RSTS V7 magtape images on bitsavers

[Paul Koning]

> On Feb 10, 2017, at 4:51 PM, Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
> 
>> From: Paul Koning
> 
>> I wrote a simple program to strip off those two bytes everywhere, and
>> the result was a set of V7 kit tapes that work nicely.
> 
> Any chance you could provide those 'ready to run' tape images back to
> BitSavers, so other people don't have to replicate what you did?

Sure, that would be easy.  Al, how would you like them delivered?

>> Trying to remember how to do a V7 installation with no docs was
>> interesting...
> 
> Any chance you could write up some notes covering what your rememaber/did, for
> anyone else who'd like to try running RSTS-11?

Actually, I should have looked; Al points out there is a SYSGEN manual on Bitsavers.

> When did V7 come out, BTW?

The files on the SYSGEN tape have a timestamp of 26-Sep-79, so "Fall 1979" sounds right.

> And in looking around BitSavers a couple of days ago for RSTS-11 stuff, I
> didn't think I found much in the way of sources, just the binaries. Did
> I miss any?
> 
> It would be really nice to have sources - are they gone forever?

Some still exist.  I know someone who has a RSTS source kit, not sure which version.  I have pieces of source.  A complication with all of this is the question of licensing.  There's a hobbyist license for RSTS to build and run it, but whether that carries over to making sources available is an interesting question.  I'm not sure who to ask these days, either.

The V7 kit works nicely with the adjustment I did.  I've used the V4A kit (DECtapes) to build that, need to play with it some more.  (There's a V4A sysgen manual on Bitsavers too, and you'll want that because it sure is different from the later versions!)

	paul