[TUHS] Two matters, two questions

[TUHS] Two matters, two questions

[Wesley Parish]

I've just finished reading Peter Salus' "A Quarter Century of Unix", and this 
time round, I was brought up short by the comments on Prime, Primos and The 
Software Tools.

Has anyone done a simulator/emulator of the Prime?  (I must confess, a 
hardware architecture that's described as a cross between a GE-645 and the 
Intel 80286, not only intrigues me, it also makes my toes curl. ;)

Has anyone attempted to get a copy of PrimOS for such a simulator/emulator?  
And if one was to attempt such a feat, where would one go?

And Spafford says, commenting on Prime's version of Software Tools, that the 
final release was into the public domain.  Is it still extant?  Has anyone 
seen hair or hide of the creature?

That's the first matter/question.  The second one is to do with /rdb, which a 
quick search on Google informs me, was written by Walter V. Hobbs of Rand 
Corp., and was placed in the public domain.  It apparently is at:
ftp://ftp.rand.org/pub/RDB-hobbs
but I can't get through to it.

Is there any copy of it extant at some site where I can get through to it?  
(I'm aware there is a software publisher that sells a more up-to-date version 
of it, but I'd like to play with the original  and bring it up to date 
myself ;)

Thanks

Wesley Parish
-- 
Clinersterton beademung, with all of love - RIP James Blish
-----
Gaul is quartered into three halves.  Things which are 
impossible are equal to each other.  Guerrilla 
warfare means up to their monkey tricks. 
Extracts from "Schoolboy Howlers" - the collective wisdom 
of the foolish.
-----
Mau e ki, he aha te mea nui?
You ask, what is the most important thing?
Maku e ki, he tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
I reply, it is people, it is people, it is people.

[TUHS] [pups] Two matters, two questions

[David Evans]

On Thu, May 10, 2007 at 11:42:55PM +1200, Wesley Parish wrote:
> Has anyone done a simulator/emulator of the Prime?  (I must confess, a 
> hardware architecture that's described as a cross between a GE-645 and the 
> Intel 80286, not only intrigues me, it also makes my toes curl. ;)
> 

  Yes.  There was a posting to, I think, alt.os.multics within the
last few months describing it a bit.

> Has anyone attempted to get a copy of PrimOS for such a simulator/emulator?  
> And if one was to attempt such a feat, where would one go?
> 

  I know that the above emulator was accessible on the net and was
running Primos; I don't recall where it came from.

-- 
David Evans                                     dfevans at bbcr.uwaterloo.ca
Research Associate                     http://bbcr.uwaterloo.ca/~dfevans/
Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge

[pups] Two matters, two questions

[Bill Gunshannon]

> I've just finished reading Peter Salus' "A Quarter Century of Unix", and
> this
> time round, I was brought up short by the comments on Prime, Primos and
> The
> Software Tools.
>
> Has anyone done a simulator/emulator of the Prime?  (I must confess, a
> hardware architecture that's described as a cross between a GE-645 and the
> Intel 80286, not only intrigues me, it also makes my toes curl. ;)

Yes, take a look at the past couple of months in comp.sys.prime.
There is an emulator running on, pf all things, a Sony Playstation 3.
Apparently it is running a pretty complete version of Primos.
telnet to prirun.dyndns.org
(Note:  I have not had the time to actually try it yet myslef but
others seem to be having fun with it.)

>
> Has anyone attempted to get a copy of PrimOS for such a
> simulator/emulator?
> And if one was to attempt such a feat, where would one go?

See the discussion mentioned above.  There are, apparently, a
lot of copies floating around.  I used to have one but gave it
to someone who still works extensively maintaining Primes as
I figured he had more use of it.  I also gave him my last Prime
from my private computer collection.

>
> And Spafford says, commenting on Prime's version of Software Tools, that
> the
> final release was into the public domain.  Is it still extant?  Has anyone
> seen hair or hide of the creature?

If what youe mean is "The Software Tools Virtual Operating System" as
opposed to the source from the Kernighan & Plauger book, I have been
looking for over two years for any copy of it.  I have even been in
contact with Deborah K. Scherrer who was one of the originators of the
project and a co-author of the paper from Communications of the ACM.
No luck.  It is like every copy has been lost even though there were
thousands of copies for over 50 different systems.  (not unlike my
search for Tiny Pascal sources, which also seem to have been lost
except for printed copies in the few remaining copies of The Byte
Book of Pascal, but that's another story.)

bill

-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
bill at cs.scranton.edu     |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>

[TUHS] Two matters, two questions

[Al Kossow]

Wesley Parish wrote:
> I've just finished reading Peter Salus' "A Quarter Century of Unix", and this 
> time round, I was brought up short by the comments on Prime, Primos and The 
> Software Tools.
> 
> Has anyone done a simulator/emulator of the Prime? 

There is one running PRIMOS 19

Discussions in alt.sys.prime

[TUHS] Two matters, two questions

[Al Kossow]

Al Kossow wrote:
> Wesley Parish wrote:
>> I've just finished reading Peter Salus' "A Quarter Century of Unix", and this 
>> time round, I was brought up short by the comments on Prime, Primos and The 
>> Software Tools.
>>
>> Has anyone done a simulator/emulator of the Prime? 
> 
> There is one running PRIMOS 19
> 
> Discussions in alt.sys.prime

should be comp.sys.prime

[TUHS] Two matters, two questions

[John Cowan]

Wesley Parish scripsit:

> Is there any copy of it extant at some site where I can get through to it?  
> (I'm aware there is a software publisher that sells a more up-to-date version 
> of it, but I'd like to play with the original  and bring it up to date 
> myself ;)

There is also a derivative of it which is open source, called NoSQL,
using the same principles but in a lighter-weight way; it mostly uses
awk and sed and other classical tools, rather than Perl.  Unlike /rdb,
NoSQL is being actively maintained.

http://www.scriptaworks.com/cgi-bin/wiki.cgi/NoSQL

-- 
John Cowan   cowan at ccil.org    http://ccil.org/~cowan
I am he that buries his friends alive and drowns them and draws them
alive again from the water. I came from the end of a bag, but no bag
went over me.  I am the friend of bears and the guest of eagles. I am
Ringwinner and Luckwearer; and I am Barrel-rider.  --Bilbo to Smaug

[TUHS] [pups] Two matters, two questions

[Andru Luvisi]

On 5/10/07, Wesley Parish <wes.parish at paradise.net.nz> wrote:

[snip]
> That's the first matter/question.  The second one is to do with /rdb, which a
> quick search on Google informs me, was written by Walter V. Hobbs of Rand
> Corp., and was placed in the public domain.  It apparently is at:
> ftp://ftp.rand.org/pub/RDB-hobbs
> but I can't get through to it.
>
> Is there any copy of it extant at some site where I can get through to it?
> (I'm aware there is a software publisher that sells a more up-to-date version
> of it, but I'd like to play with the original  and bring it up to date
> myself ;)
[snip]

Hopefully one of the following will work for you:
  ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/unix/databases/flat-file/RDB/RDB-2.6d.tar.gz
  http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/distfiles/RDB-2.6d.tar.gz
  ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-stable/All/rdb-2.6d.tbz

You may also be interested in NoSQL:
  http://www.scriptaworks.com/cgi-bin/wiki.cgi/NoSQL/HomePage

and reldb:
  http://gatekeeper.dec.com/pub/usenet/comp.sources.unix/volume20/reldb/

Andru

[TUHS] Two matters, two questions

[Wesley Parish]

Thanks everybody for your replies.  I've downloaded the rdb and NoSQL and will 
have a look at them.  Now I'm off to look at comp.sys.prime and 
alt.os.multics!

Again, thanks

Wesley Parish

On Thursday 10 May 2007 23:42, Wesley Parish wrote:
> I've just finished reading Peter Salus' "A Quarter Century of Unix", and
> this time round, I was brought up short by the comments on Prime, Primos
> and The Software Tools.
>
> Has anyone done a simulator/emulator of the Prime?  (I must confess, a
> hardware architecture that's described as a cross between a GE-645 and the
> Intel 80286, not only intrigues me, it also makes my toes curl. ;)
>
> Has anyone attempted to get a copy of PrimOS for such a simulator/emulator?
> And if one was to attempt such a feat, where would one go?
>
> And Spafford says, commenting on Prime's version of Software Tools, that
> the final release was into the public domain.  Is it still extant?  Has
> anyone seen hair or hide of the creature?
>
> That's the first matter/question.  The second one is to do with /rdb, which
> a quick search on Google informs me, was written by Walter V. Hobbs of Rand
> Corp., and was placed in the public domain.  It apparently is at:
> ftp://ftp.rand.org/pub/RDB-hobbs
> but I can't get through to it.
>
> Is there any copy of it extant at some site where I can get through to it?
> (I'm aware there is a software publisher that sells a more up-to-date
> version of it, but I'd like to play with the original  and bring it up to
> date myself ;)
>
> Thanks
>
> Wesley Parish

-- 
Clinersterton beademung, with all of love - RIP James Blish
-----
Gaul is quartered into three halves.  Things which are 
impossible are equal to each other.  Guerrilla 
warfare means up to their monkey tricks. 
Extracts from "Schoolboy Howlers" - the collective wisdom 
of the foolish.
-----
Mau e ki, he aha te mea nui?
You ask, what is the most important thing?
Maku e ki, he tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
I reply, it is people, it is people, it is people.

[pups] Two matters, two questions

[Tore Sinding Bekkedal]

On Thu, 2007-05-10 at 09:13 -0400, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> (Trimmed)
> Yes, take a look at the past couple of months in comp.sys.prime.
> There is an emulator running on, pf all things, a Sony Playstation 3.
> Apparently it is running a pretty complete version of Primos.
> telnet to prirun.dyndns.org

That should be to port 8001, FWIW

Rgds,
-Tore :)