2 Sep
2014
2 Sep
'14
12:46 p.m.
On 8/27/2014 10:59 AM,
cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote:
Subject:
Re: multitasking on PDP-11/03
From:
Nigel Williams
<nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com>
Date:
Wed, 27 Aug 2014 21:09:47 +1000
On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 3:38 AM,
Andriy Romanenko <bigral at hotmail.com>
wrote:
Nigel, how (generally) did you adapt
Mini Unix to that configuration? Did
you have to write your own drivers for
the hard drives?
- John S.
> What OS and/or running environment support
time sharing on LSI11? Is there multi-user/multi-terminal support?
If you have a
fast hard-drive you can run MINI-UNIX [1]:
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/bits/ATT/mini-unix_120679.zip
We had this running circa 1980 with two (or maybe three) terminals and
10MB Pertec fixed+cartridge disk system, LSI-11/03 with 56KB memory.
Before that we ran RT-11 [2] with foreground/background tasks and at
various times MU-BASIC (multi-user BASIC) [3]. 
2 Sep
2 Sep
2:43 p.m.
On Wed, Sep 3, 2014 at 5:46 AM, js at cimmeri.com <js at cimmeri.com> wrote:
Nigel, how (generally) did you adapt Mini Unix to that
configuration? Did
you have to write your own drivers for the hard drives?
From memory it worked out of the box. MINI-UNIX has a
DEC RK05 driver
and the Pertec was RK05 compatible (it must have been compatible
with
the 5MB variant of the RK05 known as the RK05F). We didn't have a tape
drive on our machine so I must have arranged to get the disk pack
written on another system.
I remember someone managed to get MINI-UNIX working off RX02 floppy
drive too, it was excruciatingly slow, but it worked.
Our local network team modified MINI-UNIX to become a serial
concentrator so that remote groups of terminals could connect back to
our mainframes (Burroughs B6800, Primes etc).
3 Sep
3 Sep
2:09 a.m.
I thought I better check that I could still run MINI-UNIX and I notice
the usual instructions floating around are somewhat oblique:
# Prepare the RK05 boot drive - this uses the tape-to-disk utility
that is part of the MINI-UNIX distribution tape
sim> set cpu 11/40
Disabling XQ
sim> set cpu 64k
sim> set tm0 locked
sim> attach tm0 mini-unix_120679.tap
TM: unit is read only
sim> attach rk0 rk0
sim> attach rk1 rk1
sim> d cpu 100000 012700
sim> d cpu 100002 172526
sim> d cpu 100004 010040
sim> d cpu 100006 012740
sim> d cpu 100010 060003
sim> d cpu 100012 000777
sim> g 100000
Simulation stopped, PC: 100012 (BR 100012)
sim> g 0
=tmrk
disk offset
0
tape offset
100
count
1
=tmrk
disk offset
1
tape offset
101
count
3999
=
Simulation stopped, PC: 137274 (TSTB @#177560)
# Boot MINI-UNIX
sim> boot rk0
@rkmx
RESTRICTED RIGHTS
USE, DUPLICATION OR DISCLOSURE IS SUBJECT TO
RESTRICTIONS STATED IN YOUR CONTRACT WITH
WESTERN ELECTRIC COMPANY, INC.
;login: root
# ls -l /
total 168
drwxrwxr-x 2 bin 1136 Sep 18 01:02 bin
drwxrwxr-x 2 bin 1824 Sep 18 01:24 dev
drwxrwxr-x 2 bin 496 Sep 18 01:47 etc
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root 19208 Sep 4 03:18 hpmx
drwxrwxr-x 2 bin 464 Sep 4 03:37 lib
drwxrwxr-x 2 bin 32 May 13 1975 mnt
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root 19010 Sep 18 01:18 mx
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root 19010 Sep 18 01:28 rkmx
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root 19148 Sep 4 03:15 rpmx
drwxrwxrwx 2 bin 272 Sep 18 01:27 tmp
drwxrwxr-x 13 bin 240 Jun 17 13:38 usr
#
But note this is for the PDP 11/40, I tried with set cpu 11/03 but for
some reason this halts early in the startup.
If you are interested in a purely floppy-based version then there was
a later variant of MINI-UNIX renamed as LSX detailed here:
http://www.mailcom.com/lsx/
This is quite neat since there are floppy images for various pieces of
the system so you can compile a C program just using floppies.
Here is the history of MINI-UNIX and its descendants, scroll down to
Heinz Lycklama's email:
http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/pups/2001-March/000273.html
3:10 a.m.
On Wed, Sep 3, 2014 at 7:09 PM, Nigel Williams
<nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com> wrote:
oops, here is the non linked-jacked version of the link above here:
http://minnie.tuhs.org/Archive/PDP-11/Distributions/usdl/LSX/
I found MINI-UNIX works with the simh PDP-11/05, this narrows the
differences with the LSI-11/2
sim> set cpu 11/05
Disabling XQ
sim> set cpu 64k
sim> attach rk0 rk0
sim> boot rk0
@rkmx
RESTRICTED RIGHTS
USE, DUPLICATION OR DISCLOSURE IS SUBJECT TO
RESTRICTIONS STATED IN YOUR CONTRACT WITH
WESTERN ELECTRIC COMPANY, INC.
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3 comments
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participants (2)
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js＠cimmeri.com -
nw＠retrocomputingtasmania.com