I'm reposting this announcement from Jim Wilcoxson.
De
####
Newsgroups: comp.sys.prime
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2020 08:34:13 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <0c560b91-35d2-4dcc-b859-a8eb4d22bd17 at googlegroups.com>
Subject: Prime emulator source released on GitHub
From: Jim Wilcoxson <prirun at gmail.com>
Today, with much help from Dennis Boone, I'm releasing the Prime
emulator source code on GitHub for non-commercial use. This is the full
version of the emulator running on Linux and supports:
- all Prime CPU modes: 16S, 32S, 32R, 64R, 64V, 32I
- all Prime models, from the P400 to P6550
- up to 512MB of memory, depending on the Primos rev and CPU
- a system console
- 128 incoming telnet terminal connections
- 8 disk controllers, 8 drives each
- support for all 25 disk drives sold by Prime
- a tape controller, 4 drives, using the .TAP format
- a PNC controller emulating RingNet over TCP/IP
- a bypass for Primos system serial number checks
- Unix utilities to read/write physical tapes & Magsav tapes
Dennis owns the emulator GitHub repo and has also kindly agreed to take
over hosting of the public Prime emulators that have been online since
2008. There are 7 public emulators running in a virtual Prime ring,
allowing both remote terminal sessions (netlink) and remote disk access
via PrimeNet. The Prime emulator on Linux is currently running 45-55
Prime MIPS in 64V mode.
A wide range of Prime software is loaded on the public emulators:
- ftn screaming fast Prime Fortran 66 compiler, written in assembler
- f77 the not-so-screaming but full-featured Fortran '77
- pl1g the PL/I Subset G compiler
- pl1 the full PL/I compiler
- plp the original Prime systems language (like PL/I)
- spl the 2nd generation Prime systems language
- cc the C compiler written by Garth Conby of Pacer Software
- pascal the Pascal compiler
- modula Wirth's successor to Pascal
- dbg Prime's source level debugger rivaling modern debuggers
- pma the Prime assembler
- basicv the Prime BASIC compiler
- cobol the original Prime COBOL compiler
- cbl the Prime COBOL '74 compiler
- emacs the full screen editor still used by many today (me!)
- midas the Prime indexed sequential file software
This week we are working on releasing Prime disk images for all of the
public emulators to make it easy for others to get their own Prime up
and running. For the truly adventurous who want to bootstrap their own
Prime system, there are links in the emulator readme to Prime tape
images at Bitsavers and to a large library of Prime manuals.
I learned more about operating systems, compilers, concurrency, and
other systems programming topics by reading Prime source code, making
changes to Primos, and fiddling with Prime hardware, than I did from all
of my college degree work. I loved Prime computers, Prime software,
Prime hardware, and the Prime Computer company, and am grateful to all
of the former Prime engineers that provided this robust and interesting
hardware and software platform.
I hope you enjoy it too! https://github.com/prirun
Jim
Greetings folks
The past few years I?ve become fairly focused on a particular old 1999/2000 ww2 fps computer game. Of course playing it but I?m also on the development team for the game (EA has given up on it, but we still put out new releases, maps, patches, etc.). As a result of that, I pretty much live on Discord text/audio chat these days. If you send me an email I will eventually see it and may even respond heh. But if you send me anything on Discord I?m going to see it immediately. If any of you are on discord, I am ?Todesengel#9624?. Feel free to add me as a friend and that way you can get me usually immediately. I am not leaving the hobby, nor am I saying not to email me at the usual address. But a lot of you do talk to me semi-frequently and I?m just saying discord will get to me far quicker.
In addition, mostly as an exercise to see how to do it, I set up a ClassicCMP discord server. That Discord server is NOT meant to replace this list, nor should it be taken to signal any less commitment on my part to keeping this list running. They are fundamentally different things; Discord is great for real time text chat back and forth. There are also audio and video channels if people want to use that to talk verbally or via video. To get on that server, here is a semi-permanent invite: https://discord.gg/U8Skw5g Joining the server gets you to all the other folks who may join the classiccmp discord, not just me. Of course, that could be zero ? Like I said, I just did it as an exercise, and discord is how some of my family and friends stay in touch. But it is there if peeps want to use it.
I?d rather not turn this into a long debate of whether discord is good or bad or anything like that. I?m just saying it?s there, and it?s quicker to get ahold of me that way at times.
Best,
J
For those interested in playing with Jim's emulator, a few resources:
Bitsavers has some doco and bits:
http://bitsavers.org/pdf/prime/http://bitsavers.org/bits/Prime/
I have been assembling what I hope will be the definitive Prime info
site. It's not complete, but contains manuals scanned by, among
others, AEK and Jim Wilcoxson, as well as material from my Prime-using
past, etc. I have more documentation and software to add as I have
time.
https://sysovl.info/reference_prime.html
Of particular use might be this writeup on installing PRIMOS Revs 22 or
23 on the emulator. It's set up for the old demo version of the
emulator, so needs a fair amount of updating, but may help get you
started. I'll work on it soonish.
https://sysovl.info/reference_prime_drb_installing_primos.html
De
>According to the Ref Manual, that's the one I was looking for.
>Now to mount the RL on RSTS and see what it takes to build it
>there. I'll let the list know how I make out in case someone
>else is interested.
>
>bill
The RL02 image is RSX Files-11, and I?m not sure if you can mount that with RSTS. I could move it to a RT-11 formatted RL02 or if your RSTS system is on HECnet I can put it where you could get it that way. I looked for the original DOS-11 formatted DEC distribution tape but can?t find it at this time. Let me know if you need anything.
Mark
Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2020 10:58:46 -0400
> From: Bill Gunshannon <bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com <mailto:bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com>>
> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
> <cctalk at classiccmp.org <mailto:cctalk at classiccmp.org>>
> Subject: APL-11
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>
>
> Haven't given up on DIBOL. May try installing the RT-11 version and
> see if it runs.
>
> But now another language of interest has reared its ugly head. :-)
>
> Anybody have an image of the tape for APL-11? Manual claims it
> runs on all of the PDP-11 OSes and it is another language from
> my past that I haven't touched (other than to read some programs
> out of curiosity) in more than two decades.
Bill,
I have the APL-11 V2.1 source files on a RL02 disk image. I will make it available at http://www.rsx11m.com/apl11.zip <http://www.rsx11m.com/apl11.zip>
Once you mount the disk image with Simh, the are two ready to run task images that will run under RSX11M or M+
In [201,200]APL6OK.TSK and APL7OK.TSK that are the REAL*4 and REAL*8 versions of APL-11. On the disk are the
Original .MAC sources as well as files from a RSX SIG tape that modified APL-11 for I/D under RSX11M+ that increased
The workspace (.BXWA from ~30000 to ~60000 bytes). It also contains a character set for Vt220 for the APL character set.
When you install the APL task experiment with the /INC to maximize the available workspace, On my system, I can
INS APL6.TSK/INC=37000 to max the workspace for the single precision version.
Also, the scanned APL-11 reference manual can be downloaded at http://www.rsx11m.com/APL-11-Ref-Man.pdf <http://www.rsx11m.com/APL-11-Ref-Man.pdf>
and the APL11 installation guide at http://www.rsx11m.com/APL11ins.pdf <http://www.rsx11m.com/APL11ins.pdf>
The RSX SIG files that have the info to change APL-11 to an I/D RSX11M+ task are at [370,360] on the RL02 disk. I remember having this work back in the mid-1980s butI have not been able to get it to work today. If I link it with ODT it seems to blow up when the first overlay is loaded. If anyone could help with that I?d really appreciate it!
Best,
Mark
>
> I have the source to something called APL-11 for Unix but it is
> not the same thing. Actually, not even close. :-)
>
> Would love to see a few pointers.
>
> Oh, and in case anyone is curious about my endeavors....
> The SIMH system I am using now is based on the 11/70 and was built
> with only 2M of memory. Why you would do that under SIMH where there
> is really no memory constraint at all, I can not fathom. I used to
> have a bunch of 11/44's and that has been my favorite since my original
> 11/24 system died long, long ago./ I am going to configure a SIMH
> System using the 11/44 as my model and then reinstall everything in
> order to have a really good system for playing with this stuff.
>
> Sure wish there was a way to find some of the third party stuff from
> the sourcebooks. A lot of nice software that should have been saved
> for historical reasons, if nothing else, has been lost.
>
> bill
There's been a lot of discussion of late about replacing power supply
capacitors in DEC power supplies. I have a BA123 and I believe that it uses
an H7260 power supply. I feel like it might be a good idea to replace the
capacitors before a disaster occurs. I haven't been able to find a
schematic for the H7260 and I'm wondering which/how many caps need to be
replaced. Does anyone know what specific part# to replace them with? I'd
prefer to purchase the replacements before I dig in to the machine, that
way I don't have to remove the power supply twice.
I also own a BA23. Does anyone know if that power supply uses the same caps
as the H7260 and how many are required for that supply?
Does anybody have a maintenance print or service manual for the DEC H7874?
This is the power supply used in the BA4xx and R400x cabinets. As you might
guess, I have one that tries to power up but shuts down after a second.
Probably a bad capacitor (or several), but this thing is ridiculously
complicated and not all that easy to disassemble, either. I'd like to be
able to trouble shoot it rather than just firing the proverbial parts cannon
at it. FWIW, none of the electrolytic (of which there are many) have
obviously failed - no leaking, no bulges, etc. Of course, that proves
fairly little.
Thanks,
Bob Armstrong
>Problem with that is all the files get jumbled into one directory
>and I am sure the build will want them in the right proj,uid locations
>in order to work. I am thinking a backup tape may do the job. SPD's
>seem to say that later versions of RSX and RSTS had compatible BACKUP
>formats. We'll see. If that don't work there is always kermit. :-)
>It must be possible because the installation manual says the
>installation tape works for all four PDP-11 OSes.
Bill,
I?ve looked extensively to see if I can find the original distribution tape image and can?t find it.
At one point DEC donated the APL-11 to DECUS and I think that is when I got it back in 1984 or so. The files I have include the Macro-11 source code which as near as I can tell was not on the DEC distribution when it was a layered product. I now think that the copy of APL-11 I have must have come from a restored backup tape from my old system.
In the DEC distribution, it was a DOS-11 tape which could be read by all the PDP-11 OSes as you say. I just attempted to create a DOS-11 tape similar to the DEC distribution, but when I try to run the installation against it I get a task build of APL that doesn?t work. It immediately exits and I think is due to some differences between the auto overlay code in RSX11M+ V4.6 and the V2.1 M+ that I used to have. I added the .MAC files and .CMD files (for assembly, and linking) to the tape and make it available at:
http://www.rsx11m.com/apl11.tap <http://www.rsx11m.com/apl11.tap>
Let me know if that works for you. It may build under RSTS fine.
A backup plan to make it available is that also on the same web site are two disk images for the PiDP-11/70 folks that is a complete RSX11M+ V4.6 ready to run under Simh. On the DU1 disk image in [201,50] and [201,200] are all the APL-11 files I have. That system also installs a working APL-11 for RSX.
Mark
Bill,
The APL-11 files on DECUS RSX85A are not a complete distribution but a modified version that was intended to run under I/D on M+.
I have the APL-11 V2.1 source files on a RL02 disk image. I will make it available at http://www.rsx11m.com/apl11.zip
Once you mount the disk image with Simh, the are two ready to run task images that will run under RSX11M or M+
In [201,200]APL6OK.TSK and APL7OK.TSK that are the REAL*4 and REAL*8 versions of APL-11. On the disk are the
Original .MAC sources as well as files from a RSX SIG tape that modified APL-11 for I/D under RSX11M+ that increased
The workspace (.BXWA from ~30000 to ~60000 bytes). It also contains a character set for Vt220 for the APL character set.
When you install the APL task experiment with the /INC to maximize the available workspace, On my system, I can
INS APL6.TSK/INC=37000 to max the workspace for the single precision version.
Also, the scanned APL-11 reference manual can be downloaded at http://www.rsx11m.com/APL-11-Ref-Man.pdf
and the APL11 installation guide at http://www.rsx11m.com/APL11ins.pdf
The RSX SIG files that have the info to change APL-11 to an I/D RSX11M+ task from RSX85A are also at [370,360] on the RL02 disk. I remember having this work back in the mid-1980s but I have not been able to get it to work today. If I link it with ODT it seems to blow up when the first overlay is loaded. If anyone could help with that I?d really appreciate it!
Best,
Mark
Here in NZ and around the world many of us are in lockdown and spending more time on our computers, if that were possible. I have just completed the restoration of a PDP-8 Straight 8 which I believe is the only one in New Zealand. You can view the restoration story and find appropriate resources here: https://pdp-8.nz <https://pdp-8.nz/>
While it plays Chess, it would be great if someone wanted to write (say) a Prime Number Generator, or some other application and email it to me off list. I have Focal-69 and can probably source other languages for this wonderful old machine with 4K of memory.
--------------//----------------
brendan at mcneill.co.nz
+64 21 881 883
