Prime 50-Series emulator announcement

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 3/24/20 1:25 PM, Dennis Boone via cctalk wrote:
> Bill,
> 
>   > Is there anywhere we can find a list of what is avaiable on each of
>   > those images?  I tried a few and at least one has all the compilers
>   > but no emacs.  Another has emacs but apparently no compilers. :-)
> 
>   > I'm impressed so far but would really like to find systems that I can
>   > do some real programming on.  Is it possible for someone to build a
>   > Rev 24 image with everything on it?
> 
> There's not a list of what's on each image.  I'll think about creating
> one.
> 
> Recall that the layered products tended to be related to the version of
> the base OS.  Sometimes you could use an older version on a newer
> PRIMOS, sometimes not.  Since the ones we have came with specific
> distribution tape sets, or from backups of specific machines, and
> basically nobody just had everything Prime sold, the systems we can
> build are "uneven".  The largest collections of layered products in
> captivity are for 19, 22 and 23.  I think the only copy of INFORMATION
> is on 21.  Etc.

I'll just  have to start all of them and see which have the fullest
set of compilers.  :-)  Maybe have to find a version of emacs that
is publicly available that will build on Primos.  :-)

I wonder if anyone has a copy of the sources for EDV?  that was our
common editor when I did this for a living.  It was a very good full
screen editor and was written in Fortran (with calls to some low
level Primos stuff for the single character input and such).

> 
> There are incomplete source sets for 19 and 22.  We're in the process of
> revamping the 19.2 sample system to have the source for the kernel it's
> running baked in.

Ah...  Sources.  That was my ballywick back in those days.  Maintaining
the OS and layered products for a cluster of 850's at West Point.  Those
were the days.

> 
>   > My last real work with Primos was during the move from Rev 19 to Rev
>   > 20.  I am amazed at how much I have forgotten and really regret
>   > having gotten rid of all my documentation (at least I think I did, I
>   > suppose it is possible there is still a box in the attic full of
>   > Prime manuals including my course books from the internals class!)
> 
> I've had to refresh a few things, but I'm amazed at how many details are
> still in my head.  There's a lot of new stuff post-20, too.

I barely touched 20 saw nothing beyond that.

> 
> I know I ended up with some of your manuals.  Lots of scanned manuals at
> sysovl.info in PDF form, if you can live with that.  A couple versions
> of the internals class manual are there.

Well, I guess I don't need to go looking in the attic then. :-)
I think I was the only one who took the class that actually kept the
manual, which is how I ended out with more than one copy.  :-)

> 
> I'm still moving stuff into that site, so if there's something specific
> you need, let me know and I'll see if I can help.

I would say that the biggest help other than compilers would be EMACS. I
may actually still have the Prime EMACS Manual.  I think I kept that
because I use EMACS on other systems, too and it was a good manual.

> 
>   > One other one that I should know but forgot is how to add a user.
>   > Would be nice to set it up properly before I start loading programs
>   > on it.
> 
> You do that with EDIT_PROFILE.  Make sure the priority ACL is set (I
> think that's being done at boot), and run it from the console.

Thank you.  That stuck in my head but reading the pocket guides I still
have didn't refresh it for me.

bill