[pups] Advice on which PDP-11 processor handbook to buy

[iking@killthewabbit.org (Ian King)]

Wow, they're saying $40 for the 1978 book?  I don't think I'll lend out my
copy....

FYI, I run v6 on a PDP-11/34a with RK05 drives.  The kernel that boots up
from the install media tries to be pretty generic, and yes, you can make
changes to it to optimize it for various platforms.  

So the real question is: what do you want to do?  If you just want to run a
PDP-11 in emulation, any of these books will do fine for you.  The basic
PDP-11 instruction set is pretty constant across the series (with some
niggling exceptions, but nothing you're likely to deal with in an emulator).
There were extended instruction sets for some models, but again with an
emulator you can play to your heart's content.  There were some differences
in memory management, which may or may not be important depending on what
you want to run; again, v6 runs fine on an 11/34 without separate I/D
spaces, while v7 and 2.11BSD require it (as I recall).  But once again, simh
will let you rock on with any of these OS's.  

For understanding Lions (i.e. understanding the underlying hardware better),
any of these will do.  IMHO, YMMV, MOUSE.  And welcome to the community!
Cheers -- Ian 

-----Original Message-----
From: pups-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org [mailto:pups-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org] On
Behalf Of Ross Tucker
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 8:11 PM
To: pups at minnie.tuhs.org
Subject: [pups] Advice on which PDP-11 processor handbook to buy

Hello all-
I'm a n00b on this list, so please forgive me my sins as I forgive those
who.... uh, never mind. Anyway, I am looking to get a "PDP-11 Processor
Handbook" from Amazon or eBay (so I can understand the Lions
book) and there are so many different editions and versions... Lions writes
about the 11/40, but supposedly, that's not too different from the /45 or
/70. My simh boot images for v6 are for the /45 (though supposedly I'm
supposed to be able to modify them to run on the others, right?).

What I'm asking is your advice on which Handbook to buy. Here is a synopsis
on the editions and prices from amazon:
/04/34A/44/60/70  (1979) $10
/04/34/45/55/60  (1978) $40
/70 (1975) $16
/04, 24, 34A, 70 (Jun 1981) $16
/04/05/10/35/40/45 (1975) $45

What do you think?

Thanks for your time,
Ross
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