Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 06:53:49 +0100
From: "Rod Smallwood" <RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk>
Subject: Mentec
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org>
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<86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D39022ED1 at EDISERVER.EDICONS.local>
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Hi All
I'm a bit confused about this Mentec issue. They bought up the
rights to the pdp-11 line and even produced some new boards. Now they
seem to have abandoned the whole thing. I can only find one web site
that could be theirs but it is very up market corporate image stuff. No
mention of pdp anything.
As I am in the middle of restoring some pdp-11/94's the issue around
how
RT11 and RSX could be made available is of much interest. If they have
not sold the rights and are not pursuing the business perhaps they
could
help us poor pdp preservers.
Rod
Questions come in clusters, don't they. I'll answer this, since several
people were kind enough to patiently explain it to me when I asked the
same (VFAQ, but nothing listed in one place).
Mentec is still around, although it looks like the PDP-11 division
website is not up right now. They did make RT-11, RSX-11, and RSTS/E
available for people to use in a _non-commercial_ environment under
SIMH. Images for RT-11 and RSTS/E (which does have DCL now, I was
operating under old information) are available from the SIMH website.
I'm not sure if the RSTS/E distribution includes the RSX runtime or
not.
Sadly for hobbyists, the license does not extend to true hardware, only
the SIMH emulator. It seems that Mentec was looking to have an expanded
hobbyist program, but it was not economically viable and/or the
attitude of some hobbyists was a bit off-putting. No official reason
was given, but the rumors are as above. :(.
2.11BSD and v7 are available freely, though.
I believe I have gotten this correct.
Scott