PDP 11/73 on the Internet

On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 3:58 PM, Kirn Gill <segin2005 at gmail.com> wrote: It probably won't crash, but the compiler might or might not be able to wedge all that code into the available code space. Checking on a handy 64-bit Linux system, the gzip binary is under 64K total size, so that might not go so poorly. OTOH, wget is nearly 256K. That will be "fun" to adapt. I recommend paring back unneeded features and learning how overlays work. I can just about guarantee that you'll have Makefile issues for projects large enough or new enough to use configure scripts. Back in the day, we crufted Makefiles by hand and edited source from other variants of UNIX to make them work in our own environments. That's why we have configure scripts now - you don't have to know as many fiddly details and you can gather, configure and compile projects with an absolute minimum of human input. I started with BASIC and Assembler on the 6502, and the Apple II counts (to me) because I earned my living off of it for nearly a year. After that place closed (due to external factors like our publisher, Reader's Digest, changing direction radically), I learned C on an 11/750 (VMS 3.x and 4.0BSD, when they were new). Wow, what a difference. I think you should give it a shot, but when you run into problems and issues, just remember that back in that era, we all ran into the same sorts of roadblocks and issues all the time, especially 16-bit-pointer issues with the PDP-11. Some of that wisdom is still available to search through in Usenet archives, but ISTR the rise of Usenet and the rise of 32-bit computing are somewhat intertwined. 16-bit computing was still around, of course, but in the DEC world, it was vastly tilted towards RSX and RSTS and RT-11, not so much with Unix by the mid 1980s. You might also get some good advice looking into Minix issues - the 286 isn't close to identical to the PDP-11, but 16 bits is 16 bits. Even reading up on code development on MS-DOS will be illuminating (before the advent of "32-bit extenders"). Linux started on a 386, bypassing these sorts of growing pains, so experience gained there is mostly only helpful for user-level familiarity, not working through small memory model compiling issues. -ethan -ethan