1 Dec
2015
1 Dec
'15
8:31 p.m.
This is a funny cartoon and subsequent discussion thread from the
Multics discussion group about emacs.
Names and personal info edited out due to archival by unknown parties of
the list and that these folks might not want names and certainly not
email addresses archived. Mentioning that not as a criticism, just to
explain the format. I also edited the thread back to bottom posting.
Original XKCD cartoon link.
https://xkcd.com/378/
> From: Multicians <snip>
> Subject: Re: [multicians] Emacs humor
>
>>
>>
>> Thanks, Gary. As an emacs diehart, I fully appreciate that. In
fact,
there is a silly phrase that many emacs users use, when referring
to all the obscure key bindings that you get by default with emacs, or
can create. It.s called:
>>
>> Control-Meta-Shift-Cokebottle
>>
>> I believe the history (someone can correct me if I.m wrong) is that
Emacs
was developed at the MIT AI Lab (by Richard Stallman) and
initially written in Teco. It was developed on Lisp machines, which
sported lots of modification keys on its keyboard. These included
Control, Shift, Hyper, Meta, Super (and perhaps more). Naturally, emacs
took advantage of some of these . at least those that were available on
multiple terminals or could be emulated on lesser terminals. I remember
when I worked at MIT LCS (down the hall from MIT AI), we had a key
binding on our Lisp Machines that called the elevator to the 8th floor.
I don.t remember the key binding, but I.m sure it used a few of these
modification keys (and probably .e. for .elevator. as the modified key).
In any case, the class of these funky key bindings was referred to as
Control-Meta-Shift-Cokebottle.
>>
>> I.m sure I.ve gotten some of the facts wrong, but I.m also sure
that at
least someone on this list will correct me!
. Eric
> On Dec 1, 2015, at 11:30 AM, Ken <snip>>
wrote:
>
>
> I seem to recall that one of the Lisp machine keyboard modifiers was
"Top", and that the phrase was therefore
>
>> Control-Shift-Meta-Top-Cokebottle
>>
> Where, of course, you were typing the "Cokebottle" key with the
Control, Shift, Meta, and Top modifier keys depressed.
>
> I think the elevator hack involved the AI Lab PDP-6 (or maybe,
later, PDP-10),
but I wouldn't be surprised if it migrated to the Lisp
machines, too The old -6, especially, had added hardware to enable it
to control the various robot devices the AI lab played with. Some AI
Lab hardware guys gained access to the machinery room on the 10th floor
and added some extra relay circuitry to one of the elevator controllers,
and it wasn't much of a stretch to run the control wires down to the 9th
floor machine room. IIRC it took a few years for whatever company was
responsible for maintaining the elevators to discover the unauthorized
modification and remove it.
>
> How long it stayed removed is an entirely different question, of course.
>
> Ken
> MIT-LCS '72-'80
> Multics ARPANET software
>
On 12/1/2015 11:42 AM, Eric <snip> [multicians] wrote:
I just knew I had that facts wrong! Yes, you.re right. I remember the
Top key
now.
I do know that the elevator hack worked on Lisp machines, but I think
you.re right
that it also worked on some other interfaces. I remember
getting frustrated when I.d be .ready to leave. (at 2am, or so), and
would call the elevator, and then I.d have to fix .one more bug., and by
the time I got to the elevator, I actually had to push the boring old
button to get the elevator doors to open! :-)
. Eric
1 Dec
1 Dec
8:43 p.m.
Nice.
But, of course, Emacs was not developed on Lisp machines. TECO was a DEC
edtior/language, and Emacs came about on PDP-10 machines. I think
originally with ITS, but it could also be ran on TOPS-20.
About the cokebottle reference, here's the quote from JARGON.TXT:
COKEBOTTLE n. Any very unusual character. MIT people complain about
the "control-meta-cokebottle" commands at SAIL, and SAIL people
complain about the "altmode-altmode-cokebottle" commands at MIT.
So that really did not have anything to do with Emacs. But this is all
ancient history by now, and I'm not surprised history has twisted some
facts... :-)
Johnny
On 2015-12-02 02:31, jwsmobile wrote:
This is a funny cartoon and subsequent discussion thread from the
Multics discussion group about emacs.
Names and personal info edited out due to archival by unknown parties of
the list and that these folks might not want names and certainly not
email addresses archived. Mentioning that not as a criticism, just to
explain the format. I also edited the thread back to bottom posting.
Original XKCD cartoon link.
https://xkcd.com/378/
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
> From: Multicians <snip>
> Subject: Re: [multicians] Emacs humor
>
>>
>>
>> Thanks, Gary. As an emacs diehart, I fully appreciate that. In
fact,
there is a silly phrase that many emacs users use, when referring
to all the obscure key bindings that you get by default with emacs, or
can create. It.s called:
>>
>> Control-Meta-Shift-Cokebottle
>>
>> I believe the history (someone can correct me if I.m wrong) is that
Emacs
was developed at the MIT AI Lab (by Richard Stallman) and
initially written in Teco. It was developed on Lisp machines, which
sported lots of modification keys on its keyboard. These included
Control, Shift, Hyper, Meta, Super (and perhaps more). Naturally, emacs
took advantage of some of these . at least those that were available on
multiple terminals or could be emulated on lesser terminals. I remember
when I worked at MIT LCS (down the hall from MIT AI), we had a key
binding on our Lisp Machines that called the elevator to the 8th floor.
I don.t remember the key binding, but I.m sure it used a few of these
modification keys (and probably .e. for .elevator. as the modified key).
In any case, the class of these funky key bindings was referred to as
Control-Meta-Shift-Cokebottle.
>>
>> I.m sure I.ve gotten some of the facts wrong, but I.m also sure
that at
least someone on this list will correct me!
. Eric
> On Dec 1, 2015, at 11:30 AM, Ken
<snip>> wrote:
>
>
> I seem to recall that one of the Lisp machine keyboard modifiers was
"Top", and that the phrase was therefore
>
>> Control-Shift-Meta-Top-Cokebottle
>>
> Where, of course, you were typing the "Cokebottle" key with the
Control, Shift, Meta, and Top modifier keys depressed.
>
> I think the elevator hack involved the AI Lab PDP-6 (or maybe,
later, PDP-10),
but I wouldn't be surprised if it migrated to the Lisp
machines, too The old -6, especially, had added hardware to enable it
to control the various robot devices the AI lab played with. Some AI
Lab hardware guys gained access to the machinery room on the 10th floor
and added some extra relay circuitry to one of the elevator controllers,
and it wasn't much of a stretch to run the control wires down to the 9th
floor machine room. IIRC it took a few years for whatever company was
responsible for maintaining the elevators to discover the unauthorized
modification and remove it.
>
> How long it stayed removed is an entirely different question, of
course.
>
> Ken
> MIT-LCS '72-'80
> Multics ARPANET software
>
On 12/1/2015 11:42 AM, Eric <snip> [multicians] wrote:
I just knew I had that facts wrong! Yes, you.re right. I remember the
Top key
now.
I do know that the elevator hack worked on Lisp machines, but I think
you.re right
that it also worked on some other interfaces. I remember
getting frustrated when I.d be .ready to leave. (at 2am, or so), and
would call the elevator, and then I.d have to fix .one more bug., and by
the time I got to the elevator, I actually had to push the boring old
button to get the elevator doors to open! :-)
. Eric
8:48 p.m.
On 2015-12-02 02:43, Johnny Billquist wrote:
Nice.
But, of course, Emacs was not developed on Lisp machines. TECO was a DEC
edtior/language, and Emacs came about on PDP-10 machines. I think
originally with ITS, but it could also be ran on TOPS-20.
I should probably correct myself right away. TECO was developed at MIT.
DEC included it in pretty much all systems they made, but it did not
originate with them. I don't know if TECO was ported elsewhere back
then, but there certainly exists TECO ports to other system nowadays.
But the ITS TECO was/is rather different than most other dialects of
TECO, so don't expect to be able to run Emacs on any TECO interpreter
you might have...
Johnny
About the cokebottle reference, here's the quote from JARGON.TXT:
COKEBOTTLE n. Any very unusual character. MIT people complain about
the "control-meta-cokebottle" commands at SAIL, and SAIL people
complain about the "altmode-altmode-cokebottle" commands at MIT.
So that really did not have anything to do with Emacs. But this is all
ancient history by now, and I'm not surprised history has twisted some
facts... :-)
Johnny
On 2015-12-02 02:31, jwsmobile wrote:
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
This is a funny cartoon and subsequent discussion thread from the
Multics discussion group about emacs.
Names and personal info edited out due to archival by unknown parties of
the list and that these folks might not want names and certainly not
email addresses archived. Mentioning that not as a criticism, just to
explain the format. I also edited the thread back to bottom posting.
Original XKCD cartoon link.
https://xkcd.com/378/
> From: Multicians <snip>
> Subject: Re: [multicians] Emacs humor
>
>>
>>
>> Thanks, Gary. As an emacs diehart, I fully appreciate that. In
fact,
there is a silly phrase that many emacs users use, when referring
to all the obscure key bindings that you get by default with emacs, or
can create. It.s called:
>>
>> Control-Meta-Shift-Cokebottle
>>
>> I believe the history (someone can correct me if I.m wrong) is that
Emacs
was developed at the MIT AI Lab (by Richard Stallman) and
initially written in Teco. It was developed on Lisp machines, which
sported lots of modification keys on its keyboard. These included
Control, Shift, Hyper, Meta, Super (and perhaps more). Naturally, emacs
took advantage of some of these . at least those that were available on
multiple terminals or could be emulated on lesser terminals. I remember
when I worked at MIT LCS (down the hall from MIT AI), we had a key
binding on our Lisp Machines that called the elevator to the 8th floor.
I don.t remember the key binding, but I.m sure it used a few of these
modification keys (and probably .e. for .elevator. as the modified key).
In any case, the class of these funky key bindings was referred to as
Control-Meta-Shift-Cokebottle.
>>
>> I.m sure I.ve gotten some of the facts wrong, but I.m also sure
that at
least someone on this list will correct me!
>
> . Eric
> On Dec 1, 2015, at 11:30 AM, Ken
<snip>> wrote:
>
>
> I seem to recall that one of the Lisp machine keyboard modifiers was
"Top", and that the phrase was therefore
>
>> Control-Shift-Meta-Top-Cokebottle
>>
> Where, of course, you were typing the "Cokebottle" key with the
Control, Shift, Meta, and Top modifier keys depressed.
>
> I think the elevator hack involved the AI Lab PDP-6 (or maybe,
later, PDP-10),
but I wouldn't be surprised if it migrated to the Lisp
machines, too The old -6, especially, had added hardware to enable it
to control the various robot devices the AI lab played with. Some AI
Lab hardware guys gained access to the machinery room on the 10th floor
and added some extra relay circuitry to one of the elevator controllers,
and it wasn't much of a stretch to run the control wires down to the 9th
floor machine room. IIRC it took a few years for whatever company was
responsible for maintaining the elevators to discover the unauthorized
modification and remove it.
>
> How long it stayed removed is an entirely different question, of
course.
>
> Ken
> MIT-LCS '72-'80
> Multics ARPANET software
>
On 12/1/2015 11:42 AM, Eric <snip> [multicians] wrote:
I just knew I had that facts wrong! Yes, you.re right. I remember the
Top key
now.
I do know that the elevator hack worked on Lisp machines, but I think
you.re right
that it also worked on some other interfaces. I remember
getting frustrated when I.d be .ready to leave. (at 2am, or so), and
would call the elevator, and then I.d have to fix .one more bug., and by
the time I got to the elevator, I actually had to push the boring old
button to get the elevator doors to open! :-)
. Eric
8:59 p.m.
On 12/1/2015 5:43 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
Nice.
But, of course, Emacs was not developed on Lisp machines. TECO was a
DEC edtior/language, and Emacs came about on PDP-10 machines. I think
originally with ITS, but it could also be ran on TOPS-20.
About the cokebottle reference, here's the quote from JARGON.TXT:
COKEBOTTLE n. Any very unusual character. MIT people complain about
the "control-meta-cokebottle" commands at SAIL, and SAIL people
complain about the "altmode-altmode-cokebottle" commands at MIT.
So that really did not have anything to do with Emacs. But this is all
ancient history by now, and I'm not surprised history has twisted some
facts... :-)
It is emacs, if you read other discussions of emacs. The evolution of
various OS, input methods and terminals and the many homes for versions
of emacs lead to these terms being deeply embedded in the editor. Just
hitting a key and having the cursor move back was once a difficult
feat. Then having the character there erased by a space (and accurately
have both motions accurately reflected in the buffer) was another event.
Emacs truly went crazy expanding the editing and keyboard motions.
I don't have an article to point to, and am not an emacs expert / fan.
I sent this thread on to another friend who is a very old time user as
my usual aggravation.
thanks
Jim
Johnny
On 2015-12-02 02:31, jwsmobile wrote:
This is a funny cartoon and subsequent discussion thread from the
Multics discussion group about emacs.
Names and personal info edited out due to archival by unknown parties of
the list and that these folks might not want names and certainly not
email addresses archived. Mentioning that not as a criticism, just to
explain the format. I also edited the thread back to bottom posting.
Original XKCD cartoon link.
https://xkcd.com/378/
> From: Multicians <snip>
> Subject: Re: [multicians] Emacs humor
>
>>
>>
>> Thanks, Gary. As an emacs diehart, I fully appreciate that. In
fact,
there is a silly phrase that many emacs users use, when referring
to all the obscure key bindings that you get by default with emacs, or
can create. It.s called:
>>
>> Control-Meta-Shift-Cokebottle
>>
>> I believe the history (someone can correct me if I.m wrong) is that
Emacs
was developed at the MIT AI Lab (by Richard Stallman) and
initially written in Teco. It was developed on Lisp machines, which
sported lots of modification keys on its keyboard. These included
Control, Shift, Hyper, Meta, Super (and perhaps more). Naturally, emacs
took advantage of some of these . at least those that were available on
multiple terminals or could be emulated on lesser terminals. I remember
when I worked at MIT LCS (down the hall from MIT AI), we had a key
binding on our Lisp Machines that called the elevator to the 8th floor.
I don.t remember the key binding, but I.m sure it used a few of these
modification keys (and probably .e. for .elevator. as the modified key).
In any case, the class of these funky key bindings was referred to as
Control-Meta-Shift-Cokebottle.
>>
>> I.m sure I.ve gotten some of the facts wrong, but I.m also sure
that at
least someone on this list will correct me!
>
> . Eric
> On Dec 1, 2015, at 11:30 AM, Ken
<snip>> wrote:
>
>
> I seem to recall that one of the Lisp machine keyboard modifiers was
"Top", and that the phrase was therefore
>
>> Control-Shift-Meta-Top-Cokebottle
>>
> Where, of course, you were typing the "Cokebottle" key with the
Control, Shift, Meta, and Top modifier keys depressed.
>
> I think the elevator hack involved the AI Lab PDP-6 (or maybe,
later, PDP-10),
but I wouldn't be surprised if it migrated to the Lisp
machines, too The old -6, especially, had added hardware to enable it
to control the various robot devices the AI lab played with. Some AI
Lab hardware guys gained access to the machinery room on the 10th floor
and added some extra relay circuitry to one of the elevator controllers,
and it wasn't much of a stretch to run the control wires down to the 9th
floor machine room. IIRC it took a few years for whatever company was
responsible for maintaining the elevators to discover the unauthorized
modification and remove it.
>
> How long it stayed removed is an entirely different question, of
course.
>
> Ken
> MIT-LCS '72-'80
> Multics ARPANET software
>
On 12/1/2015 11:42 AM, Eric <snip> [multicians] wrote:
I just knew I had that facts wrong! Yes, you.re right. I remember the
Top key
now.
I do know that the elevator hack worked on Lisp machines, but I think
you.re right
that it also worked on some other interfaces. I remember
getting frustrated when I.d be .ready to leave. (at 2am, or so), and
would call the elevator, and then I.d have to fix .one more bug., and by
the time I got to the elevator, I actually had to push the boring old
button to get the elevator doors to open! :-)
. Eric
9:13 p.m.
From: Johnny Billquist
Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2015 5:44 PM
Thanks for chiming in, Johnny! Keeps me from having to do it. :-)
But, of course, Emacs was not developed on Lisp
machines. TECO was a DEC
edtior/language, and Emacs came about on PDP-10 machines. I think
originally with ITS, but it could also be ran on TOPS-20.
Well, technically, the original TECO was developed on the PDP-1 at MIT,
taken up by DEC, and ported to most of their subsequent systems.
The version of TECO in which EMACS was developed was an MIT-AI Lab local
creation with no DEC input, for ITS; that version of TECO, and therefore
EMACS, was ported to TENEX and TOPS-20.
About the cokebottle reference, here's the quote
from JARGON.TXT:
COKEBOTTLE n. Any very unusual character. MIT people
complain about
the "control-meta-cokebottle" commands at SAIL, and SAIL people
complain about the "altmode-altmode-cokebottle" commands at MIT.
So that really did not have anything to do with Emacs.
But this is all
ancient history by now, and I'm not surprised history has twisted some
facts... :-)
The history of "bucky bits" goes back even further than most people know.
Before the PDP-6 came into existence, SAIL ran a computer-assisted lab
using a PDP-1 with specially modified terminals. These were designed by
a Swiss computer scientist later known for creating a paedogogical Algol
derivative, a gentleman whom the SAIL graduate students did not like and
called (referring to a malocclusion) "Bucky Beaver".[1] The extra 2 bits
on the terminals became "bucky bits".
With the PDP-6 came a design for special terminals which included not 2
but 5 bucky bits (though 2 were unnamed on the Stanford keyboard), in a
14-bit character set[2] where Control was the 200 bit, Meta was the 400
bit, and Top was the 4000 bit. Top referred to non-Latin characters on
the keys, above the usual typewriter characters we all know and love.
Internally, Top+character was translated to a value in the range 0-37,
which were graphical rather than ASCII control characters.
I used to use one of these terminals from time to time, to read mailing
lists hosted on SU-AI (AKA Sail.Stanford.EDU in a more modern era), and
to SUPDUP to my account on MIT-AI, where I could use EMACS with real
bucky bits just as $DEITY intended.
Up next here is to modify a terminal emulation program to provide SUPDUP
and the Stanford character set in order to talk to our WAITS[3] system
on the net.
Rich
[1] The name of an animated spokescreature for Ipana toothpaste.
[2] Hey, if RMS can do that in the EMACS manual...
[3] The OS, descended from the PDP-6 monitor and thus related to Tops-10
which SAIL ran on the PDP-6, the PDP-10/PDP-6 dual processor, the
KL-10/PDP-10/PDP-6 triprocessor, and KL-10/PDP-10 dual processor and
the KL-10 uniprocessor between 1964 and 1990. Also ran on a Foonly
at CCRMA and a KL-10 at Lawrence Livermore Labs, but retired earlier.
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer
Living Computer Museum
2245 1st Avenue S
Seattle, WA 98134
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/
9:35 p.m.
(Pssssst - Henry Burkhardt III based Data General's original program
editor on DEC's 1967 version incarnation of "TECO", and it is still
still alive today...)
On 12/1/2015 7:13 PM, Rich Alderson wrote:
From: Johnny Billquist
Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2015 5:44 PM
Thanks for chiming in, Johnny! Keeps me from having to do it. :-)
But, of course, Emacs was not developed on Lisp
machines. TECO was a DEC
edtior/language, and Emacs came about on PDP-10 machines. I think
originally with ITS, but it could also be ran on TOPS-20.
Well, technically, the original TECO was developed on the PDP-1 at MIT,
taken up by DEC, and ported to most of their subsequent systems.
The version of TECO in which EMACS was developed was an MIT-AI Lab local
creation with no DEC input, for ITS; that version of TECO, and therefore
EMACS, was ported to TENEX and TOPS-20.
About the cokebottle reference, here's the
quote from JARGON.TXT:
COKEBOTTLE n. Any very unusual character. MIT
people complain about
the "control-meta-cokebottle" commands at SAIL, and SAIL people
complain about the "altmode-altmode-cokebottle" commands at MIT.
So that really did not have anything to do with
Emacs. But this is all
ancient history by now, and I'm not surprised history has twisted some
facts... :-)
The history of "bucky bits" goes back even further than most people know.
Before the PDP-6 came into existence, SAIL ran a computer-assisted lab
using a PDP-1 with specially modified terminals. These were designed by
a Swiss computer scientist later known for creating a paedogogical Algol
derivative, a gentleman whom the SAIL graduate students did not like and
called (referring to a malocclusion) "Bucky Beaver".[1] The extra 2 bits
on the terminals became "bucky bits".
With the PDP-6 came a design for special terminals which included not 2
but 5 bucky bits (though 2 were unnamed on the Stanford keyboard), in a
14-bit character set[2] where Control was the 200 bit, Meta was the 400
bit, and Top was the 4000 bit. Top referred to non-Latin characters on
the keys, above the usual typewriter characters we all know and love.
Internally, Top+character was translated to a value in the range 0-37,
which were graphical rather than ASCII control characters.
I used to use one of these terminals from time to time, to read mailing
lists hosted on SU-AI (AKA Sail.Stanford.EDU in a more modern era), and
to SUPDUP to my account on MIT-AI, where I could use EMACS with real
bucky bits just as $DEITY intended.
Up next here is to modify a terminal emulation program to provide SUPDUP
and the Stanford character set in order to talk to our WAITS[3] system
on the net.
Rich
[1] The name of an animated spokescreature for Ipana toothpaste.
[2] Hey, if RMS can do that in the EMACS manual...
[3] The OS, descended from the PDP-6 monitor and thus related to Tops-10
which SAIL ran on the PDP-6, the PDP-10/PDP-6 dual processor, the
KL-10/PDP-10/PDP-6 triprocessor, and KL-10/PDP-10 dual processor and
the KL-10 uniprocessor between 1964 and 1990. Also ran on a Foonly
at CCRMA and a KL-10 at Lawrence Livermore Labs, but retired earlier.
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer
Living Computer Museum
2245 1st Avenue S
Seattle, WA 98134
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/
2 Dec
2 Dec
3:18 a.m.
New subject: Triprocessor PDP-10 [Was: Re: [multicians] Emacs humor]
On Wed, Dec 02, 2015 at 02:13:06AM +0000, Rich Alderson wrote:
KL-10/PDP-10/PDP-6 triprocessor, and KL-10/PDP-10 dual processor and
You make it sound like someone hacked up a computer consisting of one
KL-10, one PDP-10 and one PDP-6. But I assume you mean homogenic
three-processor machines?
Who, besides Peter L?thberg, ran threeprocessor machines?
Also, what are you refering to as PDP-10? KA-10?
Thanks,
Pontus.
4:18 a.m.
New subject: Triprocessor PDP-10 [Was: Re: [multicians] Emacs humor]
On Wed, Dec 2, 2015 at 1:18 AM, Pontus Pihlgren <pontus at update.uu.se> wrote:
You make it sound like someone hacked up a computer
consisting of one
KL-10, one PDP-10 and one PDP-6.
Yes, the processors were a KL10, a KI10, and a 166 (PDP-6 CPU).
Needless to say, that was not a DEC-supported configuration.
9:35 a.m.
New subject: Triprocessor PDP-10 [Was: Re: [multicians] Emacs humor]
On 12/2/15 12:18 AM, Pontus Pihlgren wrote:
On Wed, Dec 02, 2015 at 02:13:06AM +0000, Rich
Alderson wrote:
>
> KL-10/PDP-10/PDP-6 triprocessor,
Who, besides Peter L?thberg, ran threeprocessor
machines?
SAIL, which is the triprocessor Rich is referring to.
1:47 p.m.
New subject: Triprocessor PDP-10 [Was: Re: [multicians] Emacs humor]
From: Pontus Pihlgren
Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2015 12:19 AM
On Wed, Dec 02, 2015 at 02:13:06AM +0000, Rich
Alderson wrote:
> KL-10/PDP-10/PDP-6 triprocessor, and
KL-10/PDP-10 dual processor and
You make it sound like someone hacked up a computer
consisting of one
KL-10, one PDP-10 and one PDP-6. But I assume you mean homogenic
three-processor machines?
You assume incorrectly. I mean exactly what it sounds like.
Who, besides Peter L?thberg, ran threeprocessor
machines?
Lots of places. The folks at Oak Ridge ("Atomic City") ran a 5-processor
SMP configuration.
Also, what are you refering to as PDP-10? KA-10?
Yes. Eric Smith was incorrect in his identification of the processor as a
KI-10.
Rich
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer
Living Computer Museum
2245 1st Avenue S
Seattle, WA 98134
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/
3 Dec
3 Dec
2:02 a.m.
New subject: Triprocessor PDP-10 [Was: Re: [multicians] Emacs humor]
On Wed, Dec 2, 2015 at 11:47 AM, Rich Alderson
<RichA at livingcomputermuseum.org> wrote:
Yes. Eric Smith was incorrect in his identification
of the processor as a
KI-10.
That was a thinko or typo. I knew it was a KA10, I'm not sure how KI10
got into the message. Thanks for the correction.
2:29 a.m.
New subject: Triprocessor PDP-10 [Was: Re: [multicians] Emacs humor]
On Wed, Dec 02, 2015 at 06:47:12PM +0000, Rich Alderson wrote:
Five! that must have been a sight to behold.
Also, thanks to Phil and Michael for their lists.
Cheers,
Pontus.
From: Pontus Pihlgren
Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2015 12:19 AM
Wow, that's impressive. How was it done? Was it done with DEC or was it
a local "hack"?
On Wed, Dec 02, 2015 at 02:13:06AM +0000, Rich
Alderson wrote:
> KL-10/PDP-10/PDP-6 triprocessor, and
KL-10/PDP-10 dual processor and
You make it sound like someone hacked up a
computer consisting of one
KL-10, one PDP-10 and one PDP-6. But I assume you mean homogenic
three-processor machines?
You assume incorrectly. I mean exactly what it sounds like. Who, besides Peter L?thberg, ran threeprocessor
machines?
Lots of places. The folks at Oak Ridge ("Atomic City") ran a 5-processor
SMP configuration.
2:08 p.m.
New subject: Triprocessor PDP-10 [Was: Re: [multicians] Emacs humor]
From: Pontus Pihlgren
Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2015 11:30 PM
On Wed, Dec 02, 2015 at 06:47:12PM +0000, Rich
Alderson wrote:
> From: Pontus Pihlgren
> Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2015 12:19 AM
>> On Wed, Dec 02, 2015 at 02:13:06AM +0000, Rich
Alderson wrote:
>>> KL-10/PDP-10/PDP-6 triprocessor, and
KL-10/PDP-10 dual processor and
>> You make it sound like someone hacked up a
computer consisting of one
>> KL-10, one PDP-10 and one PDP-6. But I assume you mean homogenic
>> three-processor machines?
> You assume incorrectly. I mean exactly what it
sounds like.
Wow, that's impressive. How was it done? Was it
done with DEC or was it
a local "hack"?
As far as I know, it was a local hack, but if you really care I can ask my
friends who were the systems programmers on SAIL back in the day.
Rich
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer
Living Computer Museum
2245 1st Avenue S
Seattle, WA 98134
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/
4 Dec
4 Dec
12:56 a.m.
New subject: Triprocessor PDP-10 [Was: Re: [multicians] Emacs humor]
On Thu, Dec 3, 2015 at 12:29 AM, Pontus Pihlgren <pontus at update.uu.se> wrote:
[about KL10/KA10/PDP-6 tri-processor
Wow, that's impressive. How was it done? Was it
done with DEC or was it
a local "hack"?
Prior to the 1091 and 20xx, all PDP-10 processors used essentially the
same memory bus, and the memory boxes were multiported. The necessary
hardware configuration might not have been quite as simple as just
cabling the three dissimilar processors to the memory boxes, but it
probably wasn't too terribly complicated.
Getting standard DEC software to run on such a configuration would
have required quite a bit of work. DEC supported asymmetric
multiprocessing on the KA10 (DECsystem-1055) and KI10
(DECsystem-1077), and possibly on the KL10 (DECsystem-1088). Symmetric
multiprocessing (SMP) wasn't available in TOPS-10 until some time
after the KL10 was available, and for SMP only multi-KL10 systems were
supported. I think SAIL ran the WAITS operating system, rather than a
DEC OS, though WAITS probably started out as a fork of an early DEC
PDP-10 "Monitor". ("Monitor" was the name of the OS before it became
TOPS-10.)
My understanding is that the SAIL tri-processor configuration was
asymmetric multiprocessing. (Not just asymmetric in that the CPUs
were different, but also in how I/O devices were configured on them,
and which CPU the operating system mostly ran on.) However, I wasn't
there and only heard about the system second-hand at best.
1:59 p.m.
New subject: Triprocessor PDP-10 [Was: Re: [multicians] Emacs humor]
From: Eric Smith
Sent: Thursday, December 03, 2015 9:57 PM
On Thu, Dec 3, 2015 at 12:29 AM, Pontus Pihlgren
<pontus at update.uu.se> wrote:
[about KL10/KA10/PDP-6 tri-processor
> Wow, that's impressive. How was it done? Was
it done with DEC or was it
> a local "hack"?
Prior to the 1091 and 20xx, all PDP-10 processors used
essentially the same
memory bus, and the memory boxes were multiported. The necessary hardware
configuration might not have been quite as simple as just cabling the three
dissimilar processors to the memory boxes, but it probably wasn't too
terribly complicated.
Getting standard DEC software to run on such a
configuration would have
required quite a bit of work. DEC supported asymmetric multiprocessing on
the KA10 (DECsystem-1055) and KI10 (DECsystem-1077), and possibly on the
KL10 (DECsystem-1088). Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) wasn't available in
TOPS-10 until some time after the KL10 was available, and for SMP only
multi-KL10 systems were supported. I think SAIL ran the WAITS operating
system, rather than a DEC OS, though WAITS probably started out as a fork
of an early DEC PDP-10 "Monitor". ("Monitor" was the name of the OS
before
it became TOPS-10.)
My understanding is that the SAIL tri-processor
configuration was
asymmetric multiprocessing. (Not just asymmetric in that the CPUs were
different, but also in how I/O devices were configured on them, and which
CPU the operating system mostly ran on.) However, I wasn't there and only
heard about the system second-hand at best.
SAIL did indeed run WAITS, which officially forked from the PDP-10 monitor at
4S72 (Level 4 Monitor, Summer 1972 release), but which began diverging when it
was still the PDP-6 Monitor.[1] It supports asymmetric multiprocessing, based
initially on the 1055 code[2], though diverging immediately because of the
differences between a KA-10 and a Model 166 processor (PDP-6 CPU).
Things get more complicated with the introduction of the KL-10 processor.
Prior to this, SAIL used non-DEC disks and their own file system, similar but
not identical to the DEC Level D[3]; with the introduction of the Massbus,
they moved to RP06 and RP07 but kept the SAIL file system. However, they did
not adopt the Tops-10 drivers for the Massbus; instead, they modified the
TOPS-20 drivers (as of release 5.1) to interoperate with a Tops-10 style
system call regimen. At the same time, they made the KL-10 the master in the
three-processor system.
Because they started with the PDP-6 and continued development until ~1990
(including porting to the Foonly F2 at CCRMA and the KL-10 at Livermore),
there was no such thing as a WAITS install tape (or suite). That made getting
WAITS running on a system at the museum a long and winding road, an adventure
in dissertation level research, and that in turn is why I know so much about
the internals and history of the operating system.
Rich
[1] "Tops-10" was simply a renaming of an operating system which began on the
PDP-6 in 1964 and continued in an uninterrupted line of development up
through the final release, Tops-10 v7.04 (1988), and maintenance (v7.05,
1993).
[2] The PDP-10 monitor, when introduced, came in 5 variants, of which 2 seem
to have been vaporware (to use an anachronistic term). These went from a
single-user monitor (10/10) up to a timeshared swapping monitor with disks
(10/50). This was the version to which AMP ("10/55" " was introduced,
and
really the only version supported beyond initial release.
[3] For example, project-programmer numbers are SIXBIT rather than numeric,
even when they look numeric. In a DEC file system, the Master File
Directory is [1,1] and in the system that is represented by the octal
value 000001000001; in the WAITS file system, the MFD is [1,1] with an
internal representation of 000021000021.
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer
Living Computer Museum
2245 1st Avenue S
Seattle, WA 98134
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/
3:52 p.m.
New subject: Triprocessor PDP-10 [Was: Re: [multicians] Emacs humor]
Rich wrote:
[1] "Tops-10" was simply a renaming of an
operating system which began on the
PDP-6 in 1964 and continued in an uninterrupted line of development up
through the final release, Tops-10 v7.04 (1988), and maintenance (v7.05,
1993).
Are you sure about the captialization "Tops"?
I thought TOPS-10 ran on the DECsystem-10,
while TOPS-20 ran on the DECSYSTEM-20.
....in the WAITS file system, the MFD is [1,1]
with an
internal representation of 000021000021.
Well, I'll be!
5:10 p.m.
New subject: Triprocessor PDP-10 [Was: Re: [multicians] Emacs humor]
On 2015-12-04 21:52, Phil Budne wrote:
Rich wrote:
Rich is correct. It's "Tops-10", but "TOPS-20". Water under the
bridge...
I can't remember the correct capitalization of DECsystem, though. Maybe
that too differed?
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
[1] "Tops-10" was simply a renaming of
an operating system which began on the
PDP-6 in 1964 and continued in an uninterrupted line of development up
through the final release, Tops-10 v7.04 (1988), and maintenance (v7.05,
1993).
Are you sure about the captialization "Tops"?
I thought TOPS-10 ran on the DECsystem-10,
while TOPS-20 ran on the DECSYSTEM-20.
6:53 p.m.
New subject: Triprocessor PDP-10 [Was: Re: [multicians] Emacs humor]
From: Johnny Billquist
Sent: Friday, December 04, 2015 2:11 PM
On 2015-12-04 21:52, Phil Budne wrote:
> Rich wrote:
>> [1] "Tops-10" was simply a renaming
of an operating system which began on
>> the PDP-6 in 1964 and continued in an uninterrupted line of
>> development up through the final release, Tops-10 v7.04 (1988), and
>> maintenance (v7.05, 1993).
> Are you sure about the captialization
"Tops"?
> I thought TOPS-10 ran on the DECsystem-10,
> while TOPS-20 ran on the DECSYSTEM-20.
Rich is correct. It's "Tops-10", but
"TOPS-20". Water under the bridge...
I can't remember the correct capitalization of DECsystem, though. Maybe
that too differed?
Both DECsystem-10 and Decsystem-10 appear in DEC documents of different dates,
the latter possibly appearing in non-LCG documents.
Rich
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer
Living Computer Museum
2245 1st Avenue S
Seattle, WA 98134
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/
3154
days inactive
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17 comments
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participants (8)
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