PDP11/23 - prompt?

[Fred N. van Kempen]

On Wed, 15 Jun 2005, Philipp Hachtmann wrote:

> I am just getting a PDP11/23plus. The CPU is already at home and I have
> powered the machine up. Makes noise, turns fans, etc. If I start the
Congrats!  Noise is good!

> machine (running indicator lit) it gives me a dollar sign ('$') prompt
> which seems to accept two character until it starts a new line.
Thats the bootstrap ROM ("ROM BIOS") talking to you.  It wants
you to tell it from what device to boot.  From memory:

DL	RL01/02 disks
DK	RK05 disks
HK	RK06/07 (perhaps HM)
DX	RX01/02 diskettes

Newer ones probably also support DU (MSCP), network and various
tape controllers (TM, TS, MU) as boot devices.

Beware- afaik, only the FIRST UNIT (unit 0) is supported.

> Here a few (perhaps totally stupid - but I've never used such a toy
> before) questions:
>
> What's that?
See above.  Life! :P

> What can I do from there?
Yes.

> Is it normal?
Very.

> My machine lacks harddisk and floppy (at the moment, they have not
> arrived yet). The monitor program (@-Prompt) seems to work correctly.
Once you have the disk stuff connected, try one of the above.

--f