18 Jun
2005
18 Jun
'05
4:35 p.m.
On Sat, 18 Jun 2005 cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote:
Yes. The TU58 is a cheap block device, for which the hardware on the
PDP-11 side actually is just a serial interface. Most boot roms know how
to boot from one, and an emulator for the actual TU58 exist.
Message: 12
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 22:21:29 +0200
From: Philipp Hachtmann <hachti at hachti.de>
Subject: PDP11/23+ goes on
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: <42B48249.7070409 at hachti.de>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Hi,
thank you all for the tips around my harddrive desaster. Next time I
will be wiser.
I have cleaned my removable disk's heads. Used isopropanol and a match.
Tried the crashed disk pack, crashed again immediately. Had to clean one
head again. Took another pack. No crash, no error display etc. Hope that
it stays ok.
:-)
That was to be expected. A disk crash don't happen without a reason.
That said, I've very seldom ever have it happen, and several times, the
drive survived fine, but the pack was junk.
People around here are perhaps a bit paranoid on cleaning. :-)
But then again, it all boils down to how important it is for you to
succeed. Cleaning is never wrong, but personally I can't say that not
having cleaned that much stuff still haven't hurt me.
Now I did:
Yes, that is something that is read from the disk.
RSX (don't know if the other OSes do the same) write a special boot block
on non-bootable disks. This boot block basically just prints the above
message, and halts. All that fits fine into 512 bytes.
I don't know if more modern hardware have any checks in the boot code in
the boot roms as well, which might say something. But the above message is
exactly the message in the boot block RSX creates on non-bootable disks
anyway.
$dm4
.. And dm0,1,2,3 work same way....
Computer says:
**THIS VOLUME DOES NOT CONTAIN A HARDWARE BOOTABLE SYSTEM ***
000034
@
I would be glad if that is a message read from the disk partitions (like
the bootsector message on non-system disks in my pc). What is the "modern way" to get software
into the PDP11?
Phew. Tape normally. Small, modern PDP11s usually have TK50, and software
is distributed on TK50.
Older PDP11s usually had/have large 1/2" tape drives. Software is also
distributed on that.
Tapes are bootable, and holds a system designed just for installing the
rest.
Is there anything like a RIM or BIN loader?
Yes, but that is very old technology. People don't have paper tape on
PDP-11, and haven't for a very long time.
Has anybody a convenient solution - or do I have to
start from scratch
writing my own tools?
If you're on a bare system, with only disk drives to play with, then your
options are limited. The best might actually be to pretend you have a
TU58, which speaks through a normal serial line, but is a block device,
which most PDP11 can boot from.
Message: 22
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 23:24:38 +0200
From: Philipp Hachtmann <hachti at hachti.de>
Subject: Re: PDP11/23+ goes on
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: <42B49116.5050203 at hachti.de>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
MSCP SCSI controllers, to be exact. There are several different types of
MSCP controllers, and not all of the talk SCSI, nor can you hook a ZIP
drive to them.
That said, I believe Qbus MSCP SCSI controllers occasionally pop up on
ebay. Or you find someone tossing them out.
>I use a ZIP drive and a Qbus MSCP disc
controller.
Sounds interesting. But where to get that MSCP controller?? >A
software-only solution (though much slower) is to use the
>TU58 simulation software that is around
... But with it I would be able to boot my machine. At the moment I have
NOTHING to boot up my system, copy disks, transfer data from pc etc... But I have a lot (perhaps more than 100) of these
8" disks.
Can I boot RT11 or RSX11 from floppy???
Yes.
Oh, and I would probably try to align the drive correctly if I fooled
around with it. You never know when another pack shows up which you might
want to read.
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
19 Jun
19 Jun
10:16 a.m.
Hi,
Great!
TK50...???
Hm.... But I'm a paper tape
enthusiast..... I just think about giving
the 11 away again - perhaps it's too modern for me.....
Ok. that's the point where I try to start. I
will make a floppy. Need an
image and then I'll try to put the image to onto a floppy.
People around here are perhaps a bit paranoid on
cleaning. :-)
I have no clean room and no cleanroom.....
Computer says:
Yes, that is something that is read from the disk. **THIS VOLUME DOES NOT CONTAIN A HARDWARE
BOOTABLE SYSTEM ***
000034
@
I would be glad if that is a message read from the disk partitions (like
the bootsector message on non-system disks in my pc). RSX (don't know if the other OSes do the same)
write a special boot block
on non-bootable disks. This boot block basically just prints the above
message, and halts. All that fits fine into 512 bytes.
Aha. I also have an RSX-11M
license..... But no media or a clue how to
get it into my machine.
What is the
"modern way" to get software into the PDP11?
Phew. Tape normally. Small,
modern PDP11s usually have TK50, and software
is distributed on TK50. Is there
anything like a RIM or BIN loader?
Yes, but that is very old technology. People
don't have paper tape on
PDP-11, and haven't for a very long time. If you're on a bare system, with only disk drives
to play with, then your
options are limited.
I have a RX02 double diskette drive and a lot of disks....
The best might actually be to pretend you have a
TU58, which speaks through a normal serial line, but is a block device,
which most PDP11 can boot from.
May the original bootstrap code boot from a serial
port directly??
Yes. The TU58 is a cheap block device, for which the
hardware on the
PDP-11 side actually is just a serial interface. Most boot roms know how
to boot from one, and an emulator for the actual TU58 exist.
The standard ROM in my 11/23+ does not boot from tu58?
Can I boot RT11
or RSX11 from floppy???
Yes.
Oh, and I would probably try to align the drive correctly if I fooled
around with it. You never know when another pack shows up which you might
want to read.
I can't realign the drive because I don't have the alignment tools,
control panel for the drive and an alignment pack. But I did not change
the head alignment when I removed the heads. Left them together without
moving relatively to each other..
Does anyone have experience with that "vtserver" program?
It puts it's bootcode into the pdp (via odt) and then the CPU stops.
Sometimes a single 'r' character shows up. And sometimes I see an error
message (non-existent record 13)....
I start to think about a problem with my serial port.... Are there known
issues with the console port? I have tried 300,2400,9600 and 19200.
Always errors. But NEVER while vtserver puts its startup code. Always
after vtserver has started the pdp.
And a simple question: How does the addressing in pdp11 work? R7 seems
to be only 16 bit wide. And when I boot up the system, the MMU should be
off and the memory mapping should be direct. How do I access the upper
bits of my PC (i.e. "changing the segment")?
Regards,
Philipp :-)
2:03 p.m.
What is the "modern way" to get software
into the PDP11?
Phew. Tape normally. Small, modern PDP11s usually have TK50, and
software is distributed on TK50. And a simple question: How does the addressing in
pdp11 work? R7
seems to be only 16 bit wide.
It is.
And when I boot up the system, the MMU should be off
and the memory
mapping should be direct. How do I access the upper bits of my PC
(i.e. "changing the segment")?
You don't. There are no "upper bits" to the PC (nor any of the other
registers); the PDP-11 is not a segmented architecture in the sense the
8086 is.
With the MMU off, you can access only 64K (I think - I/D splitting
happens only with the MMU on, as I recall, even on machines that have
split I and D space). On most machines, that's 56K of RAM and 8K of
I/O space.
With the MMU on, the 17 bits of address coming from the CPU (16 bits
that are usually thought of as address plus the I/D space bit) are
mapped to however many your hardware supports; you can access anything
you have, but you're restricted to 64K of instruction space and 64K of
data space at any given moment. (Some implementations may not actually
have all these lines present in hardware; this is a conceptual
description. In particular, modesl without split I and D space don't
implement the I/D space bit. And there may be other bits I've
forgotten about.)
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4:49 p.m.
Philipp Hachtmann wrote:
Does anyone have experience with that "vtserver" program?
yes. It's great for some pdp-11's and less useful for others.
It puts it's bootcode into the pdp (via odt) and
then the CPU stops.
I've really only used it on a 11/34a and it worked great. It can't work
on a 11/44 sadly - the console odt won't pass binary.
I have never tried it on a qbus machine (23 or 73). I plan to soon.
-brad
24 Jun
24 Jun
2:56 a.m.
Brad Parker wrote:
I've really only used it on a 11/34a and it worked
great. It can't work
on a 11/44 sadly - the console odt won't pass binary.
I have never tried it on a qbus machine (23 or 73). I plan to soon.
I tried it on my OEM 11/73. It works well, even at 19200 baud.
Copied XXDP across to an RL02 pack with no real problems.
Gordon.
11:29 a.m.
"Gordon JC Pearce"
Brad Parker wrote:
I've really only used it on a 11/34a and it
worked great. It can't work
on a 11/44 sadly - the console odt won't pass binary.
I have never tried it on a qbus machine (23 or 73). I plan to soon.
Gordon Pearce wrote:
I tried it on my OEM 11/73. It works well, even at 19200 baud.
Copied XXDP across to an RL02 pack with no real problems.
Gordon.
I've successfully created an XXDP image in TU58 format, and booted it on my
11/23+, again at 19200 Baud using SLU2 on the CPU card(19200,O,8,1 as that
was how SLU2 was strapped). I found the utilities easy to use, and the
documentation was sufficient for an analogue hardware man like me to get it
working! The ODP boot program listing on the site worked fine, in fact the
biggest problem of the whole job was finding the <line feed> key on the
VT320 I'm using for the console (F13 for anyone who's interested). I found a
link for the XXDP RL02 image on the TU58 emulator site.
I haven't tried making an image of an RL02 yet, but may well do so next
week, when I have a little more time.
Jim.
19 Jun
19 Jun
10:59 a.m.
On Sun, 19 Jun 2005, Johnny Billquist wrote:
I downloaded and ran the TU58 simulator on my PC, then booted RT11 off
that. I then created a bootable RT11 system disk and used the floppy to
boot. Then I could mount blank images in the TU58 simulator and copy
files from the PDP11 to the PC. Then you can use the PUTR utility to
extract files from the images on the PC into standard PC files.
It all works very well and cleverly.
--
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Has anybody a
convenient solution - or do I have to start from scratch
writing my own tools?
If you're on a bare system, with only disk drives to play with, then your
options are limited. The best might actually be to pretend you have a
TU58, which speaks through a normal serial line, but is a block device,
which most PDP11 can boot from. 
8:57 p.m.
Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
I downloaded and ran the TU58 simulator on my PC, then
booted RT11 off
that. I then created a bootable RT11 system disk and used the floppy to
boot. Then I could mount blank images in the TU58 simulator and copy
files from the PDP11 to the PC. Then you can use the PUTR utility to
extract files from the images on the PC into standard PC files.
Jerome Fine replies:
If you have a 5 1/4" RX50 floppy drive on a real DEC PDP-11,
then it is probably much faster and easier to prepare
the floppy on the PC with PUTR in the first place. If
the floppy is 8" and SSSD (RX01), then I understand that
a PC can also have the same, but I don't know if PUTR
can also handle 8" SSSD floppy media on the PC. In any
case, I have no experience with 8" floppy media on a PC.
I am certainly NOT saying that a TU-58 is a bad solution,
only that other solutions are often better if they are
possible. If the only way to start is with a TU-58, then
it is certainly better than nothing.
Sincerely yours,
Jerome Fine
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7 comments
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bqt＠Update.UU.SE -
brad＠heeltoe.com -
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hachti＠hachti.de -
jhfinexgs2＠compsys.to -
jim＠g1jbg.co.uk -
mouse＠Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA -
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