Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

> From: "Robert Thomas" > Date: Mon, 29 Feb 2016 12:37:19 -0500 > When I was in graduate school at Princeton in 1974, we used UNIX on a > PDP-11/45 running Tex to typeset faculty papers, as well as writing compilers > using lex and yacc and studying operating system and

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

aul Koning) -- Message: 1 Date: Mon, 29 Feb 2016 09:38:36 +0100 (CET) From: Andreas Davour <a...@update.uu.se> To: li...@openmailbox.org Cc: simh@trailing-edge.com Subject: Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix Message-ID: <alpine.deb.2

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

> On Feb 29, 2016, at 1:21 AM, li...@openmailbox.org wrote: > > On Sat, 27 Feb 2016 17:32:19 -0500 > Paul Koning wrote: > >> Decimal did show up at times even into the 1960s, for example in the IBM >> 1620. But it never made all that much sense; converting between

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

li...@openmailbox.org schreef op 29-2-2016 om 07:21: On Sat, 27 Feb 2016 17:32:19 -0500 Paul Koning wrote: Decimal did show up at times even into the 1960s, for example in the IBM 1620. But it never made all that much sense; converting between binary and decimal is

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

On Mon, 29 Feb 2016 08:49:15 +0100 (CET) Andreas Davour wrote: > "The over-all design of the LISP Programming System is the work of > John McCarthy and is based on his paper NRecursive Functions of > Symbolic Expressions and Their Computation by Machinett which was > published

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

On Sat, 27 Feb 2016 23:05:47 +0100 Johnny Billquist wrote: > On 2016-02-27 20:46, Paul Koning wrote: > > > >> On Feb 27, 2016, at 2:36 PM, Bill Cunningham > >> wrote: > >> > >> Well that's certainly before ICs I think that was in the 1950s and it > >>

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

On Sat, 27 Feb 2016 17:32:19 -0500 Paul Koning wrote: > Decimal did show up at times even into the 1960s, for example in the IBM > 1620. But it never made all that much sense; converting between binary > and decimal is quite easy even in those very old machines. The one

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

On Sat 27 Feb 2016 at 14:46:58 -0500, Paul Koning wrote: > For example this one: http://oai.cwi.nl/oai/asset/9603/9603A.pdf, > "Principles of electronic computers: course February 1948". Oh interesting, by van Wijngaarden (later one of the authors of the Revised Report on the Algorithmic Language

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

Hello! Let us not forget the ongoing legend that there is one Federal agency all of us want to see out of business who runs older systems, and in fact might be using punch cards for their methods of data entry. And there is still yet another one where the equipment is old enough to vote, and

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

> On Feb 27, 2016, at 5:49 PM, Dave Wade wrote: > >> >> BTW, I think that plugboard programming, other than for some business >> applications with IBM "accounting machines", disappeared rather quickly as >> Von Neumann machines appeared. That too would be interesting to

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

1967 was the first hand held. - Original Message - From: Johnny Billquist To: Bill Cunningham ; simh@trailing-edge.com Sent: Saturday, February 27, 2016 8:05 PM Subject: Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix Well, 1976 is a far cry from the 1950s... Johnny Bill Cunningham

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

t;year the slide rule died" They say. > - Original Message - > From: Johnny Billquist > To: simh@trailing-edge.com > Sent: Saturday, February 27, 2016 5:05 PM > Subject: Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix > > > On 2016-02-27 20:46, Paul Koning wrote: > > &g

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

5:05 PM *Subject:* Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix On 2016-02-27 20:46, Paul Koning wrote: > >> On Feb 27, 2016, at 2:36 PM, Bill Cunningham <bill...@suddenlink.net <mailto:bill...@suddenlink.net>> wrote: >> >> Well that's certainly before ICs I

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

ary 27, 2016 5:05 PM Subject: Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix On 2016-02-27 20:46, Paul Koning wrote: > >> On Feb 27, 2016, at 2:36 PM, Bill Cunningham <bill...@suddenlink.net> wrote: >> >> Well that's certainly before ICs I think that was in the 1950s and it was some

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

> > BTW, I think that plugboard programming, other than for some business > applications with IBM "accounting machines", disappeared rather quickly as > Von Neumann machines appeared. That too would be interesting to look > for. I am not so sure about that. Older technology often continued in

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

> On Feb 27, 2016, at 5:09 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > > On 2016-02-27 20:57, Paul Koning wrote: >> >>> On Feb 27, 2016, at 2:49 PM, Bill Cunningham wrote: >>> >>> Thanks much. Yes I know you were speaking of assembly. I was just >>> considering

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

On 2016-02-27 20:09, Paul Koning wrote: On Feb 27, 2016, at 2:06 PM, Bill Cunningham wrote: Or program in binary. Like originally. I'm not so sure about that. I have documents from as early as 1948 showing programming in machine language, though each of these use

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

Amen. Or as Peter Moore once said "sometimes it takes an inspired fool to use the wrong tool for the job to prove you can." His example was the guy that solved Tower of Hanoi in a sed script. (Google it - amazing but somebody had too much time on there hands.) Clem Sent from my iPhone >

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

On 27-Feb-16 14:57, Paul Koning wrote: >> On Feb 27, 2016, at 2:49 PM, Bill Cunningham wrote: >> >> Thanks much. Yes I know you were speaking of assembly. I was just >> considering history. I've always heard binary was first. What that might >> mean IDK. And there was

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

> On Feb 27, 2016, at 2:01 PM, Paul Koning wrote: > > >> On Feb 26, 2016, at 7:13 PM, Clem Cole wrote: >> >> >> On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 6:28 PM, Nigel Williams >> wrote: >> Perhaps not unusual for the 1960s but

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

> On Feb 27, 2016, at 2:49 PM, Bill Cunningham wrote: > > Thanks much. Yes I know you were speaking of assembly. I was just considering > history. I've always heard binary was first. What that might mean IDK. And > there was no evidence presented for that. It may just

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

2:46 PM Subject: Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix > On Feb 27, 2016, at 2:36 PM, Bill Cunningham <bill...@suddenlink.net> wrote: > > Well that's certainly before ICs I think that was in the 1950s and it was some early calculators that killed slide rules. What kind of &

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

> On Feb 27, 2016, at 2:36 PM, Bill Cunningham wrote: > > Well that's certainly before ICs I think that was in the 1950s and it was > some early calculators that killed slide rules. What kind of "processor" were > they using? I'm not so sure there was real HLL before

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

- Original Message - From: Bill Cunningham To: Paul Koning ; s...@trailing-edge.com Sent: Saturday, February 27, 2016 2:36 PM Subject: Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix Well that's certainly before ICs I think that was in the 1950s and it was some early calculators that killed

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

> On Feb 27, 2016, at 2:06 PM, Bill Cunningham wrote: > > Or program in binary. Like originally. I'm not so sure about that. I have documents from as early as 1948 showing programming in machine language, though each of these use decimal numbers for the opcodes and

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

Or program in binary. Like originally. - Original Message - From: Paul Koning To: Clem Cole Cc: SIMH Sent: Saturday, February 27, 2016 2:01 PM Subject: Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix > On Feb 26, 2016, at 7:13 PM, Clem Cole <cl...@ccc.com> wrote: > >

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

> On Feb 26, 2016, at 7:13 PM, Clem Cole wrote: > > > On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 6:28 PM, Nigel Williams > wrote: > Perhaps not unusual for the 1960s but laborious none-the-less. > > ​Depends who you are. For grins look for the original Cray-1

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

On 2016-02-27 02:34, Clem Cole wrote: On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 8:06 PM, Nigel Williams > wrote: For William's benefit, in those times computers were (chronically) few in number. ​And very valuable - cost big bucks

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

As far as I know/understand, AT didn't have any DEC OS or software for the PDP-7. So it was, I guess, pretty natural to take what you did have, and adopt it for your needs. They had the GE system, with an assembler that could be used, with tweaks, so that's what they used. Getting some OS from

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 8:06 PM, Nigel Williams < n...@retrocomputingtasmania.com> wrote: > For William's benefit, in those times computers were (chronically) few > in number. > ​And very valuable - cost big bucks (millions). Computer time was often "billed" out to people.​ > Anyone from

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

Found this in Ritchie's article, "The Development of the C Language": Thompson was faced with a hardware environment cramped and spartan even for the time: the DEC PDP-7 on which he started in 1968 was a machine with 8K 18-bit words of memory and no software useful to him. While

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

On 2016-02-27 01:40, Eric Smith wrote: My goodness, Johnny, you are my hero. You, sir, lived my dream ..!! As with all such things, when it was going on, one never reflected much on it. Today I sometimes seriously miss those days. It was so much more fun and interesting. Computers today are

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

I didn't know that B had been around so much. I then was /not/ designed for working with UNIX specifically? - Original Message - From: Clem Cole To: Eric Smith Cc: simh@trailing-edge.com Sent: Friday, February 26, 2016 7:24 PM Subject: Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

My goodness, Johnny, you are my hero. You, sir, lived my dream ..!! > On Feb 26, 2016, at 6:33 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > > Oh, don't get me wrong. I don't mind the postings and the comments. I just > want to try and understand what you mean by them, and try to put things

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

Oh, don't get me wrong. I don't mind the postings and the comments. I just want to try and understand what you mean by them, and try to put things into perspective, both from your side and mine. We're about the same age. But I was actually exposed (through computer clubs) to PDP-11 systems at

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

> On Feb 26, 2016, at 6:24 PM, Clem Cole wrote: > > … there was never really a "C" compiler from scratch. At one point, they > realized the language had diverged enough to call it something else. Ok, that totally makes sense. Just like everything I ever wrote :) I’ll have

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

If you were used to building your own tools, you might not. Also if you are bootstrapping from something else (like a large timesharing system from another manufacturer). You might put your tools on the other system, until the new system could "self host." We do the same things today. Clem

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 6:28 PM, Nigel Williams < n...@retrocomputingtasmania.com> wrote: > Perhaps not unusual for the 1960s but laborious none-the-less. ​Depends who you are. For grins look for the original Cray-1 "assembler" box. You'll discover there are no mnemonics like "add",

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

Actually, on further reflection, I have nothing useful to add. Only observations. I am probably much younger I am sure than most of you (not my fault, and please don’t hate me for that). At 50 now I was in high school when I did the Epson assembler. I would probably do best to sit idly by

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

Well .. impressive, I suppose, would be what I would call it. I guess you'd start with hand-keying in an assembler .. then go from there.I did that once in BASIC on a machine for which I could not obtain an assembler (Epson HX-20). It would be interesting to know how they went from B to C ..

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

On Sat, Feb 27, 2016 at 10:24 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > On 2016-02-26 23:47, Eric Smith wrote: >>> On Feb 25, 2016, at 9:26 PM, Gregg Levine >> > wrote: >>> >>> Version Zero was hand coded on a PDP-7 >> >> >> I know

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

On 2016-02-26 23:47, Eric Smith wrote: I love assembly. I do. But seriously … On Feb 25, 2016, at 9:26 PM, Gregg Levine > wrote: Version Zero was hand coded on a PDP-7 I know Gregg is right. But .. Can you /imagine?/ Not sure I

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

I love assembly. I do. But seriously … > On Feb 25, 2016, at 9:26 PM, Gregg Levine > wrote: > > Version Zero was hand coded on a PDP-7 I know Gregg is right. But .. Can you imagine? ___

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

On 2016-02-26 19:01, Bill Cunningham wrote: I was not aware they started on a PDP7. What about inline assembly. That's kinda C, isn't it? I guess you learn something new every day... Inline assembly in a way of injecting assembly code into your code code. It's assembly, but it still

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

- Original Message - From: Johnny Billquist To: simh@trailing-edge.com Sent: Friday, February 26, 2016 8:48 AM Subject: Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix On 2016-02-26 01:50, Bill Cunningham wrote: > When Ken Thompson coded UNIX it was in assembly. The first versi

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

On 2016-02-26 15:58, Gregg Levine wrote: Hello! Now that I think about the scene, it might have been a frustrated PDP-8 at work. I do recall that the exhibit spent more time being fixed, then being running It is certainly possible you're right. A PDP-8 would make much more sense in this

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

On 2016-02-26 15:23, Gregg Levine wrote: Hello! Interesting. I was only reporting what I remember as to the history of the whole example we call UNIX. And last year at the Vintage Computer Festival East, (Yes Dave W, the same one where we crossed paths.), I saw a PDP-11 system having finished

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

On 2016-02-26 14:49, Clem Cole wrote: On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 10:26 PM, Gregg Levine > wrote: I've seen Assembler output from a PDP-11 someplace. It's always reminded me of a frustrated 6502 microprocessor or a 6800 series one.

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 10:26 PM, Gregg Levine wrote: > I've seen Assembler output from a PDP-11 someplace. It's always > reminded me of a frustrated 6502 microprocessor or a 6800 series one. > But only just. > Interesting- the 68000 should remind you of the PDP-11.

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

On 2016-02-26 01:50, Bill Cunningham wrote: When Ken Thompson coded UNIX it was in assembly. The first versions anyway before B/NB/C. Is there in existance pdp11 (45 or 70 ?) intterupt (vector) lists or IRQs and so, registers that shows how to code in assembly on a pdp11? I am sure simh

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

To: Bill Cunningham <bill...@suddenlink.net> Cc: SIMH <simh@trailing-edge.com> Subject: Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 7:50 PM, Bill Cunningham <bill...@suddenlink.net <mailto:bill...@suddenlink.net> > wrote: When Ken Thompson coded UNIX it w

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

: Thursday, February 25, 2016 9:22 PM > Subject: Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix > > > On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 7:50 PM, Bill Cunningham <bill...@suddenlink.net> > wrote: >> >> When Ken Thompson coded UNIX it was in assembly. > > Correct... > > > >> >&

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 7:50 PM, Bill Cunningham wrote: > When Ken Thompson coded UNIX it was in assembly. ​Correct...​ > The first versions anyway before B/NB/C ​I do not think that is 100% correct. B and early UNIX sort of come about at the same time. B (and

Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

Bill, There is plenty of documentation on the pdp11 45/70. Start with the handbooks: http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/pdp11/handbooks/ As for programming in assembly, most of the documentation is for DEC OS's. However, the manuals for Unix v6 and v7 had assembly sections. They are