1983 UBC PDP-11 Unix tools distribution

[Brent Hilpert]

On 2019-Mar-05, at 10:07 PM, Richard Loken wrote:
> On Tue, 5 Mar 2019, Brent Hilpert via cctalk wrote:
> 
>> TRIUMF was using /11s for cyclotron control I believe, that's not where you anticipate UNIX showing up.
> 
> But was it Unix or something else like RT-11?  Or was it a VAX?
> 
> Between 1985 and 1990 I became aquainted with a guy named Jim Stewart who was teaching VAX/VMS programming for DEC in Vancouver and had a previous life administering and programming VAX/VMS machines at TRIUMF.

Well, I don't know for certain, I was just trying to recall where I was aware of there being /11's around campus.
I had the impression from somewhere at the time that /11s were running the cyclotron, or were present in some significant capacity at TRIUMF.
It would make sense in terms of TRIUMF chronological dev, predating VAX.
And for real-time control, don't expect UNIX.

So I wasn't aware of, or it seemed unlikely to me, the tools came out of TRIUMF.
The quoted text from the tape seems to confirm it came out the UBC biosci service.

Granted that a facility like TRIUMF can be expected to have more than one computing cluster/service.
Come to recall, I did have some minor contact with TRIUMF in a professional capacity -
we supplied our X400 email program to them (as well as to the biosci facility),
and that would have been for a VAX, most likely VMS, machine.
The HEP community was quite fond of VAXen & VMS in that era.


> Even three or four years ago Dow Chemical was still using VAXen running VMS to manage their chemical plant(s) near Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta and some time earlier the last surviving L-1011 (or was it a DC10?) flight simulator was in Vancouver and it was controlled by a VAX-11/7?? long after VAXen had fallen out of fashion.
> 
> PDP11 boxes and VAXen show up in some really obscure places.