Old PDP-11 UNIX Paper Docs?

Old PDP-11 UNIX Paper Docs?

[Warren Toomey]

All,
	While I'm thinking of it, does anybody have any old Usenix, EUUG,
AUUG etc. newsletters, papers, conference proceedings? Some of these have
details about fitting various UNIX flavours onto various PDP-11s, plus other
useful information. Anyone care to scan stuff in?

I've got some AUUG newsletters dating from 1980 onwards. One of them mentions
a `Heriot-Watt stripped down 7th Edition', which looks like it comes from
Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, UK. Does anybody have any knowledge of
this version of 7th Edition?

	Warren

Old PDP-11 UNIX Paper Docs?

[Greg Lehey]

On Thu, Sep 11, 1997 at 03:39:39PM +1000, Warren Toomey wrote:
> All,
> 	While I'm thinking of it, does anybody have any old Usenix, EUUG,
> AUUG etc. newsletters, papers, conference proceedings? Some of these have
> details about fitting various UNIX flavours onto various PDP-11s, plus other
> useful information. Anyone care to scan stuff in?
>
> I've got some AUUG newsletters dating from 1980 onwards. One of them mentions
> a `Heriot-Watt stripped down 7th Edition', which looks like it comes from
> Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, UK. Does anybody have any knowledge of
> this version of 7th Edition?

I believe I might have a copy of it.  I got it along with an 11/73
from some friends, who had brought the software via Novosibirsk, where
they had studied computer science.  They gave me the machine in April
of this year, along with a whole lot of RL02s, and I haven't put it
together yet.  If anybody in the Adelaide area is interested in
helping me, we might find something interesting on it.

Greg


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From: allisonp@world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
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Subject: Re: UNIX for PDP-11: moving on to media
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Warren,

<assuming I [ have RT-11/ RSX / no operating system ] on the PDP-11 already

This is the tough part as PDP-11s run a wide variety of OSs.  If you have
RT-11 (most common) you likely ok.  But even then it can influence you 
choice of devices.  IE: RTv4 knows nothing of TK50 and RQDXn controllers
and v5.1 does.  This is true for RSTS and RSX too.

The other is how to get it onto the required media.  CDrom is largely PC
hardware.  If the disk is readable using dos/linux it's fairly easy, though 
the right supplied utility can help if not.  PCs with the right hardware and 
software can create RX50 and RX33 media, TU58 has been done, RX01 with more 
effort.  SCSI disk are not common on PDP-11s so that is a low yeild path
though they also can be done.  The PDP-11 world peripheral wise divides 
across what bus you have Q or U and that influences what peripherals you 
likely to have.  

The how of taking one of those binaries and moving to the PDP-11 has eluded 
me for a while.  I have been told it is not possible as they are image files
and if you copy an image of an RL02 to an RL02 you better have then same or 
fewer bad blocks as the image may land on one making it useless.

I have been going through some of these gyrations with netBSD for the VAX
and they have set of problem that would be common to PDP-11.  Check out 
their FAQs on this for hints and solutions.


Allison


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Subject: Re: UNIX for PDP-11: moving on to media
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Warren,

I think you are exactly correct when you say these are the first two
eminent, and imminent questions about PDP-11 Unix.  They have frequently
occurred to me as I drool in anticipation over the possibility of
running 2.11BSD on an 11/73!

Maybe you or a 2.11BSD expert (Steve Schultz?) could find the "release
notes" for 2.11BSD and post them, if that's legal now.  That would
answer a lot of questions about how to configure a machine or whether a
particular machine could handle it.  Maybe the release notes from two or
three different versions could cover a great majority of potential
users; your survey might answer that.

It will be great to have everything on a CD-ROM, but that probably won't
help a majority of users bootstrap up a system, since most won't have a
CD-ROM or maybe even no operating system to start with.  We are going to
have to find someone(s) who is (are) willing to make up a standard
distribution tape (9-track or otherwise) or floppies (is that
possible?).  This could really be the biggest hurdle to getting a system
running on many machines.

Dave

Warren Toomey wrote:
> 
> In article by Allison J Parent:
> >
> > <See the petition hyperlinked on http://minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au/PUPS/
> >
> > I've done the petition.
> >
> > <Hopefully (soon) you will be able to buy one from SCO for about US$100.
> > <You can get the binaries for v6 and v7, see Bob Supnik's PDP-11 emulator
> > <on the same web page.
> >
> > I also know of the binaries for v6 and v7 at several sites for emulator use.
> >
> > What is unclear is how to get those binaries onto a real PDP-11 such as my
> > 11/73 and if the devices I have are even supported.
> 
> Sorry for the misunderstanding Allison!
> 
> Actually, that's a very good question. As I'm not a hardware person, I'll
> pass this over to the other PUPS mailing list members. If/when SCO start
> selling licenses & we make CD-ROMs or FTP sites available, this question
> is going to come up an awful lot:
> 
> Question 1
> ----------
> 
> How do I get a Unix distribution onto:
> 
>         - a tape, because I have a tape drive
> 
>         - a disk drive, as I don't have a tape drive
> 
> assuming I [ have RT-11/ RSX / no operating system ] on the PDP-11 already.
> 
> Question 2
> ----------
> 
> I have [ this particular CPU and this list of other peripherals ].
> What version(s) of Unix can I run on this PDP-11?
> 
> Can anybody help out with answers to Question 1? Bits & pieces of Question 2
> are answered on the PUPS web pages, but they need expanding.
> 
> Thanks in advance for any information, and any programs (boot code etc)
> that I can add in to the PUPS archive!!
> 
>         Warren

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From: allisonp@world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
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<From djenner at halcyon.com  Thu Sep 11 16:01:12 1997

<It will be great to have everything on a CD-ROM, but that probably won't
<help a majority of users bootstrap up a system, since most won't have a
<CD-ROM or maybe even no operating system to start with.  We are going to
<have to find someone(s) who is (are) willing to make up a standard
<distribution tape (9-track or otherwise) or floppies (is that
<possible?).  This could really be the biggest hurdle to getting a system
<running on many machines.

The sysboot certainly can be floppy and the system can be broken down to
multiple floppy volumes for installation.  I may also be possible to use a 
vax to read the CDrom and cut a tape(9track or tk50) from that as well.

This of course is predicated on the cdrom.

The V6 and V7 binaries however already exist and are available, getting 
one of them onto a 11/73 and written out as non-image files would help 
greatly. 


Allison


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From: Warren Toomey <wkt@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>
Message-Id: <199709112313.JAA08771 at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>
Subject: Re: Old PDP-11 UNIX Paper Docs?
To: pnt103 at ugrad.cs.york.ac.uk
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 09:13:31 +1000 (EST)
Cc: pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (PDP Unix Preservation)
In-Reply-To: <swordfish.873966148 at ugrad.cs.york.ac.uk> from "pnt103 at ugrad.cs.york.ac.uk" at "Sep 11, 97 09:21:25 am"
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In article by pnt103 at ugrad.cs.york.ac.uk:
> Warren wrote:
> > I've got some AUUG newsletters ... One of them mentions
> > a `Heriot-Watt stripped down 7th Edition',
> 
> If this is the version I have, which not only came from HWU, but is
> running on one of their old machines, it's fairly standard.  It was
> build for a 'small machine', meaning one without separate I&D space,
> such as an 11/34 (mine's on an 11/23 with 128KW and RL02s).  There
> are some extra drivers to support RX02s and stuff, but I think these
> are just well-known additions from sources such as Boston.  There's a
> makefile to configure and build for a small machine.
> 
> It's missing some of the larger pieces of software, such as troff (nroff
> is there, and the troff source AFAIR) and Fortran, and the tty driver is 
> modified (bigger!), but most other things seem to be 'normal'.  
> 
> I have the source on 800bpi magtape (pity my drive is only 1600bpi) and
> also most of it on RL02, though the RL02s are a bit disorganised.
> 
> Pete

Anybody in the UK able to read Pete's tape? Pete, can you kermit the files
off those RL02s?

	Warren

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From: Warren Toomey <wkt@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>
Message-Id: <199709112331.JAA09209 at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>
Subject: Bootstrap Idea
To: pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (PDP Unix Preservation)
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 09:31:22 +1000 (EST)
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All,
	I had an idea about bootstrapping images into PDP-11s, please shoot
it down! Ok, I don't know much about the -11 hardware, how hard would it
be to bootstrap as follows:

	hand-toggle in a small bit of code, which
	sucks in a bigger bootstrap over a serial line, which
	then can pull in a disk image over the serial line & write to disk

Flaws:	need different bootstraps for different disks
	need different bootstraps for different serial hardware
	how to deal with bad blocks?
	very slooow

Other problems: 5th, 6th Edition came as RK05 images. We could probably
	build images for different drives.
	7th Edition did a mkfs during installation, but I don't know if
	bad blocks were ever dealt with.

Anyway, this solution would allow a simple program + disk images to be
put on your nearby PC running Linux/whatever, so no tapes or tape drives
would be required.

I've used this method on another hardware platform to move disk images
in/out. It is slow, but it works.

	Warren

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From: allisonp@world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
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Subject: Re: Bootstrap Idea
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Hi,

RE: booting

<	hand-toggle in a small bit of code, which
<	sucks in a bigger bootstrap over a serial line, which
<	then can pull in a disk image over the serial line & write to disk

Depending on the hardware many of the qbus 11s have ODT, MOP(serial line),
MOP(sync line), TU58, rx01/2 and tu58 boots in rom.  It's handy to untilize 
this.  I will not comment on unibus machines as I'm not experinced on those.

I favor the MOP boot with a mop responder on a PC to load a loader. The key 
is to load small program by hand that loads a more complex loader.

<Other problems: 5th, 6th Edition came as RK05 images. We could probably
<	build images for different drives.

There lies two problems, the drivers expect RK05. The other is the images 
may already expect bad block to either not exist or have been remapped off 
the source device (meaning the BB map copies too).  

<	7th Edition did a mkfs during installation, but I don't know if
<	bad blocks were ever dealt with.

There is s difference between an install and starting up a coped image that 
is an already installed system.

<Anyway, this solution would allow a simple program + disk images to be
<put on your nearby PC running Linux/whatever, so no tapes or tape drives
<would be required.

There is already a program out there that emulates the serial interfaced 
TU58 and while limited by the serial line speed the emulation seeks faster 
than tape as it used ram or file space on disk.

<I've used this method on another hardware platform to move disk images
<in/out. It is slow, but it works.

Same here for non-pdp systems.


Allison