10 May
2013
10 May
'13
6:57 a.m.
You'll have to ask Jeremey Fine,
He never did boot that PDP-11 to see what as on it.lazy SOB. :)
as for the TK50 I still have it, but I'm not willing to ship it to anyone.the
directory contents are intriguing, but not enough to be proof.
the smoking gun would be to see what that PDP had on it.
I think Mr. Fine should give me back the PDP if he has no intention ofbooting it
Dan.
From: IanK at vulcan.com
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org; cctech at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: follow up???? - offer - OS/2 for the PDP-11
Date: Fri, 10 May 2013 06:33:05 +0000
On 5/9/13 10:46 PM, "Jerry Kemp - other" <other at oryx.cc> wrote:
Hello All,
I a new subscriber from just a few days ago, and I have spent more hours
than I care to admit to going through all of the emails in the online
archives.
In past lives, I spent a lot of time with OS/2, and even though I don't
spend as much time as I used to with it, OS/2 comments still catch my
attention.
Anyway, to get to the point, I caught this thread (bottom) from 2008
which generated a bunch of comments.
The thread was briefly revived in early 2009.
If there was ever a final fall out from the thread, I somehow missed it.
Was there a version of OS/2 for CPU's other than X86 or PPC?
What was ultimately found to be on the tape?
Thank you,
Jerry
------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes, you read that correctly.
I have in my possession a TK-50 tape for the PDP-11 system which
contains none other than
OS/2 operating system.
Many people have claimed this never existed. But I have the tape!
I had done a directory dump of it and can supply it.
One other person who's checked the directory listing has said it is
authentic.
I'm not sure what to do with it, and I believe IBM made OS/2 open
source, so technically it should be "free"
of it's chains
maybe someone can turn it into something useful, or just run it and have
the most unique PDP on the planet, I don't know... whatever :)
anyhow, it's a really weird bit of computing history, and I'd hate for
it to be lost. it should be in a museum :)
I remember this thread, too, and one thing that AFAIK was never resolved
was whether the tape contained OS/2 *for a PDP-11* or OS/2 for some other
machine, on a TK50 tape.
TK50 drives are not unique to the PDP-11, and will also hook up to VAXen,
Alphas and DEC MIPS machines; since there is a Unibus controller for it, I
can't see why one couldn't hook one to a KS-10, either. MS used a number
of different platforms in its earlier years. So the ambiguity is
meaningful. ISTR the OP didn't respond to such questions from the list.
I'd be really surprised if OS/2 was ever ported to the PDP-11, partly
because of the dates, partly because of the difference between the segment
strategies of x86 vs. PDP-11. I can envision some MACRO games you could
play, but I can't imagine why anyone would bother. :-) -- Ian