29 Jan
2018
29 Jan
'18
1:06 p.m.
For those of you who are following along with our QSIC project, today we
booted v6 Unix successfully for the first time.? We'd first tried this a
week or two back but discovered that Unix does use partial block reads
and writes after all and I hadn't implemented those yet.? We're running
this on an 11/23 using the QSIC with an SD card emulating a couple RK05s.
Moving on to a small RAM disk next so we don't have to swap off the
flash memory.? After that, either a larger RAM disk using the SDRAM or
an RP11 to get larger disks than RK05s.
We're getting close to the time when we need to think about making our
own circuit board rather than using the wire-wrap prototype we've been
having fun with so far.
29 Jan
29 Jan
1:30 p.m.
On Jan 29, 2018, at 4:06 PM, David Bridgham via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
For those of you who are following along with our QSIC project, today we
booted v6 Unix successfully for the first time. We'd first tried this a
week or two back but discovered that Unix does use partial block reads
and writes after all and I hadn't implemented those yet.
FWIW, so does RT11, and in the case of writes, it requires the rest of the block to be
zero-filled. Not everything depends on this, but some parts do; I think Fortran is one.
I remember this because I had to handle it in the driver for the RC11, since it has a 64
byte blocksize.
paul
1:55 p.m.
FWIW, so does RT11, and in the case of writes, it
requires the rest of the block to be zero-filled. Not everything depends on this, but
some parts do; I think Fortran is one.
I did implement that too.? Unix doesn't need it but I had to fill the
block with something and it wasn't that hard to zero out the value.? I
figured something would come along that required it.? There is still a
whole lot of the RK11 functionality I need to implement, much having to
do with handling and properly reporting error conditions.? It's still
pretty cool to boot up Unix and type commands at it.? Doubly cool to
watch the indicator panel blink away while I run programs.
By the way, that indicator panel has been ridiculously valuable for
debugging this thing.? I did it initially just because I thought it
would be fun and I needed to take a break from some frustrating bug but
it's turned out to be far easier to use than the logic analyzer (which
I've never hooked up).? I just generate a custom FPGA load that displays
some register I think will tell me what's going on or even sometimes
create additional counters with specific triggers that can monitor the
internals of my implementation.
1:57 p.m.
On Mon, 2018-01-29 at 16:06 -0500, David Bridgham via cctalk wrote:
For those of you who are following along with our QSIC
project, today
we
booted v6 Unix successfully for the first time.? We'd first tried
this a
week or two back but discovered that Unix does use partial block
reads
and writes after all and I hadn't implemented those yet.? We're
running
this on an 11/23 using the QSIC with an SD card emulating a couple
RK05s.
That sounds pretty awesome. Good job there!
Do you know how hard it would be to take this design and make a UNIBUS
version? I have an 11/34 languishing under the bench in my hardware
lab and one of the principal reasons for the languishing is that I
don't have any drives to go with it.
p.
2:06 p.m.
On Jan 29, 2018, at 1:57 PM, Phil Blundell via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On Mon, 2018-01-29 at 16:06 -0500, David Bridgham via cctalk wrote:
It?s the UMF11 (or some derivative thereof) that I?ve been working on/off for
several (many?) years. It?s been languishing at the moment because work
has demanded most of my time.
I had gotten to the point where most of it was working in simulation and I have
almost all of the uCode written for it and debugged. The uCode is written in Forth.
TTFN - Guy
For those of you who are following along with our
QSIC project, today
we
booted v6 Unix successfully for the first time. We'd first tried
this a
week or two back but discovered that Unix does use partial block
reads
and writes after all and I hadn't implemented those yet. We're
running
this on an 11/23 using the QSIC with an SD card emulating a couple
RK05s.
That sounds pretty awesome. Good job there!
Do you know how hard it would be to take this design and make a UNIBUS
version? I have an 11/34 languishing under the bench in my hardware
lab and one of the principal reasons for the languishing is that I
don't have any drives to go with it.
2291
days inactive
2291
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dab＠froghouse.org -
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pb＠pbcl.net