test-drb February 2017

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

153 participants
189 discussions

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Phil Blundell > I suspect it would probably not be all that hard to write some > sort of preprocessor to convert such code Really? Check out: http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V6/usr/sys/ken/pipe.c (Needless to say, none of the 'int *' things are actually pointers to integers!) In particular, what will lines like this: sleep(ip+2, PPIPE); do, depending on what 'ip' is declared as? Noel

7 years, 10 months

VCF East online ticketing is open

by cctalk＠snarc.net

Get your tickets now. Save time at the show. http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-east/tickets/ ________________________________ Evan Koblentz, director Vintage Computer Federation a 501(c)3 educational non-profit evan at vcfed.org (646) 546-9999 www.vcfed.org facebook.com/vcfederation twitter.com/vcfederation

7 years, 10 months

RL02 version of UNIX6?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> Jim Stephens > The listings I've read of early unix have ... mixed c + assembly Not V6 (the subject of the current discussion); the C compiler of that era couldn't inline assembler. _ALL_ of the assembler in V6 is in one of _two_ files: l.s - per system, hardware configuration dependent m40.s - Startup, and machine language support for all low-level OS or functions such as stack switching, etc; the latter option m45.s supported both the -11/45 and -11/70 Noel

7 years, 10 months

RL02 version of UNIX6?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: William Degnan > was there ever UNIX made for the PDP 11/40 and RL02, or was it only run > on RK05? Wouldn't all of the C and wake calls, etc issues have been > solved then? You're mixing up two _TOTALLY_ different things. Unix V6 will happily run on _ANY_ block device, all you need to do is write a driver for it. The rest of Unix V6 doesn't know ^%$^%$ about the device, all it know is that there's this thing that can store, and read back, blocks 0-N. The _only_ interface between the rest of Unix, and the driver, is through a file called c.c which just contains entries for functions to read and write blocks, etc. (You can even run Unix - painfully - on a DECTape drive.) Adding support for RL drives to Unix V6 involves i) writing an RL driver, and ii) editing that file c.c to add _one line in a table_ to hook the driver into the rest of the OS. (And there's a edit to something called l.s which holds interrupt vectors, to all the RL vector.) THAT'S IT. Editing c.c and l.s was No Big Deal. To customize Unix to one's particular hardware configuration, you _had_ to change those two files, and every V6 site in the known universe tweaked those files. _WITHOUT EXCEPTION_. Unix V6 doesn't give a *&^*&^* what disk drives its using. As long as there's a driver for the controller. The stuff about wake() calls is a totally different subject, it's all about how the code in V6 Unix cuts a lot of 'C' corners (e.g. using an 'int *' as a pointer to a struct - something that would horrify modern compilers) because it's in very early C. Noel

7 years, 10 months

RL02 version of UNIX6?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Paul Koning > Yes, GCC should do that correctly. ... Dealing with the output might be > a nuisance ... You may need some post-processing to cast the output > into the syntax that V6 "as" expects. Actually, dealing with the _input_ is going to be a PITA (so my suggestion was, in retrospect, not really a plausible one). The problem is that V6 is written in an early dialect of C, one which I am sure would cause GCC would toss its cookies, if fed to it. Some things, like "a =+ b;" would be easy to fix; likewise "int a 1;" instead of "int a = 1;". But the Unix kernel is shot through with places where are int is used as a structure pointer, etc, without benefit of a cast (casts weren't invented until later). And a lot of stuff like that. Noel

7 years, 10 months

RL02 version of UNIX6?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: William Degnan > if possible can you help me to link in m40.o instead of m45.o? Sure; tomorrow, though, not tonight. Just to check, you have 128KB of memory, and 2 RL02 drives, right? That will make it all really easy, if so. Like I said, I'll make you a mini-disk that will be quick to load with GUI11, with only the only files on it the few you need to be able to boot: the Unix system, /etc/init, /bin/sh, etc. Once it has booted, you can 'mount' your existing RL pack, and copy the Unix system over to that one, then you should be able to boot off that one. Noel PS: I was thinking of fixing 'mkconf' (it currently doesn't properly handle the /dev/tty device, etc), but whoever wrote it was really lazy! 'nswap' and 'swplo' aren't even parameterized, let alone being things you can override with inputs. So the dude who did the RL disk just changed the numbers for the RL - so his mkconf now doesn't work properly for RK drives! Might as well just edit c.c and l.s directly - that's what I always did! ;-) Anyway, I might fix it at some point, but... not for tomorrow.

7 years, 10 months

RL02 version of UNIX6?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: William Degnan > Tried my M7838 EIS this morning. It is bad or there is a config/jumper > issue to investigate. When installing the KE11-E, you have to remove a jumper on the CPU's M7233 module. See pg. 2-1 on the KE11-E/KE11-F User's Manual (EK-KE11E-OP-001), available online. Did yours come with the three flat cable jumpers? If it's still not working, the KE11-E/KE11-F Technical Manual (EK-KE11E-TM-002), also available online, will undoubtly prove useful. Noel

7 years, 10 months

Free to a good home: Honeywell/Bull DPS-6 workstation / server (Seattle, WA)

by julian.metcalf＠liketechnologies.co.uk

Hi Josh, I saw your posting on the 23rd Jan 16 regarding Bull DPS 6. We are based in the UK and actually run 4 working DPS6 systems in the UK. Any system (in its entirety or parts) we may be interested in if compatible with our existing system. Do you still have it? Many thanks, Julian Julian Metcalf Finance Director Like Technologies Ltd 0845 519 2244 Ext 111 This email and any attachments to it may be confidential and are intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Like Technologies Ltd. If you are not the intended recipient of this email, you must neither take any action based upon its contents, nor copy or show it to anyone. Please contact the sender if you believe you have received this email in error.

7 years, 10 months

RL02 version of UNIX6?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: William Degnan > I do not have an EIS installed. I have one however, I can try it. I am > unsure if it's good or not, but I guess I am going to find out. Oh yeah, without that, you're totally hosed, Unix-wise. The V6 C compiler puts out MUL etc all over the place (e.g. for structure pointer math), so there's absolutely no way to run vanilla V6 Unix without it. (The GCC compiler claims to be able to compile C to machines without the EIS; it might be an interesting hack to see if that could be used to get V6 running on a machine without the EIS. The machine language startups would still need work, though. And the bootstrap. :-) > Josh Dersch > As I mentioned above Right, but if his bootstrap isn't working, gotta debug that first.. :-) > you'll also need to recompile the kernel Actually, I don't think you need to re-compile anything, just link in m40.o instead of m45.o; I think all the C code checks for 'cputyp == 40' or whatever, as the case may be. Noel

7 years, 10 months

RL02 version of UNIX6?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> William Degnan > It "boots" to the ! prompt at least there's that. Yeah, but not much has to be working for that to happen! :-) > I am unsure if one can put an M7891 into a slot that has no NPG jumper > installed Yes, you can - but having a slot with no NPG jumper, and either i) no board in in it at all, or ii) a non-DMA-speaking board in it, will prevent any DMA device _further down the bus_ from working. > I would have to check, or whether I can put this card into a DD11-B No. It needs a MUD slot (UNIBUS in connectors A-B, essentially; more here: http://gunkies.org/wiki/Modified_UNIBUS_Device although other places have info about this too). (I'm not exactly sure how the A/B connectors on DD11-B slots 2 and 3 are wired, it's something wierd, look at the DD11-B prints for more.) > or a slot without the NPG installed. The NPG jumper is IRRELEVANT to everything except DMA devices (in that slot, and downstream). > Typing *anything* kills the system. Well, technically speaking, that's not entirely accurate - clearly, from the below typing "r" doesn't crash the machine. I gather you meant 'typing "{anything}<CR>" crashes the machine'. Hmm. > When I type say rlunix or foobar or whatever and hit enter, the prompt > returns to the next line and the CPU stops. The system crashes, > unresponsive, requiring restart from the front panel. That sounds like the bootstrap isn't running properly. Oh, I remember an issue I had with the boostrap when first trying to bring up Unix in Ersatz-11 - does your -11/40 have the EIS board? Is the EIS working? If not, the bootstrap won't run - it uses the MUL instruction. (MUL is not in the base set on an -11/40, it's an option.) If that's not it, we'll have to debug the bootstrap... Should't be too hard, test versions can be loaded directly into memory with GUI-11, we don't have to write them to disk. You've got a (hopefully good) disk to have the bootstrap ponder over... Noel

7 years, 10 months

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test-drb February 2017