Technical Notes on RSX-11M-PLUS Page 1 INTRODUCTION We have recently received documentation and software for RSX-11M-PLUS. While no exhaustive work has been done here on the system, I have modified it to run on SYSTIME SMD disk drives and it appears to work successfully, and to be in a fit state for selling to customers. These notes merely record a few points I noted when working with the system. In addition it should be borne in mind, before it is sold, that:- i) We have currently no spare copies of the manuals. ii) We will need an in-house 11/70 to support it. Technical Notes on RSX-11M-PLUS Page 2 CHAPTER 1 Format of Distribution The version of RSX-11M-PLUS we were supplied with came on three magtapes, as follows:- A. 2400ft 1600 BPI tape labelled 'Tape 1' B. 600ft 1600 BPI tape labelled 'Tape 2' C. 600ft 1600 BPI tape labelled 'RMS-11K' Theoretically, Tape B can be booted and loads a standalone copy of BRU into memory. This is then used to bring the baseline system and distribution files off Tape A. There were two problems with this, viz. i) Tape B would not boot. ii) The baseline systems on Tape A would not support SMDs. Thus the initial System Generation had to be done under RSX-11M (see Chapter 2). To obtain the Distribution Disk contents it was necessary to mount a scratch disk on DP1: (for example) and Tape A on the magtape and execute the following commands:- RUN $BRU BRU>/BACKUP_SET:COMMON From: MT4: To: DP1: INITIALIZE [Y/N] > Y Once that had succeeded, the disk had to be mounted and the following accounts created - [11,24], [1,54], [1,34], [125,40], [125,24], [125,34] (these are used by Sysgen Generation). Finally the software was patched for SMD support (see previous memo). The files on Tape C were identical to the RMS-11K V1.8 distribution for RSX-11M V3.2 and so the tape was scratched. Note that this procedure should not be necessary again as there is now a 32MB disk containing the whole distribution that can be run on SYSTIME SMDs. Technical Notes on RSX-11M-PLUS Page 3 CHAPTER 2 Generating an RSX-11M-PLUS System under RSX-11M Fortunately RSX-11M-PLUS and RSX-11M are sufficiently similar that the System Generation for the former can be performed while running under the latter with only two small problems:- i) .SETO and .SETD The Indirect Command File Processor on RSX-11M-PLUS has had two new (undocumented) directives, .SETO and .SETD, added. These appear to set a numeric value to be octal or decimal, in the context of a later conversion to ASCII. As long as no more than 7 units of any device are specified, the System Generation will proceed normally if the files [200,200]SGNPER.CMD, [200,200]SGNMAS.CMD and [200,200]SGNTT.CMD are edited to remove all occurrences of these directives. ii) Initial Boot The Initial Boot Code (INITL.MAC) for RSX-11M-PLUS expects the CSR of the Boot Device to be in R0 when it starts. This was not a requirement under RSX-11M and hence the code in BOO on RSX-11M does not set it up. To get around this, the RSX-11M-PLUS system should be built to include XDT (a good idea anyway) as then the initial boot will first break into XDT, and the CSR can be put in R0 by hand, as follows:- XDT>$0/ nnnnnn 176714 XDT>G (176714 is the default CSR for SYSTIME SMDs). Note that if this is not done the initial boot will fail with the message:- FATAL -- BOOT DEVICE NOT FOUND IN SYSTEM TABLES: Again, as we now have a running RSX-11M-PLUS system, this procedure should no longer be necessary. Technical Notes on RSX-11M-PLUS Page 4 CHAPTER 3 Odd Notes a) RSX-11M-PLUS development seems to have split off from RSX-11M development shortly after the release of V3.1 with the result that:- i) RSX-11M-PLUS System Generation does not support Answer Files ii) RSX-11M-PLUS is distributed with various unsupported utilities including TECO, SRD & RNO (which were left off RSX-11M V3.2 and have been re-added by SYSTIME). iii) RSX-11M-PLUS is distributed with sources for F11ACP (left off RSX-11M V3.2). There may be other hangovers that will be seen as a restriction to users familiar with RSX-11M V3.2. Of the unsupported software the only program that looks of much general use is SOS (the VAX editor) which I have transferred to RSX-11M. There are also a large number of help files on RSX-11M-PLUS which can be transferred to RSX-11M with only minor changes. I also hope to investigate the possibility of copying over the F11ACP and FCS sources and modifying them to RSX-11M (these could be of much use to users such as Siemens). In case I do not manage to complete this the procedure I have in mind is:- Assemble the RSX-11M-PLUS module Compare it (with VCO) to the RSX-11M module If they are the same, then copy source over direct Else dis-assemble the RSX-11M module and compare with the RSX-11M-PLUS source Given the closeness of RSX-11M and RSX-11M-PLUS the latter step should not be too complicated. I had hoped to transfer DCL to RSX-11M, but unfortunately (and rather surprisingly) the sources are not distributed and, as written, it requires special RSX-11M-PLUS features. b) Running on RSX-11M-PLUS is remarkably similar to RSX-11M (assuming you are using MCR as the Command Line Interpreter) but there is one minor difference that can easily cause confusion. All magtapes on RSX-11M-PLUS must be mounted before they are accessed, whether they are ANSI magtapes or not. Standard DOS (i.e. FLX) magtapes should be mounted with the /FOR keyword specified. c) All non-privileged RSX-11M tasks should run on RSX-11M-PLUS. Thus if RSX-11M-PLUS is sold to a customer site, it is probably worth adding all the non-privileged 'additional RSX-11M Software' (to be documented in a separate memo) to the RSX-11M-PLUS Distribution Disk.