test-drb March 2015

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

167 participants
224 discussions

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

8 years

Any word on the Multics revival front?

by madcrow.maxwell＠gmail.com

When Multics was officially released as free software a couple of years ago, there was a flurry of activity aimed at getting some sort of emulator up and running to run it. Did anything ever come of that or did folks just lose interest (or find out that the needed GE/Honeywell hardware was too poorly-documented to write an emulator of) Mike

8 years, 1 month

IBM PS/2 Model 70 HARD DRIVE NEEDED

by mokuba＠gmail.com

Got a hard down situation and need to re-install/recreate the BBS system I had running. HDD makes swishy noises when shaken, haven't tried stirring yet. I /guess/ a bootable MCA SCSI card would work too... ;) I had the 160MB drive, but anything above 30 would work - i guess i'll just have to use a SCSI Drive for the file storage area once i get an MCA SCSI card .... -- Gary G. Sparkes Jr. KB3HAG

8 years, 4 months

Announcing TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS

by bqt＠softjar.se

Well, it's been a long time project, but I'm happy to finally announce a more public initial release of TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS. This is the result of over 20 years of development. Needless to say, I've been doing a lot of things over the years, and this code have been through four reimplementations over the years. What I now release is something that I believe is a nice and useful piece of software. I am aware of the fact that most people do not use these machines any longer, but if someone actually wants to talk to me about support for this or other RSX software, let me know. Also, feel free to spread this information to anyone who might be interested, anywhere. So - what is in this release? It is a complete implementation of ARP, IP, UDP, and TCP for RSX-11M-PLUS. It has been tested on RSX-11M-PLUS V4.6, but should work on any V4 release. There might be some small tweaks or fixes required, but nothing major. It do require a system with split I/D-space, or else at least the TCP part will not fit. For Unibus machines, it should be possible to run without any additional software except what is in a base RSX distribution. For Q-bus machines, DECnet is required for ethernet networking. The TCP/IP stack can co-exist with DECnet. Some utilities also utilize RMS for file access. A bunch of tools, utilities and libraries are also included. These include: . IFCONFIG network configuration tool. . NETSTAT network information tool. . PING . TRACEROUTE . DNS client . FTP daemon . FTP client . HTTP server . TELNET client (rudimentary) . TFTP client . TFTP server . INET server that can do SINK, ECHO, DAYTIME, QUOTE, and IDENT . NTP client . LPR client that sits in the queue manager (rudimentary) . FORTRAN-77 library . BASIC+2 library . PDP-11 C library The implementation fulfills most of the requirements put forth in RFC 1122. There are a few limitations because of restrictions in the PDP-11, but none of them should really cause any problems. Documentation is still on the thin side, but example configs are also provided, along with installation scripts. A bunch of test programs and example programs are also included, as well as the sources of all tools and libraries. The TCP/IP stack itself only comes in binary form. All tools are also included precompiled in the distribution, so an installation only have to build the stack itself for your system, and then you should be ready to go. The API only have a slight resemblance to the Unix sockets API. However, if someone sits down to write code to use TCP/IP under RSX, I'm sure they will discover that it is extremely easy to use the libraries, or the basic functions. The TCP/IP implementation is mostly written as device drivers. This also have some other interesting implications, such as it is possible to access TCP as a normal file. You can, for instance do something similar to the Unix netcat command by issuing the MCR command: > PIP TI:=TC:"foo.com";4711 which would open a connection to foo.com, on port 4711, and any data sent from that machine will be shown on the terminal. The resources used by TCP/IP are modest. A memory area (size selectable at generation/startup) is used internally. The amount of memory in the private pool limits the amount of data that can be buffered. Normal pool is used in a small quantity for each TCP port that is open. People are welcome to play around with this, and make improvements. Contributions of code is most welcome. There are still lots of things to do. The programs marked as rudimentary should be rewritten. The most obvious thing still missing is a telnet daemon, which probably is my next step. However, the reason for now announcing the release is that it can finally be distributed natively from an RSX host. The main locations to download the TCP/IP for RSX are: Madame.Update.UU.SE (anonymous ftp). This is one of my development systems for this software. It runs under E11, and if things are down, I blame E11. :-) When connected, you are already in the right directory. There is both an RL02 disk image there, which can be downloaded by anyone. If you happen to have an RSX system which you are conneting from, you can also try getting the BQTCP.TAP tape image. Such an image will not transport cleanly to a non-RSX system, however. Sorry. ftp.Update.UU.SE (anonymous ftp) - /pub/pdp11/rsx/tcpip The disk image is normally duplicated to ftp.update.uu.se as well, so the same file can be found there. I hope some people will find this useful/amusing. :-) Johnny Billquist -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

8 years, 6 months

Still seeking 3B2 information

by lists＠loomcom.com

Hi everyone, I've made tremendous progress on my 3B2 emulator. It's being implemented under the SIMH simulator platform, which has been a huge help. My WE32100 core is getting closer to being complete. I'd consider it alpha quality right now, but it has enough instruction coverage to pass the 3B2's power-on self tests and to (barely) run some of the 3B2 firmware mode tools. Implementing the WE32100 core has been thanks to the processor manual and assembly language manuals that are available on BitSavers, but outside of the CPU, virtually all of my understanding of the 3B2's architecture has come from studying the ROMs and the SYSVR3 source code. I've also been helped by having remote access to a running 3B2 so I can assemble and disassemble code using the real AT&T tools. Beyond that, I have found precious little documentation. I'm at the point now where I'm pretty well stuck until I can find more information. I understand large chunks of the memory map now and should be able to do things like simulate the floppy and hard disk controller, but there are large gaps in my understanding. There are many undocumented registers that are used by the firmware, but don't appear in the SYSV source code anywhere. What they mean and what they're for is anybody's guess. I've just stubbed them out for now. If anybody has access to schematics, architecture docs, or other memory map information, I'd be eternally grateful if you could share it! -Seth

8 years, 7 months

New BBS in Maryland

by mokuba＠gmail.com

+1-410-734-6804 New hobby thing. ;) Wildcat! 4 running on it, stock out of box config. If you don't see all the menus except for help and send to sysop, wait till I validate users. When I get back home i'll set it to give non-validated users more permissions, though. -- Gary G. Sparkes Jr. KB3HAG

8 years, 7 months

TSX Plus...

by lbickley＠bickleywest.com

After stating that I expected TSX Plus to be available generally to the collector community this week, I have had a number of folks request access to TSX plus via private FTP. Please be a bit patient and wait for me to post it to a new website I'm in the process of creating. I now have full agreement from S&H to generally release TSX Plus, COBOL, etc., to the collector community via a simple download. BTW: I have converted all of the original documentation, which was in HP print file format to PDFs for easier and more general use. Over time I will likely be able to release some of the utilities, etc. that S&H used internally with TSX plus. Some time ago S&H gave me all of their RL02 packs and a SMD drive with everything they had related to the PDP-11 version of TSX. (They have a current version of TSX for X86 systems which is NOT free and is NOT part of this release). Over time, there may be a project to scan the source listings and recreate TSX Plus source code. (The source listings are available on bitsavers.org (pdf/dec/pdp11/tsxPlus/listings/). Unfortunately, we are missing the MACRO definitions in the source listings. Some of us are working on that issue. (Note: All of the original PDP-11 source code was accidentally lost by S&H). I will also make available any software that other folks submit to me related to TSX on my website. Regards. Lyle -- Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

8 years, 7 months

docs or software for Quay 900 (uses Quay 90F/MPS board)

by spacewar＠gmail.com

Does anyone happen to have documentation, schematics, or software for the Quay 900? It's a system based on the Quay 90F/MPS single-board Z80 computer and two MPI double-sided 8-inch floppy drives. The drives are MPI part no. 77618022, apparently a 9406 variant but not listed in the drive manual on Bitsavers. I suspect the pinout is close to the SA800/850 pinout (industry standard), but I was surprised to find that none of the variants in the 9406 manual have a pinout similar to that.

8 years, 8 months

Qbus split I&D?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Johnny Billquist > All I can say is that I did a number of RSX SYSGENs on that 11/34, and > it truly looked just like an 11/24 from a software point of view. The thing that I wonder about it, for that to be true, is something that someone (sorry, to lazy to look in the archive to give proper credit) pointed out, which is that that CPU is only two boards, and the memory management, including the PARs, is built into one of them. So how could one extend a PAR >from 12 bits to 16, when there's already 12 bits buried deep inside the CPU? That's the part that I can't work out... > I'm hoping that Update ... still have the documentation around. You and me both! :-) I have this dream of one day having an 11/45, with the Enable and the optional cache. Now that would be a sweeet machine: most of the capability of an 11/70, but a lot less power draw. But I'd need the documentation to see how to connect it up! :-) > Every time this comes up I really want to go searching for manuals... > :-) Please do! :-) Noel

8 years, 8 months

Qbus split I&D?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Johnny Billquist > One more thing to check this summer... OK, if you can, that would really be great; if either i) it's still together, or ii) there are pictures, it would fill some of the key knowledge gaps. In particular, i) what kind of backplane is it plugged into, and ii) what is the UNIBUS edge connector on the card connected to... Noel

8 years, 8 months

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test-drb March 2015