Re: [TUHS] understand earliest hardware?

[Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com>]

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On Mon, Sep 30, 2019 at 4:00 PM <reed@reedmedia.net> wrote:

> I read in the PDP-7 reference manual that Precision CRT Display Type 30
> and Precision Incremental Display Type 340 are the typical displays used
> with the PDP-7, but aren't standard equipment. I read about the
> Graphics-II scope. Was it the only display? I read it was used as a
> second terminal and that it would pause per display full with a button
> to continue.
>

According to the reconstructed kernel sources, it had both. I'm unsure
about the button detail.


> I assume this second terminal's keyboard was TTY model 33 or similar
> since it was the standard equipment. Does anyone know?
>

I've no looked at this detail, but I think it had its own keyboard
independent of a tty 33. We have the sources so we can look. They will be
the final answer on this anyway.


> Do you know if the PDP-7 or early edition Unixes have pen support for
> that Graphics-II or similar displays?
>

Yes.


> Clem has written that the PDP-7 had a disk from a PDP-9. Where is this
> cited?
>

You can look at the simh simulator to find where this is described. We know
there's one pdp-7 with the PDP-9 disk drive from the 18-bit service log
that was printed in 1972 available from bitsavers.org. It is excerpted
here: https://www.soemtron.org/downloads/decinfo/18bitservicelist1972.pdf for
details. Serial number 34 was Ken's PDP-7. I have a blog entry on that
here: https://bsdimp.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-pdp-7-where-unix-began.html that
describes things in some detail.


> The ~1971 draft "The UNIX Time-Sharing System" says first version runs
> on PDP-9 also.
> https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/McIlroy_v0/
> But I cannot find any other reference of running on PDP-9 at all. Was
> this academic?
>

Private email from Ken earlier this year said that there were 2 PDP-9s and
3 PDP-15s at Bell Labs that ran pdp7 Unix at one time or another. There are
other instances sprinkled through the early newsletters I've been reading
lately, but they aren't greppable and I don't have the time to look at them
all again (including a couple of cases where it was said that Ken brought
things up on a PDP-9, which we know to be in error).


> That draft calls the PDP-7 version the "first edition" but later the
> PDP-11/20 is called the "first edition". When did the naming of first
> edition get defined to not include the PDP-7 version? Or is it because
> the early "0th" version was never released/shared outside?
>

It's the first version, but the 1st edition manual definitely describes the
PDP-11/20 port.


> Thompson interview
>
> https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/OralHistory/transcripts/thompson.htm
> mentions an "interim machine" and a "PDP-11 that had PDP-10 memory
> management, KS-1."  What is this interim machine? Is this a PDP-11
> without a disk (for a few months?) What is this PDP-11
> and KS-1?  Maybe this is the PDP-11/20 with KS-11?
>
> Do we know what hardware was supported for the early editions? We don't
> have all the kernel code and from a quick look from what is available I
> didn't see specific hardware references.
>

We know that it was a 11/20, initially without an MMU, and later with a
custom hacked MMU, which I think is the KS-11. Clem would know :)


> The later ~1974 "The UNIX Time-Sharing System" paper does mention some
> hardware at that time on the PDP-11/45 like a 201 dataset interface and
> a Tektronix 611 storage-tube display on a satellite PDP-11/20.
>

PDP 11/45 support was added as part of the efforts for the 4th edition.
bitsavers has a couple of interesting sets of notes from lectures at the
time: http://bitsavers.org/pdf/bellLabs/unix/ has the interesting bits
(including the sources used to reconstruct the 1st edition kernel we have
in TUHS in the kernel routine documentation).


> When did a CRT with keyboard terminal like DEC vt01 (with Tektronix 611
> CRT display), LS ADM-3, Hazeltine 2000, VT01A display with keyboard
> (what keyboard?) get supported?  Any code to help find this?  (The
> https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/picture.html does mention the
> VT01A plys keyboard).
>

I'm unsure. I didn't research those details.

Warner


> Thanks,
>
> Jeremy C. Reed
>
> echo Ohl zl obbx uggc://errqzrqvn.arg/obbxf/csfrafr/ | \
>  tr "Onoqrsuvxzabcefghl" "Babdefhikmnoprstuy"
>

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