Re: What happened to control-data.info and controlfreaks.org?

[Peter Allan via cctalk]

On 11/81/21,. Andrew Warkentin via cctalk  wrote:

>> What happened? Looking back at my emails, the list was operating normally
>> until September 3. Then it just stopped. There were normal discussions
>> going on. There was no flood of spam. As far as I can tell, nothing
occured
>> that would trigger a rage quit.
>>
>> Is the software and documentation that was on the site at least archived
>> elsewhere? Has anybody downloaded it and can maybe upload to archive.org?
>>
>> Mike
>>

> I downloaded some of the software and documentation from there a long
> time ago and still have it, although I didn't actually scrape the
> entire site. I can upload what I've got to archive.org.
>
> The disk image kit of NOS 2.8.7 with CYBIS has been mirrored at
>  and most of
> the documentation for it is available from the Wayback Machine at
> <
http://web.archive.org/web/20210421202420/http://www.control-data.info/CybisRelease.html
>

I have a working version of NOS 2.8.1, but I would like to be able to add
software that is not included as part of the system that I downloaded from
controlfreaks.org about 18 months ago. An example might be the ALGOL68
compiler. (I stress 'might be', as I haven't checked if that is on my
system already. I just know there is 'some good stuff' that I want and
which I don't have.)

I have had a look on archive.org, but I can't find anything that looks like
CDC NOS software tapes. A big part of my difficulty is likely to be that I
don't have a list of what was available on controlfreaks.org in order to be
able to do a detailed search. I did search archive.org for controlfreaks.org,
but all I get is

Controlfreaks.orgAuthorized Users Only

This site is for the research into historic systems and software made by
Control Data Corporation. If you think you can contribute, email to
ControlfreaksAdmin
 to
request a username/password for access to this site.

All the content is over in the TWiki

.

When I click on the TWiki link, I get

   {ScriptUrlPath}/view/TWiki/TWikiRegistration

which is not much use.

Does anyone have a list of the CDC software that was available from
controlfreaks.org?

Cheers

Peter Allan

Re: Ultrix-11

[Peter Allan via cctalk]

Thanks Warner and Ethan. That is very helpful.

I had not realised that the partition sizes were REALLY hard wired - as in
set in the code. That explains why there is no option to set the size at
installation time.

I will redo the installation with that in mind.

Cheers

Peter

On Fri, 20 Aug 2021 at 22:03, Warner Losh  wrote:

>
>
> On Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 2:26 PM Peter Allan via cctalk <
> cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
>> The idea of using an RA81 drive as it is bigger sounds like a simple
>> solution, but does it actually give a larger /usr partition? Even though
>> an
>> RD54 drive is not huge, most of it is not taken up by the root partition
>> plus the /usr partition, but is available for use as (on the video at
>> least) /user1.
>>
>> I will give it a try after the weekend and see what happens.
>>
>
> I was going to try tonight. The dksizes.c table suggests that it is 10MB
> instead of 8.5MB on the RD54. Yet someone else said it was smaller, so I
> wanted to check
>
> Warner
>
>
> Cheers
>>
>> Peter Allan
>>
>> On Fri, 20 Aug 2021 at 17:38, Ethan Dicks  wrote:
>>
>> > On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 11:50 AM Peter Allan via cctalk
>> >  wrote:
>> > > I just installed Ultrix-11 3.1 using the ultrix31.tap file from
>> > > https://pdp-11.org.ru/files.pl?lang=en
>> > > which is the location from the comments in Stephen's Machine Room
>> video
>> > on
>> > > YouTube that I think started this thread.
>> > >
>> > > It installed just fine, but just like the video, I ran out of space on
>> > /usr.
>> >
>> > /usr was usually tight back in the day.
>> >
>> > > How can I make a larger /usr partition? Is it possible to do this at
>> > > installation time? There did not seem to be an option for this. Can
>> it be
>> > > done by using an additional disk? That would seem likely, but not
>> what a
>> > > system manager back in the 70's or 80's would expect to need to do,
>> > > especially as there is a relatively large amount of space left to
>> create
>> > > /user1.
>> >
>> > In the 70s and early 80s, it was not at all uncommon to have multiple
>> > disk drives mounted to add up to enough space, especially to put user
>> > files on their own device to keep them from competing with free space
>> > in the system areas.  Also, older, smaller disks were often cheaper
>> > than the newest/largest disk drives, or systems would be put together
>> > from repurposed hardware rather than purchasing new.  For a single
>> > data point, my employer bought a new RA81 in 1984.  For 424MB it was
>> > $24,000.  Most machines had a _lot_ less disk in those days.  Our main
>> > UNIX machine was an old 11/750 (2MB RAM) with 2x RK07 (28MB each).  It
>> > was quite a jump when I put Ultrix 1.1 on an 11/730 w/RB80.  The CPU
>> > was 30% slower, but it had 5MB of RAM and a 121MB disk, so as a
>> > machine that spent most of its time with a single user (me), it was
>> > fine.
>> >
>> > When disks were routinely 1-30MB (RK05... RK07 or RP03), it was
>> > totally common to have 2-3 disks on a machine.
>> >
>> > All that said, I looked over this install write-up and it seems to
>> > assume you have one disk and it slices and dices with default sizes...
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> http://ftp.fibranet.cat/UnixArchive/Distributions/DEC/Fred-Ultrix3/setup-3.1.txt
>> >
>> > I've installed older versions of UNIX where you had to explicitly set
>> > up disks and partitions (where you _could_ resize partitions).  Prior
>> > to restoring the contents from tape.  That didn't appear to be as easy
>> > with this installer script.
>> >
>> > > I noted the options for installing software using soft links to other
>> > > locations. Was that the preferred method when installing additional
>> > > software?
>> >
>> > That was done, as was mounting an entire second disk for /usr.  One of
>> > the challenges is making sure you have enough tools accessible on the
>> > boot device to bring the machine up far enough to mount the additional
>> > devices.  This is part of why there are system tools in /bin,
>> > /usr/bin, etc.  You could depend on the contents of /bin being there
>> > before /usr was mounted.  Also, traditionally, programs in /bin were
>> > statically linked so that you didn't have to have specific libraries
>> > available at the time.
>> >
>> > The simplest solution, of course, is just get a bigger disk, but where
>> > that wasn't possible (which was most of the time), people did use soft
>> > links or multiple spindles to aggregate enough space to get by.
>> >
>> > Back in the day, I struggled to get enough disk space to install
>> > 2.9BSD on an 11/24.  Two RK07s would have been a luxury.  I had an
>> > RL02 (10MB) and I think maybe an RL01.  I could get the initial
>> > restore to work but I didn't have enough space to rebuild my kernel.
>> >
>> > -ethan
>> >
>>
>

Re: Ultrix-11

[Peter Allan via cctalk]

The idea of using an RA81 drive as it is bigger sounds like a simple
solution, but does it actually give a larger /usr partition? Even though an
RD54 drive is not huge, most of it is not taken up by the root partition
plus the /usr partition, but is available for use as (on the video at
least) /user1.

I will give it a try after the weekend and see what happens.

Cheers

Peter Allan

On Fri, 20 Aug 2021 at 17:38, Ethan Dicks  wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 11:50 AM Peter Allan via cctalk
>  wrote:
> > I just installed Ultrix-11 3.1 using the ultrix31.tap file from
> > https://pdp-11.org.ru/files.pl?lang=en
> > which is the location from the comments in Stephen's Machine Room video
> on
> > YouTube that I think started this thread.
> >
> > It installed just fine, but just like the video, I ran out of space on
> /usr.
>
> /usr was usually tight back in the day.
>
> > How can I make a larger /usr partition? Is it possible to do this at
> > installation time? There did not seem to be an option for this. Can it be
> > done by using an additional disk? That would seem likely, but not what a
> > system manager back in the 70's or 80's would expect to need to do,
> > especially as there is a relatively large amount of space left to create
> > /user1.
>
> In the 70s and early 80s, it was not at all uncommon to have multiple
> disk drives mounted to add up to enough space, especially to put user
> files on their own device to keep them from competing with free space
> in the system areas.  Also, older, smaller disks were often cheaper
> than the newest/largest disk drives, or systems would be put together
> from repurposed hardware rather than purchasing new.  For a single
> data point, my employer bought a new RA81 in 1984.  For 424MB it was
> $24,000.  Most machines had a _lot_ less disk in those days.  Our main
> UNIX machine was an old 11/750 (2MB RAM) with 2x RK07 (28MB each).  It
> was quite a jump when I put Ultrix 1.1 on an 11/730 w/RB80.  The CPU
> was 30% slower, but it had 5MB of RAM and a 121MB disk, so as a
> machine that spent most of its time with a single user (me), it was
> fine.
>
> When disks were routinely 1-30MB (RK05... RK07 or RP03), it was
> totally common to have 2-3 disks on a machine.
>
> All that said, I looked over this install write-up and it seems to
> assume you have one disk and it slices and dices with default sizes...
>
>
> http://ftp.fibranet.cat/UnixArchive/Distributions/DEC/Fred-Ultrix3/setup-3.1.txt
>
> I've installed older versions of UNIX where you had to explicitly set
> up disks and partitions (where you _could_ resize partitions).  Prior
> to restoring the contents from tape.  That didn't appear to be as easy
> with this installer script.
>
> > I noted the options for installing software using soft links to other
> > locations. Was that the preferred method when installing additional
> > software?
>
> That was done, as was mounting an entire second disk for /usr.  One of
> the challenges is making sure you have enough tools accessible on the
> boot device to bring the machine up far enough to mount the additional
> devices.  This is part of why there are system tools in /bin,
> /usr/bin, etc.  You could depend on the contents of /bin being there
> before /usr was mounted.  Also, traditionally, programs in /bin were
> statically linked so that you didn't have to have specific libraries
> available at the time.
>
> The simplest solution, of course, is just get a bigger disk, but where
> that wasn't possible (which was most of the time), people did use soft
> links or multiple spindles to aggregate enough space to get by.
>
> Back in the day, I struggled to get enough disk space to install
> 2.9BSD on an 11/24.  Two RK07s would have been a luxury.  I had an
> RL02 (10MB) and I think maybe an RL01.  I could get the initial
> restore to work but I didn't have enough space to rebuild my kernel.
>
> -ethan
>

Re: Ultrix-11

[Peter Allan via cctalk]

I just installed Ultrix-11 3.1 using the ultrix31.tap file from
https://pdp-11.org.ru/files.pl?lang=en
which is the location from the comments in Stephen's Machine Room video on
YouTube that I think started this thread.

It installed just fine, but just like the video, I ran out of space on /usr.

How can I make a larger /usr partition? Is it possible to do this at
installation time? There did not seem to be an option for this. Can it be
done by using an additional disk? That would seem likely, but not what a
system manager back in the 70's or 80's would expect to need to do,
especially as there is a relatively large amount of space left to create
/user1.

I noted the options for installing software using soft links to other
locations. Was that the preferred method when installing additional
software?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Peter Allan

Re: Remote job submission from PDP-11

[Peter Allan via cctalk]

Thanks to everyone who has sent suggestions about remote job submission
from a simulated PDP-11 to a simulated IBM/370.

Although I do want to get this working on a simulated PDP-11 running
RSX-11M, the mention of the Unix 'send' command grabbed my attention, since
that rings a vague bell in my memory that there might have been a 'send'
command on the RSX-11M machine that I used in the previous millennium. This
was at a university, so I can imagine someone taking the Unix code and
porting it to RSX-11M.

Of course, this was a long time ago and I might have a faulty memory.

It would still be great to get the proper RSX-11M tools if they exist
somewhere. I am prepared to have a go at writing the appropriate
synchronous interface for simh if those tools do exist. I know that there
is a DUP-11 device already, but the code explicitly says that it does not
implement bisync.

Cheers to all

Peter Allan


On Wed, 7 Oct 2020 at 10:07, Peter Allan  wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
> I am looking for the following software products for a PDP-11, ideally to
> be run on RSX-11M.
>
> RJE/HASP
>
> 2780/3780 Protocol Emulator
>
> My aim is to be able to submit a remote job from a simulated PDP-11 on
> simh to a simulated IBM/370 on Hercules. The products that I mentioned seem
> the obvious way to do this, but anything that works would be helpful.
>
> Cheers
>
> Peter Allan
>

Remote job submission from PDP-11

[Peter Allan via cctalk]

Hi folks,

I am looking for the following software products for a PDP-11, ideally to
be run on RSX-11M.

RJE/HASP

2780/3780 Protocol Emulator

My aim is to be able to submit a remote job from a simulated PDP-11 on simh
to a simulated IBM/370 on Hercules. The products that I mentioned seem the
obvious way to do this, but anything that works would be helpful.

Cheers

Peter Allan

VT420 terminal screen

[Peter Allan via cctalk]

I have a DEC VT420 terminal which works pretty well. However, I am
concerned that sometimes the characters on the screen seem to get torn
sideways and jump around a little on a timescale of less than one second.

My guess is that there is some issue with the power supply, but that is
just a guess.

Does anyone have any experience of this and know what I should look at in
order to fix it. If it never gets worse, I can live with it, but I fear
that one day it will just die.

Cheers

Peter Allan

Re: Greetings

[Peter Allan via cctalk]

On 4/28/19 3:55 PM, Ray Jewhurst via cctalk wrote:
> I am new to the list and would like to introduce myself. I
> am a computer history buff who especially likes DEC machines.

> I unfortunately don't own any hardware but I use Simh on a daily
> basis. I would like to start off with a question. I see that Bitsavers
> has a copy of VMS 1.5 and wanted to know if anyone got it working
> with the Vax 780 simulator?

> I hope to learn a lot from this group.

Hi Ray, about 18 months ago, I did indeed install VMS 1.5 on a simulated
(with simh) VAX-11/780. It was not particularly difficult, but it did take
a bit more effort than I expected. Here is what I did and the problems that
I came across. I am typing this from memory, so I might have mis-remembered
the odd fact.

The instructions tell you to create a bootable disk from tape using the DSC
utility. However, DSC was something that ran in PDP-11 emulation mode on a
VAX and was discontinued early enough in the evolution of VMS that it was
not present on any of my simulated systems (VMS 4.x, 5.x and 7.3). I needed
to build a VMS 3.0 system in order to complete copying the VMS 1.5 tape to
disk. If you have a simulated PDP-11 system, you might be able to use that
instead.

Building the VMS 3.0 system gave me another problem in that I tried using a
simulated TE16 (Massbus) tape drive to read the VMS 3.0 installation tape.
This should have been fine, but actually I uncovered a bug in simh. Bob
Supnik fixed the bug, but you do need to use an up to date version of simh
to get the bug fix. If you need to use an old version of simh for some
reason, then use a TS (Unibus) tape drive and all should be well.

VMS 1.5 is primitive compared with later versions, but does have historical
interest. Do let me know if you want any further information about my
adventures with VMS 1.5.

Cheers

Peter Allan

Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 38, Issue 16

[Peter Allan via cctalk]

Thanks Chunk. I am going to see if Manchester University library has any
old documentation that might help.

Cheers

Peter

On 17 November 2017 at 18:00,  wrote:

> Send cctalk mailing list submissions to
> cctalk@classiccmp.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> http://www.classiccmp.org/mailman/listinfo/cctalk
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> cctalk-requ...@classiccmp.org
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> cctalk-ow...@classiccmp.org
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of cctalk digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>1. Re: Drive capacity names (Was: WTB: HP-85 16k RAM Module and
>   HPIB Floppy Drive (Geoffrey Reed)
>2. Re: Drive capacity names (Was: WTB: HP-85 16k RAM Module and
>   HPIB Floppy Drive (Chuck Guzis)
>3. Re: Drive capacity names (Was: WTB: HP-85 16k RAM Module and
>   HPIB Floppy Drive (Liam Proven)
>4. Re: Drive capacity names (Was: WTB: HP-85 16k RAM Module and
>   HPIB Floppy Drive (Fred Cisin)
>5. TI NaturalLink Disks and Docs (Jason T)
>6. Re: HP 9836U processor mystery... (Josh Dersch)
>7. Re: Playing with HP2640B (CuriousMarc)
>8. Re: Cases (display) for beloved ISA cards? (CuriousMarc)
>9. Re: Playing with HP2640B (Christian Corti)
>   10. Re: Playing with HP2640B (David Collins)
>   11. Re: Playing with HP2640B (David Collins)
>   12. Re: Playing with HP2640B (Mattis Lind)
>   13. RE: Playing with HP2640B (Rik Bos)
>   14. DR-DOS (Liam Proven)
>   15. Re: TI NaturalLink Disks and Docs (Jason T)
>   16. Re: DR-DOS (Liam Proven)
>   17. Re: DR-DOS (Liam Proven)
>   18. Re: DR-DOS (william degnan)
>   19. Re: Cases (display) for beloved ISA cards? (Anders Nelson)
>   20. Re: DR-DOS (geneb)
>   21. Re: DR-DOS (Liam Proven)
>   22. Re: DR-DOS (Liam Proven)
>   23. Re: DR-DOS (geneb)
>   24. Re: WTB: HP-85 16k RAM Module and HPIB Floppy Drive
>   (Eric Schlaepfer)
>   25. Manchester University Joint System in the 1970s (Peter Allan)
>   26. Re: WTB: HP-85 16k RAM Module and HPIB Floppy Drive (Paul Berger)
>   27. Re: Playing with HP2640B (Christian Corti)
>   28. Re: Manchester University Joint System in the 1970s (Chuck Guzis)
>
>
> --
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2017 12:30:08 -0800
> From: Geoffrey Reed 
> To: Fred Cisin , "General Discussion: On-Topic and
> Off-Topic Posts" 
> Subject: Re: Drive capacity names (Was: WTB: HP-85 16k RAM Module and
> HPIB Floppy Drive
> Message-ID: 
> Content-Type: text/plain;   charset="ISO-8859-1"
>
>
>
> On 11/15/17, 9:44 AM, "cctalk on behalf of Fred Cisin via cctalk"
>  wrote:
> >
> >Can you name another 20 exceptions?   (Chuck and Tony probably can)
> >
> >
> >--
> >Grumpy Ol' Fredci...@xenosoft.com
>
>
>  ?Floptical? disks 720 rpm 1.6 Mb/s transfer 1250 TPI and 25MB unformatted
> capacity
>
>  LS-120 and LS-240 (which sadly I can?t remember the specs of :(
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2017 12:51:19 -0800
> From: Chuck Guzis 
> To: Geoffrey Reed via cctalk 
> Subject: Re: Drive capacity names (Was: WTB: HP-85 16k RAM Module and
> HPIB Floppy Drive
> Message-ID: 
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
>
> On 11/16/2017 12:30 PM, Geoffrey Reed via cctalk wrote:
>
> >  ?Floptical? disks 720 rpm 1.6 Mb/s transfer 1250 TPI and 25MB
> unformatted
> > capacity
> >
> >  LS-120 and LS-240 (which sadly I can?t remember the specs of :(
>
> How about the Caleb "it" drive (UHD144):
>
> http://www.obsoletemedia.org/caleb-uhd144/
>
> I've still got a stack of those drives and media.
>
> Or the DTC "TakeTen" drive (got the drive but no media), or the Qume
> Hyperflex drive or the Kodak/Drivetec floppy drives or the DTC TeamMate
> for Apple...
>
> The list is very long indeed.
>
> --Chuck
>
>
>
> --
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2017 23:28:19 +0100
> From: Liam Proven 
> To: Geoffrey Reed ,  "General Discussion: On-Topic
> and Off-Topic Posts" 
> Subject: Re: Drive capacity names (Was: WTB: HP-85 16k RAM Module and
> HPIB Floppy Drive
> Message-ID:
>  mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> On 16 November 2017 at 21:30, Geoffrey Reed via cctalk
>  wrote:
> >
> >  ?Floptical? disks 720 rpm 1.6 Mb/s transfer 1250 TPI and 25MB
> unformatted
> > capacity
>
> Just FYI, your quote marks render 

Manchester University Joint System in the 1970s

[Peter Allan via cctalk]

I was a student at Manchester University from 1974 to 1980. During that
time I used the University of Manchester Regional Computer Centre (UMRCC)
computer system. The so-called Joint System consisted of a CDC 7600 with an
ICL 1906A front end. We used to submit card decks via a Systime (a PDP-11
clone, I believe) that functioned as a remote job entry service.

I am trying to find out information about the structure of those card decks
(mine were used for shopping lists years ago), and in particular, what the
first card in the deck was that routed the job to the correct computer.

I have found information about JOB cards for both ICL computers running
George 3 and for the CDC 7600 running SCOPE 2.1 (which is what the
computers ran), but I believe that neither of these gives the full story
about what we used on the Joint System.

Does anyone who used this system, or similar ones in the UK, recall
anything relevant?

If you have suggestions about where else to post this query, I would be
grateful for that too.

Cheers

Peter Allan

RE: Convex C220 lives

[Peter Allan via cctalk]

Hi Camiel,

Nice to hear that you have the Convex C220 up and running.

Regarding things to run on it, starting with LINPACK is probably a good
idea. However, in term of what they were actually used for back in the
1980's, I know that they were popular with the radio astronomy community,
starting with the Convex C1. The package called AIPS (Astronomical Image
Processing System) was the most popular way of processing data from
multi-antenna telescopes like the VLA in New Mexico.

AIPS (written in Fortran) is now known as AIPS Classic, to distinguish it
from AIPS++ (written in C++) which was developed in the 1990's. There is
plenty of information about it on the internet. If you have any difficulty
getting the code, let me know as I might be able to help.

AIPS is very portable; before the era of the mini-supers, it ran on a lot
of VAXen (yeah!!) amongst other things.

Cheers

Peter Allan


> -Original Message-
>From: Camiel Vanderhoeven 
>To: cctech 
>Subject: Convex C220 lives
>Message-ID: 
>Content-Type: text/plain;   charset="ISO-8859-1"
>
>For a change, rather than a request for help, here?s a success story: I
>managed to bring a Convex C220 (dual vector CPU mini supercomputer from
>1988) back to life. Both CPUs are working, but I?m running with a single
>CPU because of the power it draws with two CPUs. Next challenges: the
>Convex C1, and quad vector processor C240 (not before I?ve upgraded the
>power feed).
>
>Running ConvexOS 11.5.1, it has FORTRAN 7.0.1 installed; I ran a little
>benchmark, and with a single CPU the system clocks in at 49.1 MFLOPS on a
>big multiply-add loop (advertised peak performance was 50 MFLOPS per CPU).
>
>Getting the system to the state where it is now was quite a journey
>(though nowhere near as bad as it might have been). If you?re interested
>in the details, I have a (somewhat long) report of my work on my website;
>if you go to http://www.vaxbarn.com/index.php/other-bits/603-convex-c220,
>there are some links at the bottom that have much more details, as well as
>photos of the system and the boards.
>
>Now I?m looking for some FORTRAN code that would typically have run on
>this kind of computer so I can show people what this kind of system was
>used for.
>
>Camiel