[TUHS] Happy birthday, core dumped

[iking@killthewabbit.org (Ian King)]

On Jun 17, 2014, at 5:14 AM, John Cowan wrote:

> iking at killthewabbit.org scripsit:
>
>> Well, the University of Oregon might disagree with you about the  
>> PDP-7.
>> They ran the DECsys monitor,
>
> Ah, I didn't know about that.  Still, pretty sub-minimal:  Fortran II,
> assembler, editor, period.  It made OS/8 look quite rich by  
> comparison.

U of O also had FOCAL running on it, which may have been a local port  
- I'll have to find out.
>
>> Hardly useless....
>
> However, according to the manual, DECsys required an 8Kword PDP-7,  
> whereas
> the "Space Travel" (not "Spacewar!") machine had only 4Kwords.

Yes, thanks for the correction - a slip of the virtual tongue.  I  
didn't realize the Bell Labs machine was so basic - in fact, it was  
my understanding that the basic machine was 8Kwords.  The machine at  
LCM actually has 16K, with a DEC field mod to allow it to be  
addressed in PDP-9/15 fashion.

>> And what's wrong with OS/8?
>
> Nothing.  Indeed, I cut my teeth on it on a PDP-8/M with 8K and a  
> single
> DECtape with the driver in ROM.  I was using the term descriptively to
> indicate the kind of OS available for the PDP-9.  A modified  
> version also
> ran on the '15, it seems.  But the native OSes were DOS-15 (roughly  
> RT-11)
> and RSX-15 (a classic DEC RSX).

OK, we're good then.  :-)  I have a soft spot for the 12-bit  
machines, if it doesn't show.  -- Ian