[pups] PDP-11 (SIMH), Seventh Edition UNIX

[downing.nick@gmail.com (Nick Downing)]

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A cursory examination shows that only unix compilers are supported
(see makefile) and Win32 (see build_mingw*.bat).  There is no reason
in principle why you couldn't compile it with djgpp
http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/ however.  This would probably be the
easiest thing because djgpp is a version of gcc and the code is known
to compile under gcc on the unix platforms.  As you won't be running
in a Windows DOS box, you must provide a DOS extender (or more
correctly a DPMI server), a free one is PMODE/W
http://www.sid6581.net/pmodew/ which has worked for me in the past.
Another option would be to compile with the free Watcom C/C++
compilers which I believe come bundled with DOS/4GW (Rational Systems,
now Tenberry Software) as the DOS extender.

More of a problem is the devices, you realize that the more basic your
system the more trouble you are going to have getting information in?
If you only want to run the editor and C compiler for experimentation
then you will get bored very quickly, I remember as a student we had
access to unix terminals via a serial link and since I didn't
understand telnet or ftp and didn't have any internet access and no
way to put a file on or off the system it was totally useless to me.
With SIMH you can transfer stuff via simulated tapes (basically tar
files) but since you want to disable ^E you won't be able to do that.

I would suggest you use 2.11BSD because it has networking features so
you can easily transfer your source code/etc on and off the system.
However that leads to a nasty problem, which is that you will have to
obtain a DOS packet driver for your laptop
http://www.brutman.com/Dos_Networking/packet_drivers.html and
implement a simulated network device for SIMH, I did something like
this a while ago and it isn't trivial.  (Another option would be to
get a FOSSIL driver http://pcmicro.com/bnu/ and implement a simulated
serial device for SIMH, you could then make a SLIP connection to a
Linux or Windows machine).  All things considered I believe your best
option is to restore Slackware 3 (or some other linux) and then run
SIMH under that, with the TUN/TAP device or whatever to allow an
ethernet connection.  Somewhere I have a set of floppy disk images, I
think it was Slackware 4, which you could write out to floppy and
install on the box.

cheers, Nick

On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 2:29 AM, Mark Tuson <markfptuson at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone, this is my first message, after being on the mailing list for
> the best part of three years :)
>
> I've a couple of [hopefully] simple questions about running Seventh Edition
> UNIX on SIMH.
>
> The first question is: how can I get the C compiler to work properly? When
> I've tried to compile programs, I get 'cannot create temp' - here's a full
> list of what's on the screen:
>
> @boot
> New Boot, known devices are hp ht rk rl rp tm vt
> : rl(0,0)rl2unix
> mem = 177856
> # Thu Sep 22 07:50:47 EDT 1988
>
> login: mark
> $ ed
> a
> main() {
>   printf("  Hello.\n");
>   return; }
>
> .
> w a.c
> 46
> q
> $ cc a.c
> cc: cannot create temp
> $
>
> Also, how can I get the backspace key to erase? I've done stty erase '^H'
> but I have to actually type <CTRL>+H to erase.
>
> The other thing I want to ask about is: can I compile SIMH on DOS, so it
> doesn't display any messages except those of the simulated software, and so
> it ignores ^E?
>
> I'm asking because I want v7 on an ancient laptop I've got lying around - a
> 486 with 24M of core. v7x86 won't work on it, and I don't really fancy
> putting Slack 3 back on it - if I'm going to go outdated, I might as well go
> the whole hog and go really outdated.
>
> Though I might consider 2.11BSD, if that'll work on a machine with 24M of
> core, and if the escapes will display properly, because
>
> [24;1H[?1h=[;H[2J
>                  ~
>                  ~
>                  ~
>                  ~
>                  ~
>                  ~
>                  ~
>                  ~
>                  ~
>                  ~
>                  ~
>                  ~
>                  ~
>                  ~
>                  ~
>                  ~
>                  ~
>                  ~
>                  ~
>                  ~
>                  ~
>                  ~[H
>
> is a little bit difficult to work with when I'm wanting to edit source code.
>
> Thanks very much. Mark Tuson.
>
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