-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Photos from the NWA Auction
From: ethan at 757.org
Date: Tue, October 18, 2016 6:47 pm
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
> Wonder if anyone got the actual simulators/cockpits? Fun toys but
> won't fit in your average basement...
There were bids on them, hopefully they go to home flight simulator
nerds
that will entertain us with videos on youtube of them running inside
their
houses!
--
I was at the facility briefly to help out another lister with prepping
his lot for shipment. The GP4 is being dismantled for scrap. About half
the racks are already empty.
With a little bit of cash beer money and some wrench work, the panel you
see in IMG_5535 is now in the backseat of my car. It will likely be all
gone by EOD on Friday.
Hi Mouse -
running a museum project is fun but also a lot of work.
here is a little framework to think about and discuss Ed# at SMECC .
- SPACE
you rent or buy a building ($$$$ !)
or...
place displays in other's premises (can work if they protct your gear)
- INSURANCE
(property, liability, employee)
- UTILITIES
( winter is your enemy, summer is ours in AZ)
- SECURE FURANITURE AND FIXTURES
(when in doubt, lock it under glass)
EMPOLYEES and/or VOLUNTEERS
Great to have so you are not the only one chained to the entry desk,
employees cost $$$ volunteers no salary - either can be a
blessing or a curse if you get a bad one
In a message dated 10/19/2016 7:41:07 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time,
mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG writes:
There's someone local who's seen my assortment of computer hardware
twice and has, each time, told me I should set up a museum.
This is tempting, but I don't know the first thing about doing it.
About all I'm sure of is that it would involve a lot of stuff I
currently have no idea of.
I know that there are at least a few people here who've been involved
in such things. While all the examples that come to mind are in the
USA, and mine would be in Canada, I'm sure there are many respects in
which the issues are jurisdiction-independent - and, who knows, there
may be such a person in Canada that I just can't recall offhand.
So, I'm wondering if there's anyone who'd be willing to share
experiences, thoughts, issues, whatever, on the possibility.
I'm not looking to make a lot of money off this. If I can turn my
computers from money-sink to money-neutral, I'll be content. (They are
currently soaking up money in the form of causing me to be renting
significantly more storage than I would be if they were to vanish.)
/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
> From: Dennis Boone
> The sources for the V6 versions of the tmrk et al programs seem to be
> here:
Yes, I have those, thanks; those are the 1-block programs I mentioned to
Warren:
>> The only V6 boot mechanisms are 1-block programs that go into block 0
>> of device 0 and which boot Unix directly from that file-system
Well, to be technical, also there are the programs to copy the disk images
>from tape to disk - mcopy.s does that - etc. In case anyone looks at mcopy.s
and wonders how R5 (which contains a pointer to the console print/input
routines) gets set up, mboot.s, which will have run previously (to load the
appropriate disk-controller-specific version of mcopy off the tape) does that.
One can't actually boot V6 Unix directly from a V6 distribution tape, all one
can do is copy the disk images from the tape to the disk; one then boots from
the disk. (Although now that I look, there is tpboot.s, which claims to boot
>from a file on a 'tp' format tape. But I don't think V6 was ever distributed
in that form - and in any case, it would still need a disk with a Unix file
system, with appropriate files - init, sh, etc - already on it, to be able to
boot Unix that way.)
Noel
> Here are some notes I made a while back, when I looked at it:
> ...
> Block 2-xx - gubbish, apparently inodes, code, etc?
So I just realized something's incomplete here. There's an intermediate stage
(loading 'xxyy', where 'xx' is "tm" or "ht", and 'yy' is "rk", "rp" or "hp").
Those must be in stored in that block "2-xx" area, but I'm not up for
grokking the assembler ("tpboot.s") that loads them to see how it works (it
takes a file-name, 'xxyy' as above, entered at the console).
And I got the tape files slightly wrong: mcopy.s is indeed the tape copier
program (assembled with either tm.s or ht.s, and one of rk.s, rp.s and hp.s),
to produce the 'xxyy' files above. However, the first stage booter is
"tpboot.s", not "mboot.s" (didn't look closely enough); again, assembled with
either tm.s or ht.s - that produces the first-stage bootstrap that goes in
blocks 0 and 1 of the tape.
Noel
> From: Warren Toomey
> This doc: .. describes a way to install from tape, but it seems like it
> does a block copy of a tape image to the disk.
Yup, that's the standard V6 install from tape. It uses the two programs I
mentioned in the last message; first mboot (which produces the '=' prompt),
and then mcopy (assembled with the appropriate disk and tape drivers), which
is used to copy disk images to the disk.
> Also .. there is a v6.tape.gz file. Unfortunately, I have no
> documentation on this. It could be raw blocks, or it could be a TAP
> file, who knows.
I looked into this previously. The other three files:
root.v6.tar.gz
doc.v6.tar.gz
usr.v6.tar.gz
are just TAR dumps of the 3 disk images on the V6 distribution tape: the root
(includes kernel source, and most of the binaries), usr (source for all
commands), and documentation.
The v6.tape seems to be an image of V6 distribution tape. Here are some
notes I made a while back, when I looked at it:
The first 100 512-byte tape blocks contain the tape bootstrap stuff. Blocks
100 - 4099 are the RK05 root image, blocks 4100 - 8099 are the /usr RK05
image, and the blocks 8100 - 12099 are the /doc RK05 image. .. The most
recent timestamp on any file in /usr and /doc is July 19th 1975, as with
Dennis' copy. However, the most recent file timestamp on root is October
11th, 1975
Block 0 on tape - mboot (tm tape booter)
Block 1 on tape - hboot (ht tape booter)
Block 2-xx - gubbish, apparently inodes, code, etc?
Block 98 on tape - hpuboot
Block 99 on tape - rpuboot
Block 100 on tape - rkuboot
HTH.
Noel
Hah, the file http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/PDP-11/Tools/Tapes/Vtserver/v7_standalone.tar.gz
has the source code for the standalone tools including boot and vtboot.pdp.
So, given a working V7 environment, you should be able to rebuild these
and possibly make them work in a V6 environment.
Alternatively, if you have a working V6 environment (e.g. a simulator),
you could bring in the vtclient.c code and integrate it into the V6
boot binary.
Cheers, Warren
Don't store ur tapes in a damp basement will help with sticky shed
syndrom... Keep em dry a food dehydrator helps...
On Oct 18, 2016 7:46 PM, "Al Kossow" <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote:
On 10/18/16 5:37 PM, Steven M Jones wrote:
> I think they're useful to folks who have drives that can use them, and
> they aren't nearly as fragile as QIC or helical scan drives (4mm, 8mm)
> of a similar age.
>
The drives, maybe, but the tape sheds like nuts.
From: Mike Ross
Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2016 2:39 AM
> On Wed, Oct 19, 2016 at 7:44 PM, Pontus Pihlgren <pontus at update.uu.se> wrote:
>> Somewhat related, how much power does a 2020 draw on average?
> Bye some enormous coincidence I was just looking through some DEC
> pdp-10 brochures I have.
> DEC advertised the 2020 as drawing no more power that a hairdryer; the
> quoted figure was 1400w as I recall.
Umm, are you sure about that? That was how we advertised the Toad-1 System
in the 1990s, but the Mighty Mite power supply in the 2020 draws a lot more
than that.
Rich
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer
Living Computer Museum
2245 1st Avenue S
Seattle, WA 98134
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.orghttp://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/
> From: Ian S. King
>> Does anyone know anything about the status of the plans to open-source
>> it?
> I've made some inquries, stay tuned....
OK, thanks!
>> Can you briefly describe what it was?
I'm still curious about what it was: was it a stand-alone board with a
separate power supply, or did it plug into some sort of backplane? Did it use
something like SD cards for storage? And what was the MASSBUS connection
like: a set of 3 Berg headers into which one plugged the flat cables, or was
there some oddball connector that wound up connected to a standard MASSBUS
connector?
Noel