Warren's 'VTserver'

[Jacob Ritorto]

Yeah, why is serial so dodgy on Mac?  I had to manually load kernel
extensions for the PL2303 usb/serial uart, and now it works for normal
stuff.  Code was on github or something.  Nice and hackerly.

I think when things get weird, like 7-bit ASCII or weird stuff that's not
even normal characters, the thing just falls over.  I get totally normal
behaviour when using it with RT-11, RSX-11M, XXDP, but as soon as I boot
2.9BSD, the thing goes wild.

Using my old SPARC workstation (with it's REAL serial port) to run VTserver
has solved the problem (and has also given me an excuse to have ANOTHER
neat old machine in the library and out of storage :)



On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 2:18 PM, Todd Killingsworth <
killingsworth.todd at gmail.com> wrote:

> There is something odd in getting the Mac to talk through a USB ->serial
> cable.
> I was having similar problems trying to get my MBP->USB->serial setup
> working with my Sun v880.
> The biggest problem seems to be that all the funky cables each have their
> own special drivers, and the manufacturers don't keep the drivers up to
> date with all the OS X releases.
>
> I eventually broke down and got a program called 'Serial' - the company
> that makes it seems to have a business model of getting the serial cables
> from any and all manufacturers working.
>
> It was $20, but I'd rather have one laptop that can talk to all my boxes
> and do my other work as well.
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 2:11 PM, Jacob Ritorto <jacob.ritorto at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > As I mentioned some hours ago, compiling it on a real unix machine
> instead
> > of the Mac cleared up the problem and now it's working, as you put it,
> > "delightfully."
> >
> > It literally does delight me to just watch it run and blink the lights,
> > etc. :)
> >
> > Honestly, my first inclination is that there was a problem with the cheap
> > usb-to-serial dongle I was using mangling characters.  I've seen it
> > senselessly corrupt output from the pdp11 before.
> >
> > On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 10:34 AM, Ian S. King <isking at uw.edu> wrote:
> >
> > > I too have used VTserver many times.  It's a delightfully clever tool.
> > And
> > > don't forget, that for PDP-8 there's David Gesswein's dumprest, which
> > also
> > > works very well.  I've used VTserver to build RK05s for Unix 6th Ed. on
> > my
> > > 11/34 and dumprest to build RK05s for OS/8 on LCM's 8/e.
> > >
> > > Jacob, I don't know why it would have hung for you unless the copy
> > program
> > > is buggered.  I used VTserver without modification and without problem.
> > --
> > > Ian
> > >
> > > On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 6:04 AM, Jay West <jwest at classiccmp.org>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > > I have used it quite a bit, and it always "just worked" for me.
> > Wonderful
> > > > piece of software. I should do something similar for the 21MX :)
> > > >
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of
> Jacob
> > > > Ritorto
> > > > Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2015 10:34 PM
> > > > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> > > > Subject: Warren's 'VTserver'
> > > >
> > > > Has anyone used this software
> > > > ftp://minnie.tuhs.org/pub/PDP-11/Vtserver/README against a real
> pdp11?
> > > > I'm trying to use it to install a disk image on my 11/34, now, and
> > after
> > > > keying in the initial code, it appears to happily upload the first
> file
> > > > (standalone 'copy') quite successfully, but then hangs.  Since Warren
> > has
> > > > no real pdp11s, I'm wondering if the emulators he used whilst
> authoring
> > > > this VTserver do something different than a real '11 that keeps the
> > > program
> > > > from proceeding.
> > > >
> > > > thx
> > > > jake
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS
> > > Ph.D. Candidate
> > > The Information School
> > > University of Washington
> > >
> > > An optimist sees a glass half full. A pessimist sees it half empty. An
> > > engineer sees it twice as large as it needs to be.
> > >
> >
>