Wondering which OS to use (PDP-8/A) - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

21 Oct 2005

On Thu, 20 Oct 2005, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:

...
  On 10/21/05, charlesmorris at direcway.com
<charlesmorris at direcway.com> wrote:
  Currently I don't have any other input device
aside from the programmer's panel
 and the keyboard, so naturally I need something that can be booted from an
 RL02... 
 You may or may not have an RL boot PROM in your KM8AA, but if you
 don't, you can always key in the RL bootstrap by hand. 
I'm not even sure they exist. Anyone have boot roms for RL?

...
   Could I run
OS/8? TSS/8? Many years ago I used to have access to a TTY timeshared to an 8/E running
Edusystem 50 (TSS/8) and would like that "feel" again... 
 Dunno about TSS/8 on an RL (probably no driver for anything newer than
 an RF08), but certainly OS/8.  One caveat - there is a different
 driver for the RL01 and for the RL02.  I myself have never used an
 RL02 on an 8/a.  An expensive configuration for a DECmate I was an
 RL02, so I'm sure OS/78 supports it, but you might have to cherry-pick
 your OS/8 version to go with a larger disk. 
Actually, any version of OS/8 will work fine. What you need is the device
driver. And yes, there are two different drivers, depending on RL01 or
RL02. Um, actually there are four different device drivers, since each
exists both for use as the system device, and not.

I'm using an RL02 with my PDP8, and have for ages.

A few things might need patches as well as having the device driver.
RESORC and PIP comes to mind. They have tables of device sizes, which
might not have the RL02 in there...

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol