Re: [Simh] Various

[Johnny Billquist]

It's still all stuck with HP...
And unfortunately, at the moment I can't seem to raise Dave. :-(

  Johnny

On 2020-02-15 02:09, Paul Koning wrote:

Apart from "no because it's not open source" there is also "no, because DEC didn't use source 
control like that".  Late in the RSTS development there was a very primitive source control system that 
understood the notion of checking out a file in the sense of reserving it.  But that tool (known as 
"MOM") was not a revision control system that tracked deltas.

I wonder if XX2477 LLC could be talked into opening up the sources of the 
software they own.

paul


On Feb 14, 2020, at 5:26 PM, Stigall, BJ - Junk Mail  
wrote:

Is there an archive of source code for RT11, RSTS and other PDP operating 
software (with comments, hopefully)?


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Re: [Simh] Various

[Paul Koning]

Apart from "no because it's not open source" there is also "no, because DEC 
didn't use source control like that".  Late in the RSTS development there was a 
very primitive source control system that understood the notion of checking out 
a file in the sense of reserving it.  But that tool (known as "MOM") was not a 
revision control system that tracked deltas.

I wonder if XX2477 LLC could be talked into opening up the sources of the 
software they own.

paul

> On Feb 14, 2020, at 5:26 PM, Stigall, BJ - Junk Mail 
>  wrote:
> 
> Is there an archive of source code for RT11, RSTS and other PDP operating 
> software (with comments, hopefully)?

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Re: [Simh] Various

[Johnny Billquist]

Nope. Because it's still proprietary.

  Johnny

On 2020-02-14 23:26, Stigall, BJ - Junk Mail wrote:

Is there an archive of source code for RT11, RSTS and other PDP operating 
software (with comments, hopefully)?

-Original Message-
From: Simh  On Behalf Of Ken Hall
Sent: Friday, February 14, 2020 3:45 PM
To: simh@trailing-edge.com
Subject: Re: [Simh] Various

I don't recall it ever working, and I've fooled with it on and off for over 10 
years.

Be nice to find out why it doesn't after all this time though.  Haven't had a 
chance to try the last few suggestions.


-Original Message-
From: Simh  On Behalf Of Bob Supnik
Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2020 7:51 AM
To: simh@trailing-edge.com
Subject: Re: [Simh] Various

1. I can confirm that RT11 V5.3 INIT does not work properly with an RL02 in 
3.10.

My next step is to trace back changes, because I think it used to work.

2. There's no card reader for the SDS 940 because

a) I hate card readers (from having used them way back when)
b) I thought there wouldn't be any demand

Rich Cornwell's library should make it easier to implement a card reader these 
days.

My first card reader story goes back to an RCA Spectra 70 I used in 1965.
It had a vacuum pick reader for high speed operation. The reader would 
gradually curl the front edge of the cards, so that after two or three passes, 
the deck was unreadable. It's failure mode was to spit cards out, past the 
receive hopper, at very high velocity and scatter them ten or fifteen feet out 
on the floor...

The second was a very slow mechanical reader on a PDP-7 in 1966. The only other 
keyboard device was a Teletype, so initial entry of programs was done from 
punched cards. It read, allegedly, 100 cards per minute using mechanical 
fingers with little star wheels on the end. DEC field service was in almost 
every week tuning or fixing the damned thing so that it could actually handle a 
decent-sized deck.

In my experience, only IBM built decent card readers. The reader/punch on the 
1620 (I used one in 1964) was very sturdy, and the 407 (used for offline 
printing of punched card output) could read almost anything.

/Bob


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  ||  on a psychedelic trip
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Re: [Simh] Various

[Stigall, BJ - Junk Mail]

Is there an archive of source code for RT11, RSTS and other PDP operating 
software (with comments, hopefully)?

-Original Message-
From: Simh  On Behalf Of Ken Hall
Sent: Friday, February 14, 2020 3:45 PM
To: simh@trailing-edge.com
Subject: Re: [Simh] Various

I don't recall it ever working, and I've fooled with it on and off for over 10 
years.

Be nice to find out why it doesn't after all this time though.  Haven't had a 
chance to try the last few suggestions.


-Original Message-
From: Simh  On Behalf Of Bob Supnik
Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2020 7:51 AM
To: simh@trailing-edge.com
Subject: Re: [Simh] Various

1. I can confirm that RT11 V5.3 INIT does not work properly with an RL02 in 
3.10.

My next step is to trace back changes, because I think it used to work.

2. There's no card reader for the SDS 940 because

a) I hate card readers (from having used them way back when)
b) I thought there wouldn't be any demand

Rich Cornwell's library should make it easier to implement a card reader these 
days.

My first card reader story goes back to an RCA Spectra 70 I used in 1965.
It had a vacuum pick reader for high speed operation. The reader would 
gradually curl the front edge of the cards, so that after two or three passes, 
the deck was unreadable. It's failure mode was to spit cards out, past the 
receive hopper, at very high velocity and scatter them ten or fifteen feet out 
on the floor...

The second was a very slow mechanical reader on a PDP-7 in 1966. The only other 
keyboard device was a Teletype, so initial entry of programs was done from 
punched cards. It read, allegedly, 100 cards per minute using mechanical 
fingers with little star wheels on the end. DEC field service was in almost 
every week tuning or fixing the damned thing so that it could actually handle a 
decent-sized deck.

In my experience, only IBM built decent card readers. The reader/punch on the 
1620 (I used one in 1964) was very sturdy, and the 407 (used for offline 
printing of punched card output) could read almost anything.

/Bob


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Re: [Simh] Various

[Ken Hall]

I don't recall it ever working, and I've fooled with it on and off for over 10 
years.

Be nice to find out why it doesn't after all this time though.  Haven't had a 
chance to try the last few suggestions.


-Original Message-
From: Simh  On Behalf Of Bob Supnik
Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2020 7:51 AM
To: simh@trailing-edge.com
Subject: Re: [Simh] Various

1. I can confirm that RT11 V5.3 INIT does not work properly with an RL02 in 
3.10.

My next step is to trace back changes, because I think it used to work.

2. There's no card reader for the SDS 940 because

a) I hate card readers (from having used them way back when)
b) I thought there wouldn't be any demand

Rich Cornwell's library should make it easier to implement a card reader these 
days.

My first card reader story goes back to an RCA Spectra 70 I used in 1965.
It had a vacuum pick reader for high speed operation. The reader would 
gradually curl the front edge of the cards, so that after two or three passes, 
the deck was unreadable. It's failure mode was to spit cards out, past the 
receive hopper, at very high velocity and scatter them ten or fifteen feet out 
on the floor...

The second was a very slow mechanical reader on a PDP-7 in 1966. The only other 
keyboard device was a Teletype, so initial entry of programs was done from 
punched cards. It read, allegedly, 100 cards per minute using mechanical 
fingers with little star wheels on the end. DEC field service was in almost 
every week tuning or fixing the damned thing so that it could actually handle a 
decent-sized deck.

In my experience, only IBM built decent card readers. The reader/punch on the 
1620 (I used one in 1964) was very sturdy, and the 407 (used for offline 
printing of punched card output) could read almost anything.

/Bob


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[Simh] RT11 init

[Bob Supnik]

And the solution is... a stock RT-11 distribution only has  RL drives.

; SYSTEM GENERATION OPTION

.IIF NDF DL$UN, DL$UN   == 2;NUMBER OF UNITS SUPPORTED
.IIF GT DL$UN-4, DL$UN  == 4;CAN'T HAVE MORE THAN 4 UNITS
.IIF LE DL$UN,  DL$UN   == 1;CAN'T HAVE NO UNITS

Doing  on DL2 or DL3 ain't gonna work.

On DL1, you can init an RL02 just fine.

If you want to play with DL2 and 3, run SYSGEN.

/Bob


Message: 1
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2020 12:30:30 -0500
From: "Ken Hall"
To:
Subject: [Simh] Initializing disks (triggered by the "Something
Strange withRK05" chain
Message-ID:<004601d5e1ca$1ff019d0$5fd04d70$@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

I've played with RT11 on and off over the years, but the one thing I've
never been able to do is properly initialize an empty disk.  If I create a
DL2: for example, and try to run initialize on it, I get back:

 


.dir dl2:

?DIR-F-Error reading directory

 


.init dl2:

DL2:/Initialize; Are you sure? YES

?DUP-F-Size function failed

 


This seems similar to the issues Henk Gooijen has been having with RK05's,
and it's been so long since I've dealt with the real hardware I don't recall
exactly how this is supposed to work, but it seems to me it should just
"work".

 


Has anyone found a solution to this?

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Re: [Simh] RK formatting - closed

[Henk Gooijen]

Thanks Bob.
I think it was Paul who suggested that formatting continues until
an error for non-existing cylinder is returned. You proved that it
is indeed designed that way.

Thanks all for the clarifications, never too old to learn 
Henk


Van: Bob Supnik
Verzonden: donderdag 13 februari 2020 23:27
Aan: simh@trailing-edge.com
Onderwerp: [Simh] RK formatting - closed

The simulator is doing the right thing. Here's the core of the
formatting routine:

6$: MOV #-1,RKWC(R2);SET WORD COUNT TO 1
 MOV #RKDATA,RKBA(R2);SET BUFFER ADDRESS
 MOV #WRTFMT+GO,RKCS(R2) ;ISSUE WRITE FORMAT
7$: BIT #CTLRDY,RKCS(R2);DONE?
 BEQ 7$  ;NO-WAIT
 BIT #ERR,RKCS(R2)   ;REACHED ERROR CONDITION YET?
 BEQ 6$  ;NO. REPEAT 'TILL ERROR CONDITION
 ADD #14533,R1   ;COMPUTE LAST VALID ADDRESS ON DISK
 CMP R1,RKDA(R2) ;ARE WE THERE?
 BHI 9$  ;NO. ERROR
 MOV #CTLRST+GO,RKCS(R2) ;CLEAR CONTROLLER
8$: BIT #CTLRDY,RKCS(R2);DONE?
 BEQ 8$  ;NO-WAIT
 BIT #ERR,RKCS(R2)   ;ERROR?
 BNE 9$  ;YES, BUT ERROR
 CLC ;NO ERRORS.
 BR  11$ ;GO TO RETURN

9$: $ERROR  #$SERR2,F   ;'?DEVICE ERROR';MG1
10$:SEC ;INDICATE ERROR
11$:RTS PC  ;RETURN

And here's the simulator coming out of the loop:

.format rk0:
RK0:/FORMAT-Are you sure? Y

Breakpoint, PC: 012736 (ADD #14533,R1)
sim> s

Step expired, PC: 012742 (CMP R1,12(R2))
sim> s

Step expired, PC: 012746 (BHI 13002)
sim> s

Step expired, PC: 012750 (MOV #1,4(R2))
sim> s

Step expired, PC: 012756 (BIT #200,4(R2))
sim> s

Step expired, PC: 012764 (BEQ 12756)
sim> s

Step expired, PC: 012766 (BIT #10,4(R2))
sim> s

Step expired, PC: 012774 (BNE 13002)
sim> s

Step expired, PC: 012776 (CLC)
sim> s

Step expired, PC: 013000 (BR 13020)
sim> s

Step expired, PC: 013020 (RTS PC)
sim> c
?FORMAT-I-Formatting complete

As you can see, the code resets the controller, sees no errors, and
continues onward.

I regard the issue as resolved. The simulator is handling formatting
correctly, and RT11 is generating an appropriate informational message
at the end.

/Bob

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Re: [Simh] Various

[Bob Eager]

Also not survived...

We had an NCR Elliott 4130, but when the CS degree started, the
students (four in the initial year) had a PDP-11 for various things.
One of the staff wrote an assembler AND a simulator to run on the 4130,
to reduce the need fro the real machine. It obviously helped with
debugging too.

On Fri, 14 Feb 2020 09:10:41 -0500
Paul Koning  wrote:

> > On Feb 14, 2020, at 3:03 AM, Lars Brinkhoff  wrote:
> > 
> > Paul Koning wrote:  
> >> It was pretty weird in that it ran a PDP-11 simulator (on the
> >> PDP-11) so students could write something approximating bare-metal
> >> software but get some debugging help if things go wrong.
> >> 
> >> They moved that course to CDC, and I helped write the analogous
> >> thing for our Cyber (a Cyber emulator on Cyber).  
> > 
> > Those sound marvellous.  I don't suppose either of them has
> > survived?  
> 
> No, unfortunately not.
> 
>   paul
> 
> 
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Re: [Simh] Various

[Paul Koning]

> On Feb 14, 2020, at 3:03 AM, Lars Brinkhoff  wrote:
> 
> Paul Koning wrote:
>> It was pretty weird in that it ran a PDP-11 simulator (on the PDP-11)
>> so students could write something approximating bare-metal software
>> but get some debugging help if things go wrong.
>> 
>> They moved that course to CDC, and I helped write the analogous thing
>> for our Cyber (a Cyber emulator on Cyber).
> 
> Those sound marvellous.  I don't suppose either of them has survived?

No, unfortunately not.

paul


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Re: [Simh] Various

[Timothe Litt]

On 13-Feb-20 20:57, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> On 2020-02-14 01:35, Timothe Litt wrote:
>> On 13-Feb-20 19:21, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>>> On 2020-02-13 17:42, Clem Cole wrote:


 On Thu, Feb 13, 2020 at 11:38 AM Clem Cole >>> > wrote:

     I think I saw a card read/punch only once on a PDP-6 IIRC, but it
     might have been a KA10.   I don't think I ever saw one on a
 PDP-8/11
     or Vaxen.

 The more I think about it, there must have been one or two in the
 mill or the machine room in MRO, but I just can not picture them.
>>>
>>> As far as I know, there was no punch for the PDP-8 or PDP-11.
>>> However, there were readers.
>>>
>>> And the PDP-11 reader controller sat on the Unibus, so it would not
>>> be hard to get it working on a VAX either. If that was officially
>>> supported or not I don't know, though.
>>>
>>> There were a bunch of PDP-11 Unibus peripherals that was never
>>> supported on a VAX. DECtape comes to mind, as well as RK05.
>>>
>>>   Johnny
>>>
>>
>> See my previous note.
>
> Came to yours later...
>
>> The punches you mention do exist, as do others (Not particularly
>> common or popular):
>>
>>   * PDP-11: CP11-UP Punch interface for Univac 1710 Card RDR/PUNCH
>
> Was that a CSS product perhaps? Even looking at the PDP-11 Peripherals
> handbook from 1976 don't mention it. There is only CM11, CR11 and
> CD11. All three are card reader only.

Special Systems, California. Responsible design engineer: Bob Edwards

Don't read anything into "Special Systems" - CSS just means "low volume"
- CSS would sell to anyone, though if a customer's request seemed
unique, the first (sometimes only) customer would pretty much pay the
NRE.  "Low volume" is relative - in the late 80s, line printers were CSS
products.

Can't say much about the CP11's volume - I only saw one.  I expect it
was low.

>
> Haven't manage to find anything on bitsavers yet, but there are a
> bunch of places to search, so I might just have missed it.
>
>> Card readers were sold and supported on all systems thru VAX.
>
> Thanks for clarifying that for me. I wasn't at all sure about the VAX.
>
>> Someone wrote a DECtape driver for VAX - I think Stan R., though it
>> wasn't supported.  DECtape controllers are odd devices - the TD10 is
>> reasonably smart, but the others put realtime constraints on the
>> drivers that could be hard to meet.  Anyhow, by the time the VAX came
>> out, TU58 and Floppies were cheaper and denser media.
>
> I actually do remember seeing it. Fun thing. :-)
>
>> There was also an unsupported DECtape driver for TOPS-20.
>
> KLs with DECtape was always only Tops-10?

Yup.

TOPS-20 had no official support for any IO bus device - except the AN20
(ARPAnet/IMP interface).  Except in that case, the DIA/DIB20 was
difficult to get on the 20 - it was standard on the 10.

However, several drivers for IOB devices existed.  Including the card
reader/punch.

The issue was simply that the IOB had been superseded by MASSBUS (for
DMA devices - disk, tape) - the DF10 channels were expensive in $ and in
memory ports.  For most unit record & Comm, cheaper and less overhead to
hang on the PDP-11 front end.  Unibus, and the drivers made the devices
smarter (and cheaper).  E.g. The 11 handled DMA, modem control, even
broadcast messaging.  And card images.  IOB card readers interrupt the
-10 for every column.  Even with BLKI in the interrupt locations, this
was annoying.  A typical IOB controller would be several rows of
modules, plus power and cooling.  Just the IOB paddle cards used more
backplane space than a Unibus SPC slot.

DECtape, the TD10, is an IOB (but not DMA) device.  Thus, no support. 
Customers who screamed loudly enough and were migrating from TOPS-10
could make it work- at the price of a DIB20 (a full cabinet) and a
TOPS-20 source kit.  When they heard the prices, most swallowed hard and
moved their data to disk or 9-Track.  The problem, of course, is that at
the time there was no replacement "personal media" on the -20 -- the FE
floppies (RX01) were not accessible to the OS, and there was no TU58
(even un-)support on TOPS20.

Both university and engineering shops liked personal media - mostly to
reduce demand for and clutter on expensive disk space.  But TOPS-20
management knew better.

>
>   Johnny
>
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Re: [Simh] CHAC SDS 930

[Al Kossow]

Does anyone know what became of the last known operating SDS 930


https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/search/?s=X3872.2007

We also acquired it from the government. CHAC had it as a loan.



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Re: [Simh] Various

[Lars Brinkhoff]

Paul Koning wrote:
> It was pretty weird in that it ran a PDP-11 simulator (on the PDP-11)
> so students could write something approximating bare-metal software
> but get some debugging help if things go wrong.
>
> They moved that course to CDC, and I helped write the analogous thing
> for our Cyber (a Cyber emulator on Cyber).

Those sound marvellous.  I don't suppose either of them has survived?

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