31 Dec
2017
31 Dec
'17
6:41 a.m.
From: Paul Koning
RSTS-11 V4, which had a major reliability problem ...
As part of trying
to keep the customer placated, DEC supplied full OS sources, 5
dectapes. ... We printed them ... I still have copies of those files.
Is that version available online? If not, maybe an OCR project?
(Although I know other versions of RSTS-11 are available, so maybe it's not
rare enough to make the tedium of OCR worth it. That has been used on a
number of systems; notably CTSS, but also the IMP code and the Apollo
Guidance Computer, that I know of. I'm currently looking into getting an
early version of MERT, and that may also come down to OCR - if we're lucky!)
Stranger still is the "fancy" lights in RSTS
... "Fancy" because it
produces a rotating pattern not just in the data lights which is easy,
but also in the address lights. It runs in supervisor mode
Ah; it must busy loop at loops spread across the address space? Clever!
(Perhaps using the mapping hardware so that it doesn't use too much _actual_
memory.) Is the source available?
Noel