From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: ssigala@globalnet.it (S. Sigala) Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 18:20:41 +0200 (MET DST) Subject: PDP-11, VAX, etc. hardware in Italy or near In-Reply-To: <199710081809.EAA11819@minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au> Message-ID: 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 Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA15858 for pups-liszt; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 09:00:59 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f Received: from henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (henry.cs.adfa.oz.au [131.236.21.158]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA15853 for ; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 09:00:55 +1000 (EST) Received: (from wkt at localhost) by henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.7.5/8.7.3) id JAA02541 for pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 09:00:59 +1000 (EST) From: Warren Toomey 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) Reply-To: wkt at cs.adfa.oz.au X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL22 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk 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" To: 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 ----- Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA16074 for pups-liszt; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 10:58:50 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f Received: from europe.std.com (europe.std.com [199.172.62.20]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA16069 for ; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 10:58:45 +1000 (EST) Received: from world.std.com by europe.std.com (8.7.6/BZS-8-1.0) id UAA27221; Thu, 9 Oct 1997 20:58:40 -0400 (EDT) Received: by world.std.com (5.65c/Spike-2.0) id AA13113; Thu, 9 Oct 1997 20:58:40 -0400 Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 20:58:40 -0400 From: allisonp@world.std.com (Allison J Parent) Message-Id: <199710100058.AA13113 at world.std.com> To: pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Subject: Re: PDP-11 Xenix Sender: owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk ; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 13:20:19 +1000 (EST) Received: from halcyon.com (blv-lx103-ip6.nwnexus.net [206.63.41.56]) by mgate.nwnexus.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA14086; Thu, 9 Oct 1997 20:19:57 -0700 Message-ID: <343D9EE1.1E1F32E4 at halcyon.com> Date: Thu, 09 Oct 1997 20:20:01 -0700 From: "David C. Jenner" Reply-To: djenner at halcyon.com X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.03 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Allison J Parent CC: pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Subject: Re: PDP-11 Xenix References: <199710100058.AA13113 at world.std.com> Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------9AECC2A19114B8324D6E2D6A" Sender: owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------9AECC2A19114B8324D6E2D6A Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit 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: > > < > < 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 --------------9AECC2A19114B8324D6E2D6A Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii; name="vcard.vcf" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Description: Card for David C. Jenner Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="vcard.vcf" begin: vcard fn: David C. Jenner n: Jenner;David C. adr: 3153 N.E. 84th Street;;;Seattle;WA;98115-4717;USA email;internet: djenner at halcyon.com tel;fax: 206-527-2019 tel;home: 206-527-2018 x-mozilla-cpt: ;0 x-mozilla-html: FALSE version: 2.1 end: vcard --------------9AECC2A19114B8324D6E2D6A-- Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA16464 for pups-liszt; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 14:12:58 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f Received: from europe.std.com (europe.std.com [199.172.62.20]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA16459 for ; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 14:12:52 +1000 (EST) Received: from world.std.com by europe.std.com (8.7.6/BZS-8-1.0) id AAA08702; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 00:12:46 -0400 (EDT) Received: by world.std.com (5.65c/Spike-2.0) id AA13660; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 00:12:45 -0400 Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 00:12:45 -0400 From: allisonp@world.std.com (Allison J Parent) Message-Id: <199710100412.AA13660 at world.std.com> To: djenner at halcyon.com Subject: Re: PDP-11 Xenix Cc: pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Sender: owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk Dave, ; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 14:46:43 +1000 (EST) Received: (from grog at localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.8.7/8.8.5) id OAA22633; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 14:16:33 +0930 (CST) Message-ID: <19971010141633.30732 at lemis.com> Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 14:16:33 +0930 From: Greg Lehey To: Allison J Parent Cc: djenner at halcyon.com, pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Subject: Re: PDP-11 Xenix References: <199710100412.AA13660 at world.std.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.84e In-Reply-To: <199710100412.AA13660 at world.std.com>; from Allison J Parent on Fri, Oct 10, 1997 at 12:12:45AM -0400 Organisation: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8250 Fax: +61-8-8388-8250 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Fight-Spam-Now: http://www.cauce.org Sender: owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk On Fri, Oct 10, 1997 at 12:12:45AM -0400, Allison J Parent wrote: > Dave, > > 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 Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id BAA17679 for pups-liszt; Sat, 11 Oct 1997 01:02:58 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f Received: from mail1w-int.prodigy.net (pimout1-ext.prodigy.net [198.83.18.53]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id BAA17674 for ; Sat, 11 Oct 1997 01:02:51 +1000 (EST) Received: from seeker.prodigy.com (seeker.prodigy.com [199.4.137.72]) by pimout1-int.prodigy.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA81722 for ; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 10:57:23 -0400 From: "Frank Wortner" To: "PDP-11 Unix Preservation Society" Subject: Re: PDP-11 Xenix (LONG) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 10:57:18 -0400 Message-ID: <01bcd58c$ce268560$488904c7 at seeker.prodigy.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.71.1712.3 Sender: owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk 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 Received: (from major at localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id DAA17931 for pups-liszt; Sat, 11 Oct 1997 03:15:43 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f Received: from moe.2bsd.com (0 at MOE.2BSD.COM [206.139.202.200]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id DAA17926 for ; Sat, 11 Oct 1997 03:15:37 +1000 (EST) Received: (from sms at localhost) by moe.2bsd.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA20665; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 09:55:45 -0700 (PDT) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 09:55:45 -0700 (PDT) From: "Steven M. Schultz" Message-Id: <199710101655.JAA20665 at moe.2bsd.com> To: fwortner at prodigy.net, pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Subject: Re: PDP-11 Xenix (LONG) Sender: owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk Howdy - > From: "Frank Wortner" > 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