Summary: is there any word processing software for the pdp11?

Gary L. Messick Gary at realtimecomp.com
Tue Dec 2 09:36:20 CST 2014


> On 2 December 2014 at 14:00, Jacob Ritorto <jacob.ritorto at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
> >   I was seeking the "best" pdp11 prose text editing experience for
> > typing in manuscripts, composing, letter writing, etc. (not
> > programming language - that was just a side effect of some editors
> > actually being programming languages in and of themselves).
> >
> >   Since this is such a highly relative subject, I expected a slew of
> > answers and got them (thanks, all!).
> >
> >   While not part of the originally-intended scope, the conversation
> > has inspired me to at least try composing in TeX, which I've sort of
> > meant to do for years, but never got a round tuit.  Sounds like it'll
> > stay out of my way and allow me to just flow ideas and not even
> > address layout until the end, which is, in essence, what I'm after.
> > That said, I think the most convincing answer to my original question
> > so far, not having actually reviewed them yet, is some kind of emacs,
> > most likely Jove since it's already there in 2.xBSD and keeps me from
> > having to mess with/re-learn other operating systems (oh, shoot!).  As
> > a side note, I used teco and edt back when pdp11s running DEC
> > operating systems were still being phased out and found them to be
> > unsatisfying; however, I do admit that I was an amateur at them.
> >
> >   My other point here was to get the Diablo 630 going and have it type
> > nice, letter-quality copy for me.  Since my kid had a report due this
> > morning, I caved and temporarily connected it to an old Sun machine
> > and just threw lpd at it.  Pretty straightforward:
> >
> > lpadmin -p diablo -v /dev/cua/b -o stty=300 -o banner=never enable
> > diablo accept diablo
> >
> > So the thing's up and accepting jobs.  Prints like a war zone :) !!!
> >
> > Once one of the '11s is up, on the net and stabilized, I'd like to
> > have it take over this role as well.

[Gary L. Messick] 
Did Mass-11 run on PDP's?

My first job out of school was to support a mixed VAX/PC shop.  I remember implementing a bridge between DECNet and Netware that also converted VAX Mass-11 documents to DOS WordPerfect.

Ahhh, the fun times, the "Holy Wars" between the VAX and PC folks!  NOT!

Gary


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