On Thu, 7 Dec 2017, Clem Cole wrote:

> > Never got to use the V7 shell; we were stuck with 11/40s[*] 
> 
> Dave I don't understand this statement.  We ran Seventh Edition on 11/40
> class processors more than anything else.  The issue was lack of separate
> I/D space and the kernel got large so you ran out of physical memory.   The
> later was solved with things like the Able ENABLE, which I admit I put one
> couple of 11/34 and our 11/60 (which are 11/40 class).  But V7 ran fine on
> it.

I tried, but no way it would work; the only non-DEC gear we ended up with 
was extra memory (nothing special, but of course not covered by Field 
Circus) and an Ampex[*] RP-03 clone (I think).  For all intents and 
porpoises it was a maxed-out 11/40 (then the /60 later on).

As I mentioned before, the AUSAM buffer scheme certainly helped, and we 
kissed goodbye to deadlocks; we even modified character devices (LP. XY, 
LV etc) to use the buffer pool instead of the character queues, and they 
went damned fast.

I should mention that the /40s were originally specced to run RSX-11D 
(yuck), and when the ACM article came out the rest was history...

[*]
My spell checker suggested "Tampax" for "Ampex"...

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."