PDP-11, VAX, etc. hardware in Italy or near

[ssigala@globalnet.it (S. Sigala)]

Hi, I'm interested in buying old hardware like PDP-11, VAX,
Sun, etc., if possible near Italy (or in E.U.).  Can someone
subscribed to this list suggest me [someone|a company|a university] that
sells this type of hardware, please?

Regards,
	Sandro


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From: Warren Toomey <wkt@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>
Message-Id: <199710092300.JAA02541 at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>
Subject: PDP-11 Xenix
To: pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (PDP Unix Preservation)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 09:00:59 +1000 (EST)
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I just received this email from Frank Wortner. Anybody have a copy of PDP-11
Xenix?

	Warren

----- Forwarded message from Frank Wortner -----

From: "Frank Wortner" <fwortner@prodigy.net>
To: <wkt at cs.adfa.oz.au>
Subject: Re: Request to Join PUPS

I've sent off email to a friend of mine who preserved some materials from a
now-defunct software company we used to work for.  He *might* have that
tape.  I regret not keeping track of it,  but fifteen years have elapsed
since I last booted it.

Too bad.  PDP-11 Xenix had a number of nice features.

o It was based on the Seventh Edition.
o It ran on everything from a PDP-11/23 on up.
o It could simulate split instruction and data space on non I&D machines.
(*)
o It had a complete shutdown procedure (an elaborate /etc/shutdown script)
o The kernel was delivered as an archive library (".a" file),  so you could
reconfigure without source.

Perhaps someone at SCO (or Microsoft) may still have a tape of it.  Most
software firms archive their products in secure vaults,  so it might still
exist in some warehouse.

(*) The scheme involved paging the instructions while the data remained
resident.  The first 8K of the program was always resident and contained a
jump table and supporting software.  The next 8K held whatever instructions
were executing at the time,  while the remaining 48K was reserved for the
data and stack segments.  Building a simulated I&D executable required the
user to link once as a pure executable,  once as a split executable, and
finally running both executables through a program which built the final
simulated split I&D executable.  The compiler had an option ('-j' if I
recall correctly) that performed these three links automatically.

Sorry for the rambling note,  but I'm just a bit overwhelmed by nostalgia.
;-)

Frank
----- End of forwarded message from Frank Wortner -----

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From: allisonp@world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
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Subject: Re: PDP-11 Xenix
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<I just received this email from Frank Wortner. Anybody have a copy of PDP-1
<Xenix?
<
<	Warren

Well yes, sorta.  It's on the net, John Wilson has it on ftp.dbit.com.  The 
however is it's for the PRO350/380 systems.  I don't know if it can be moved 
to more standard PDP-11 configurations.

Allison


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From: "David C. Jenner" <djenner@halcyon.com>
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Subject: Re: PDP-11 Xenix
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I don't think John has it at ftp.dbit.com.  And I doubt that XENIX is
anywhere on the net.  I don't even know if there was a PDP-11 XENIX. (It
was originally MS, afterall.  They "sold" it to SCO way back, before SCO
collected everything else.)

There is, however, VENIX (no commercial relation to XENIX other than a
common parent) on ftp.update.uu.se.  This version of XENIX is for the
DEC Pro350/380, which is, essentially, a PDP-11.  There was also a VENIX
for "real" PDP-11s.

Dave

Allison J Parent wrote:
> 
> <I just received this email from Frank Wortner. Anybody have a copy of PDP-1
> <Xenix?
> <
> <       Warren
> 
> Well yes, sorta.  It's on the net, John Wilson has it on ftp.dbit.com.  The
> however is it's for the PRO350/380 systems.  I don't know if it can be moved
> to more standard PDP-11 configurations.
> 
> Allison
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From: allisonp@world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
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To: djenner at halcyon.com
Subject: Re: PDP-11 Xenix
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Dave,

<I don't think John has it at ftp.dbit.com.  And I doubt that XENIX is
<anywhere on the net.  I don't even know if there was a PDP-11 XENIX. (It
<was originally MS, afterall.  They "sold" it to SCO way back, before SCO
<collected everything else.)

Your right, drain beth,  err brain death. Sometimes all those *nixs are the 
same to me.  Especially after configuring three vaxen for VMS and installing 
it.  I know heresy but, Netbsd has proven uninstallable here on all four 
systems.

<DEC Pro350/380, which is, essentially, a PDP-11.  There was also a VENIX
<for "real" PDP-11s.

Well venix on the pro350 runs far better than POS!  In fact it's the only 
*nix running here as even slackware has had problems (bad CD!).

That however is news! Is there a version of venix for "real" PDP-11s? on 
the net?

Allison


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To: Allison J Parent <allisonp at world.std.com>
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Subject: Re: PDP-11 Xenix
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On Fri, Oct 10, 1997 at 12:12:45AM -0400, Allison J Parent wrote:
> Dave,
>
> <I don't think John has it at ftp.dbit.com.  And I doubt that XENIX is
> <anywhere on the net.  I don't even know if there was a PDP-11 XENIX. (It
> <was originally MS, afterall.  They "sold" it to SCO way back, before SCO
> <collected everything else.)

I thought SCO developed XENIX right from the word go, only in those
days they belonged to Microsoft.

> Your right, drain beth,  err brain death. Sometimes all those *nixs are the
> same to me.  Especially after configuring three vaxen for VMS and installing
> it.  I know heresy but, Netbsd has proven uninstallable here on all four
> systems.

Interesting.  What was the problem?

Greg

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From: "Frank Wortner" <fwortner@prodigy.net>
To: "PDP-11 Unix Preservation Society" <pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>
Subject: Re: PDP-11 Xenix (LONG)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 10:57:18 -0400
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Since I'm the one that started this --- albeit indirectly --- let me try to
explain.

Way back when --- about 1981 or 82 --- I worked for a small (now defunct)
software company.  We owned 2 PDP-11/23s.  Initially,  we ran a distribution
of the Sixth Edition on them.  That came from a company in New York ---
that's where I am geographically,  BTW --- called Yourdon.  The system was
called UV6.

After a while,  we decided to upgrade to V7.  At the time,  we had begun a
relationship with another (now defunct) firm called Lifeboat Associates
(also in New York,  later in Tarrytown, NY).  They distributed microcomputer
software,  principally CP/M-based.  They were a Microsoft distributor.
Microsoft had just started Unix development at the time.  Lifeboat sold us a
V7 system:  Microsoft PDP-11 Xenix.  I know it was Microsoft because the
tape lables said so, and I remember that the line printer printed release
notes contained a banner page that indicated that they came from Microsoft's
DEC 20(!) (cheerfully named "Microsoft Heating Plant").

PD.-11 Xenix was essentially V7,  but it had a few added features.
Processor support included all models of PDP-11 with MMUs:  23s, 34s, 40s,
45s, 55s, 60s, and 70s.  It had split I&D space emulation --- borrowed,  I
believe from 2.something BSD.  That emulation required a grand total of
three(!) link passes,  but the compiler driver was modified to do this
automatically if you specified the "-j" option.  Instead of source,  the
kernel was delivered mostly as .o files and .a libraries,  so you could
reconfigure the OS without source.  The reconfigure programs just spat out
some assembly language and C "glue" that you compiled and linked with the .o
and .a files.  In fact,  this was pretty much automated.  The system also
had a rather extensive /etc./shutdown shell script which calmly and
thoroughly brought the system to a quiescent state and could optionally
reboot or halt it.  Although the OS was pretty big --- I find it amazing
that I thought of it as "big" ;-) --- you could,  with some effort build a
boot floppy on a RX02 diskette.  That could run exactly 1 (one) process ---
the RX02 system had *no* swap space.   I remember system recovery sessions
in which I constantly had to boot the floppy,  see the shell prompt,  and
then "exec fsck" and watch as fsck finished its run,  and init respawned the
shell!

Anyhow,  I know I *used to have* the release notes and I *might* have had
the tape,  but both,  sadly,  are probably lost.  I was wondering if anyone
else might have seen or,  even better,  still has a tape of this rare
version of V7.  Perhaps there's an archive at Microsoft or SCO that harbors
a tape.  Most software firms do have some sort of policy about placing
products in escrow with a third party.  Maybe this still exists.  If not,
that's OK.  If SCO is kind enough to allow source licensing to individuals
for noncommercial use,  then this largely becomes a moot issue.

Full source V7 (or even better 2BSD) is probably a more "interesting" system
from a hobbyist or preservationist point of view,  particularly if you're
like me and don't have or care to own actual PDP-11 hardware.  I'm quite
happy to run John Wilson's and Bob Supnick's wonderful emulator programs
with whatever software I can obtain.  They let me have the PDP-11 models I
worked on (23, 34, 45) as well as those I'd like to have had (70) without
the hassle and expense of maintaining the actual hardware.

BTW,  if John or Bob reads this list,  l'd like to say "Thank you" to both
of them.  Also thanks to Warren for his work preserving the old Unix
software.  It's a great deal of fun to see old "friends" again,  and I think
it will be just as much fun to see software and "hardware" combinations that
I didn't have access to in the "good old days."  Thanks also to SCO for
binary licenses for these "historic" systems;  I hope that they will be able
to license source code in the near future.

Sorry for the long ramble and thanks for reading!

Frank



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Howdy -

> From: "Frank Wortner" <fwortner at prodigy.net>
> Since I'm the one that started this --- albeit indirectly --- let me try to

	And I hate to see a fellow talk to himself without interruption ;-)

> PD.-11 Xenix was essentially V7,  but it had a few added features.
> Processor support included all models of PDP-11 with MMUs:  23s, 34s, 40s,

	I remember (not terribly fondly) running V7 on an 11/23.  We hacked
	in an overlay scheme to the kernel (but not user programs).  Just
	enough resources to run 1 user and a couple processes - do an "ls" and
	the shell got swapped out, when 'ls' finished the shell would get
	swapped back in.  Wheee! ;)

> 45s, 55s, 60s, and 70s.  It had split I&D space emulation --- borrowed,  I
> believe from 2.something BSD.  That emulation required a grand total of

	Not having used Xenix I'd never heard the term "split I&D space
	emulation".   What we hacked in to V7 and BSD later implemented
	was an even older concept:  overlays.

	2.9 was the first version I know of that had 'overlay' support.  The
	overlays were memory resident and switching between them was done
	by flipping MMU registers.  

	It is (present tense since 2.11BSD uses the same method today) done
	with a single link phase (no "-j" option or multiple link edits).  In
	2.9 there was a limit of 7 overlay segments plus the base segment. Later
	on (the 1985 update to 2.9) the limit was increased to 15 overlays
	which has proven to be adequate since then.  For the kernel the overlays
	could only be 8kb (1 page register) but user mode programs could have
	larger (but still multiple of 8kb) overlays.

	In 2.9 there was a separate libc.a that you did need to link with
	because the callframe had an extra word (the overlay number) and
	'csv, cret' had a couple extra instructions to switch overlays.  Later
	(2.10 and up) the callframe was changed to always have the extra word
	This made life easier (at the expense of an extra 3microseconds per
	function call) by not having to maintain/build two versions of all
	the libraries.

> three(!) link passes,  but the compiler driver was modified to do this
> automatically if you specified the "-j" option.  Instead of source,  the
> kernel was delivered mostly as .o files and .a libraries,  so you could

	A multiphase link IS currently used to build the 2.11 networking though.
	The networking code (4.3BSD's TCP/IP stack) runs in supervisor mode.
	The kernel, at boot time, loads /netnix into supervisor space.  The
	/netnix image is built in a similar manner to what was mentioned for
	Xenix's emulated I&D space - first build the unix image (with undefined
	references to the networking code), then build the netnix image
	(with undefined references to the kernel code), then cross reference
	the two images for undefineds and create .s stub files to satisfy 
	the undefineds.  Assemble the two .s files and then link unix with
	d.netnix.o and netnix with d.unix.o and voila a kernel and an image
	it can load into supervisor space.

> reboot or halt it.  Although the OS was pretty big --- I find it amazing
> that I thought of it as "big" ;-) --- you could,  with some effort build a

	Even V7 had trouble fitting on a non split I/D machine.  The problem
	is that the kernel has to map the I/O page which removes an extra
	MMU page from being used for data.  Then the 'u' area needs a page
	(for the kernel stack and per process context).  And you need a page
	to perform copyin/copyout with (and to map the buffer cache if that
	has been moved external to the kernel) - that leaves only 40kb for
	everything else (and on a nonsplit I/D machine with overlays you'd
	need two or three pages for the base segment and an overlay, that leaves
	just 2 pages or 16kb for all the data).

> Full source V7 (or even better 2BSD) is probably a more "interesting" system
> from a hobbyist or preservationist point of view,  particularly if you're
> like me and don't have or care to own actual PDP-11 hardware.  I'm quite

	An 11/73 takes up less space than some PC tower cases and uses about
	the same amount of electricity.

> happy to run John Wilson's and Bob Supnick's wonderful emulator programs
> with whatever software I can obtain.  They let me have the PDP-11 models I

	I can't speak for John's emulator (only runs on top of DOS and my
	place is a MS-free zone ;)) but I have booted up 2.11BSD under Bob's.
	Only went to the single user state and ran a couple simple commands.
	Seems to work ok that far, but 'vi' doesn't run right - I suspect it's
	something to do with overlaid programs flipping MMU registers about
	but haven't had the time to look into it further (besides which I've
	a 11/73 and a 11/93 to use).

> worked on (23, 34, 45) as well as those I'd like to have had (70) without
> the hassle and expense of maintaining the actual hardware.

	A Q-bus system such as an 11/83 combines the best of both worlds - it's
	got the address space and the speed (cpuwise) of a 70 but the 
	convenience of no UNIBUS map (like the 45).  Maintenance thus far
	over the last 6 years has consisted of replacing an M8192 when the
	cache developed a parity error.

	Well, I suppose I should get back to work before the boss wanders by
	and sees me having fun instead of getting his work done ;-)

	Steven Schultz