[TUHS] Research UNIX PDP 11/45

[TUHS] Research UNIX PDP 11/45

[Henry Bent]

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Hello all,

I asked this question in a different thread but it may have been bogged
down in other discussion so I figured it was worth asking again.

What was the hardware configuration of the 11/45 that Research used to
implement early UNIX?  This would be circa late 1972/earlty 1973.  I have
found numerous references to it being an early production 11/45, and I
assume that it had an RK05, but I cannot find any details about things like
memory size and other peripherals.

Since the only extant sources are for V1, which was as I understand only
run on a singular 11/20, and V5 by which time UNIX had spread it doesn't
seem possible to infer a hardware configuration from existing code.

-Henry

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[TUHS] Re: Research UNIX PDP 11/45

[Clem Cole]

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Henry - the infamous Ken and Dennis picture:
https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/ken-and-den.jpg show the 11/20's
display.  Their is a console display is hidden behind the right most ASR-33
[the console for the 11/20, I think], and Ken is typing to another
processor - it's either an 11/40 or 11/45, given the parts of the bezel
shown in the picture.   The picture also shows 2 RK's, 2 DEC Tape and a
Paper Tape read/punch, and the Tek display on the table.

The Fifth Edition tape the low.s and conf.c list an 11/40 with drivers for
the RK05, KL, DC serial, and the PPT unit.  The Sixth edition is the first
time we see mch40 and mch45. There is also a rkunix, rpunix and hpunix on
the distribution tape.  The l.s file shows KL, DEC Tape, 9-Track and RP04
drivers (but no DC-11s).   We also see Ken's "sysfix" to deal with the
separate I/D space.

So ... I'm would have suspected that the first 11/45 had an RP04 as well as
at least one RK05, a TM-11 with a 9-track, and the DEC Tape unit. The
amount of memory is, of course, unknown.  It was pretty expensive in those
days, but I would have expected they would have pushed it to the max
[256K].
ᐧ

On Mon, Jul 17, 2023 at 3:44 PM Henry Bent <henry.r.bent@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I asked this question in a different thread but it may have been bogged
> down in other discussion so I figured it was worth asking again.
>
> What was the hardware configuration of the 11/45 that Research used to
> implement early UNIX?  This would be circa late 1972/earlty 1973.  I have
> found numerous references to it being an early production 11/45, and I
> assume that it had an RK05, but I cannot find any details about things like
> memory size and other peripherals.
>
> Since the only extant sources are for V1, which was as I understand only
> run on a singular 11/20, and V5 by which time UNIX had spread it doesn't
> seem possible to infer a hardware configuration from existing code.
>
> -Henry
>

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[TUHS] Re: Research UNIX PDP 11/45

[Lars Brinkhoff]

Clem Cole wrote:
> The picture also shows 2 RK's, 2 DEC Tape and a Paper Tape read/punch,
> and the Tek display on the table.

As per Dennis' description Noel linked to, it's a DEC VT01A terminal
with a Tektronix 611 tube.  I found an old eBay photo online and copied
it to gunkies.  Bitsavers has a VT02 photo which is quite close.

https://gunkies.org/w/images/5/5d/VT01A.jpeg
https://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/terminal/vt02/vt02_1.jpg


Noel Chiappa wrote:
> A good source is the Ken+Dennis picture:
>   https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/picture.html
> and the caption which Dennis wrote for it.