's still clean and mean, which was the purpose of the design, and not the overbloated monster called Unix nowadays...) Johnny Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus CS student at Uppsala University || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id LAA07772 for pups-liszt; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 11:51:49 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From pnt103 at ugrad.cs.york.ac.uk Sun Sep 14 02:51:15 1997 From: pnt103 at ugrad.cs.york.ac.uk (pnt103 at ugrad.cs.york.ac.uk) Date: Sun, 14 Sep 97 02:51:15 Subject: Old PDP-11 UNIX Paper Docs? Message-ID: Re Heriot-Watt stripped-down 7th Edition... Warren wrote: > Anybody in the UK able to read Pete's tape? Pete, can you kermit the files > off those RL02s? I did once attempt to read the tape on our department's Kenedy drive (now disposed of) and managed to get all but a few blocks near the beginning. It seems to be a pretty standard distribution tape, with a layout as described in the Unix Programmer's Manual Vol.2 (Jan.1979). I have a 1600bpi copy (modulo the bad blocks) somewhere (I wonder where I put it?). I wouldn't bother about making another copy; if anyone deparately wants to try, I guess I might loan the original. But AFAIK there's only a couple of Makefiles that differ, and I have those on the RL02s. I don't have any version of kermit that will run under 7th Edition on an 11/23 (the normal versions are too big), but text files are perfectly easy to copy. Pete Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA07850 for pups-liszt; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 12:24:44 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From allisonp at world.std.com Sun Sep 14 12:24:31 1997 From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 1997 22:24:31 -0400 Subject: Bootstrap Idea Message-ID: <199709140224.AA03277@world.std.com> from Allison J Parent at "Sep 13, 97 01:26:17 pm" Message-ID: Mahlzeit According to Allison J Parent: > How did you write it to the RL01 and what would it take to write it to rl02 > assuming rt/kserve. Did you use guarenteed no bad block media? I ran kserve on RT-11 and kermit on my PC (and a 4-wire seriell line in between). kserve (unlike the other kermits for RT-11) can write directly with a put to a disk. The RL01 disk pack I used had no bad blocks. This should the same way work with RL02 disks. In some blocks on the disk pack should be written, if it has bad blocks. But I don't know which. I didn't try it with media with bad blocks, because I had only this disk pack free. (On the other is the RT-11 and my third has a red shock watch.) Mahlzeit endergone Zwiebeltuete -- insanity inside Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA10961 for pups-liszt; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 09:21:15 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From johnh at psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au Mon Sep 15 09:21:07 1997 From: johnh at psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au (John Holden) Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 09:21:07 +1000 Subject: Bootstrap Idea Message-ID: <199709142321.JAA10208@psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au> There are a few good tricks to get PDP11 with odd configurations to load. The first is the venerable paper tape bootstrap. It consists of only 8 instructions (28 bytes) and works on serial ports. It then loads the 'absolute loader' which will load formatted data (paper tape!). The format is trival and has checksums and stop/transfer blocks. The trick is to convert the unix secordary boot loader from V7 or BSD 2.9-2.11 and then you have mini loader with lots of device drivers. I can provide some of these programs including the paper tape listings and images (heck, I still have a working paper tape reader/punch). You can load ANY PDP-11 this way! Another approach if you have any of the LSI-11 based cpus with microcoded console emulator is to use the Xinu suite. It does an initial bootstrap by sending console commands and then loading a binary boostrap. On the subject of bad blocks, V6 and V7 offered no bad block strategies. The DEC spec for RK05's was 200 tracks by 12 sectors by 2 surface plus 3 bad block tracks for 4800 blocks plus 72 spare. The media was generally pretty good, and all Unix versions used 4872 block filesystems. Files-11 (IAS/RSX) was the only system to offer bad block replacement (I cannot be sure for RSTS). When bigger disk drives started showing up, like the RM02/3's and RM05, the usual practive was to buy packs with 'zero' defects. Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id LAA11254 for pups-liszt; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 11:20:27 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From allisonp at world.std.com Mon Sep 15 11:20:16 1997 From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent) Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 21:20:16 -0400 Subject: Bootstrap Idea Message-ID: <199709150120.AA07683@world.std.com> [ The following email came from Steven Schultz, but didn't make it into the PUPS mail list as it was too big! I've extracted the included PostScript file and put it on the PUPS web page. Warren ] Greetings - > = "David C. Jenner" > occurred to me as I drool in anticipation over the possibility of > running 2.11BSD on an 11/73! It is a lot of fun - well worth drooling over ;-) > Maybe you or a 2.11BSD expert (Steve Schultz?) could find the "release You rang? ;) > notes" for 2.11BSD and post them, if that's legal now. That would Hmmm, the Install/Setup docs have the old style BSD copyright notice on them ("subject to the terms of your BSD license") rather than the later "do what you want but leave our credits present". I suppose it wouldn't be too risky to post the formatted documentation (rather than the raw nroff source). It is quite large (I hope Postscript is acceptable to everyone) but gzip'd it should be of reasonable size. [ It's now at http://minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au/PUPS/2bsdsetup.ps.gz - Warren ] > 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 For quite a while it didn't occur to me what all the fuss was about. I assumed that folks would do what I do - put the CD into a BSD/OS|FreeBSD|Linux|usw box and write the images out to a 4mm or 9-track and then cable the tape drive up to the PDP-11 and proceed. It finally dawned on me that most folks won't have invested in a Qbus SCSI adaptor (it's really a VERY handy thing to have, makes possible sharing of tape drives, using inexpensive new disks instead of old slow RD5{3,4} drives, etc). For _some_ folks (those a bit more "serious") getting a SCSI adaptor would be a "good thing". They're cheaper now than they used to be (I about choked when a new Emulex UC08 was $1500 - and that's with a 30% discount - but went ahead with it back in 1991 and have never regretted it). A used UC08 (or similar CMD product) is from what I have seen about $900 today. A TAPE ONLY CMD adaptor is "just" $300 - that's not too bad, is it? Since in many cases the systems have been obtained free (or cheaply) as they were being tossed out and it is beginning to look like the software will be almost free ($100 or so isn't a whole lot of money) perhaps investing some money into the hobby in the form of a SCSI adaptor would be a wise choice (at least for some folks). Everything can't be free all the time, can it? DEC used to make a SCSI adaptor (RQZX1) and a TZ30 (SCSI variant of the TK50) but I have no idea how available those are on the used parts market these days. Other folks I would hope could find a Vax (or similar) system around with a TK50 or whatever and perhaps write the images to tape that way. You don't want floppies ;) RX50 floppy media is expensive and only holds 800kb per diskette (not to mention that RX50 drives are flakey). RX33s can get 1.2mb per disk but the Teac model of 5.25" drive that can be adapted to the RQDX3 controller is getting _scare_ and newer models (from what I understand) can not be adapted for use with RQDX3 controller. I suppose a person could get an RX23 or RX26 from DEC but heaven knows what that would cost. Besides which a complete 2.11 kit would take somewhere between 80 and 100 floppies (depending on how full each one could be packed). TK25s are another possibility but I don't know how many folks have (or want) one of those - they're rather awkward physically and while they use DC600A tapes aren't interchangeable with any other system. 9-track tape was the traditional distribution mechanism for 2BSD up until 2.10.1BSD at which time TK50s (TMSCP) support was added. The kit was 2 tapes at 1600bpi but the system has grown enough that a 3rd tape might be required today. At 6250bpi everything fits quite nicely on a single tape (might be a bit tight at 3200bpi though). Attached below is the Setup/Installation document from 2.11BSD (last revised in June 1995). It is a gzip'd postscript file uuencoded for safe transit thru the mail. [ It's now at http://minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au/PUPS/2bsdsetup.ps.gz - Warren ] Steven Schultz Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id WAA12969 for pups-liszt; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 22:20:29 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From m at mbsks.franken.de Mon Sep 15 22:14:02 1997 From: m at mbsks.franken.de (Matthias Bruestle) Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 14:14:02 +0200 (MET DST) Subject: Setup Instructions for 2.11BSD In-Reply-To: <199709150517.PAA26739@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> from Warren Toomey at "Sep 15, 97 03:17:59 pm" Message-ID: Mahlzeit According to Steven Schultz: > a BSD/OS|FreeBSD|Linux|usw box and write the images out to a 4mm (Is usw also used in English?) > regretted it). A used UC08 (or similar CMD product) is from > what I have seen about $900 today. A TAPE ONLY CMD adaptor is "just" > $300 - that's not too bad, is it? Since in many cases the systems US$300 may be not bad, but I would rather buy a new monitor. (A 14-year-old 14" colour monitor with "some" "small" defects or a 14" grayscale monitor are not the best.) I could also buy RAM for my M70: 1MB US$550. That's way to much for me. > You don't want floppies ;) RX50 floppy media is expensive and A bootable RT-11 floppy with kserve is fine if you have a disk image. If I find a "DU-ready" BSD (I'm not that good in C.) I will try this floppy solution to install it on my M70. That is also my only possibility without spending hundreds of dollars, unless someone writes a serial tape emulator or something like that. Btw. my M70 has two monitors: SBC M70-V3.0 DX DY DL DU DM DB MS MT M70> and 173244 @ Is the second a debugger? Mahlzeit endergone Zwiebeltuete -- insanity inside Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id XAA13177 for pups-liszt; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 23:38:42 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From djenner at halcyon.com Mon Sep 15 23:30:22 1997 From: djenner at halcyon.com (David C. Jenner) Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 06:30:22 -0700 Subject: Setup Instructions for 2.11BSD References: <199709150517.PAA26739@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Message-ID: <341D386E.EB41CC9A@halcyon.com> It occurred to me that adding another peripheral was an option. That's why I asked the experts! Steven Schultz said: > For _some_ folks (those a bit more "serious") getting a SCSI adaptor > would be a "good thing". They're cheaper now than they used to be > (I about choked when a new Emulex UC08 was $1500 - and that's with > a 30% discount - but went ahead with it back in 1991 and have never > regretted it). A used UC08 (or similar CMD product) is from > what I have seen about $900 today. A TAPE ONLY CMD adaptor is "just" > $300 - that's not too bad, is it? Since in many cases the systems > have been obtained free (or cheaply) as they were being tossed out > and it is beginning to look like the software will be almost free > ($100 or so isn't a whole lot of money) perhaps investing some money > into the hobby in the form of a SCSI adaptor would be a wise choice (at > least for some folks). Everything can't be free all the time, can it? > > DEC used to make a SCSI adaptor (RQZX1) and a TZ30 (SCSI variant of > the TK50) but I have no idea how available those are on the used > parts market these days. > Can someone qualify exactly which controllers (or class of controllers) would work here? And which tape drives? By the time you add up a controller and a drive, it could approach $1000, though. And the drive must be supported on your other (Linux) system. > TK25s are another possibility but I don't know how many folks have > (or want) one of those - they're rather awkward physically and while > they use DC600A tapes aren't interchangeable with any other system. > I have one of these, although it has been flakey as of late. Is anyone prepared to make up (bootable) 2.11BSD tapes on TK25 cartridges? Thanks, Dave -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: vcard.vcf Type: text/x-vcard Size: 330 bytes Desc: Card for David C. Jenner URL: From allisonp at world.std.com Tue Sep 16 01:14:11 1997 From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent) Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 11:14:11 -0400 Subject: Setup Instructions for 2.11BSD Message-ID: <199709151514.AA18495@world.std.com> That is some form of boot rom and those are the devices you can boot. <173244 <@ < from Allison J Parent at "Sep 15, 97 11:14:11 am" Message-ID: Mahlzeit According to Allison J Parent: > What is a M70? PDP11/70 or ? A M70 is from Mentec and something like a 11/73. On my quad-high board are 512kB RAM and 4 serial ports. Mahlzeit endergone Zwiebeltuete -- insanity inside From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au Wed Sep 17 12:15:09 1997 From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey) Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 12:15:09 +1000 (EST) Subject: Kserve, TU11 Emulator, upload? Message-ID: <199709170215.MAA01160@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> 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 Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA19408 for pups-liszt; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 13:14:47 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au Wed Sep 17 13:14:48 1997 From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey) Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 13:14:48 +1000 (EST) Subject: Also, PDP-11 URLs Message-ID: <199709170314.NAA01259@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> 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 Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA19885 for pups-liszt; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 14:51:35 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au Wed Sep 17 14:51:36 1997 From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey) Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 14:51:36 +1000 (EST) Subject: Updated PUPS ftp & web areas Message-ID: <199709170451.OAA01580@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> 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