[COFF] SDF Beget's ICM - Interim Computer Museum

[COFF] SDF Beget's ICM - Interim Computer Museum

[Clem Cole]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 723 bytes --]

Please excuse the wide distribution, but I suspect this will have general
interest in all of these communities due to the loss of the LCM+Labs.

The good folks from SDF.org are trying to create the Interim Computer
Museum:
https://icm.museum/join.html

As Lars pointed out in an earlier message to COFF there is a 1hr
presentation on the plans for the ICM.
https://toobnix.org/w/ozjGgBQ28iYsLTNbrczPVo

FYI: The yearly (Bootstrap) subscription is $36
They need to money to try to keep some of these systems online and
available.  The good news is that it looks like many of the assets, such as
Miss Piggy, the Multics work, the Toads, and others, from the old LCM are
going to be headed to a new home.
ᐧ

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1785 bytes --]

[COFF] Re: [TUHS] Re: SDF Beget's ICM - Interim Computer Museum

[Lars Brinkhoff]

I think this is off topic for TUHS and more appropriate for COFF.

Gregg Levine wrote:
> Pardon me for asking Clem, but would you mind naming the survivors? I
> have an idea what these Toads are, and of course what Multics happened
> to be, but that's it.

We don't know exactly yet, but according to the video, there's a VAX
7000 and a DEC-2020.  The TOAD computers are XKL's PDP-10 remake;
there's also another one called SC-40.  Stephen also mentions Multics
tapes were rescued.

Maybe the best way to see what is there right now, is to dial into
"ssh menu@sdf.org"

[-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-]
-+-  SDF Vintage Systems               REMOTE ACCESS  -+-
[-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-]

[a] multics             Multics MR12.8          Honeywell 6180
[b] toad-2              TOPS-20 7(110131)-1     XKL TOAD-2
[c] twenex              TOPS-20 7(63327)-6      XKL TOAD-2
[d] sc40                TOPS-20 7(21733)        SC Group SC40
[e] lc                  ITS ver 1648            PDP-10 KS10
[f] ka1050              TOPS-10 6.03a           sim KA10 1050
[g] kl2065              TOPS-10 7.04            sim KL10 2065
[h] rosenkrantz         OpenVMS 7.3             VAX 7000-640
[i] tss8                TSS/8                   PDP-8/e
[j] ibm4361             VM/SP5                  Hercules 4361
[k] ibm7094             CTSS                    i7094
[l] cdc6500             NOS 1.3                 DTCyber CDC-6500
[z] bitzone             NetBSD BBS              AMD64

[1] Proceed to the UNIX Systems sub-menu
[2] Information about Vintage Systems at SDF.ORG

And the Unix section:

[a] misspiggy           UNIX v7                 PDP-11/70
[c] lcm3b2              UNIX SVR3.2.3           AT&T 3B2/1000-70
[d] guildenstern        BSD 4.3                 simh MicroVAX 3900
[e] snake               BSD 2.11                PDP-11/84
[f] hkypux              HP/UX 10.20             HP9000/715
[g] truly               TRU64 5.0               DEC Alpha 500au
[h] three               SunOS 4.1.1             Sun-3/160
[i] indy                IRIX 6.5                SGI Indy R5000
[j] ultra               Ultrix 4.5              simh MicroVAX 3900

[COFF] Re: [TUHS] SDF Beget's ICM - Interim Computer Museum

[Clem Cole]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 4346 bytes --]

Greg, this needs to move to COFF, so I'm BCCing TUHS in my reply. (My error
in the original message was that I should have BCC'd everyone but COFF, so
replies were directed there. Mei culpa).

However, since I have seen different people on all these lists bemoan the
loss of the LCM+L, I hope that by the broader announcement, a number of you
will consider the $36/yr membership to help Stephen and his team to be able
to keep these systems running and the at least the "labs" port of the old
LCM+L mission alive.

On Thu, Aug 1, 2024 at 9:56 PM Gregg Levine <gregg.drwho8@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello!
> Pardon me for asking Clem, but would you mind naming the survivors?

The details are still coming out from Stephen and friends -- I would
recommend listening to his presentation and then maybe joining the List
Server at SDF by sending a (plain text) email to majordomo@sdf.org  with
the subject and body containing the line: subscribe museum-l


I have an idea what these Toads are, and of course what Multics happened to
> be, but that's it.
>
LCM+L owned a real Honeywell 6180 front panel. The folks in their lab
interfaced it to a microcontroller (I think it was an RP3 or 4, but it
could be something like a BeagleBone, I never knew).  It was running
Multics Release 12.8 on a SimH-derived Honeywell 6180 [I'm not sure if
those changes ever made it back to OpenSIMH - I have not personally tried
it myself].   This system seems to have been moved to SDF's new site.
 Also, a number of the MIT Multics tapes had been donated to the LCM+L.
 These have survived, and the SDF has them.  I'll not repeat Stephen's
report here, but he describes what they have and are doing.
Miss Piggy is the PDP 11/70 that Microsoft purchased and used for their SW
original development.  It has been running a flavor of Unix Seventh Edition
- I do not know what type of updates were added, but I expect the DEC v7m
and the V7 addendum to be there.  You can log in and try it yourself by ssh
menu@sdf.org"  and picking Miss Piggy in the UNIX submenu.   Miss Piggy
used to live and be on display at the LCM+L, but Stephen and the SDF were
involved in its admin/operation. Stephen says in his presentation that they
are trying to get Miss Piggy back up and running [my >>guess<< is that the
"Miss Piggy" instance on the SDF menu is currently running on an OpenSIMH
instance while the real hardware is being set up at the new location].

In the early 1980s, as DEC started to de-commit to the 36-bit line after
they introduced the 32-bit Vax systems, a number of PDP-10 clones appeared
on the market.  For instance, the System Concepts SC-40 was what
Comp-U-Serve primarily switched to.  Similarly, many ex-Stanford AI types
forked to create the Toad Systems XXL, a KL10 clone.  SDF and LCM+L owned
several of these two styles of systems and were on display and available
for login.   Since Twenex.org is live (and has been) and Stephen shows a
picture of the SC40, again, I am (again) >>guessing<< that these have all
been moved to the new location for SDF.

Stephen mentioned in his presentation that they have the LCM-L's Vax7000
but do not yet have the 3-phase power in their computer room. He suggested
that it is one of the most popular machines in the SDF menu, and they
intend to make it live shortly.

It is unclear what became of some of the other items.   It was pointed out
that running a CDC6500 is extremely expensive to operate from a power
standpoint, so they offer an NOS login using the DTCyber simulator.   He
never mentioned what became of the former Purdue machine that the LCM owned
and had restored.

I am interested in knowing what happened to the two PDP-7s.  I know that at
least one was privately owned, but was being restored and displayed at the
LCM+L.   It was one of these systems that Unix V0 was resurrected and ran
for the UNIX 50th Anniversary Party that the LCM+L hosted.   The LCM+L had
some interesting peripherals.  For instance, the console for Miss Piggy was
a somewhat rare ASR37 [which is Upper/Lower case and the "native" terminal
for Research Unix].  I hope they have it also.   The LCM+L had a number of
different types of tape transports for recovering old data. Stephen
mentioned that they have some of these but did not elaborate.

Clem

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 8389 bytes --]

[COFF] Re: [TUHS] SDF Beget's ICM - Interim Computer Museum

[Charles Anthony]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1084 bytes --]

On Fri, Aug 2, 2024, 8:00 AM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:

>
> LCM+L owned a real Honeywell 6180 front panel.
>

Stephen Jones owns the panel; it was on display at the LCM as a loan.

The folks in their lab interfaced it to a microcontroller (I think it was
> an RP3 or 4, but it could be something like a BeagleBone, I never knew).
>

The LCM built a FPGA board to interface the hundreds of little unlabeled
white wires on the panel to a RS-232 serial line.

The simulator runs on an Intel NUC, and interfaces with the panel through
an USB RS-232 dongle.

  It was running Multics Release 12.8 on a SimH-derived Honeywell 6180 [I'm
> not sure if those changes ever made it back to OpenSIMH - I have not
> personally tried it myself].
>

SIMH based initially, but SIMH was unable to support the needed
functionality and has been mostly replaced and the kept bits heavily
modified; trying to merge those changes into OpenSIMH would break every
other simulated system.

> This system seems to have been moved to SDF's new site.

Yes; I went and visited it last weekend.

-- Charles

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2904 bytes --]

[COFF] Re: [TUHS] Re: SDF Beget's ICM - Interim Computer Museum

[Paul Winalski]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1342 bytes --]

On Fri, Aug 2, 2024 at 10:59 AM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:

> In the early 1980s, as DEC started to de-commit to the 36-bit line after
> they introduced the 32-bit Vax systems, a number of PDP-10 clones appeared
> on the market.  For instance, the System Concepts SC-40 was what
> Comp-U-Serve primarily switched to.  Similarly, many ex-Stanford AI types
> forked to create the Toad Systems XXL, a KL10 clone.  SDF and LCM+L owned
> several of these two styles of systems and were on display and available
> for login.   Since Twenex.org is live (and has been) and Stephen shows a
> picture of the SC40, again, I am (again) >>guessing<< that these have all
> been moved to the new location for SDF.
>
> There was also Foonly, founded by one of the researcher's on SAIL's
DARPA-funded Super Foonly project to build a faster successor to DEC's
PDP-10 KA10 processor.  When DARPA cut the funding, many of the engineers
on Super Foonly went to DEC and helped design the KL-10 PDP-10 processor.
Dave Poole founded Foonly Inc.  Their first machine, the F1, was a 4.5 MIPS
PDP-10 implementation, but only one was ever built.  Foonly survived for a
while making cheap PDP-10 clones, but it was done in when DEC cancelled the
Jupiter project, thus effectively ending the life of the PDP-10 line of
processors.

-Paul W.

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1783 bytes --]