[TUHS] pdp11 question - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

29 Nov 2010

Oops, this was supposed to go to the whole list -- Ian 

...

  -----Original Message-----
 From: tuhs-bounces at minnie.tuhs.org [mailto:tuhs-
 bounces at minnie.tuhs.org] On Behalf Of Norman Wilson
 Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2010 10:58 AM
 To: tuhs at tuhs.org
 Subject: Re: [TUHS] pdp11 question

 Just to loop things around a bit:

 Some of the larger VAXes used small PDP-11s (and their
 bastard offspring) as console processors.

 This started with the very first VAX, the 11/780, which
 used an 11/23 as a console.  The console ran a stripped-down
 system, possibly based on RT-11 or RSX-11, I forget (and
 am typing this on a train in the Outer Mongolia part of
 Texas where it's hard to look up references).

 It is an 11/03, according to the Console Interface Technical
 Description manual and the part number of the processor board.  The
 system looks to me to be RT-11 based.  I know that I could read/write
 the floppies on an 11/03 running RT-11, which was how I recreated live
 media from disk images.

  I don't know the whole list of what was used
as a console
 for different VAXes, but I do remember that the Nautilus
 series (8500-8550-8700-8800) used either a Pro/350 or a
 Pro/380, running P/OS, which was slightly more satisfactory
 than the rude English non-computer expansion of PoS might
 imply, but only slightly.  Especially for those of us who
 wrote code to fit into UNIX on the VAX and talk to the
 console processor.
  [snip]

 Another DEC machine to use an embedded computer as a console is the KL-
 10 processor.  It uses an 11/40 running a modified version of RSX-11
 called RSX-20F.  Given that the KL was introduced in 1975, it predates
 the 11/780 in using this approach.  -- Ian 