PDP11/23+ goes on

[Ethan Dicks]

On 6/18/05, Philipp Hachtmann <hachti at hachti.de> wrote:
> Tried the crashed disk pack, crashed again immediately.

I did say not to mount a pack that had crashed... that's completely expected.

> I would be glad if that is a message read from the disk partitions (like
> the bootsector message on non-system disks in my pc).

Yes.  It's a non-system boot block.
 
> What is the "modern way" to get software into the PDP11?
> Is there anything like a RIM or BIN loader?
> Has anybody a convenient solution - or do I have to start from scratch
> writing my own tools?

There are several techniques... if you are trying to load, say, 2BSD,
there's vtserver.  If you are trying to run an RT-11 system, you can
hook up a PC to a serial port _other than the console_ and fire up a
TU58 emulator on the PC and boot _that_ on the PDP-11 (DD).

As others have suggested, the one that's low-effort is to
locate/buy/etc/ a Qbus MSCP controller - $200 to $250 might do it, and
use something like a ZIP drive.  You could load it up on a PC, then
stick it on the PDP-11 and boot DU and there you are.

Most PDP-11 operating systems you'll probably want to play with were
not loaded from paper tape like the PDP-8 was in the 1960s - I know
you can build OS/8 from paper tape.  I doubt it was ever done with
RT-11.  Most folks by that era had some sort of mass storage.  On the
low end, that was TU58 or RX01.  If you had a few grand, you could
move up to an RK05 or RL01 (2MB-5MB).  When I got into PDP-8s and
PDP-11s, c. 1982-1984, the RL02 cost more than my car, so I had to
content myself with lower-capacity devices.

Dunno what's up with your Emulex controller.  Never had one.  It's
possible that whatever software was on there once has been corrupted. 
It should take seconds to boot (or nearly instantaneously to see the
first messages).  If I had a system device that sat and blinked lights
for 10 minutes, I'd be looking for a way to mount it on a known good
system as a data disk and start poking around.

-ethan