Forth for PDP-11 - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

27 Jun 2002

SUCCESS!!!!

...
   I just
realized that there is documentation included, it's in the 'sol.sd',
 so I'm going to have to pour through it.  I get the distinct impression that
 it's not working the way it should, so I need to see if I've installed it
 incorrectly (the first look through makes it look like it's installed
 correctly).  
 The system is getting far enough to make me think it is installed 
 correctly (the interpretter loop is running, for example, it's reading a 
 command line, and at least handling some of it). Either there are a lot 
 of standard words not implemented in this system (In Forth you can have 
 whatever words you like...), or they've got non-standard names (if that's 
 the case, the author needs to get a clue!), or you've not assembled one 
 of the source files that would include them (if they're in the manual but 
 not in the dictionary, this is possible), but I would have thought 
 there'd be undefined symbols (if only for the dictionary linkage 
 pointers) if that was the case. 
I was right it wasn't up completely.  I'd booted the minimal system, but I
needed to compile the rest of it.  See the following.

sim> b rl0
RL BOOT - OK
SOL-11 0.4 COPYRIGHT (C) 2001 NILS M HOLM
10 list LIST?
10 load 8072 BYTES
YOU MAY NOW TYPE  SAVE-SYSTEM  TO SAVE THE
NEWLY CREATED KERNEL. OK
save-system OK
save-buffers halt
...
   HALT instruction, PC: 010516 (JMP @(R4)+)
sim> b rl
RL BOOT - OK
SOL-11 0.4 COPYRIGHT (C) 2001 NILS M HOLM

WELCOME TO SOL

KERNEL SIZE IS  8072 BYTES
MEMORY SIZE IS  57344 BYTES

THESE MESSAGES ARE LOADED FROM BLOCK #9.
TYPE  9 LIST  TO VIEW OR EDIT THIS BLOCK.

THIS DISK CONTAINS THE HLL PART OF THE
SOL KERNEL. TYPE  9 51 INDEX  FOR A TABLE
OF CONTENTS.

REMEMBER TO TYPE  SAVE-BUFFERS  BEFORE
TURNING OFF YOUR MACHINE.

SOL IS READY TO TAKE COMMANDS NOW.

5 3 + . 8 OK

So, as you can see, I've now got it working under SIMH.

One interesting thing I've found in the sol.sd document, is that the author
(Nils M Holm) views the fact that it requires EIS as a bug.  Unfortunatly
all the drives that this supports are up in storage, as I don't really have
room for any of them in the apartment, so for the time being I'll have to
play around with this under SIMH.  However, it's safe to say I do want to
play with it, and eventually I'd like to get it up and running on real
hardware.   Hmmm, I wonder if I can convince my folks to let me temporarily 
clean out enough of thier garage to get /44 that's buried in there fired 
up....  :^)

			Zane