4 Sep
2010
4 Sep
'10
10:15 p.m.
I'm thinking of doing a little write-up/summary on the
emulation/exploration of classic mainframe and minicomputer platforms
and I was wondering what all is available to folks both in terms of
host platforms (emulators and affordable real iron) and software. I
know that DEC stuff (especially PDP-8, PDP-10, PDP-11 and VAX stuff)
is widely available, as is a lot of early IBM stuff (360 and early 370
era) and even there's even a little bit available for things like the
Interdata minis, the HP 2100 and (if you know the right people) the
CDC 6x00/Cyber x70 systems. In addition, I've heard that a whole bunch
of Data General software has been authorized for release to hobbyists,
but work on that project is rather slow. Apart from what I've
mentioned, is there anything else that's either available or "in the
pipeline" or have I got it all?
Mike
5 Sep
5 Sep
12:48 a.m.
On Saturday, September 4, 2010 at 17:15, Michael Kerpan wrote:
In addition, I've heard that a whole bunch of Data
General software has
been authorized for release to hobbyists, but work on that project is
rather slow.
A similar situation exists for the HP 1000/21xx. See:
http://www.classiccmp.org/mailman/htdig/cctech/2007-November/087172.html
-- Dave
6:59 a.m.
>>>
I'm thinking of doing a little
write-up/summary on the
emulation/exploration of classic mainframe and minicomputer platforms
.... Apart from what I've
mentioned, is there anything else that's either available or "in the
pipeline" or have I got it all?
<<<<
There are at least two emulations of the ICL 1900 series (the original
George 3 exec-level one by Dave Holdsworth and a newer "bare-metal"-level
one; the latter seems only to be available by request, the former is hard to
find - the easiest way is to look for the packaged version used to run
Algol68R). There may well be an ICL 2960 emulator under way from the group
who are restoring such a machine at Bletchley Park.
I'm astonished that there doesn't seem to be a Multics emulator (OK, the
hardware is the epitome of CISC, but it is one of the true classics).
There are also emulators for some of the first and second generation
machines (Manchester "Baby" for example, but, again regrettably, apparently
not the Ferranti Atlas)
Andy
5:01 p.m.
On 9/4/10 10:59 PM, Andy Holt wrote:
I'm astonished that there doesn't seem to be a
Multics emulator (OK, the
hardware is the epitome of CISC, but it is one of the true classics).
There isn't quite enough information on the I/O system. A few people have gotten
as far as trying to get the main CPU to boot.
There are also emulators for some of the first and
second generation
machines (Manchester "Baby" for example, but, again regrettably, apparently
not the Ferranti Atlas)
Does any of the code survive for Atlas? I was in communication with the Cambridge
folks, and they were saddened to discover their only known copies of the software
for Titan were discarded.
6:08 p.m.
At 9:01 AM -0700 9/5/10, Al Kossow wrote:
On 9/4/10 10:59 PM, Andy Holt wrote:
While I never worked on a Multics system, I spent a few years working
on a couple DPS-8 Mainframes running GCOS-8. The main CPU is just a
tiny part of the system.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Photographer |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| My flickr Photostream |
| http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ |
I'm astonished that there doesn't seem to
be a Multics emulator (OK, the
hardware is the epitome of CISC, but it is one of the true classics).
There isn't quite enough information on the I/O system. A few people
have gotten
as far as trying to get the main CPU to boot. 
6:31 p.m.
On 9/5/2010 10:08 AM, Zane H. Healy wrote:
At 9:01 AM -0700 9/5/10, Al Kossow wrote:
I'd be interested in seeing what has been done so far. I would think
that the big bits would be the IOM, DN-355 (comms) and disk. The system
could be configured with drum for swapping, but that was dropped from
the design later.
I believe that the console on our system was on a different bit of
hardware as well, so there might be some way to get booted up w/o the
Datanet running. The nice thing about the Datanet system was that it
was pretty much a 516 (If memory serves me) and there is already an
emulation of that running. I remember looking at the software and
firmware for that subsystem and seeing it looked like the Honeywell mini
we had where had left school.
Jim
On 9/4/10 10:59 PM, Andy Holt wrote:
While I never worked on a Multics system, I spent a few years working
on a couple DPS-8 Mainframes running GCOS-8. The main CPU is just a
tiny part of the system.
Zane I'm astonished that there doesn't seem to
be a Multics emulator (OK,
the
hardware is the epitome of CISC, but it is one of the true classics).
There isn't quite enough information on the I/O system. A few people
have gotten
as far as trying to get the main CPU to boot.
8:30 p.m.
>>>
While I never worked on a Multics system, I spent a few years working
on a couple DPS-8 Mainframes running GCOS-8. The main CPU is just a
tiny part of the system.
<<<<
Tell me about it :-)
Very impressive engineers "blinkenlites" inside the doors of each of the
system cabinets. Even more fun learning how to start the system up than the
preceding 1905E.
For the seven years that our University possessed a dual Level 66/60 system
I was in effective charge of our systems team. I was the only one who wrote
anything in GMAP (three key OS modules had to be in that assembler and were
site specific) all our other systems programming was dome in B (and perhaps
some Fortran which isn't really that different :-)
The biggest pain was the dn355(?) communications processor, but I had
delegated that to one of my senior programmers (as he had been responsible
for the Digico Micro-16 that had performed the same function on the ICL 1900
system that preceded the Honeywell.
Unfortunately, I have very little documentation remaining from the L66 -
possibly just the pocketbook (the IBM green card hides in shame in
comparison!)
Andy
6 Sep
6 Sep
4:06 p.m.
I wonder if Bull (or whoever owns the rights to this stuff these days)
might be willing to make some internal documentation on the DPS-8
available to the community. Given that they signed off on and approved
MIT's open source release of Multics, maybe they would be willing to
provide a documentation dump to help get Multics running again as
well.
Mike
5 Sep
5 Sep
8:17 p.m.
>>>
On 9/4/10 10:59 PM, Andy Holt
wrote:
I'm astonished that there doesn't seem to be a
Multics emulator (OK, the
hardware is the epitome of CISC, but it is one of the true classics).
There isn't quite enough information on the I/O system. A few people have
gotten
as far as trying to get the main CPU to boot.
<<<<
Odd, I'd have thought that the IOM would have been the one part of a Multics
systems that was essentially unchanged from a G(e)COS one - the SCM(?)s (the
boxes that contain memory and connect to processors and IOMs) would
presumably need to know a bit about the memory management and the Datanet
probably had entirely different code)
>>>
> There are also emulators for
some of the first and second generation
> machines (Manchester "Baby" for example, but, again regrettably,
apparently
not the Ferranti Atlas)
Does any of the code survive for Atlas? I was in communication with the
Cambridge
folks, and they were saddened to discover their only known copies of the
software
for Titan were discarded.
<<<<
I really don't know - after all there were only 6 Atlases in total:
Manchester, London, Chiltern, Cambridge (x2), and Aldermaston unless GCHQ
also had one or more. But it would be fun if a CPL compiler still existed.
(CPL cut down led to BCPL led to B, extended led to C)
Andy
5:22 p.m.
On 9/4/10 2:15 PM, Michael Kerpan wrote:
a lot of early IBM stuff (360 and early 370
era)
360 is not early. Actually, the pre unbundling 360
OS releases appear to be lost. Most of the work on
Hercules is really in the 370 era.
There has been some work on 7090 and earlier systems.
IBSYS and CTSS are reported to be running. There are
two people working on 50's IBM simulators, one who is
trying to integrated his changes into SIMH, and another
who is working on a lot of the other systems, including
Stretch. I had been providing him listings of the Stretch
diagnostic listings, but haven't heard of any progress in
a couple of years.
There are several early system simulators hiding in
MESS, including the PDP-1, TX-0, as well as the TI 990-10
SIMH is where most of the work on minis has been occurring,
with the exception of the PDP-8, where there are lots of
independent projects.
SIMH could use a lot more help in the mini and mainframe area.
There are several simulators that Bob started (SDS 940 and Sigma)
that have stalled because he doesn't have time to work on them.
Rob Kolstad was working on a G-15 simulator in 2008
http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/g-15.html
Brad Parker has several lisp machine simulators running
Leif Harcke wrote a Univac 1103A simulator
An MIT Whirlwind simulator should be possible. CHM has several hundred
paper tapes from the system and pretty complete documentation. Same is
true for the Autonetics Recomp-II
Someone started a simulator for the Oregon Open-Shop timesharing system
but I haven't heard about any progress in about 10 years.
Adrian Wise wrote a Honeywell H-516 simulator
http://www.series16.adrianwise.co.uk/
6:05 p.m.
I have a Microdata 1600 emulator, and a friend's Microdata 32/s emulator.
1600 emulator runs firmware, the 32/s emulator runs a software emulation
which ran on the Microdata 3200, not the general machine.
Software and firmware remain to be cleard to be shared. If any is saved
it would be interesting to hear from anyone as well as where they got
their copies.
Jim Stephens
On 9/5/2010 9:22 AM, Al Kossow wrote:
On 9/4/10 2:15 PM, Michael Kerpan wrote:
a lot of early IBM stuff (360 and early 370
era)
360 is not early. Actually, the pre unbundling 360
OS releases appear to be lost. Most of the work on
Hercules is really in the 370 era.
There has been some work on 7090 and earlier systems.
IBSYS and CTSS are reported to be running. There are
two people working on 50's IBM simulators, one who is
trying to integrated his changes into SIMH, and another
who is working on a lot of the other systems, including
Stretch. I had been providing him listings of the Stretch
diagnostic listings, but haven't heard of any progress in
a couple of years.
There are several early system simulators hiding in
MESS, including the PDP-1, TX-0, as well as the TI 990-10
SIMH is where most of the work on minis has been occurring,
with the exception of the PDP-8, where there are lots of
independent projects.
SIMH could use a lot more help in the mini and mainframe area.
There are several simulators that Bob started (SDS 940 and Sigma)
that have stalled because he doesn't have time to work on them.
Rob Kolstad was working on a G-15 simulator in 2008
http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/g-15.html
Brad Parker has several lisp machine simulators running
Leif Harcke wrote a Univac 1103A simulator
An MIT Whirlwind simulator should be possible. CHM has several hundred
paper tapes from the system and pretty complete documentation. Same is
true for the Autonetics Recomp-II
Someone started a simulator for the Oregon Open-Shop timesharing system
but I haven't heard about any progress in about 10 years.
Adrian Wise wrote a Honeywell H-516 simulator
http://www.series16.adrianwise.co.uk/
8:31 p.m.
Hi
There is a CADR Lisp Machine simulator out there too (not a mini or
mainframe though).
St?phane
On Sat, Sep 4, 2010 at 23:15, Michael Kerpan <madcrow.maxwell at gmail.com>wrote:
I'm thinking of doing a little write-up/summary on
the
emulation/exploration of classic mainframe and minicomputer platforms
and I was wondering what all is available to folks both in terms of
host platforms (emulators and affordable real iron) and software. I
know that DEC stuff (especially PDP-8, PDP-10, PDP-11 and VAX stuff)
is widely available, as is a lot of early IBM stuff (360 and early 370
era) and even there's even a little bit available for things like the
Interdata minis, the HP 2100 and (if you know the right people) the
CDC 6x00/Cyber x70 systems. In addition, I've heard that a whole bunch
of Data General software has been authorized for release to hobbyists,
but work on that project is rather slow. Apart from what I've
mentioned, is there anything else that's either available or "in the
pipeline" or have I got it all?
Mike
--
Stephane
http://updatedoften.blogspot.com
8:55 p.m.
Also not sure if this qualifies as a Minicomputer or something else;
but here's a shameless plug for my own PERQ emulator:
http://yahozna.dyndns.org/projects/PERQemu/index.html
(some day I *will* finish this...)
- Josh
On 9/5/2010 12:31 PM, St?phane Tsacas wrote:
Hi
There is a CADR Lisp Machine simulator out there too (not a mini or
mainframe though).
St?phane
On Sat, Sep 4, 2010 at 23:15, Michael Kerpan<madcrow.maxwell at gmail.com>wrote:
I'm thinking of doing a little
write-up/summary on the
emulation/exploration of classic mainframe and minicomputer platforms
and I was wondering what all is available to folks both in terms of
host platforms (emulators and affordable real iron) and software. I
know that DEC stuff (especially PDP-8, PDP-10, PDP-11 and VAX stuff)
is widely available, as is a lot of early IBM stuff (360 and early 370
era) and even there's even a little bit available for things like the
Interdata minis, the HP 2100 and (if you know the right people) the
CDC 6x00/Cyber x70 systems. In addition, I've heard that a whole bunch
of Data General software has been authorized for release to hobbyists,
but work on that project is rather slow. Apart from what I've
mentioned, is there anything else that's either available or "in the
pipeline" or have I got it all?
Mike
6 Sep
6 Sep
7:54 p.m.
On 09/04/2010 11:15 PM, Michael Kerpan wrote:
I'm thinking of doing a little write-up/summary on
the
emulation/exploration of classic mainframe and minicomputer platforms
and
Not a mainframe, nor a mini, but certainly a classic : google for
Emulith to find my emulator for the ETH Lilith Modula-2 computer.
As an aside : did anyone ever succeeded in getting Altogether, the Xerox
Alto emulator, running ?
Jos
5009
days inactive
5011
days old
14 comments
9 participants
participants (9)
-
aek＠bitsavers.org -
andyh＠andyh-rayleigh.freeserve.co.uk -
derschjo＠mail.msu.edu -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
jdbryan＠acm.org -
jdr_use＠bluewin.ch -
jws＠jwsss.com -
madcrow.maxwell＠gmail.com -
stephane.tsacas＠gmail.com