From edgee at cyberpass.net  Thu Apr  2 12:15:20 1998
From: edgee at cyberpass.net (Ed G.)
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 22:15:20 -0400
Subject: SCO Licenses-where are they?
Message-ID: <199804020315.WAA25507@renoir.op.net>

Has anyone gotten their "Antique Source Code License" yet?

I sent in my signed contract to the SCO 3/11/98, but I haven't heard
a thing.

Ed

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Thu Apr  2 14:14:09 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 14:14:09 +1000 (EST)
Subject: SCO Licenses-where are they?
In-Reply-To: <199804020315.WAA25507@renoir.op.net> from "Ed G." at "Apr 1, 98 10:15:20 pm"
Message-ID: <199804020414.OAA11901@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Ed G.:
> Has anyone gotten their "Antique Source Code License" yet?
> I sent in my signed contract to the SCO 3/11/98, but I haven't heard
> a thing.
> Ed

This is the word from Dion, as at 1st April:

	Well, we have 12 licenses accumulated here and I haven't got any
	"system" set up to deal with these.  I will probably just send
	you a list of the peoples' names and addresses by postal mail.
	Hope that's not too primitive.

I asked if he could send me the list via PGP email, but he countered
that they were all on paper, and he didn't have the time to send me the
list. However, he did say:

	I will just drop them into a DHL or similar express shipment
	thing.  Hopefully in a day or two.

Now, I'm not sure if this means:

	+ he will ship the licenses in a day or two,
	+ he will ship me the list in a day or two,
	+ it will only take a day or two for the list to reach me.

However, the worst-case scenario is that the licenses will be posted
in a day or two, and they should reach you quickly after that.

I checked my bank account, and SCO removed $100 on the 24th March.
I take this to indicate that I am now licensed. I don't know if this
is of much help, though.

I am waiting in anticipation, as we all are.

BTW First person to announce their license in the mailing list wins.
Wins what, I haven't a clue ;-)

	Warren

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Thu Apr  2 15:36:04 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 15:36:04 +1000 (EST)
Subject: Early DEC support for UNIX?
Message-ID: <199804020536.PAA12273@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

I was just browsing for web pages related to PDP-11s and UNIX, and I found:

	http://idefix-45.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/museum/pdp/unix-E.html

which has a most interesting paragraph at the bottom:

	Officially Digital Equipment did not support Unix. With the
	maintenance technicians we made the agreement that the hardware was
	OK, when their test programs did not produce error messages.

	At the end of 1983 we found out that within Digital there was a
	very small group which distributed Unix V7 with support and drivers
	for all PDP 11 models and devices. Sources were distributed freely to
	all source licensees of Bell labs. From then on we have used that
	distribution. 

Does anybody know what `distribution from within Digital' is being
referred to here, and how I can get my hands on it, for the archive.
Is this an early Ultrix?

I've mailed the maintainer of the web page in question for more information.

	Warren

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From johnh at psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au  Thu Apr  2 17:04:51 1998
From: johnh at psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au (John Holden)
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 17:04:51 +1000
Subject: Early DEC support for UNIX?
Message-ID: <199804020704.RAA25088@psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au>


> Does anybody know what `distribution from within Digital' is being
> referred to here, and how I can get my hands on it, for the archive.
> Is this an early Ultrix?


	I have an Edition 7 distribution from DEC. The work was largely
done by Fred Canter, along with Jerry Brenner and Armando Stettner. It
had prebuilt kernels as follows :-

	CPU	Disk	Tape
	11/23	RL02	TU10
	11/34	RK06	TE10
	11/40	RK07	TU16
	11/60	RM02	TE16
	11/44	RM03	TS11
	11/45	RP03	
	11/70	RP04
		RP05
		RP06

	I have a 1600bpi tape, but haven't tried to read it lately.


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From allisonp at world.std.com  Fri Apr  3 00:54:01 1998
From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 09:54:01 -0500
Subject: Early DEC support for UNIX?
Message-ID: <199804021454.AA19193@world.std.com>


<> Does anybody know what `distribution from within Digital' is being
<> referred to here, and how I can get my hands on it, for the archive.
<> Is this an early Ultrix?
<
<
<	I have an Edition 7 distribution from DEC. The work was largely
<done by Fred Canter, along with Jerry Brenner and Armando Stettner. It
<had prebuilt kernels as follows :-

So happens I have a tk50 tape labeled ULRIX-11 X3.1 27-jul-87.

Never looked at it as its apparently a tarball and all my systems with
tk50 to date are rt-11/rsts or VMS.  I keep meaning to look at it with
the VAX ULTRIX4.2 VS2000.

Allison


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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Fri Apr  3 08:41:49 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 08:41:49 +1000 (EST)
Subject: Ultrix for PDP-11
Message-ID: <199804022241.IAA12757@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

Briefly, Jean tells me the stuff I saw on his web page (early DEC support)
is called UNIX V7M RELEASE 2.1. There's a copy of _a_ V7M in the archive, but
I've asked Jean to look at his tape so we can compare contents.

John Holden, as you saw, also has a tape with lots of pre-built kernels.
I've asked John if we can get a copy of this tape too.

A few people mentioned Ultrix for the PDP-11. This is probably a dumb
question, but I assume DEC still owns these systems. Would it be possible
(and/or worth it) to ask DEC to make it freely available to licensees?

I guess we could ask Bob Supnik about it.

Thanks again,
	Warren

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Fri Apr  3 09:59:47 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 09:59:47 +1000 (EST)
Subject: Ultrix: reply from Bob Supnik
Message-ID: <199804022359.JAA12908@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

All,
	I've just received this reply from Bob Supnik on PDP-11 Ultrix: 


> If you can clear the other license issues (SCO's) Digital would have no
> problem giving a free license to its value add, whatever that was.
>
> That is, if the user can obtain a valid license from SCO, either binary
> or source, Digital will agree to license its portion at no cost under
> existing terms.

I asked him if DEC would permit us to distribute Ultrix to LICENSEES ONLY,
if some license agreement was also distributed. Awaiting a reply....

	Warren

P.S Ken, Allison, can you send in some tape images??? Thanks 8-)

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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Fri Apr  3 10:00:40 1998
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 16:00:40 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
In-Reply-To: <199803280050.LAA05410@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> from "Warren Toomey" at Mar 28, 98 11:50:54 am
Message-ID: <9804030000.AA00122@alph02.triumf.ca>

> I suspect the FP emulation in Bob's Emulator, so it might be worth
> watching the floating point values in the program. Bob mailed me during
> the week, and I sent him a virgin binary of factor so he could verify that
> there is a bug.

More evidence of a bug is that 'vi' doesn't work right under Bob
Supnik's emulator, either.  At one point Steven Schultz made some
private speculations to me about where the problem might be, but
I've forgotten the details.  Is it possible that these two bugs
are both due to FP emulation?  Does the 2.11BSD 'vi' even use
the FP registers?

Tim. (shoppa at triumf.ca)

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Fri Apr  3 10:16:15 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 10:16:15 +1000 (EST)
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
In-Reply-To: <9804030000.AA00122@alph02.triumf.ca> from Tim Shoppa at "Apr 2, 98 04:00:40 pm"
Message-ID: <199804030016.KAA12956@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Tim Shoppa:
> > I suspect the FP emulation in Bob's Emulator [breaking factor(6)]
> More evidence of a bug is that 'vi' doesn't work right under Bob
> Supnik's emulator, either.  At one point Steven Schultz made some
> private speculations to me about where the problem might be, but
> I've forgotten the details.  Is it possible that these two bugs
> are both due to FP emulation?  Does the 2.11BSD 'vi' even use
> the FP registers?

Don't know about vi FP, I could go have a look at the source. No, vi
doesn't appear to use any floating point.

I asked Bob about the factor(6) bug in my Ultrix mail, he didn't mention
it, but he might at some stage. I'll keep people informed.

As for vi, what was the abnormal behaviour?

	Warren

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From sms at moe.2bsd.com  Fri Apr  3 10:50:26 1998
From: sms at moe.2bsd.com (Steven M. Schultz)
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 16:50:26 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator?
Message-ID: <199804030050.QAA07798@moe.2bsd.com>

> Tim. (shoppa at triumf.ca)

> More evidence of a bug is that 'vi' doesn't work right under Bob
> Supnik's emulator, either.  At one point Steven Schultz made some
> private speculations to me about where the problem might be, but
> I've forgotten the details.  Is it possible that these two bugs
> are both due to FP emulation?  Does the 2.11BSD 'vi' even use
> the FP registers?

	To the best of my knowledge 'vi' does NOT use any FP at all (other than
	the usual 32 bit arithmetic that all programs do if they do any 'long'
	arithmetic).

	My speculation is that there's a MMU emulation bug somewhere.  'vi' is
	a overlaid split I/D program.  Overlays in 2.11BSD are done via
	'page flipping' (altering MMU registers).  Also 2.11 uses the 'expand
	downward' bit on the stack (as well as relying on MMR3 - i think that's
	the one - for instruction restart after growing the stack).  If there's
	a subtle gotcha in the MMU emulation that will cause problems 
	eventually.  2.11 is not alone in using the ED bit and instruction
	restart - if the problem is MMU related it could show up under other
	systems (V7).   It would be interesting to know if 'vi' encountered
	problems on V7 but V7 doesn't have usermode overlays so getting 'vi'
	to run would be very problematic.

	Steven


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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Fri Apr  3 11:00:34 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 11:00:34 +1000 (EST)
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator?
In-Reply-To: <199804030050.QAA07798@moe.2bsd.com> from "Steven M. Schultz" at "Apr 2, 98 04:50:26 pm"
Message-ID: <199804030100.LAA13088@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Steven M. Schultz:
[re bugs in Bob Sunik's PDP emulator]

> 	My speculation is that there's a MMU emulation bug somewhere.  'vi' is
> 	a overlaid split I/D program.  Overlays in 2.11BSD are done via
> 	'page flipping' (altering MMU registers).  Also 2.11 uses the 'expand
> 	downward' bit on the stack (as well as relying on MMR3 - i think that's
> 	the one - for instruction restart after growing the stack).  If there's
> 	a subtle gotcha in the MMU emulation that will cause problems 
> 	eventually.  2.11 is not alone in using the ED bit and instruction
> 	restart - if the problem is MMU related it could show up under other
> 	systems (V7).   It would be interesting to know if 'vi' encountered
> 	problems on V7 but V7 doesn't have usermode overlays so getting 'vi'
> 	to run would be very problematic.
> 
> 	Steven

The 2bsd distribution in the archive comes with an early non-overlayed vi
which compiles on V7. However, I haven't got it to work correctly yet. I
suspect that the /etc/termcap entry I was using is not recognised by this
early version of termlib.

This is all irrelevant to the emulator bug, BTW.
Steven, have you mentioned your hypothesis to Bob?

	Warren

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From edgee at cyberpass.net  Fri Apr  3 12:15:08 1998
From: edgee at cyberpass.net (Ed G.)
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 22:15:08 -0400
Subject: What's magtape good for anyway?
In-Reply-To: <199803251433.AA22737@world.std.com>
Message-ID: <199804030315.WAA06617@renoir.op.net>

> Mag tape has
> several things that make it difficult, one is old (late 60s and through

In old movies, filmmakers often focused on spinning tape 
drives when they wanted to show a computer "thinking."  What is it 
about tape drives that made them such a powerful symbol for big, 
complicated computer systems?

> the 70s) drives had a difficult time starting and stopping without 
> breaking tape or resorting to complex(then standards) controllers.  This 
> lead to things like large interrecord gaps (start, speed up read, stop,
> backspace records, stop, read) due to the inerta of starting and stoping 
> the reels.  Also fixed record sizes were used to make blocks about the 
> same length so blocks and marks could be differentiated using simple 
> timers.

Was dectape an attempt to remedy some of these problems?  My 
hazy recollection was that you could treat dectape in some ways as if 
it were a disk.

> Magtape was for the longest time the only portable media, which lead to 
> the ansi/EBCDIC problems (Evryone else and IBM/HP).  It was generally 
> used for archival storage making file organized access excess overhead.  
> While often used as block oriented, many systems used it more as a stream 
> device where the high volume storage (relative to the disks of the time) 
> capability was available.

How much data can magtape hold?  If magtape was a portable media, 
does that mean that the manufacturers agreed on the width of 
the tape, the density of recording, the method of recording bits, 
etc.?

I have an old 9 track tape from a computer course I took in 1980.  
For sentimental reasons I'd love to get a copy of its contents.  Is 
this possible do you think?

> When processing was done on early system usually two or three drives were 
> involved as one of two were for reading  and the third was writing results
> usually due to memory size limitations of the time compared to the amount 
> of data.  Alot of magtapes lore is a result of historical use.

Is 'merge sort' an example of an application that required three tape 
drives?

 Ed

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From allisonp at world.std.com  Fri Apr  3 15:44:23 1998
From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 00:44:23 -0500
Subject: What's magtape good for anyway?
Message-ID: <199804030544.AA14598@world.std.com>


<Was dectape an attempt to remedy some of these problems?  My 
<hazy recollection was that you could treat dectape in some ways as if 
<it were a disk.

Dectape was an attempt to achive moderate amount of storage at low cost 
with good reliability.  It's stop, turnaround time was poor but the cost 
was very low.  It was preceeded by linktape which was very much similar.

<How much data can magtape hold?  If magtape was a portable media, 

varies with the size of the reel and the density it was recorded at.

<does that mean that the manufacturers agreed on the width of 
<the tape, the density of recording, the method of recording bits, 
<etc.?

To a point.  

<I have an old 9 track tape from a computer course I took in 1980.  
<For sentimental reasons I'd love to get a copy of its contents.  Is 
<this possible do you think?

Highly likely if you can find someone with a drive.

<Is 'merge sort' an example of an application that required three tape 
<drives?

Thats a typical one.  Sometimes 4 drives were used plus maybe a disk
system.  Two for source material, one for intermediate results, one or
more for programs and the last for final results.  Some machines were
very limited in the local memory they had so programs often were broken 
into small modules and loaded (chained) as needed on the fly.  Imagine
processing 500k of data in a 16k memory where a portion was also used 
for program code.

Allison


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From grog at lemis.com  Fri Apr  3 16:41:11 1998
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg Lehey)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 15:41:11 +0900
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
In-Reply-To: <9804030000.AA00122@alph02.triumf.ca>; from Tim Shoppa on Thu, Apr 02, 1998 at 04:00:40PM -0800
References: <199803280050.LAA05410@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> <9804030000.AA00122@alph02.triumf.ca>
Message-ID: <19980403154111.63328@papillon.lemis.com>

On Thu,  2 April 1998 at 16:00:40 -0800, Tim Shoppa wrote:
>> I suspect the FP emulation in Bob's Emulator, so it might be worth
>> watching the floating point values in the program. Bob mailed me during
>> the week, and I sent him a virgin binary of factor so he could verify that
>> there is a bug.
>
> More evidence of a bug is that 'vi' doesn't work right under Bob
> Supnik's emulator, either.  At one point Steven Schultz made some
> private speculations to me about where the problem might be, but
> I've forgotten the details.  Is it possible that these two bugs
> are both due to FP emulation?  Does the 2.11BSD 'vi' even use
> the FP registers?

FWIW, I've used the latest (and not yet committed) version of the
Begemot emulator to run 2.11BSD for over a week.  In that time, I
applied multiple patches to the system.  I did have some as yet
unexplained problems with the assembler, which Steven Schultz
considers to be due to the emulator (more specifically, instruction
restart), but Hartmut Brandt (the principal author) thinks this is
unlikely.  vi works as well as vi ever works.

Greg

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From sms at moe.2bsd.com  Fri Apr  3 17:50:23 1998
From: sms at moe.2bsd.com (Steven M. Schultz)
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 23:50:23 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
Message-ID: <199804030750.XAA10664@moe.2bsd.com>

Greg -

> FWIW, I've used the latest (and not yet committed) version of the
> Begemot emulator to run 2.11BSD for over a week.  In that time, I

	AH, a new and improved version?  Great!  SOmething to look forward to.

> unexplained problems with the assembler, which Steven Schultz
> considers to be due to the emulator (more specifically, instruction
> restart), but Hartmut Brandt (the principal author) thinks this is unlikely.

	It was a possibility - the only other thing which I've seen cause
	similar problems was bad memory/cache.  I presumed your memory
	wasn't failing ;).

	Programs suddenly dying for no apparent reason on otherwise healthy 
	"hardware" led me to suspect a problem with the emulator.  The final
	arbiter of course is a real PDP-11 :)

	I take it then that the problems went away as mysteriously as they
	arrived and that all is well with your system (no more assembler
	or kernel recompile troubles)?

	Not having any great need of an emulated PDP-11 I've not pursued
	the (suspected) bug in Bob Supnik's emulator.  Even on a PentiumPro
	an emulated 11 is slower than a real 11/73 (and a lot slower than an
	11/93 - which I should cease neglecting and stuff a SCSI card into
	some day as I did with the 11/73).

	Steven


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From grog at lemis.com  Fri Apr  3 18:26:21 1998
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg Lehey)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 17:26:21 +0900
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
In-Reply-To: <199804030750.XAA10664@moe.2bsd.com>; from Steven M. Schultz on Thu, Apr 02, 1998 at 11:50:23PM -0800
References: <199804030750.XAA10664@moe.2bsd.com>
Message-ID: <19980403172621.30485@papillon.lemis.com>

On Thu,  2 April 1998 at 23:50:23 -0800, Steven M. Schultz wrote:
> Greg -
>
>> FWIW, I've used the latest (and not yet committed) version of the
>> Begemot emulator to run 2.11BSD for over a week.  In that time, I
>
> 	AH, a new and improved version?  Great!  SOmething to look forward to.

It's the one I've been using all along.  I never used an older version.

>> unexplained problems with the assembler, which Steven Schultz
>> considers to be due to the emulator (more specifically, instruction
>> restart), but Hartmut Brandt (the principal author) thinks this is unlikely.
>
> 	It was a possibility - the only other thing which I've seen cause
> 	similar problems was bad memory/cache.  I presumed your memory
> 	wasn't failing ;).

Reasonable assumption.

> 	Programs suddenly dying for no apparent reason on otherwise healthy
> 	"hardware" led me to suspect a problem with the emulator.  The final
> 	arbiter of course is a real PDP-11 :)

Sure, that makes sense.  I did too, but I couldn't see anything obvious.

> 	I take it then that the problems went away as mysteriously as they
> 	arrived and that all is well with your system (no more assembler
> 	or kernel recompile troubles)?

Well, not quite.  I finally got back to the real work I should have
been doing, and I haven't had time to look at it again since.  But
they went into hiding when I tried to show them to Hartmut :-) I think
we still have a problem somewhere.  BTW, Hartmut had already upgraded
to PL 40? before I tried to start, so I'm still not completely
convinced that it's not something I did wrong in upgrading.

> 	Not having any great need of an emulated PDP-11 I've not pursued
> 	the (suspected) bug in Bob Supnik's emulator.  Even on a PentiumPro
> 	an emulated 11 is slower than a real 11/73 (and a lot slower than an
> 	11/93 - which I should cease neglecting and stuff a SCSI card into
> 	some day as I did with the 11/73).

Interesting.  I was running this on an AMD K6/233, which should be
slower than a PPro, and I had the impression it was faster.  Does
anybody have some benchmarks?

Greg

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From pete at dunnington.u-net.com  Fri Apr  3 22:17:19 1998
From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 12:17:19 GMT
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
In-Reply-To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
        "Re: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!" (Apr  3, 17:26)
References: <199804030750.XAA10664@moe.2bsd.com> 
	<19980403172621.30485@papillon.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <9804031317.ZM14102@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>

On Apr 3, 17:26, Greg Lehey wrote:
> On 2 April 1998 at 23:50:23 -0800, Steven M. Schultz wrote:

> > 	Not having any great need of an emulated PDP-11 I've not pursued
> > 	the (suspected) bug in Bob Supnik's emulator.  Even on a PentiumPro
> > 	an emulated 11 is slower than a real 11/73 (and a lot slower than an
> > 	11/93 - which I should cease neglecting and stuff a SCSI card into
> > 	some day as I did with the 11/73).
>
> Interesting.  I was running this on an AMD K6/233, which should be
> slower than a PPro, and I had the impression it was faster.  Does
> anybody have some benchmarks?

I don't have numbers for anything running under the emulator, but I do have
Dhrystone sources (and some figures for real PDP-11s of various sorts with
various operating systems and compilers).  If anyone wants to try it, I can
post the source.

-- 

Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Dept. of Computer Science
						University of York

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From pete at dunnington.u-net.com  Fri Apr  3 22:11:00 1998
From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 12:11:00 GMT
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
In-Reply-To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
        "Re: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!" (Apr  3, 15:41)
References: <199803280050.LAA05410@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> 
	<9804030000.AA00122@alph02.triumf.ca> 
	<19980403154111.63328@papillon.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <9804031311.ZM14096@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>

On Apr 3, 15:41, Greg Lehey wrote:
> Subject: Re: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
> On Thu,  2 April 1998 at 16:00:40 -0800, Tim Shoppa wrote:
> >> I suspect the FP emulation in Bob's Emulator, so it might be worth
> >> watching the floating point values in the program. Bob mailed me during
> >> the week, and I sent him a virgin binary of factor so he could verify that
> >> there is a bug.

I'd be very surprised if factor used FP.  My 7th Edition system's offline ATM,
so I can't check the source.

> > More evidence of a bug is that 'vi' doesn't work right under Bob
> > Supnik's emulator, either.  At one point Steven Schultz made some
> > private speculations to me about where the problem might be, but
> > I've forgotten the details.  Is it possible that these two bugs
> > are both due to FP emulation?  Does the 2.11BSD 'vi' even use
> > the FP registers?

Dunno, but I'd be surprised.

> applied multiple patches to the system.  I did have some as yet
> unexplained problems with the assembler, which Steven Schultz
> considers to be due to the emulator (more specifically, instruction
> restart), but Hartmut Brandt (the principal author) thinks this is
> unlikely.

Well, it is one of the areas that causes trouble on different flavours of
PDP-11.  Both DEC and Unix O/S's had all sorts of games being played in the
trap recovery code, according to which processor the O/S thought it was running
under.  But AFAIK, that code only gets called if an instruction is aborted,
which I wouldn't expect would happen exactly the same way every time factor was
run (but again, I'm speculating without having looked at the code).

-- 

Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Dept. of Computer Science
						University of York

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From pete at dunnington.u-net.com  Fri Apr  3 22:01:48 1998
From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 12:01:48 GMT
Subject: What's magtape good for anyway?
In-Reply-To: "Ed G." <edgee@cyberpass.net>
        "Re: What's magtape good for anyway?" (Apr  2, 22:15)
References: <199804030315.WAA06617@renoir.op.net>
Message-ID: <9804031301.ZM14090@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>

On Apr 2, 22:15, Ed G. wrote:
> Subject: Re: What's magtape good for anyway?

> Was dectape an attempt to remedy some of these problems?  My
> hazy recollection was that you could treat dectape in some ways as if
> it were a disk.

Yes, in the sense that you could perform random-access operations on it.  I
used a PDP-8 that had twin DECtape instead of disks.  It supported 4(?)
teletypes in a multi-user environment.  But DECtape was not 1/2" tape, nor did
it use reels like the ones that later became standard.

> How much data can magtape hold?  If magtape was a portable media,
> does that mean that the manufacturers agreed on the width of
> the tape, the density of recording, the method of recording bits,
> etc.?

Yes to all of those, though there are three standard recording densities
(80bpi, 1600bpi, 6250bpi) and several recording methods (NRZ, NRZI, PE, etc).
 There are different standard lengths too:  600' 1200' 2400'.

> I have an old 9 track tape from a computer course I took in 1980.
> For sentimental reasons I'd love to get a copy of its contents.  Is
> this possible do you think?

Shouldn't be hard, unless it's suffered from print-through after 18 years.
 It's probably 800bpi (NRZI) or 1600bpi (PE).  Whether you can understand the
contents depends on the format of the data, of course.


-- 

Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Dept. of Computer Science
						University of York

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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Fri Apr  3 23:50:14 1998
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 05:50:14 -0800 (PST)
Subject: What's magtape good for anyway?
In-Reply-To: <199804030315.WAA06617@renoir.op.net> from "Ed G." at Apr 2, 98 10:15:08 pm
Message-ID: <9804031350.AA00796@alph02.triumf.ca>

> > Mag tape has
> > several things that make it difficult, one is old (late 60s and through
> 
> In old movies, filmmakers often focused on spinning tape 
> drives when they wanted to show a computer "thinking."  What is it 
> about tape drives that made them such a powerful symbol for big, 
> complicated computer systems?

You have to realize that disk storage on mainframe systems in the
1960's was usually quite small.  Almost all "large-scale" processing
was from tape drive(s) to tape drive(s).  If you find a really good
reference on sorting and collating (Knuth, for example) a lot of
effort is made on doing things with as little core and disk space
as possible.  Most of these methods are still used today on really
large data sets (for example, FFT's on multi-gigabyte data sets
which are never entirely in memory.)

> > the 70s) drives had a difficult time starting and stopping without 
> > breaking tape or resorting to complex(then standards) controllers.  This 
> > lead to things like large interrecord gaps (start, speed up read, stop,
> > backspace records, stop, read) due to the inerta of starting and stoping 
> > the reels.  Also fixed record sizes were used to make blocks about the 
> > same length so blocks and marks could be differentiated using simple 
> > timers.
> 
> Was dectape an attempt to remedy some of these problems?  My 
> hazy recollection was that you could treat dectape in some ways as if 
> it were a disk.

DECtape was very much different from other tape media of the time.
You didn't treat it as a disk in just some ways, you treated it as
a disk in all ways.

At the time of DECtape, the most inexpensive removable disk media was
the RK05 DECpack, which cost about $150-$200 per platter.  DECtape was
created as a more affordable "disk-like" removable media so that
each user could carry his files around with him.

> > Magtape was for the longest time the only portable media, which lead to 
> > the ansi/EBCDIC problems (Evryone else and IBM/HP).  It was generally 
> > used for archival storage making file organized access excess overhead.  
> > While often used as block oriented, many systems used it more as a stream 
> > device where the high volume storage (relative to the disks of the time) 
> > capability was available.
> 
> How much data can magtape hold?

A 1600 bpi 2400 foot 9-track holds about 40 Megabytes if you use long
blocks.  Other more recent magtapes (i.e. DLT's) hold 40-100 Gigabytes per
reel/cartridge.  Some specialized optical tape media hold Terabytes
per reel.

>  If magtape was a portable media, 
> does that mean that the manufacturers agreed on the width of 
> the tape, the density of recording, the method of recording bits, 
> etc.?

Absolutely.  There are ANSI standards for all of the above.  Despite
what others claim, interchangability was always rather straightforward,
and the worst problems are the "concepts" not supported by some operating
systems (i.e. Unix lacks file support for anything other than a file that's
just a stream-of-bytes).

> I have an old 9 track tape from a computer course I took in 1980.  
> For sentimental reasons I'd love to get a copy of its contents.  Is 
> this possible do you think?

Absolutely.  Part of my current profession is reading 9- (and 7-) tracks
that are up to 35 years old.

> > When processing was done on early system usually two or three drives were 
> > involved as one of two were for reading  and the third was writing results
> > usually due to memory size limitations of the time compared to the amount 
> > of data.  Alot of magtapes lore is a result of historical use.

These uses aren't just historical - many of us still deal with datasets
that are Terabytes in size and which cannot be disk (or core) resident.

Tim. (shoppa at triumf.ca)

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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Fri Apr  3 23:55:06 1998
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 05:55:06 -0800 (PST)
Subject: What's magtape good for anyway?
In-Reply-To: <9804031301.ZM14090@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk> from "Pete Turnbull" at Apr 3, 98 12:01:48 pm
Message-ID: <9804031355.AA32661@alph02.triumf.ca>

> > How much data can magtape hold?  If magtape was a portable media,
> > does that mean that the manufacturers agreed on the width of
> > the tape, the density of recording, the method of recording bits,
> > etc.?
> 
> Yes to all of those, though there are three standard recording densities
> (80bpi, 1600bpi, 6250bpi) and several recording methods (NRZ, NRZI, PE, etc).

But in the 9-track world at least, 800 BPI was always NRZI, 1600 BPI
(and 3200 BPI) was always PE, and 6250 BPI was always a specific type
of GCR.  

In the 7-track world, recording was almost always NRZI.  One manufacturer
did make a 7-track PE system, but it was never a standard.

Tim.

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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Sat Apr  4 00:00:44 1998
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 06:00:44 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
In-Reply-To: <199804030750.XAA10664@moe.2bsd.com> from "Steven M. Schultz" at Apr 2, 98 11:50:23 pm
Message-ID: <9804031400.AA23631@alph02.triumf.ca>

> 	Not having any great need of an emulated PDP-11 I've not pursued
> 	the (suspected) bug in Bob Supnik's emulator.  Even on a PentiumPro
> 	an emulated 11 is slower than a real 11/73 (and a lot slower than an
> 	11/93 - which I should cease neglecting and stuff a SCSI card into
> 	some day as I did with the 11/73).

On a cow orker's 200 MHz Pentium Pro, Bob Supnik's emulator (compiled
with gcc and running under Linux) is about twice as fast as a real
11/73 for most CPU-intensive operations.  Speeds for I/O based
operations can range from incredibly faster to incredibly slower
than a real -11, of course, and a lot of the interrupt and device
priority schemes seem seriously out of whack with how a real PDP-11
works.  And speed also depends on whether the MMU
is enabled or not, too.

The same emulator running on a 7-year-old 133 MHz DEC Alpha is about
a third the speed of a real 11/73 (slow enough that a lot of 60 Hz
line-time-clock interrupts go uncounted under RT-11, for example!)

Tim.

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From pete at dunnington.u-net.com  Sat Apr  4 03:38:52 1998
From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 17:38:52 GMT
Subject: What's magtape good for anyway?
In-Reply-To: Tim Shoppa <shoppa@alph02.triumf.ca>
        "Re: What's magtape good for anyway?" (Apr  3,  5:55)
References: <9804031355.AA32661@alph02.triumf.ca>
Message-ID: <9804031838.ZM14499@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>

On Apr 3,  5:55, Tim Shoppa wrote:
> > Yes to all of those, though there are three standard recording densities
> > (80bpi, 1600bpi, 6250bpi) and several recording methods (NRZ, NRZI, PE,
etc).
>
> But in the 9-track world at least, 800 BPI was always NRZI, 1600 BPI
> (and 3200 BPI) was always PE, and 6250 BPI was always a specific type
> of GCR.

Yes, I didn't mean to imply you could have any mixture.  It's always irritated
me that I can't read 800bpi tapes on my 1600bpi drive simply because it doesn't
have the (optional) NRZI board.

-- 

Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Dept. of Computer Science
						University of York

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From sms at moe.2bsd.com  Sat Apr  4 06:28:54 1998
From: sms at moe.2bsd.com (Steven M. Schultz)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 12:28:54 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
Message-ID: <199804032028.MAA25193@moe.2bsd.com>

Tim -

> From: Tim Shoppa <shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca>
> On a cow orker's 200 MHz Pentium Pro, Bob Supnik's emulator (compiled

	He's in the "dairy business"? :-) :-)

> with gcc and running under Linux) is about twice as fast as a real
> 11/73 for most CPU-intensive operations.  Speeds for I/O based
> operations can range from incredibly faster to incredibly slower

	Ok - I finally got around to retrying Bob's emulator.  This is using
	gcc 2.8.1 under BSD/OS 3.1 with a PPro 200 and the Dhrystone 2.1 (C
	language version) program.

	Running under the emulator I get 555 dhrystones/second.  On a real
	11/73 I see 664 dhrystones/sec.

	I/O operations are faster but I suspect a some of that is
	due to Ultra-Wide Barracuda drives vs. HP 3724 and an Emulex UC08.

> than a real -11, of course, and a lot of the interrupt and device
> priority schemes seem seriously out of whack with how a real PDP-11

	The line frequency clock seems to be acting strange.    When running
	the dhrystone program I see:

Measured time too small to obtain meaningful results
Please increase number of runs

	EVEN THOUGH the (wall clock) run time for 20000 dhrystones was 36 
	seconds.

> The same emulator running on a 7-year-old 133 MHz DEC Alpha is about

	I recall when the DEC rep here brought in one of the first 150mhz
	Alpha systems.  Thought it was awesome that a machine could do a
	3 phase build of GCC in about 1 hour.  Ummm, today a PPro can do it
	in about 15 or 20 minutes ;)

	Other benchmarks of possible interest:

	A recompile of the 2.11BSD C compiler:

11/44	9min 20sec
11/73   9min 33sec
11/93   6min 43sec
emulated PDP-11 5min 25sec (BUT the 'time' reported with "time make" was 10min
			    4 sec)

	the 44 and 73 are suprisingly close because the 44 was hobbled with
	RA81s on a UDA50 while the 73 had a HP3724S on Emulex UC08.  Alas,
	the RA81 died so I no longer have a 44 to test with (until I get a RA9x
	or something myself since the support department refused to do it).

	Interesting that the emulated one is faster on this test even though
	the dhrystone rating is about 20% slower.

	Steven


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From bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se  Sat Apr  4 23:40:02 1998
From: bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1998 15:40:02 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: Sunchip package [was Assember in C?]
In-Reply-To: <199803172059.HAA01365@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.95q.980404153822.15388A-100000@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE>

> > > P.S.  As I suspected and feared,
> > 
> > 	% diff -r Trees/V7/usr/src/cmd/c Xinu/src/cmd/cc11
> > 
> > indicates the C compiler provided in all these archives (Xinu,
> > CHIP, sunCHIP) are directly derived from the V6/V7 compiler.
> 
> So is the DECUS C compiler, I hear. Is there any native C compiler
> for the PDP-11 which isn't derived from V6/V7?

Well, the obvious answer is DEC's (nowadays MENTEC's) own ANSI C
compiler, which runs under RSX and RSTS/e (not sure about RT-11
though...)

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
CS student at Uppsala University  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se       ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol


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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Sun Apr  5 05:16:02 1998
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1998 11:16:02 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Sunchip package [was Assember in C?]
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.95q.980404153822.15388A-100000@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> from "Johnny Billquist" at Apr 4, 98 03:40:02 pm
Message-ID: <9804041916.AA21693@alph02.triumf.ca>

> > So is the DECUS C compiler, I hear. Is there any native C compiler
> > for the PDP-11 which isn't derived from V6/V7?
> 
> Well, the obvious answer is DEC's (nowadays MENTEC's) own ANSI C
> compiler, which runs under RSX and RSTS/e (not sure about RT-11
> though...)

Yes, it does run under RT-11 (that's the only version I've used.)
But I've no idea of the lineage of that particular compiler - it wouldn't
surprise me to find out that it was derived from V6/V7 in some way.
(Though clearly with entirely new run-time libraries.)

As long as we're on the subject: has anyone succesfully cross-compiled
using 'gcc' on some non-11 platform to produce PDP-11 object code, which
they than succesfully ran?  While the compiler seems to work fine, I've
run into confusion when trying to use the *.h files from 2.11BSD to
do something useful.

Tim. (shoppa at triumf.ca)

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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Sun Apr  5 06:43:25 1998
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1998 12:43:25 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
In-Reply-To: <199804032028.MAA25193@moe.2bsd.com> from "Steven M. Schultz" at Apr 3, 98 12:28:54 pm
Message-ID: <9804042043.AA19446@alph02.triumf.ca>

> > with gcc and running under Linux) is about twice as fast as a real
> > 11/73 for most CPU-intensive operations.  Speeds for I/O based
> > operations can range from incredibly faster to incredibly slower
> 
> 	Ok - I finally got around to retrying Bob's emulator.  This is using
> 	gcc 2.8.1 under BSD/OS 3.1 with a PPro 200 and the Dhrystone 2.1 (C
> 	language version) program.
> 
> 	Running under the emulator I get 555 dhrystones/second.  On a real
> 	11/73 I see 664 dhrystones/sec.

I suspect that the emulator will be quite slow on any math-heavy
benchmark - and your observations confirm this.  Doesn't Bob's
emulator do the FP operations by converting everything to IEEE
and back for each and every operand?

> > than a real -11, of course, and a lot of the interrupt and device
> > priority schemes seem seriously out of whack with how a real PDP-11
> 
> 	The line frequency clock seems to be acting strange.    When running
> 	the dhrystone program I see:
> 
> Measured time too small to obtain meaningful results
> Please increase number of runs
> 
> 	EVEN THOUGH the (wall clock) run time for 20000 dhrystones was 36 
> 	seconds.

On my cow-oreker's Pentium Pro, the line-time clock under Bob's emulator
appears to work fine, but it "misses" a lot of ticks when running on
my 7-year-old Alpha.  I've never looked at the logic to figure out exactly
what is going on, but I suspect that I couldn't emulate the interrupt/
priority structure any better than Bob's already done!

> 	Other benchmarks of possible interest:
> 
> 	A recompile of the 2.11BSD C compiler:
> 
> 11/44	9min 20sec
> 11/73   9min 33sec
> 11/93   6min 43sec
> emulated PDP-11 5min 25sec

For most "real" PDP-11 emulation uses this is probably a more realistic
benchark than the Dhrystone.  I know lots of currently-being-used-and-
maintained PDP-11 applications, and none of them are heavy on FP - all
the FP-specific stuff got migrated to a faster machine the instant
the faster machine became available.  (You'd be amazed at the awful
machines that I've seen people use *just* because it did their integral
faster.  Farms of I860's and I960's were the rage a couple of years ago,
and boy was that an icky development platform.)

> (BUT the 'time' reported with "time make" was 10min
> 			    4 sec)

The line-time-clock on Bob's emulator doesn't necessarily have anything
to do with reality.  On my cow-orker's 200 MHz pentium Pro, it ticks
about twice as fast as real time, but on my Alpha it'll often not tick
at all if there's something else keeping the (emulated) CPU busy.  I
think other emulators (like John Wilson's) put more emphasis on real-time
applications and probably emulate the line-time-clock more faithfully.

> 	Interesting that the emulated one is faster on this test even though
> 	the dhrystone rating is about 20% slower.

Again, I think the C recompile is probably a better benchmark - unless
someone's specifically interested primarily in FP emulation, which I think
is likely to be the exception.

Tim. (shoppa at triumf.ca)

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Sun Apr  5 09:30:24 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Sun, 5 Apr 1998 09:30:24 +1000 (EST)
Subject: licenses mail today
In-Reply-To: <19980403095446.48700@sco.com> from Dion Johnson at "Apr 3, 98 09:54:46 am"
Message-ID: <199804042330.JAA28084@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Dion Johnson:
> I think I can get the licenses mailed today to the licensees.

Ta!

	Warren

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From grog at lemis.com  Mon Apr  6 09:45:32 1998
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg Lehey)
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 09:15:32 +0930
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
In-Reply-To: <9804031317.ZM14102@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>; from Pete Turnbull on Fri, Apr 03, 1998 at 12:17:19PM +0000
References: <199804030750.XAA10664@moe.2bsd.com> <19980403172621.30485@papillon.lemis.com> <grog@lemis.com> <9804031317.ZM14102@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <19980406091532.27504@freebie.lemis.com>

On Fri,  3 April 1998 at 12:17:19 +0000, Pete Turnbull wrote:
> On Apr 3, 17:26, Greg Lehey wrote:
>> On 2 April 1998 at 23:50:23 -0800, Steven M. Schultz wrote:
>
>>> 	Not having any great need of an emulated PDP-11 I've not pursued
>>> 	the (suspected) bug in Bob Supnik's emulator.  Even on a PentiumPro
>>> 	an emulated 11 is slower than a real 11/73 (and a lot slower than an
>>> 	11/93 - which I should cease neglecting and stuff a SCSI card into
>>> 	some day as I did with the 11/73).
>>
>> Interesting.  I was running this on an AMD K6/233, which should be
>> slower than a PPro, and I had the impression it was faster.  Does
>> anybody have some benchmarks?
>
> I don't have numbers for anything running under the emulator, but I do have
> Dhrystone sources (and some figures for real PDP-11s of various sorts with
> various operating systems and compilers).  If anyone wants to try it, I can
> post the source.

I'd be interested.

Greg

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From grog at lemis.com  Mon Apr  6 10:16:56 1998
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg Lehey)
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 09:46:56 +0930
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
In-Reply-To: <199804032028.MAA25193@moe.2bsd.com>; from Steven M. Schultz on Fri, Apr 03, 1998 at 12:28:54PM -0800
References: <199804032028.MAA25193@moe.2bsd.com>
Message-ID: <19980406094656.23449@freebie.lemis.com>

On Fri,  3 April 1998 at 12:28:54 -0800, Steven M. Schultz wrote:
> 	Ok - I finally got around to retrying Bob's emulator.  This is using
> 	gcc 2.8.1 under BSD/OS 3.1 with a PPro 200 and the Dhrystone 2.1 (C
> 	language version) program.
>
> 	Other benchmarks of possible interest:
>
> 	A recompile of the 2.11BSD C compiler:
>
> 11/44	9min 20sec
> 11/73   9min 33sec
> 11/93   6min 43sec
> emulated PDP-11 5min 25sec (BUT the 'time' reported with "time make" was 10min
> 			    4 sec)
>

I don't know which directories you compiled, but here are the results
on a K6/233 running FreeBSD 3.0 and the Begemot emulator:

/usr/src/lib/c2	            39.4 real        30.5 user         8.4 sys
/usr/src/lib/ccom	   223.6 real       186.9 user        36.2 sys
/usr/src/lib/cpp	    55.6 real        41.9 user        13.3 sys

date(1) showed times consistent with time(1).

Greg

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From pete at dunnington.u-net.com  Mon Apr  6 11:44:16 1998
From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull)
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 01:44:16 GMT
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
In-Reply-To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
        "Re: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!" (Apr  6,  9:15)
References: <199804030750.XAA10664@moe.2bsd.com> 
	<19980403172621.30485@papillon.lemis.com>  <grog@lemis.com> 
	<9804031317.ZM14102@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk> 
	<19980406091532.27504@freebie.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <9804060244.ZM28168@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>

On Apr 6,  9:15, Greg Lehey wrote:
> On Fri,  3 April 1998 at 12:17:19 +0000, Pete Turnbull wrote:
> > I don't have numbers for anything running under the emulator, but I do have
> > Dhrystone sources (and some figures for real PDP-11s of various sorts with
> > various operating systems and compilers).  If anyone wants to try it, I can
> > post the source.
>
> I'd be interested.

I don't want to clutter everyone's mailbox with a 32K file, so I've put it on

http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/dhrystone.c

and anyone who wants can grab it from there.  If there's any problem accessing
that page from that server, please do two things:
1) tell me! so I can complain, and
2) try http://www.personal.u-net.com/~dunnington/public/dhrystone.c
   or http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/ and follow the "no intel" link :-)

-- 

Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Dept. of Computer Science
						University of York

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From sms at moe.2bsd.com  Mon Apr  6 14:25:26 1998
From: sms at moe.2bsd.com (Steven M. Schultz)
Date: Sun, 5 Apr 1998 21:25:26 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
Message-ID: <199804060425.VAA11498@moe.2bsd.com>

> From: Greg Lehey <grog at lemis.com>
> I don't know which directories you compiled, but here are the results
> on a K6/233 running FreeBSD 3.0 and the Begemot emulator:
 
> /usr/src/lib/c2	            39.4 real        30.5 user         8.4 sys
> /usr/src/lib/ccom	   223.6 real       186.9 user        36.2 sys

	I just compiled the 'ccom' directory (the C compiler itself) and not
	the optimizer or preprocessor

> date(1) showed times consistent with time(1).

	Interesting!  So P11's time/clock handling is doing the right/expected
	thing.

	I'd give P11 a try but it's refusing to configure and build at the 
	moment.  Also the version (2.0) in the archive is about 4 years old 
	and only (from the looks of it) supports RL02 disks.  I've a nice 
	RP06 image built using Bob's emulator that I could "boot up"  if 
	P11 handled 'SMD' (i.e 'xp') disks.

	Steven


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From grog at lemis.com  Mon Apr  6 14:38:00 1998
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg Lehey)
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 14:08:00 +0930
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
In-Reply-To: <199804060425.VAA11498@moe.2bsd.com>; from Steven M. Schultz on Sun, Apr 05, 1998 at 09:25:26PM -0700
References: <199804060425.VAA11498@moe.2bsd.com>
Message-ID: <19980406140800.57401@freebie.lemis.com>

On Sun,  5 April 1998 at 21:25:26 -0700, Steven M. Schultz wrote:
>> From: Greg Lehey <grog at lemis.com>
>> I don't know which directories you compiled, but here are the results
>> on a K6/233 running FreeBSD 3.0 and the Begemot emulator:
>
>> /usr/src/lib/c2	            39.4 real        30.5 user         8.4 sys
>> /usr/src/lib/ccom	   223.6 real       186.9 user        36.2 sys
>
> 	I just compiled the 'ccom' directory (the C compiler itself) and not
> 	the optimizer or preprocessor

Hmm.  That's a big difference in favour of Begemot.

>> date(1) showed times consistent with time(1).
>
> 	Interesting!  So P11's time/clock handling is doing the right/expected
> 	thing.

It's not 100% accurate.  On my machine, it loses a few minutes a day.
But all the numbers add up, and it didn't lose noticably more time
during the build.

> 	I'd give P11 a try but it's refusing to configure and build at the
> 	moment.  Also the version (2.0) in the archive is about 4 years old
> 	and only (from the looks of it) supports RL02 disks.  I've a nice
> 	RP06 image built using Bob's emulator that I could "boot up"  if
> 	P11 handled 'SMD' (i.e 'xp') disks.

I'll put some stuff together.  I've exchanged some mail on the
subjecte today with Jörg Micheel, one of the authors.  Hartmut Brandt,
the other, is in Germany and thus probably sleeping.  The version I
have him includes images for 2.11BSD, which I can't give to anybody,
though I suppose we can make an exception in your case :-)  I'll see
what I can put together.

Greg


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From Bob.Supnik at digital.com  Tue Apr  7 07:25:57 1998
From: Bob.Supnik at digital.com (Bob Supnik)
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 17:25:57 -0400 
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator?
Message-ID: <6B84B1FF221BD011B0AC08002BE69206683E78@excmso.mso.dec.com>

There is indeed a bug in the floating point emulator: MODf was setting
the condition codes off the integer result, not the fractional result.

To fix the bug, look for this code fragment in source module pdp11_fp.c

case 3:							/* MODf */
	ReadFP (&fsrc, GeteaFP (dstspec, lenf), dstspec, lenf);
	F_LOAD (qdouble, FR[ac], fac);
	newV = modfp11 (&fac, &fsrc, &modfrac);
	F_STORE (qdouble, fac, FR[ac | 1]);
	F_STORE (qdouble, modfrac, FR[ac]);
==>	FPS = setfcc (FPS, fac.h, newV);
	break;

Change the indicated code line to be:

==>	FPS = setfcc (FPS, modfrac.h, newV);

and recompile.

Thanks to Warren Toomey for getting me the source to FACTOR, which
showed the bug.

(I can't believe this is the problem with vi, but who knows?  A bug in
MODf could affect the binary to decimal conversion routines in the run
time libraries.)

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From sms at moe.2bsd.com  Tue Apr  7 08:03:34 1998
From: sms at moe.2bsd.com (Steven M. Schultz)
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 15:03:34 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: modf
Message-ID: <199804062203.PAA28357@moe.2bsd.com>

Bob -

> Change the indicated code line to be:
> 
> ==>	FPS = setfcc (FPS, modfrac.h, newV);
> 
> and recompile.
> 
> Thanks to Warren Toomey for getting me the source to FACTOR, which
> showed the bug.

	The 'primes' program also uses 'modf' so it might encounter the same
	problem as FACTOR.

> (I can't believe this is the problem with vi, but who knows?  A bug in
> MODf could affect the binary to decimal conversion routines in the runtime

	'modf' is used in the runtime routines which compute 'long' (and
	unsigned long) remainders.  So if 'vi' is doing something like 
	"long % X" or "unsigned long % X" it's possible (likely) that it's 
	getting a wrong answer and becoming extremely confused.

	I'll check this later tonight.

	Steven


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From djenner at halcyon.com  Tue Apr  7 08:58:38 1998
From: djenner at halcyon.com (David C. Jenner)
Date: Mon, 06 Apr 1998 15:58:38 -0700
Subject: License AU-1 arrives!
Message-ID: <35295E1E.DD7BB731@halcyon.com>

I don't know if this is the first posting, but it sure is the first
license: AU-1!

Now, to do something with it.

Dave

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Tue Apr  7 09:56:31 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 09:56:31 +1000 (EST)
Subject: License AU-1 arrives!
In-Reply-To: <35295E1E.DD7BB731@halcyon.com> from "David C. Jenner" at "Apr 6, 98 03:58:38 pm"
Message-ID: <199804062356.JAA00432@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by David C. Jenner:
> I don't know if this is the first posting, but it sure is the first
> license: AU-1!
> 
> Now, to do something with it.
> Dave

You swine Dave, you beat us all! Congratulations. Once I hear from
Dion, you'll get access to the archive.

	Warren

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From djenner at halcyon.com  Tue Apr  7 10:05:21 1998
From: djenner at halcyon.com (David C. Jenner)
Date: Mon, 06 Apr 1998 17:05:21 -0700
Subject: License AU-1 arrives!
References: <199804062356.JAA00432@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>
Message-ID: <35296DC1.36FFDB54@halcyon.com>

Well, I agree.  I really shouldn't have been first.  Probably you,
Warren, should have been an "honorary" first, for all the effort you put
into it.

But, look at it this way.  Notice that the licenses are all "AU-#".  We
are all paying homage to "au" for bring this about.

Dave

Warren Toomey wrote:
> 
> In article by David C. Jenner:
> > I don't know if this is the first posting, but it sure is the first
> > license: AU-1!
> >
> > Now, to do something with it.
> > Dave
> 
> You swine Dave, you beat us all! Congratulations. Once I hear from
> Dion, you'll get access to the archive.
> 
>         Warren

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Tue Apr  7 10:09:43 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 10:09:43 +1000 (EST)
Subject: License AU-1 arrives!
In-Reply-To: <35296DC1.36FFDB54@halcyon.com> from "David C. Jenner" at "Apr 6, 98 05:05:21 pm"
Message-ID: <199804070009.KAA00531@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by David C. Jenner:
> Well, I agree.  I really shouldn't have been first.  Probably you,
> Warren, should have been an "honorary" first, for all the effort you put
> into it.
> 
> But, look at it this way.  Notice that the licenses are all "AU-#".  We
> are all paying homage to "au" for bring this about.
> Dave

I don't think the licensing section in San Francisco knows me from Adam.
I asked Dion if AU stood for Ancient Unix, Australia or both :-)

I'm so glad at least two people have got licenses (Charles Retter too).
It sets a legal precedent, in case SCO ever change their mind.

	Warren

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From johnh at psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au  Tue Apr  7 10:35:46 1998
From: johnh at psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au (John Holden)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 10:35:46 +1000
Subject: License AU-1 arrives!
Message-ID: <199804070035.KAA11206@psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au>


	Perhaps we should ask SCO to issue licence AU-0 to Warren, in keeping
with his work on maintaining interest in old versions of Unix and we all
know that computer programmers start counting from zero!

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From edgee at cyberpass.net  Tue Apr  7 10:42:54 1998
From: edgee at cyberpass.net (Ed G.)
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 20:42:54 -0400
Subject: Mag Tape Bug in Bob's Emulator?
Message-ID: <199804070042.UAA07206@renoir.op.net>

Is this another bug?  What do you all think?

Ed G.

sim> att tm0 emutar.tap
TM: creating new file
sim> cont

ta: not found
# tar cvf /dev/rmt0 mysqrt.c
a mysqrt.c 1 blocks
# cd tmp
# tar vxf /dev/rmt0
x mysqrt.c, 383 bytes, 1 tape blocks
x mysqrt.c, 383 bytes, 1 tape blocks
x mysqrt.c, 383 bytes, 1 tape blocks
x mysqrt.c, 383 bytes, 1 tape blocks
x mysqrt.c, 383 bytes, 1 tape blocks
x mysqrt.c, 383 bytes, 1 tape blocks
...etc. 

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From edgee at cyberpass.net  Tue Apr  7 10:42:54 1998
From: edgee at cyberpass.net (Ed G.)
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 20:42:54 -0400
Subject: Floating Point Bug in Bob's Emulator
Message-ID: <199804070042.UAA07198@renoir.op.net>

I wrote a little square root program in "C" to test the floating
point in Bob Supnik's emulator (see attached code).  The program
works fine under Linux, but bombs on Bob's emulator, confirming
people's theory that the emulator has a floating point bug. 

I used Newton's method for the algorithm and only uses add,
subtract, multiply and divide.  The emulator produced identical
incorrect results for two different versions of the program one using
floats, the other doubles.

Here's what the program does on Bob Supnik's emulator:

# cc mysqrt.c
# a.out
Initial guess: 85070586659632214000000000000000000000.0000000000000000

guess: 1.0000000000000000
guess: 85070586659632214000000000000000000000.0000000000000000
guess: 1.0000000000000000
guess: 85070586659632214000000000000000000000.0000000000000000
guess: 1.0000000000000000
guess: 85070586659632214000000000000000000000.0000000000000000
guess: 1.0000000000000000

Here's what the program does on Linux:

[root at oskar uv7]# gcc mysqrt.c 
[root at oskar uv7]# a.out
Initial guess: 1.0000000000000000

guess: 1.5000000000000000
guess: 1.4166666666666667
guess: 1.4142156862745099
guess: 1.4142135623746899

My square root is: 1.4142135623746899

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From edgee at cyberpass.net  Tue Apr  7 10:42:54 1998
From: edgee at cyberpass.net (Ed G.)
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 20:42:54 -0400
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
Message-ID: <199804070043.UAA07210@renoir.op.net>

Curious about how heavily uv7 relies on floating point?

I was.  I wrote a little program to count the occurences of op code
'17' (the prefix for all PDP-11 floating point op codes) in Unix
executables.  It would seem from my results that Unix relies rather
heavily on floating point.  

Are my results in error?

Here's what I found in the bin directory:

awk 2540
refer 1644
xsend 1326
tbl 1315
graph 1300
xget 1288
adb 1152
eqn 918
enroll 915
neqn 874
nroff 841
make 822
spline 812
yacc 789
sa 714
tar 706
lex 628
tek 618
prof 608
t300s 604
dc 601
vplot 582
iostat 579
t300 576
t450 574
em 530
bc 509
ratfor 474
quot 452
tsort 407
sh 381
expr 380
units 379
ac 365
sort 358
ps 327
restor 323
rmail 321
ptx 320
egrep 313
ls 310
ps.old 306
m4 304
random 298
su 296
tp 285
ops 282
diff 277
pr 275
sed 267
dump 261
deroff 255
icheck 251
ls.11 249
ld 246
login 240
cptree 230
passwd 227
login.old 218
cc 210
prep 205
at 203
dumpdir 197
join 196
wc 193
tc 192
nm 191
pstat 190
file 187
pr.old 186
crypt 182
date 181
grep 180
ranlib 174
fgrep 172
ncheck 159
checkeq 157
du 155
who 152
od 151
roff 149
ar 146
vpr 144
tk 141
time 139
rm 138
mv 134
newgrp 133
factor 132
write 125
primes 124
cmp 121
dfOLD 120
size 117
v6sh 116
vcopy 113
col 110
ln 106
sum 105
clri 104
tail 103
sleep 101
stty 98
touch 96
tty 91
split 90
uniq 89
rev 86
chown 84
kill 83
yes 79
tr 58
sp 57
test 53
basename 34
tee 24
echo 4
sync 2
u3b2 0

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Tue Apr  7 10:46:42 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 10:46:42 +1000 (EST)
Subject: License AU-1 arrives!
In-Reply-To: <199804070035.KAA11206@psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au> from John Holden at "Apr 7, 98 10:35:46 am"
Message-ID: <199804070046.KAA00659@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by John Holden:
> 	Perhaps we should ask SCO to issue licence AU-0 to Warren, in keeping
> with his work on maintaining interest in old versions of Unix and we all
> know that computer programmers start counting from zero!

I like that :-) and will pass it on to Dion. I think mine's in the mail
already, though. And of course I'm away for Easter, so it'll sit forlorn
in my mail box until Tuesday next week.

For those people interested in the PUP Archive, once their license arrives.
It is still changing (growing), as we get stuff. We plan to do a `freeze'
of material around the end of April, and cut a CD image then.

Anybody who wants a CD copy will get this CD image. The archive will diverge
from the CD of course, but I will be providing ftp access. We don't want to
create new images more than once or twice a year. You will need to pay the
volunteers to burn and mail you a CD.

Cheers,
	Warren

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Tue Apr  7 10:51:05 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 10:51:05 +1000 (EST)
Subject: Mag Tape Bug in Bob's Emulator?
In-Reply-To: <199804070042.UAA07206@renoir.op.net> from "Ed G." at "Apr 6, 98 08:42:54 pm"
Message-ID: <199804070051.KAA00727@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Ed G.:
> Is this another bug?  What do you all think?

Is your tape just a raw format tape, or are you using the 32-bit
preamble/postambles to indicate the record/block sizes?

Read the tail-end of simh_doc.txt for details.

	Warren

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From grog at lemis.com  Tue Apr  7 14:21:15 1998
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg Lehey)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 13:51:15 +0930
Subject: License AU-1 arrives!
In-Reply-To: <199804070046.KAA00659@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>; from Warren Toomey on Tue, Apr 07, 1998 at 10:46:42AM +1000
References: <199804070035.KAA11206@psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au> <199804070046.KAA00659@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>
Message-ID: <19980407135115.06874@freebie.lemis.com>

On Tue,  7 April 1998 at 10:46:42 +1000, Warren Toomey wrote:
> In article by John Holden:
>> 	Perhaps we should ask SCO to issue licence AU-0 to Warren, in keeping
>> with his work on maintaining interest in old versions of Unix and we all
>> know that computer programmers start counting from zero!
>
> I like that :-) and will pass it on to Dion. I think mine's in the mail
> already, though. And of course I'm away for Easter, so it'll sit forlorn
> in my mail box until Tuesday next week.
>
> For those people interested in the PUP Archive, once their license arrives.
> It is still changing (growing), as we get stuff. We plan to do a `freeze'
> of material around the end of April, and cut a CD image then.
>
> Anybody who wants a CD copy will get this CD image. The archive will diverge
> from the CD of course, but I will be providing ftp access. We don't want to
> create new images more than once or twice a year. You will need to pay the
> volunteers to burn and mail you a CD.

Anybody who gets a tape from me will get the latest version.  The same
will probably apply to CDs if I ever get round to installing a burner.

Greg

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From grog at lemis.com  Tue Apr  7 14:23:13 1998
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg Lehey)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 13:53:13 +0930
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
In-Reply-To: <199804070043.UAA07210@renoir.op.net>; from Ed G. on Mon, Apr 06, 1998 at 08:42:54PM -0400
References: <199804070043.UAA07210@renoir.op.net>
Message-ID: <19980407135313.43010@freebie.lemis.com>

On Mon,  6 April 1998 at 20:42:54 -0400, Ed G. wrote:
> Curious about how heavily uv7 relies on floating point?
>
> I was.  I wrote a little program to count the occurences of op code
> '17' (the prefix for all PDP-11 floating point op codes) in Unix
> executables.  It would seem from my results that Unix relies rather
> heavily on floating point.
>
> Are my results in error?

How did you recognize the instructions words?  Just because it's in
the text segment doesn't mean it's instructions.

Greg

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Tue Apr  7 15:51:21 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 15:51:21 +1000 (EST)
Subject: Receipt of 12 License Details
Message-ID: <199804070551.PAA01173@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

All,
	I have the list of the first 12 SCO AU license holders in front of
me. Unfortunately, I'm not one of them :-( Anyway, things are humming along.

Charles, David, Doug, Ed, James, Jennine, John, Jorgen, Ken, Matthias,
Paul P, Paul V, Steven

Cheers,
	Warren

P.S Matthias has the most interesting number, AU-3B	 8-)


From m at mbsks.franken.de  Tue Apr  7 18:43:01 1998
From: m at mbsks.franken.de (Matthias Bruestle)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 10:43:01 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: Receipt of 12 License Details
In-Reply-To: <199804070551.PAA01173@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> from Warren Toomey at "Apr 7, 98 03:51:21 pm"
Message-ID: <m0yMTy9-000HqDC@mbsks.franken.de>

Mahlzeit


According to Warren Toomey:
> 	I have the list of the first 12 SCO AU license holders in front of
> me. Unfortunately, I'm not one of them :-( Anyway, things are humming along.
Then you still have the chance to get AU-0. :)

> P.S Matthias has the most interesting number, AU-3B	 8-)
Because of the AT&T Unix computers?


Mahlzeit

endergone Zwiebeltuete

-- 
insanity inside

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From djenner at halcyon.com  Wed Apr  8 00:29:55 1998
From: djenner at halcyon.com (David C. Jenner)
Date: Tue, 07 Apr 1998 07:29:55 -0700
Subject: Receipt of 12 License Details
References: <199804070551.PAA01173@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>
Message-ID: <352A3863.279915CF@halcyon.com>

Hey, maybe you can be AU-0 after all.  That's an excellent idea!
Dave

Warren Toomey wrote:
> 
> All,
>         I have the list of the first 12 SCO AU license holders in front of
> me. Unfortunately, I'm not one of them :-( Anyway, things are humming along.
> 
> Charles, David, Doug, Ed, James, Jennine, John, Jorgen, Ken, Matthias,
> Paul P, Paul V, Steven
> 
> Cheers,
>         Warren
> 
> P.S Matthias has the most interesting number, AU-3B      8-)

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From neil at skatter.usask.ca  Wed Apr  8 01:12:14 1998
From: neil at skatter.usask.ca (Neil Johnson)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 09:12:14 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Receipt of 12 License Details
Message-ID: <199804071512.JAA18391@hydrus.USask.Ca>

I'm actually a bit happy to see I'm not on the list. I was
a little disappointed that only 12 people had applied given
the number of signatures on the petition.

Neil

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Wed Apr  8 08:07:19 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 08:07:19 +1000 (EST)
Subject: Receipt of 12 License Details
In-Reply-To: <199804071512.JAA18391@hydrus.USask.Ca> from Neil Johnson at "Apr 7, 98 09:12:14 am"
Message-ID: <199804072207.IAA02178@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Neil Johnson:
> I'm actually a bit happy to see I'm not on the list. I was
> a little disappointed that only 12 people had applied given
> the number of signatures on the petition.
> Neil

Afert sleeping on it, and inspecting the bundle of 12 from Dion yesterday,
I see the AU-12 license is dated 16th March. Now I know SCO took their
license fee from my account on the 24th of March. Therefore I suspect that
licensing haven't passed the paperwork on to Dion, for those licenses
processed after the 16th March.

This probably indicates that there are more licenses still in the works.
I should get some mail from Dion today, and I'll pass on anything relevant.

	Warren

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Wed Apr  8 08:33:46 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 08:33:46 +1000 (EST)
Subject: More licenses in the works
In-Reply-To: <19980407152602.02045@sco.com> from Dion Johnson at "Apr 7, 98 03:26:02 pm"
Message-ID: <199804072233.IAA02379@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Dion Johnson:
> I just received 12 more licenses signed by the NJ legal folks.
> But yours was not in this batch.
> I will get these copied and off to you tomorrow (I think).

Thanks Dion, I know you're working hard there. It looks like legal are
the bottleneck.

	Warren

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From edgee at cyberpass.net  Wed Apr  8 13:25:33 1998
From: edgee at cyberpass.net (Ed G.)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 23:25:33 -0400
Subject: Mag Tape Bug in Bob's Emulator?
In-Reply-To: <199804070255.MAA00874@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>
References: <199804070248.WAA14210@renoir.op.net> from "Ed G." at "Apr 6, 98 10:48:17 pm"
Message-ID: <199804080325.XAA26771@renoir.op.net>

> Yeah, I haven't used the tape stuff much, mainly because of the muck
> around building the pre/postambles per record.

I've got perl scripts that do this.  I'd be happy to donate them to 
the archive if you're interested.

> An alternate solution is to mount the tape image as a disk, e.g RK1
> 
> Then tar vxf /dev/rrk1	:-)

Yes, this works well for getting info into the emulator.  

However, I was not able to use this method to get info out of the 
emulator.  In particular when I first got the emulator I wanted to 
examine all the files on the rl0 disk using the much nicer work 
environment provided by Linux.  Having tar write to rl1 fails 
around the 1.4 Meg mark (anyone know why?), whereas I was able to 
dump the entire contents of the rl disk to a simtape with no problem.

Here's what happened when I tried to dump the entire rl0 disk:

Ed

sim> att rl1 junk.dsk
RL: creating new file
sim> cont

# pwd
/
# tar cvf /dev/rrl1 *
tar:    p: cannot open file
a bin/ac 20 blocks
a bin/ar 20 blocks
a bin/arcv 8 blocks
a bin/at 17 blocks
a bin/basename 4 blocks
a bin/login.old 18 blocks
a bin/cat 8 blocks
a bin/cb 11 blocks
a bin/cc 13 blocks
a bin/checkeq 9 blocks
a bin/chgrp 10 blocks
a bin/chmod 7 blocks
a bin/chown 10 blocks
a bin/clri 7 blocks
a bin/cmp 9 blocks
a bin/col 10 blocks
a bin/comm 10 blocks
a bin/cp 7 blocks
a bin/crypt 10 blocks
a bin/cu 14 blocks
a bin/date 12 blocks
a bin/dcheck 9 blocks
a bin/dd 14 blocks
a bin/deroff 18 blocks
a bin/df 7 blocks
a bin/diff 19 blocks
a bin/du 8 blocks
a bin/dump 17 blocks
a bin/dumpdir 16 blocks
a bin/echo 1 blocks
a bin/ed 22 blocks
a bin/egrep 18 blocks
a bin/expr 17 blocks
a bin/fgrep 11 blocks
a bin/file 13 blocks
a bin/find 22 blocks
a bin/graph 30 blocks
a bin/grep 12 blocks
a bin/icheck 14 blocks
a bin/iostat 22 blocks
a bin/join 12 blocks
a bin/kill 7 blocks
a bin/ld 22 blocks
a bin/ln 8 blocks
a bin/login 19 blocks
a bin/look 10 blocks
a bin/ls 20 blocks
a bin/mail 26 blocks
a bin/mesg 7 blocks
a bin/mkdir 8 blocks
a bin/mv 13 blocks
a bin/ncheck 10 blocks
a bin/newgrp 16 blocks
a bin/nice 9 blocks
a bin/nm 12 blocks
a bin/od 12 blocks
a bin/ps 19 blocks
a bin/passwd 17 blocks
a bin/pr 22 blocks
a bin/prof 22 blocks
a bin/v6sh 11 blocks
a bin/pstat 16 blocks
a bin/ptx 16 blocks
a bin/pwd 7 blocks
a bin/quot 19 blocks
a bin/random 13 blocks
a bin/ranlib 12 blocks
a bin/restor 24 blocks
a bin/rev 7 blocks
a bin/rm 10 blocks
a bin/rmdir 8 blocks
a bin/sa 23 blocks
a bin/size 8 blocks
a bin/sleep 6 blocks
a bin/sort 19 blocks
a bin/sp 5 blocks
a bin/spline 18 blocks
a bin/split 8 blocks
a bin/strip 8 blocks
a bin/stty 11 blocks
a bin/su 22 blocks
a bin/sum 8 blocks
a bin/sync 1 blocks
a bin/tail 4 blocks
a bin/tc 17 blocks
a bin/tee 3 blocks
a bin/test 6 blocks
a bin/time 11 blocks
a bin/tk 11 blocks
a bin/touch 6 blocks
a bin/tr 6 blocks
a bin/tsort 16 blocks
a bin/tty 6 blocks
a bin/uniq 9 blocks
a bin/units 19 blocks
a bin/vpr 16 blocks
a bin/wc 12 blocks
a bin/who 13 blocks
a bin/write 11 blocks
a bin/yes 5 blocks
a bin/1 1 blocks
a bin/calendar 1 blocks
a bin/diff3 1 blocks
a bin/false 1 blocks
a bin/lookbib 1 blocks
a bin/lorder 1 blocks
a bin/man 2 blocks
a bin/nohup 1 blocks
a bin/plot 1 blocks
a bin/spell 2 blocks
a bin/true 0 blocks
a bin/lint 1 blocks
a bin/notavail link to bin/lint
a bin/pcc link to bin/lint
a bin/struct link to bin/lint
a bin/adb 54 blocks
a bin/awk 89 blocks
a bin/bc 26 blocks
a bin/cptree 16 blocks
a bin/poke6 19 blocks
a bin/dc 45 blocks
a bin/em 36 blocks
a bin/enroll 31 blocks
a bin/eqn 56 blocks
a bin/m4 27 blocks
a bin/make 40 blocks
a bin/neqn 51 blocks
a bin/nroff 75 blocks
a bin/prep 14 blocks
a bin/ratfor 27 blocks
a bin/roff 17 blocks
a bin/sed 26 blocks
a bin/sh 34 blocks
a bin/tar 35 blocks
a bin/tbl 60 blocks
a bin/tp 20 blocks
a bin/xget 41 blocks
a bin/xsend 42 blocks
a bin/factor 6 blocks
a bin/primes 6 blocks
a bin/yacc 48 blocks
a bin/lex 57 blocks
a bin/tek 21 blocks
a bin/t300 20 blocks
a bin/t300s 20 blocks
a bin/t450 20 blocks
a bin/vplot 22 blocks
a bin/refer 58 blocks
a bin/as 11 blocks
a bin/ops 16 blocks
a bin/f77 link to bin/lint
a bin/vcopy 8 blocks
a bin/learn 1 blocks
a bin/notmade link to bin/learn
a bin/troff link to bin/learn
a bin/dfOLD 7 blocks
a bin/ls.11 16 blocks
a bin/.profile 1 blocks
a bin/ps.old 18 blocks
a bin/rmail link to bin/mail
a bin/m68k link to bin/false
a bin/u3b2 link to bin/false
a bin/pr.old 16 blocks
a boot 19 blocks
a dev/makefile 6 blocks
tar: dev/console is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/tty is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/mem is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/kmem is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/null is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/mt0 is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/ttya is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/swap is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/ttye is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/nmt0: cannot open file
tar: dev/tty2 is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/tty3 is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/rmt0: cannot open file
tar: dev/tty4 is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/nrmt0: cannot open file
tar: dev/rl0 is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/rl1 is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/rrl0 is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/rrl1 is not a file. Not dumped
tar: etc: cannot open file
tar: global: cannot open file
tar: global.c: cannot open file
tar: global.s: cannot open file
tar: hello: cannot open file
tar: hello.c: cannot open file
tar: hello.s: cannot open file
tar: lib: cannot open file
tar: lost+found: cannot open file
tar: mnt: cannot open file
tar: mysqrt.c: cannot open file
tar: mysqrt.s: cannot open file
tar: normps: cannot open file
tar: nothing: cannot open file
tar: nothing.c: cannot open file
tar: nothing.s: cannot open file
tar: rkunix: cannot open file
tar: rl1unix: cannot open file
tar: stand: cannot open file
tar: tmp: cannot open file
tar: u1: cannot open file
tar: unix: cannot open file
tar: usr: cannot open file
# 


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From edgee at cyberpass.net  Wed Apr  8 13:25:33 1998
From: edgee at cyberpass.net (Ed G.)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 23:25:33 -0400
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
In-Reply-To: <19980407135313.43010@freebie.lemis.com>
References: <199804070043.UAA07210@renoir.op.net>; from Ed G. on Mon, Apr 06, 1998 at 08:42:54PM -0400
Message-ID: <199804080325.XAA26777@renoir.op.net>

> How did you recognize the instructions words?  Just because it's in
> the text segment doesn't mean it's instructions.

Yes, this occurred to me too.  My perl script doesn't do any fancy
decoding; it just looks for words beginning with octal 17.  After 
some thought I came to the conclusion that the percentage of data 
words miscounted as floating pt. ops (FPOs) is negligible.

Here's my reasoning--tell me what you think:

It seemed to me that the two potential sources of fake FPOs are 
addresses and data words.  Have I left anything out?

I don't believe that addresses are a problem because the programs
would have to be at least 170000 octal (61441 decimal) bytes long to
generate these addresses at compile time.  In fact, the largest 
program in the bin directory is awk at 45,260 bytes.  cc is only 6510 
bytes (those guys at bell labs really knew how to pack it in!)

That leaves data.  What percent of the data words do you think begin 
with 17 octal?

Here's my "guestimate":  17 octal is a 6 bit binary number. 
Assuming the probability of any bit being one is .5, the probability
of finding a word whose first six bits are one would be 1/2^6 or 1
in 64 which is 1 in 128 bytes.  

I examined the run time image of factor.  It was 3072 bytes long, of 
which 222 bytes or less than 10% appeared to be global data.  
Counting immediate operands, I think it is reasonable to assume a 
10-1 code to data ratio.

That would mean for factor that 2 of the 132 FPOs would be bogus
(111* 1/64 = 2 approx).  

Most programs are bigger than factor, however.  cptree and ops are 
close to the average size (around 7800 bytes) for an executable in 
the bin directory.  So for the average program you might expect to 
see 7800*.1*1/128 = 6 bogus FPOs.

"there are lies, damn lies and statistics"--Mark Twain (I think)

Ed G. 

List of floating point ops by program:

awk 2540
refer 1644
xsend 1326
tbl 1315
graph 1300
xget 1288
adb 1152
eqn 918
enroll 915
neqn 874
nroff 841
make 822
spline 812
yacc 789
sa 714
tar 706
lex 628
tek 618
prof 608
t300s 604
dc 601
vplot 582
iostat 579
t300 576
t450 574
em 530
bc 509
ratfor 474
quot 452
tsort 407
sh 381
expr 380
units 379
ac 365
sort 358
ps 327
restor 323
rmail 321
ed 321
mail 321
ptx 320
egrep 313
ls 310
ps.old 306
m4 304
random 298
su 296
tp 285
ops 282
cu 282
diff 277
pr 275
poke6 275
sed 267
find 267
dump 261
deroff 255
icheck 251
ls.11 249
ld 246
login 240
cptree 230
passwd 227
login.old 218
cc 210
prep 205
at 203
dumpdir 197
join 196
wc 193
tc 192
nm 191
pstat 190
file 187
pr.old 186
crypt 182
date 181
grep 180
ranlib 174
fgrep 172
ncheck 159
checkeq 157
du 155
who 152
as 152
od 151
look 149
roff 149
ar 146
vpr 144
dd 141
tk 141
time 139
rm 138
cb 134
mv 134
comm 133
newgrp 133
dcheck 132
factor 132
rmdir 125
write 125
primes 124
cmp 121
dfOLD 120
df 120
size 117
v6sh 116
vcopy 113
nice 113
col 110
ln 106
sum 105
clri 104
cat 103
tail 103
sleep 101
stty 98
mkdir 98
mesg 96
cp 96
touch 96
strip 96
tty 91
chmod 90
split 90
uniq 89
pwd 86
rev 86
chown 84
chgrp 84
kill 83
arcv 83
yes 79
tr 58
sp 57
test 53
basename 34
tee 24
echo 4
sync 2
finddouble.pl 0
u3b2 0
1 0
f77 0
lint 0
finddouble.pl~ 0
true 0
spell 0
troff 0
notmade 0
nohup 0
diff3 0
learn 0
notavail 0
findfp.pl~ 0
lookbib 0
pcc 0
man 0
plot 0
m68k 0
false 0
findfp.pl 0
struct 0
lorder 0
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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Wed Apr  8 13:33:29 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 13:33:29 +1000 (EST)
Subject: Getting Files In/Out of PDP-11 Simulators
In-Reply-To: <199804080325.XAA26771@renoir.op.net> from "Ed G." at "Apr 7, 98 11:25:33 pm"
Message-ID: <199804080333.NAA03044@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Ed G.:

	[getting files in/out of PDP-11 simulators]
> > An alternate solution is to mount the tape image as a disk, e.g RK1
> > Then tar vxf /dev/rrk1	:-)
> 
> Yes, this works well for getting info into the emulator.  
> 
> However, I was not able to use this method to get info out of the 
> emulator.  In particular when I first got the emulator I wanted to 
> examine all the files on the rl0 disk using the much nicer work 
> environment provided by Linux.  Having tar write to rl1 fails 
> around the 1.4 Meg mark (anyone know why?), whereas I was able to 
> dump the entire contents of the rl disk to a simtape with no problem.

Some simulators open a truncated file, and then die once it gets to a
certain size. A solution here is to cp an existing big file over to the
desired disk image. It will, of course, be overwritten as you tar out
to the disk image.

Specific problems are touched on below:
 
> Here's what happened when I tried to dump the entire rl0 disk:
> tar: dev/console is not a file. Not dumped

V7 tar cannot dump device files.

> tar: etc: cannot open file

Probably your disk image has been corrupted. Use /etc/fsck if it
exists, otherwise icheck, ncheck and dcheck. For instance, the Supnik
RL02 image has got a small, recoverable problem. The Supnik V7 RK05 image
seems to be completely stuffed, and fsck gives up on it.

I do have new images for these, and I should pass them on to Bob.

	Warren

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From grog at lemis.com  Wed Apr  8 14:03:57 1998
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg Lehey)
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 13:33:57 +0930
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
In-Reply-To: <199804080325.XAA26777@renoir.op.net>; from Ed G. on Tue, Apr 07, 1998 at 11:25:33PM -0400
References: <199804070043.UAA07210@renoir.op.net>; <19980407135313.43010@freebie.lemis.com> <199804080325.XAA26777@renoir.op.net>
Message-ID: <19980408133357.40721@freebie.lemis.com>

On Tue,  7 April 1998 at 23:25:33 -0400, Ed G. wrote:
>> How did you recognize the instructions words?  Just because it's in
>> the text segment doesn't mean it's instructions.
>
> Yes, this occurred to me too.  My perl script doesn't do any fancy
> decoding; it just looks for words beginning with octal 17.  After
> some thought I came to the conclusion that the percentage of data
> words miscounted as floating pt. ops (FPOs) is negligible.
>
> Here's my reasoning--tell me what you think:
>
> (reasoning omitted)

You don't say whether you restricted your search to the text segment.
Anyway, at this point, I would have modified the script somewhat to
display the locations of the words, and then would have looked at the
text with adb to see what purpose they serve.  Considering that
floating point was an option, I find it hard to believe that so many
programs, in particular things like tar, would use FP.

Greg

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Wed Apr  8 14:12:29 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 14:12:29 +1000 (EST)
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
In-Reply-To: <19980408133357.40721@freebie.lemis.com> from Greg Lehey at "Apr 8, 98 01:33:57 pm"
Message-ID: <199804080412.OAA03122@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Greg Lehey:
> Considering that
> floating point was an option, I find it hard to believe that so many
> programs, in particular things like tar, would use FP.

I know zip all about PDP-11 FP, but I know that when I was getting my
Apout V7 simulator working (which doesn't do FP, by the way), I had to
at least emulate setd, because crt0 in V7 starts with:

start:
        setd
        mov     2(sp),r0
        clr     -2(r0)

	Warren


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From johnh at psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au  Wed Apr  8 14:11:22 1998
From: johnh at psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au (John Holden)
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 14:11:22 +1000
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
Message-ID: <199804080411.OAA06388@psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au>


> After some thought I came to the conclusion that the percentage of data 
> words miscounted as floating pt. ops (FPOs) is negligible.

	I think that you will find that the compiler and assember always
generate relative addressing for subroutines and jumps. Any call to an
earlier address will generate a negative number, hence lots of 017xxxx
numbers in the text image.


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From edgee at cyberpass.net  Wed Apr  8 14:27:40 1998
From: edgee at cyberpass.net (Ed G.)
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 00:27:40 -0400
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
In-Reply-To: <19980408133357.40721@freebie.lemis.com>
References: <199804080325.XAA26777@renoir.op.net>; from Ed G. on Tue, Apr 07, 1998 at 11:25:33PM -0400
Message-ID: <199804080427.AAA00145@renoir.op.net>

> text with adb to see what purpose they serve.  Considering that
> floating point was an option, I find it hard to believe that so many
> programs, in particular things like tar, would use FP.

My guess is that the floating point code is dragged in when certain 
library routines (e.g., printf and libc) are used, even if the 
floating point features of the routines are not used.

Consider this:

Two programs hello.c and nothing.c, identical except that hello.c 
contains a single printf("hello world\n") inside main.  nothing.c 
has nothing in its main loop.  

Program--Size--Number of FPOs Reported by my perl script
===========================================
nothing.c, 312 bytes, 2
hello.c, 4804 bytes, 115

See what I mean?

Ed

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From sms at moe.2bsd.com  Wed Apr  8 14:34:43 1998
From: sms at moe.2bsd.com (Steven M. Schultz)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 21:34:43 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
Message-ID: <199804080434.VAA19850@moe.2bsd.com>

> From: John Holden <johnh at psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au>
> 
> 	I think that you will find that the compiler and assember always
> generate relative addressing for subroutines and jumps. Any call to an

	Not quite 'always'.  In some cases yes, relative addressing is
	generated but quite frequently you'll see absolute addresses
	used.  Why?  I don't know ;)

	On some machines mode 3 is a bit faster than mode 6 but I doubt that
	was the reason.

	Steven Schultz


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From grog at lemis.com  Wed Apr  8 15:15:08 1998
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg Lehey)
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 14:45:08 +0930
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
In-Reply-To: <199804080427.AAA00145@renoir.op.net>; from Ed G. on Wed, Apr 08, 1998 at 12:27:40AM -0400
References: <199804080325.XAA26777@renoir.op.net>; <19980408133357.40721@freebie.lemis.com> <199804080427.AAA00145@renoir.op.net>
Message-ID: <19980408144508.09240@freebie.lemis.com>

On Wed,  8 April 1998 at  0:27:40 -0400, Ed G. wrote:
>> text with adb to see what purpose they serve.  Considering that
>> floating point was an option, I find it hard to believe that so many
>> programs, in particular things like tar, would use FP.
>
> My guess is that the floating point code is dragged in when certain
> library routines (e.g., printf and libc) are used, even if the
> floating point features of the routines are not used.
>
> Consider this:
>
> Two programs hello.c and nothing.c, identical except that hello.c
> contains a single printf("hello world\n") inside main.  nothing.c
> has nothing in its main loop.
>
> Program--Size--Number of FPOs Reported by my perl script
> ===========================================
> nothing.c, 312 bytes, 2
> hello.c, 4804 bytes, 115
>
> See what I mean?

I don't see that this proves anything.  You really need to look at
those words and see how they are used.

Greg

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From bqt at Update.UU.SE  Wed Apr  8 17:53:37 1998
From: bqt at Update.UU.SE (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 09:53:37 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
In-Reply-To: <199804080325.XAA26777@renoir.op.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.VUL.3.93.980408094723.13372A-100000@Zeke.Update.UU.SE>

On Tue, 7 Apr 1998, Ed G. wrote:

> > How did you recognize the instructions words?  Just because it's in
> > the text segment doesn't mean it's instructions.
> 
> Yes, this occurred to me too.  My perl script doesn't do any fancy
> decoding; it just looks for words beginning with octal 17.  After 
> some thought I came to the conclusion that the percentage of data 
> words miscounted as floating pt. ops (FPOs) is negligible.
> 
> Here's my reasoning--tell me what you think:
> 
> It seemed to me that the two potential sources of fake FPOs are 
> addresses and data words.  Have I left anything out?
> 
> I don't believe that addresses are a problem because the programs
> would have to be at least 170000 octal (61441 decimal) bytes long to
> generate these addresses at compile time.  In fact, the largest 
> program in the bin directory is awk at 45,260 bytes.  cc is only 6510 
> bytes (those guys at bell labs really knew how to pack it in!)
> 
> That leaves data.  What percent of the data words do you think begin 
> with 17 octal?
> 
> Here's my "guestimate":  17 octal is a 6 bit binary number. 
> Assuming the probability of any bit being one is .5, the probability
> of finding a word whose first six bits are one would be 1/2^6 or 1
> in 64 which is 1 in 128 bytes.  

You are making atleast four assumptions which are wrong here.

1) Data starts from address 0. They most likely do not.
2) 17 is not 6 bits, it's four! You are talking about octal representation
   of 16 bits, which means that the highest digit can only be 0 or 1.
3) All data are not words. How about bytes? If a byte is in the range
   240-255 and on an odd address, you'll catch it as a FP opcode.
4) Not all data are addresses. Most negative numbers will have 17 as the
   high four bits.

Of these four assumptions, the fourth is the most serious, and probably
the cause of most of your "hits". You'll have to do better...

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol


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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Thu Apr  9 07:37:36 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 07:37:36 +1000 (EST)
Subject: Have a safe Easter!
Message-ID: <199804082137.HAA04236@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

Easter's here, I'm off to a friend's wedding. Have a safe & happy break, and
I'll see (hear?) from you all on Tuesday.

	Warren

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Thu Apr  9 07:43:42 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 07:43:42 +1000 (EST)
Subject: Yet more licenses
Message-ID: <199804082143.HAA04280@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

----- Forwarded message from Dion Johnson -----

I have 13 more licenses for you, being copied now.
I will mail these off tomorrow or Friday.

Dion

----- End of forwarded message from Dion Johnson -----

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From Bob.Supnik at digital.com  Fri Apr 10 23:19:59 1998
From: Bob.Supnik at digital.com (Bob Supnik)
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 09:19:59 -0400
Subject: Floating Point Bug in Bob's Emulator - second one found
Message-ID: <6B84B1FF221BD011B0AC08002BE692066DD917@excmso.mso.dec.com>

	A second bug has been found in the floating point emulator.  The
first (in MODf) caused FACTOR to malfunction.  This one causes problems
in AWK.

	The bug is in LDEXP.  In pdp11_fp.c:

	case 015:						/* LDEXP
*/
		dst = (dstspec <= 07)? R[dstspec]: ReadW (GeteaW
(dstspec));
		F_LOAD (qdouble, FR[ac], fac);
		fac.h = (fac.h & ~FP_EXP) | (((dst + FP_BIAS) &
FP_M_EXP) << FP_V_EXP);
		newV = 0;
	==>	if ((dst > 0177) || (dst <= 0177600)) {

	Change the indicated line to:

		if ((dst > 0177) && (dst <= 0177600)) {

	The test case is:

	# awk 'END {print 1+2}' < /dev/null

	incorrectly produced 0, now produces 3.

	/Bob Supnik

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From Bob.Supnik at digital.com  Fri Apr 10 23:50:56 1998
From: Bob.Supnik at digital.com (Bob Supnik)
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 09:50:56 -0400
Subject: Question re TM11 boostrap
Message-ID: <6B84B1FF221BD011B0AC08002BE692066DD91B@excmso.mso.dec.com>

Several people have asked for a bootstrap for the TM11 magtape. V2.3a
has a simple bootstrap that just reads the first magtape record and
jumps to it.  However, John Holden points out that the M9301 bootstrap
actually skips the first record and reads the second.

Does anyone have source code for an actual TM11 bootstrap?

What do the various versions of UNIX expect in a bootable tape image,
particularly BSD 2.9 and 2.11?

Thanks /Bob Supnik

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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Sat Apr 11 02:35:38 1998
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 08:35:38 -0800 (PDT)
Subject: Question re TM11 boostrap
In-Reply-To: <6B84B1FF221BD011B0AC08002BE692066DD91B@excmso.mso.dec.com> from "Bob Supnik" at Apr 10, 98 09:50:56 am
Message-ID: <9804101535.AA06532@alph02.triumf.ca>

> Several people have asked for a bootstrap for the TM11 magtape. V2.3a
> has a simple bootstrap that just reads the first magtape record and
> jumps to it.  However, John Holden points out that the M9301 bootstrap
> actually skips the first record and reads the second.

It depends on which OS (and version) you're using, but most of
DEC's later OS's made some attempt to have bootable tapes be
ANSI-labeled volumes.  This meant that the boot block had to come
after the VOL1 header.  See, for example, the source code to
RT-11's DUP utility.

> Does anyone have source code for an actual TM11 bootstrap?

I certainly have some boot ROM's that I can disassemble.  I'll
also check my DEC manuals for the toggle-in bootstraps.

I know that in some cases it was necessary to re-execute the toggle-in
bootstrap if the real boot block was the second file/record.

Also note that it wasn't until the late 70's/early 80's that DEC
adopted the "second block is the boot block" strategy.  You're
likely to see different things depending on when a bootstrap was
written.

> What do the various versions of UNIX expect in a bootable tape image,
> particularly BSD 2.9 and 2.11?

2.11 plays it safe by putting down two copies of the boot block at
the beginning of the tape, each ending with a filemark.

All Q-bus tape bootstraps that might reside in a 11/53's console firmware
would be looking for the boot block to be the second block on tape.  But
as the TM11 wasn't a Q-bus device I don't think the 11/53 firmware is
going to resolve this issue.

A side comment on the emulator:  Have you ever considered putting the
11/53 firmware into your emulator, so that users can use the bootstraps
and diagnostics built into it?  Would there be copyright problems to
resolve before you could do this?

Tim. (shoppa at triumf.ca)

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From sms at moe.2bsd.com  Sat Apr 11 02:01:24 1998
From: sms at moe.2bsd.com (Steven M. Schultz)
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 09:01:24 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Question re TM11 boostrap
Message-ID: <199804101601.JAA14552@moe.2bsd.com>

Bob, et al -

> Several people have asked for a bootstrap for the TM11 magtape. V2.3a
> has a simple bootstrap that just reads the first magtape record and

	For booting 2.xBSD that will work fine.

> jumps to it.  However, John Holden points out that the M9301 bootstrap
> actually skips the first record and reads the second.

	True - and that's precisely why bootable tapes (at least starting with
	2.9BSD, not sure about V7) have two copies of the tapebootblock at
	the front.  The layout of a boottape is:

		tapeboot
		tapeboot
		boot
		<filemark>
		standaloneprogram 1
		<filemark>
		...

> Does anyone have source code for an actual TM11 bootstrap?

	What I use (it's in the 2.11 setup documentation) is:

If no other means are available, the following code can be keyed in
and executed at (say) 0100000 to boot from a TM tape drive (the magic number
172526 is the address of the TM-11 current memory address register;
an adjustment may be necessary if your controller is at a nonstandard
address):

012700  (mov $unit, r0)
000000  (normally unit 0)
012701  (mov $172526, r1)
172526
010141  (mov r1, -(r1))
012741  (mov $60003, -(r1))
060003  (if unit 1 use 060403, etc)
000777  (br .)

	This does nothing more than read the first record (much like V2.3a
	already does) into location 0.  Then a ^E is typed followed by 
	"g 0".

> What do the various versions of UNIX expect in a bootable tape image,
> particularly BSD 2.9 and 2.11?

	The tape bootblocks for 2.xBSD all know to skip TWO copies of the
	tapebootblock in order to find the 'boot' program.

	The actual standalone programs present differ between 2.9 and 2.11
	but 2.11's is:

		tapeboot
		tapeboot
		boot
		<filemark>
		disklabel
		<filemark>
		mkfs
		<filemark>
		restor
		<filemark>
		icheck
		<filemark>
		dump of root fs
		<filemark>

	For 2.11 the 'tapeboot' is a universal bootblock - it can handle
	all 4 tape drive types (MS, MM, MT, TMSCP).  2.9 on the otherhand
	has different tapebootblocks at the front of the tape depending on
	the drive type (MS or MM/MT, no TMSCP support in 2.9).  Thus if you
	have a MS bootblock you can't boot from the tape on a MT based system.

	Steven Schultz


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From edgee at cyberpass.net  Sat Apr 11 12:40:35 1998
From: edgee at cyberpass.net (Ed G.)
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 22:40:35 -0400
Subject: Bob's Magtape Vindicated-Unix to Blame!
Message-ID: <199804110245.WAA07389@renoir.op.net>

I described in an earlier post how uv7 tar would fail, extracting the 
same file over and over again (see below for example).  

It turns out that Bob's magtape works just fine:  the problem is in 
tar!

uv7 tar has a bug in it--a misplaced assignment--which causes it to 
read the first block over and over (see below for example) when 
used with the 'f' option.  

The bug is indirectly a result of a trick tar uses to determine the
block size on the mag tape:  rather than interrogate Unix about the
block size (can someone tell me how do this?),  tar first attempts to 
read the maximum block size supported by tar (20*512 bytes).  The 
number of bytes actually returned is taken to be the actual block 
size and is used by tar for reads thereafter.

Two simple workarounds for /dev/rmt0 are:

tar vx0
and
tar vxfb /dev/rmt0 1
 
The problem:

# tar vxf /dev/rmt0
x mysqrt.c, 383 bytes, 1 tape blocks
x mysqrt.c, 383 bytes, 1 tape blocks
x mysqrt.c, 383 bytes, 1 tape blocks
x mysqrt.c, 383 bytes, 1 tape blocks
x mysqrt.c, 383 bytes, 1 tape blocks
etc.

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From edgee at cyberpass.net  Sat Apr 11 12:40:34 1998
From: edgee at cyberpass.net (Ed G.)
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 22:40:34 -0400
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.VUL.3.93.980408094723.13372A-100000@Zeke.Update.UU.SE>
References: <199804080325.XAA26777@renoir.op.net>
Message-ID: <199804110246.WAA07393@renoir.op.net>

I'd like to thank everyone who wrote me on this subject, 
and especially those described the weaknesses they saw in my 
reasoning.  

I have found it useful sometimes to take a step back and reconsider 
what it is I am trying do and how I am trying to do it.  

My purpose here was to get a sense for how heavily the Unix utilities
rely on floating point.  I was not looking for a numerically exact 
"right" answer, but rather an estimate which was good enough.

At this point, now that I have access to the source code, it seems to 
me that an easier and more accurate way of doing that would be to 
count the occurences of floats and doubles using grep or a similar 
utility.  What do you all think?

> You are making atleast four assumptions which are wrong here.
> 
> 1) Data starts from address 0. They most likely do not.

I'm not sure what you mean here; can you elaborate?  

As I see it my key assumption about data was that it is 
relatively small in size compared to code in a given program file.  
This was certainly the case with factor, where less than 10% of the 
runtime image consisted of static data.

> 2) 17 is not 6 bits, it's four! You are talking about octal representation
>    of 16 bits, which means that the highest digit can only be 0 or 1.

You are absolutely right.  Thank you for pointing this out.  

> 3) All data are not words. How about bytes? If a byte is in the range
>    240-255 and on an odd address, you'll catch it as a FP opcode.

My routine scanned words, not bytes, so I don't think this would 
apply.

> 4) Not all data are addresses. Most negative numbers will have 17 as the
>    high four bits.

This is true.  But if data is negligible compared to code, then I
don't see how this wouldn't affect an estimate very much.

Ed 

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From edgee at cyberpass.net  Sat Apr 11 12:40:35 1998
From: edgee at cyberpass.net (Ed G.)
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 22:40:35 -0400
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
In-Reply-To: <199804080411.OAA06388@psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au>
Message-ID: <199804110245.WAA07386@renoir.op.net>

> 	I think that you will find that the compiler and assember always
> generate relative addressing for subroutines and jumps. Any call to an
> earlier address will generate a negative number, hence lots of 017xxxx
> numbers in the text image.

I am not an expert on PDP-11 op codes, so you may well be right about 
this.  

In response to your criticism, I looked up jmp and branch 
instructions in the *Processor Handbook*.  Based only on my quick 
skim of the handbook, I don't think negative relative addresses would 
be a problem because: 

1. branch instructions are followed by a signed byte offset (-128, 
127).  This would not be a problem for my routine which only looks at 
the first four bits of every word and would ignore the offset in the 
odd byte.

2. jump instructions, which seem at first glance to be a problem 
because they are followed by a 16 bit word, are not because they 
always use absolute addressing, never relative and hence would never 
be followed by a negative number.

Ed

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From neil at skatter.usask.ca  Tue Apr 14 01:21:45 1998
From: neil at skatter.usask.ca (Neil Johnson)
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 09:21:45 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Question re TM11 boostrap
Message-ID: <199804131521.JAA21310@hydrus.USask.Ca>

I have booted a TMB11 with a simple program to load the first record into block
0. The tape must be rewound to BOT, then the program at location 0 run. I
don't think the 9301 bootstrap actually skips the first record. Hope this
helps.

Neil

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Tue Apr 14 20:23:21 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 20:23:21 +1000 (EST)
Subject: More licenses have arrived!
Message-ID: <199804141023.UAA09911@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

All, The latest batch of licenses has arrived from Dion at SCO:

	Stefan Bieschewski, Robin Birch, W. Bulte, Anthony Duell,
	Alexander Duerrschnabel, Kevin Dunlap, Arno Griffioen, Neil Johnson,
	Greg Lehey, Kirk McKusick, Joseph Myers, Carl Phillips, Jason Wells

As always, if you want access to the on-line PUPS Archive, or a copy
on tape/CD, then email your request to pupsarchive at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au.
You will receive a form reply, and we will process it as soon as possible.
Note that we won't start burning the first CDs until around the 21st April.

If you want on-line access, I will need a fax number or a PGP key so that
I can mail you the access details, with a moderate amount of security. I
won't accept PGP keys via email. I'll accept keys via finger, web page,
key signing service, etc. Please include the method to obtain your key
in your email request above.

Cheers,
	Warren

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From rdkeys at seedlab1.cropsci.ncsu.edu  Wed Apr 15 04:44:16 1998
From: rdkeys at seedlab1.cropsci.ncsu.edu (Robert D. Keys)
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 14:44:16 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
Message-ID: <199804141844.OAA03748@seedlab1.cropsci.ncsu.edu>

Greetings to the list, and thanks to Warren for telling me about it.

I am quite interested in the older unices, and especially the potential
for home use on a smallish box of some sort.  (Nostalgia trip, but why
are most of us here?)

Sadly, my only experiences with PDP-11ish things are so long ago as to
be rather faded.  We used one box (two small chassis about 8 inches high
stacked together -- possibly PDP-8 or PDP-11) as some sort of remote job
entry terminal that the grad students would be occasionally allowed to
touch and load their SAS jobs up from (mid 70's) to the mainframe at
Iowa State U.   I remember the two DEC boxes and some sort of glass tty,
and a paper tape reader that was used to boot it in some way, should
the woeful grad student crash it late at night.  That got me rather
interested in computers and for several years after that time when I
came to NCSU, I tried all kinds of ways to fund and coerce some sort
of Heathkit version of that with some sort of early unix out of the
powers that be, but they tended to think it was computing and not
agronomy, so I wound up doing that with z80's and s-100 bus crates that
could be hooked up to the mainframe remotely via CP/M and paper tape or
81K floppies locally.  But, that has always perked my interest in the
old unix beasts.  I still have the old pdp-11 Heathkit manual sets and
builders instructions, should I find one in the bilges somewhere....(:+}}...

Anyway, I was noticing the pdp-11 system 5/6/7 binaries and the freebie
sco licenses on Minnie, and was wondering where to go for info on how
to bring the things up.  I saw one emulator for DOS? --- (neat way maybe
to use an old 4 meg dos box?).  Can these things be made to run via
a 386/486 bootstrap and emulator, on something like a minix/aix/FreeBSD
sort of machine?  I would expect something like a maintenance boot disk,
and a minimal file system to get the machine up and into the emulator
proper, might be feasible, maybe?

Also, I see pdp-11ish things in surplus around here quite often.
What would be needed to cobble together a system, for a minimal system 7
sort of box to play with?  If there were a list of required boards and
chassis for various levels of system, that might help a newbie get some
sort of machine together.

Thanks, and any comments for the newbie are appreciated.

Bob Keys
rdkeys at seedlab1.cropsci.ncsu.edu




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From pete at dunnington.u-net.com  Wed Apr 15 12:31:22 1998
From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 02:31:22 GMT
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
In-Reply-To: "Robert D. Keys" <rdkeys@seedlab1.cropsci.ncsu.edu>
        "PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)" (Apr 14, 14:44)
References: <199804141844.OAA03748@seedlab1.cropsci.ncsu.edu>
Message-ID: <9804150331.ZM9568@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>

On Apr 14, 14:44, Robert D. Keys wrote:

> I am quite interested in the older unices, and especially the potential
> for home use on a smallish box of some sort.  (Nostalgia trip, but why
> are most of us here?)

> Anyway, I was noticing the pdp-11 system 5/6/7 binaries and the freebie
> sco licenses on Minnie, and was wondering where to go for info on how
> to bring the things up.  I saw one emulator for DOS? --- (neat way maybe
> to use an old 4 meg dos box?).  Can these things be made to run via
> a 386/486 bootstrap and emulator, on something like a minix/aix/FreeBSD
> sort of machine?  I would expect something like a maintenance boot disk,
> and a minimal file system to get the machine up and into the emulator
> proper, might be feasible, maybe?

Yes, you want one of the emulator packages and a disk image for that.  BTW, the
disk images I've seen don't have man pages, so you may want to download those
separately.

> Also, I see pdp-11ish things in surplus around here quite often.
> What would be needed to cobble together a system, for a minimal system 7
> sort of box to play with?  If there were a list of required boards and
> chassis for various levels of system, that might help a newbie get some
> sort of machine together.

There are so many permutations, it's hard to make a list.  There are two
general classes of PDP-11, QBus and Unibus.  Most even-numbered models are
Unibus, most odd-numbered models are QBus (but not all).  QBus machines tend to
be smaller.

As to operating system versions, 2.11BSD needs at least an 11/73 or 83 to run,
as it needs memory management with separate address spaces for instructions and
data.  7th Edition will also run on those machines, and if the kernel is
suitably compiled, will also run on smaller machines such as 11/23s, which are
quite common.  Early versions will run on a whole range of models.

Whatever you get, you'll need a processor (which might be a single card or as
many as ten), memory (256K will do fine for 7th Edition, but more is better),
at least one serial line unit for a terminal (or PC with terminal emulation
software), and a disk controller with a suitable hard disk.  Here again there
are lots of possibilities, you want at least 10MB for 7th Edition and a lot
more for BSD.

Others may wish to expand on what I've written.  Personally, I'd go see what
you can find, describe it to the list, and wait for the 101 pieces of advice
you'll get from all of us about its suitability/desirability :-)

-- 

Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Dept. of Computer Science
						University of York

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From edgee at cyberpass.net  Wed Apr 15 13:09:26 1998
From: edgee at cyberpass.net (Ed G.)
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 23:09:26 -0400
Subject: PDP-11 Addressing Modes
Message-ID: <199804150309.XAA00267@renoir.op.net>

The first line of chapter on addressing modes in the *processor
handbook* states:

"In the PDP-11 family, all operand addressing is accomplished through
the eight general purpose registers."

If I understand correctly, even things like immediate operands and
addresses are represented as an addressing mode of a register, namely
the PC.  I think this is quite cool.

What do people here on the list think of the flexibility and 
generality of the PDP-11's addressing modes?  Is this a well thought
out architecture in your view?  How are the PDP-11's addressing modes
better or worse than those of other processors, past and present?

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From edgee at cyberpass.net  Wed Apr 15 13:09:26 1998
From: edgee at cyberpass.net (Ed G.)
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 23:09:26 -0400
Subject: Floating Point-How Important
In-Reply-To: <9804111346.ZM7828@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>
References: "Ed G." <edgee@cyberpass.net>        "Re: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?" (Apr 10, 22:40)
Message-ID: <199804150309.XAA00270@renoir.op.net>

> What about position-independent code?

Your query got me thinking about the various addressing modes 
of the PDP-11 and how they might affect my brute force approach to 
estimating floating point ops for C programs.  Is this what you meant 
when you asked about position independent code?

And yes, these addressing modes could mean the death knell for my 
approach.

Index mode is definitely a problem as C programs seem to use r5 as a
frame pointer with both positive and *negative* 16 bit offsets (see
assembly language listing of my square root program below).

I don't think PC relative mode (e.g., clr addr) is a problem 
(if the data segment follows the text, then the offsets would all be 
positive and all less than the size of the program).

Is there such a thing as PC relative mode for the jmp op 
code?  In other words, can you make long + or -32K relative jumps on 
the PDP-11? If so, this too could potentially confound my estimates.

.globl	_absv
.text
_absv:
~~absv:
jsr	r5,csv
~n=4
jbr	L1
L2:clrf	r0
cmpf	4(r5),r0
cfcc
jge	L4
movf	4(r5),r0
negf	r0
jbr	L3
jbr	L5
L4:movf	4(r5),r0
jbr	L3
L5:L3:jmp	cret
L1:jbr	L2
.globl	_mysqrt
.text
_mysqrt:
~~mysqrt:
jsr	r5,csv
~n=4
jbr	L6
L7:~g=177762
~err=177752
movf	4(r5),r0
divf	$40400,r0
movf	r0,-16(r5)
.data
L10000:77777;177776;177777;177777
.text
movf	4(r5),r0
divf	L10000,r0
movf	r0,-26(r5)
movf	-16(r5),r0
movf	r0,-(sp)
mov	$L9,-(sp)
jsr	pc,_printf
add	$12,sp
L10:movf	-16(r5),r0
mulf	-16(r5),r0
subf	4(r5),r0
movf	r0,-(sp)
jsr	pc,_absv
add	$10,sp
cmpf	-26(r5),r0
cfcc
jgt	L11
movf	-16(r5),r0
mulf	-16(r5),r0
addf	4(r5),r0
movf	$40400,r1
mulf	-16(r5),r1
divf	r1,r0
movf	r0,-16(r5)
movf	-16(r5),r0
movf	r0,-(sp)
mov	$L12,-(sp)
jsr	pc,_printf
add	$12,sp
jbr	L10
L11:movf	-16(r5),r0
jbr	L8
L8:jmp	cret
L6:sub	$20,sp
jbr	L7
.globl	_main
.text
_main:
~~main:
jsr	r5,csv
jbr	L13
L14:.data
L10001:77777;177776;177777;177777
.text
movf	L10001,r0
movf	r0,-16(r5)
~n=177762
movf	-16(r5),r0
movf	r0,-(sp)
jsr	pc,_mysqrt
add	$10,sp
movf	r0,-(sp)
mov	$L16,-(sp)
jsr	pc,_printf
add	$12,sp
L15:jmp	cret
L13:sub	$10,sp
jbr	L14
.globl	fltused
.globl
.data
L9:.byte 111,156,151,164,151,141,154,40,147,165,145,163,163,72
.byte 40,45,56,61,66,146,12,12,0
L12:.byte 147,165,145,163,163,72,40,45,56,61,66,146,12,0
L16:.byte 12,115,171,40,163,161,165,141,162,145,40,162,157,157
.byte 164,40,151,163,72,40,45,56,61,66,146,12,0

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From allisonp at world.std.com  Wed Apr 15 13:53:58 1998
From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 23:53:58 -0400
Subject: PDP-11 Addressing Modes
Message-ID: <199804150353.AA11012@world.std.com>


<"In the PDP-11 family, all operand addressing is accomplished through
<the eight general purpose registers."
<
<If I understand correctly, even things like immediate operands and
<addresses are represented as an addressing mode of a register, namely
<the PC.  I think this is quite cool.

Same for stack relative access.

The PDP-11 archetecture was an example of CISC to the max for 16 bit 
machines, compared to most micros it has more and richers instruction
set, addressing modes and highlights what can be attained when all 
registers are general.  Added to a two address structure those registers 
and addressing modes make for flexibility and programming power.

...yes a PC relative jump could easily be done with an add r7!

<What do people here on the list think of the flexibility and 
<generality of the PDP-11's addressing modes?  Is this a well thought
<out architecture in your view?  How are the PDP-11's addressing modes
<better or worse than those of other processors, past and present?

Personally I consider it a high point in 16 bit computing and one that 
is a standard of comparison.  VAX carried this to the 32bit realm.  I
know of few 16 bit microprocessors that are as capable as the PDP-11 
and as fast (the ti9900 was good but slow, Z8000 was close).  The 
various chip versions of the PDP-11 (lsi11, T11, F11, J11) have achieved
performace exceeding many of the conteporary microprocessors in code
density and execution speed.  The PDP-11 and the C language are an 
excellent match, both for addressing modes and effienctcy of compilation.
It is also a good foundation for FORTH.

Terrible cpu, we should junk them all... ;-)   ...so I can collect them.

Allison



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From milov at toes.its.uwlax.edu  Wed Apr 15 23:17:47 1998
From: milov at toes.its.uwlax.edu (Milo Velimirovic)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 98 08:17:47 -0500
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
References: <199804141844.OAA03748@seedlab1.cropsci.ncsu.edu>
	<9804150331.ZM9568@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <9804151317.AA04337@toes.its.uwlax.edu>

Hi,

>
>
>Begin forwarded message:
>[snip]
>On Apr 14, 14:44, Robert D. Keys wrote:
>
[snip]

>
>> Also, I see pdp-11ish things in surplus around here quite often.
>> What would be needed to cobble together a system, for a minimal system 7
>> sort of box to play with?  If there were a list of required boards and
>> chassis for various levels of system, that might help a newbie get some
>> sort of machine together.
>
>There are so many permutations, it's hard to make a list.  There are two
>general classes of PDP-11, QBus and Unibus.  Most even-numbered models are
>Unibus, most odd-numbered models are QBus (but not all).  QBus machines tend to
>be smaller.

QBUS 11/2 11/03 11/23 11/53 11/73 11/83
Unibus 11/05 11/10 11/15 11/20 11/24 11/3411/35 11/40 11/44 11/45 11/55 11/60 11/70 11/84...

Odd numbered machines where the odd digit is a 5 are usually a Unibus machine.
(They're also old and will eat you out of house and home with their appetite
for electricity. :) 

Has anyone looked at the possibility of retrofitting older pdp11's with modern
switching power supplies to ease the electricity demands...?  
(donning asbestos suit in anticipation of cries of "heretic" and "Frankenstein"...)
>
>As to operating system versions, 2.11BSD needs at least an 11/73 or 83 to run,

How about an 11/44? 

>as it needs memory management with separate address spaces for instructions and
>data.  7th Edition will also run on those machines, and if the kernel is
>suitably compiled, will also run on smaller machines such as 11/23s, which are
>quite common.  Early versions will run on a whole range of models.
>
>Whatever you get, you'll need a processor (which might be a single card or as
>many as ten), memory (256K will do fine for 7th Edition, but more is better),
>at least one serial line unit for a terminal (or PC with terminal emulation
>software), and a disk controller with a suitable hard disk.  Here again there
>are lots of possibilities, you want at least 10MB for 7th Edition and a lot
>more for BSD.
>
>Others may wish to expand on what I've written.  Personally, I'd go see what
>you can find, describe it to the list, and wait for the 101 pieces of advice
>you'll get from all of us about its suitability/desirability :-)
>
>-- 
>
>Pete						Peter Turnbull
>						Dept. of Computer Science
>						University of York
>
---
Milo Velimirovic       <Milo.Velimirovic at uwlax.edu>
Unix Computer Network Administrator  (608) 785-8030
Information Technology Services -- Network Services
University of Wisconsin - La Crosse
La Crosse, Wisconsin 54601 USA    43 48 05 N 91 14 22 W



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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Thu Apr 16 01:03:00 1998
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 07:03:00 -0800 (PDT)
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
In-Reply-To: <9804151317.AA04337@toes.its.uwlax.edu> from "Milo Velimirovic" at Apr 15, 98 08:17:47 am
Message-ID: <9804151403.AA13468@alph02.triumf.ca>

> Has anyone looked at the possibility of retrofitting older pdp11's with modern
> switching power supplies to ease the electricity demands...?  
> (donning asbestos suit in anticipation of cries of "heretic" and "Frankenstein"...)

It's hardly heretical - all Unibus 11's have always had switching
power supplies for the high-current (+5V and - for core machines - +20V)
lines.  Depending on the exact model, +15 and/or -15 may have come
from a linear power supply, but these are very low-current lines and
not a major factor in power consumption.

The way to greatly reduce the power consumption of a big Unibus -11
is to go to a more modern CPU and memory in the original backplane.
For an extreme example, a 11/70 with 2 MW of core memory in MJ11 boxes
will draw about 70 Amps at 120 VAC, for over 8kW of power consumption.
But you can replace the 11/70 CPU set with a Quickware replacment
and take the CPU part of power consumption down to 3 or so Amps at
120 VAC, or under 0.4kW.

> >As to operating system versions, 2.11BSD needs at least an 11/73 or 83 to run,
> 
> How about an 11/44? 

Yep, does work.  (I had always been promising Steven that I would get
the FP emulator working so I could run it on my FP-less 11/44, but
I got a FP board before I got the emulator going.  So you need the FP
board for a 11/44, still!)

Tim.

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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Thu Apr 16 01:06:41 1998
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 07:06:41 -0800 (PDT)
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
In-Reply-To: <9804150331.ZM9568@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk> from "Pete Turnbull" at Apr 15, 98 02:31:22 am
Message-ID: <9804151406.AA09801@alph02.triumf.ca>

> Whatever you get, you'll need a processor (which might be a single card or as
> many as ten), memory (256K will do fine for 7th Edition, but more is better),
> at least one serial line unit for a terminal (or PC with terminal emulation
> software), and a disk controller with a suitable hard disk.  Here again there
> are lots of possibilities, you want at least 10MB for 7th Edition and a lot
> more for BSD.

One important point to note is that if you want support for modern MSCP
disk devices, you want to go with 2.11BSD.  The most modern disk devices
supported by 7th Edition are the RL02 and the various Massbus disks.

Tim. (shoppa at triumf.ca)

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From rdkeys at seedlab1.cropsci.ncsu.edu  Thu Apr 16 00:25:26 1998
From: rdkeys at seedlab1.cropsci.ncsu.edu (Robert D. Keys)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 10:25:26 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
In-Reply-To: <9804151317.AA04337@toes.its.uwlax.edu> from Milo Velimirovic at "Apr 15, 98 08:17:47 am"
Message-ID: <199804151425.KAA04925@seedlab1.cropsci.ncsu.edu>

> >There are so many permutations, it's hard to make a list.  There are two
> >general classes of PDP-11, QBus and Unibus.  Most even-numbered models are
> >Unibus, most odd-numbered models are QBus (but not all).  QBus machines tend
> >to be smaller.
> 
> QBUS 11/2 11/03 11/23 11/53 11/73 11/83
> Unibus 11/05 11/10 11/15 11/20 11/24 11/3411/35 11/40 11/44 11/45 11/55
>        11/60 11/70 11/84...
> 
> Odd numbered machines where the odd digit is a 5 are usually a Unibus machine.

Which would be the ones to look out for for practical unix use?

> (They're also old and will eat you out of house and home with their appetite
> for electricity. :) 

I have heard that from the computer students around here who chuckle at
the thought that I would attempt to run such a beastie.  They are chasing
Alphas and Pentiums, whilst I am chasing pdp11s?  Interesting directions.

For the sake of discussion, what sorts of power requirements would be
required for a lowend version 7 or 2.11 BSD box?  Say that I wanted
a machine that would allow me to troff/Tex a little, and do some
minor C compiling, associated with that.

> Has anyone looked at the possibility of retrofitting older pdp11's with modern
> switching power supplies to ease the electricity demands...?  

I often use old DEC linear power supplies to run some of my antique radio
equipment.  The power supplies themselves are not that much of an efficiency
thing, but the loads probably are.  Minimizing unneeded loads on a home
system would be of merit.  That is why I was wondering what sort of mininmal
box would do for home use, and still give some kind of reasonable service.
The electicity mongers need to be fed, but I don't need to treat them
to a full 7 course meal every day.

Are there special electrical requirements?  I can always find a separate
20 or 30 amp 115 volt circuit, but the 220 lines are tied up in my
antique radio transmitters.  Just how hungry are these pdp11s?

> (donning asbestos suit in anticipation of cries of "heretic" and
> "Frankenstein"...)

Don't worry, I still keep my ol' net asbestos flak suit hanging up in the
corner, for occasional donning.....(:+}}....  It is a little dusty.
It be faire windes and following seas about the net mostly, these days.
I consider it great fun to resurrect the old dinosaurs.  I still keep
a few 8 inch CP/M S-100 boxes running, for fun.  Alas, finding parts is
always a problem, anymore, especially in the deep south where silicon
valley ain't.  You have to make do with what you can cobble together.
I find that I mix and mash parts from old surplus radio equipment, 
computers, or whatever until I can make the thing work.  That is as
much the fun of it as actually watching the platters whirr and spin.

> >As to operating system versions, 2.11BSD needs at least an 11/73 or 83
> >to run,
> 
> How about an 11/44? 
> 
> >as it needs memory management with separate address spaces for instructions
> >and data.  7th Edition will also run on those machines, and if the kernel is
> >suitably compiled, will also run on smaller machines such as 11/23s, which
> >are quite common.  Early versions will run on a whole range of models.

What exactly were the Heathkit things in relation to the mainstream pdp11s?
There was a unix that was available on the Heathkit boxes, but I never did
get enough money together at the time to get one --- had to settle for that
CP/M thingie, instead.

> >Whatever you get, you'll need a processor (which might be a single card or as
> >many as ten), memory (256K will do fine for 7th Edition, but more is better),
> >at least one serial line unit for a terminal (or PC with terminal emulation
> >software), and a disk controller with a suitable hard disk.  Here again there
> >are lots of possibilities, you want at least 10MB for 7th Edition and a lot
> >more for BSD.

What would BSD be comfy with, with a little space for play.  I remember
the old Xenix boxes that we had (RS 16B things) ran a sort of v7 in about
15 megs HD.  The FreeBSD things require 100 or so megs to come up.
What sizes of HD would one be looking out for, in the surplus piles?

> >Others may wish to expand on what I've written.  Personally, I'd go see what
> >you can find, describe it to the list, and wait for the 101 pieces of advice
> >you'll get from all of us about its suitability/desirability :-)

I enjoy all the advice and comments.

Thanks to all for them.

Bob Keys


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From sms at moe.2bsd.com  Thu Apr 16 01:22:57 1998
From: sms at moe.2bsd.com (Steven M. Schultz)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 08:22:57 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
Message-ID: <199804151522.IAA22441@moe.2bsd.com>

Milo -

	Hi.

> From: Milo Velimirovic <milov at toes.its.uwlax.edu>
> 
> How about an 11/44? 
	
	Indeed the 11/44 will work and very well with 2.11BSD.  Before the
	one at work got shutdown (RA81 failure and the support department here
	doesn't like PDP-11s and refuses to help fix it) the care and feeding
	of 2.11 was shared between a 11/44 (for UNIBUS related stuff) and a
	11/73 (for QBUS).

	The 11/84 and 94 will also work very well.  Qbus models from the 11/53
	on up will also work (the 53 hasn't actually been 'tested' but "should"
	work, the 73, 83, 93 are all known to work).

	While the 11/45 has the MMU aspects required (split I/D and supervisor
	mode) it doesn't support enough memory.  The 11/45 can only have 248kb
	of memory and a full 2.11 kernel+networking+diskcache+datastructures 
	setup weighs in at almost 400kb

	Steven


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From allisonp at world.std.com  Thu Apr 16 01:50:47 1998
From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 11:50:47 -0400
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
Message-ID: <199804151550.AA21199@world.std.com>


<> QBUS 11/2 11/03 11/23 11/53 11/73 11/83

<> (They're also old and will eat you out of house and home with their app
<> for electricity. :) 

None the above systems are tough it really depends on the disks used.  The 
later of the three in the microPDP-11 format (ba23/123) are very resonable 
using MSCP and MFM drives.  The QBUS-11s are modest power compared to the 
Ubus-11s.

Also the Qbus-11s win in the small sizing as well.  I have two BA11n boxen 
one with 11/23b and the other 11/73, RX02, RL02, and MSCP disks all in one
50" rack.

<For the sake of discussion, what sorts of power requirements would be
<required for a lowend version 7 or 2.11 BSD box?  Say that I wanted
<a machine that would allow me to troff/Tex a little, and do some
<minor C compiling, associated with that.

A qbus 11/73 (or 83)  a meg of ram and disks would be comfortably under 
500 watts.  Adding an RL02 is not painful though it uses more than the 
CPU box total.  The massbus disks or RK/RMs are high power just for the 
spindle motors.

<> Has anyone looked at the possibility of retrofitting older pdp11's with
<> switching power supplies to ease the electricity demands...?  

You could if you set up event, ACOK and DCOK.  Most of the DEC supplies 
are actually lowvoltage switchers (744s) and the later ones are high 
voltage swicthers (BA11s/BA32/BA123... all qbus).

<Are there special electrical requirements?  I can always find a separate
<20 or 30 amp 115 volt circuit, but the 220 lines are tied up in my
<antique radio transmitters.  Just how hungry are these pdp11s?

The bigger Ubus machines and some of the bigger (physically too) disks
are killer though most common PDP11s are really quite moderate to small in 
their needs.

<I consider it great fun to resurrect the old dinosaurs.  I still keep
<a few 8 inch CP/M S-100 boxes running, for fun.  Alas, finding parts is

Smae here, the CCS2200 with DISCUS 10m and two SA800s challenge the 11/23
for power needed!

<What exactly were the Heathkit things in relation to the mainstream pdp11
<There was a unix that was available on the Heathkit boxes, but I never di
<get enough money together at the time to get one --- had to settle for th
<CP/M thingie, instead.

The H11 was a LSI11/03 cpu with heath equivelents for DLs and memorys, the 
disks however were strange.

<What would BSD be comfy with, with a little space for play.  I remember
<the old Xenix boxes that we had (RS 16B things) ran a sort of v7 in abou
<15 megs HD.  The FreeBSD things require 100 or so megs to come up.
<What sizes of HD would one be looking out for, in the surplus piles?

I ahve V7 up on an 11/73 on one RL02 pack (10mb) and it's cramped with 
about 4mb free.  Two RL02s would be pretty good.  If I can get 2.11 up
that will talk to the MSCP disks RD52(31mb)/53(71mb) and I'd expect plenty 
of space then.

Allison


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From DSEAGRAV at toad.xkl.com  Thu Apr 16 02:39:56 1998
From: DSEAGRAV at toad.xkl.com (Daniel A. Seagraves)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 09:39:56 -0700
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
In-Reply-To: <199804151550.AA21199@world.std.com>
Message-ID: <13348030224.14.DSEAGRAV@toad.xkl.com>

[What PDP-11s run Unix...]
I currently run Version 7 on a PDP-11/83 Q-bus box stored under my bed.
(I have a hospital bed, the kind you can crank up and down - Mine's about
3/4 the way up)
The RL02 I boot from is twice the size of the CPU!
I also have an MSCP device that I load RT-11 from.
BTW, there is a setting in the '83 Setup program called allow-alternate-bootblock,
you can directly boot Unix by enabling this.  Does that work on an 11/73 as well?
I just turn on the RL, start the disk and the CPU at the same time, and the disk
comes ready just at the 9-step check finishes.
I say unix and off it goes.
Now, I I could just get it to see my DHQ11...
-------

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From tih+mail at Hamartun.Priv.NO  Thu Apr 16 02:42:54 1998
From: tih+mail at Hamartun.Priv.NO (Tom Ivar Helbekkmo)
Date: 15 Apr 1998 18:42:54 +0200
Subject: PDP-11 Addressing Modes
In-Reply-To: "Ed G."'s message of "Tue, 14 Apr 1998 23:09:26 -0400"
References: <199804150309.XAA00267@renoir.op.net>
Message-ID: <86ogy3kpdd.fsf@barsoom.Hamartun.Priv.NO>

"Ed G." <edgee at cyberpass.net> writes:

> What do people here on the list think of the flexibility and 
> generality of the PDP-11's addressing modes?  Is this a well thought
> out architecture in your view?  How are the PDP-11's addressing modes
> better or worse than those of other processors, past and present?

It's simply beautiful.  The PDP-11 architecture is the pinnacle of
16-bit computing, as the 6502 (the world's first RISC chip) is the
unchallenged champion of elegance in 8-bit microprocessors.  The
cleanliness and orthogonality of the PDP-11 is a wonder to behold.
To top it off, they also knew when to _break_ orthogonality to make
proper use of the addressing mode bit combinations that don't make
sense for use with the program counter.

A good friend of mine, for whom I have much respect, claims that the
PDP-10 is even more beautiful.  I can't comment on this, not knowing
that architecture, but myself I've seen nothing to challenge the '11.

Among more modern processors, I'm quite partial to Motorola's MC68K.
I also like the Transputer -- who doesn't?  As for microcontrollers,
I've worked quite a bit with the Intel MCS-51 chips, and enjoyed it.

For the definition of "butt ugly", see the Intel i386 and its ilk.

-tih
-- 
Popularity is the hallmark of mediocrity.  --Niles Crane, "Frasier"

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From DSEAGRAV at toad.xkl.com  Thu Apr 16 04:16:24 1998
From: DSEAGRAV at toad.xkl.com (Daniel A. Seagraves)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 11:16:24 -0700
Subject: PDP-11 Addressing Modes
In-Reply-To: <86ogy3kpdd.fsf@barsoom.Hamartun.Priv.NO>
Message-ID: <13348047785.14.DSEAGRAV@toad.xkl.com>

[PDP-10 inst. set is nicer than PDP-11...]

Not sure about that, I haven't play with either enough to compare them.
But, judging by the pictures I have, a PDP-11/70 is about 1/2 as cool looking
as a KA-10!

[I *HAVE* to scan these and put them online sometime...]
-------

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From tih+mail at Hamartun.Priv.NO  Thu Apr 16 04:02:02 1998
From: tih+mail at Hamartun.Priv.NO (Tom Ivar Helbekkmo)
Date: 15 Apr 1998 20:02:02 +0200
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
In-Reply-To: "Steven M. Schultz"'s message of "Wed, 15 Apr 1998 08:22:57 -0700 (PDT)"
References: <199804151522.IAA22441@moe.2bsd.com>
Message-ID: <86g1jfklph.fsf@barsoom.Hamartun.Priv.NO>

"Steven M. Schultz" <sms at moe.2bsd.com> writes:

> 	Indeed the 11/44 will work and very well with 2.11BSD.  Before the
> 	one at work got shutdown (RA81 failure and the support department here
> 	doesn't like PDP-11s and refuses to help fix it) the care and feeding
> 	of 2.11 was shared between a 11/44 (for UNIBUS related stuff) and a
> 	11/73 (for QBUS).

Do you have the documentation you need for that RA81, Steven?  I've
got the user's manual here, which isn't much, of course, but at least
tells you how to hook up a terminal, run diagnostics, and interpret
the results...

-tih
-- 
Popularity is the hallmark of mediocrity.  --Niles Crane, "Frasier"

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From bqt at Update.UU.SE  Thu Apr 16 05:48:00 1998
From: bqt at Update.UU.SE (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 21:48:00 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
In-Reply-To: <199804110246.WAA07393@renoir.op.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.VUL.3.93.980415214003.8466A-100000@Zeke.Update.UU.SE>

On Fri, 10 Apr 1998, Ed G. wrote:

> My purpose here was to get a sense for how heavily the Unix utilities
> rely on floating point.  I was not looking for a numerically exact 
> "right" answer, but rather an estimate which was good enough.
> 
> At this point, now that I have access to the source code, it seems to 
> me that an easier and more accurate way of doing that would be to 
> count the occurences of floats and doubles using grep or a similar 
> utility.  What do you all think?

Would probably be a better idea, yes. :-)

> > You are making atleast four assumptions which are wrong here.
> > 
> > 1) Data starts from address 0. They most likely do not.
> 
> I'm not sure what you mean here; can you elaborate?  
> 
> As I see it my key assumption about data was that it is 
> relatively small in size compared to code in a given program file.  
> This was certainly the case with factor, where less than 10% of the 
> runtime image consisted of static data.

But you made an assumption that addrtesses to data don't come in theflt.
op-code range, since few programs have that much data. But, by assuming
that they don't have "that much" data, you must also assume that whatever
little dtaa there is don't start at a high address. Your program can have
as little as one word of data, located at 177776, referenced a zillion
times, and your algorithm will catch it as a zillion flt. ops.

> > 3) All data are not words. How about bytes? If a byte is in the range
> >    240-255 and on an odd address, you'll catch it as a FP opcode.
> 
> My routine scanned words, not bytes, so I don't think this would 
> apply.

Oh, it most definitely does.

Tell me, what is the difference between a string of two bytes, a word, and
an instruction in memory?

Nothing. It's just a question of how you look at it.

So when you are talking about a word, how do you know that the programmer
didn't write two bytes there?

The reason I said "odd addres" was because the byte at the odd address is
the high byte of the word you are looking at.

> > 4) Not all data are addresses. Most negative numbers will have 17 as the
> >    high four bits.
> 
> This is true.  But if data is negligible compared to code, then I
> don't see how this wouldn't affect an estimate very much.

That is a good point. But it's still a problem.
The point is more or less always, but a lot of small errors...
:-)

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol


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From bqt at Update.UU.SE  Thu Apr 16 06:06:30 1998
From: bqt at Update.UU.SE (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 22:06:30 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
In-Reply-To: <199804110245.WAA07386@renoir.op.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.VUL.3.93.980415215418.9250A-100000@Zeke.Update.UU.SE>

On Fri, 10 Apr 1998, Ed G. wrote:

> I am not an expert on PDP-11 op codes, so you may well be right about 
> this.  
> 
> In response to your criticism, I looked up jmp and branch 
> instructions in the *Processor Handbook*.  Based only on my quick 
> skim of the handbook, I don't think negative relative addresses would 
> be a problem because: 
> 
> 1. branch instructions are followed by a signed byte offset (-128, 
> 127).  This would not be a problem for my routine which only looks at 
> the first four bits of every word and would ignore the offset in the 
> odd byte.

Correct.

> 2. jump instructions, which seem at first glance to be a problem 
> because they are followed by a 16 bit word, are not because they 
> always use absolute addressing, never relative and hence would never 
> be followed by a negative number.

2 wrong.

. Where did you get the idea that jump instructions have to be absolute?
. What about jumps to absolute addresses in the flt. op-code range?

I'm not sure about the 2BSD assembler, but the normal way of coding is to
have *all* addressing relative in the DEC assemblers. That means not just
jumps, but all instructions which takes arguments.
Almost all have word arguments, branch being one of the few exceptions.

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol


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From bqt at Update.UU.SE  Thu Apr 16 06:33:19 1998
From: bqt at Update.UU.SE (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 22:33:19 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: PDP-11 Addressing Modes
In-Reply-To: <199804150309.XAA00267@renoir.op.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.VUL.3.93.980415223118.9250F-100000@Zeke.Update.UU.SE>

On Tue, 14 Apr 1998, Ed G. wrote:

> The first line of chapter on addressing modes in the *processor
> handbook* states:
> 
> "In the PDP-11 family, all operand addressing is accomplished through
> the eight general purpose registers."
> 
> If I understand correctly, even things like immediate operands and
> addresses are represented as an addressing mode of a register, namely
> the PC.  I think this is quite cool.
> 
> What do people here on the list think of the flexibility and 
> generality of the PDP-11's addressing modes?  Is this a well thought
> out architecture in your view?  How are the PDP-11's addressing modes
> better or worse than those of other processors, past and present?

The PDP-11 did it right, all others did it wrong. :-)

Well, at least as long as you're talking about general register machines.
(And points could be made that the M68K isn't very general about its
registers...)

For accumulator machines, I guess the vote goes to the PDP-10.

All with a big :-) of course. This is religion...

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol


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From bqt at Update.UU.SE  Thu Apr 16 06:41:02 1998
From: bqt at Update.UU.SE (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 22:41:02 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
In-Reply-To: <9804151317.AA04337@toes.its.uwlax.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.VUL.3.93.980415223736.9250G-100000@Zeke.Update.UU.SE>

On Wed, 15 Apr 1998, Milo Velimirovic wrote:

> QBUS 11/2 11/03 11/23 11/53 11/73 11/83
> Unibus 11/05 11/10 11/15 11/20 11/24 11/3411/35 11/40 11/44 11/45 11/55 11/60 11/70 11/84...

Two additions to make the list officially complete:

QBUS: 11/93
Unibus: 11/94

The last PDP-11s by DEC.

Then you have the never-11s. (See the FAQ.)

> Odd numbered machines where the odd digit is a 5 are usually a Unibus machine.
> (They're also old and will eat you out of house and home with their appetite
> for electricity. :) 

They are also normally just about the same machine as the next number in
line, but for OEM markets.

11/05 - 11/10
11/15 - 11/20
11/35 - 11/40

> Has anyone looked at the possibility of retrofitting older pdp11's with modern
> switching power supplies to ease the electricity demands...?  
> (donning asbestos suit in anticipation of cries of "heretic" and "Frankenstein"...)

:-)

Well, as far as I know, all of the already have switching supplies...
Possibly not the 11/15 and 11/20, but if anyone has one of those, and
makes such a modification, I *will* brand him as an heretic. :-)

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol


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From pete at dunnington.u-net.com  Thu Apr 16 07:08:01 1998
From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 21:08:01 GMT
Subject: PDP-11 Addressing Modes
In-Reply-To: allisonp@world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
        "Re: PDP-11 Addressing Modes" (Apr 14, 23:53)
References: <199804150353.AA11012@world.std.com>
Message-ID: <9804152208.ZM16395@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>

On Apr 14, 23:53, Allison J Parent wrote:
> <What do people here on the list think of the flexibility and
> <generality of the PDP-11's addressing modes?  Is this a well thought
> <out architecture in your view?  How are the PDP-11's addressing modes
> <better or worse than those of other processors, past and present?
>
> Personally I consider it a high point in 16 bit computing and one that
> is a standard of comparison.  VAX carried this to the 32bit realm.  I
> know of few 16 bit microprocessors that are as capable as the PDP-11
> and as fast (the ti9900 was good but slow, Z8000 was close).

Don't forget the 68000.  Motorola deliberately adopted a lot of similar design
features for the 68K; there's a very interesting design paper still available
called "Design Philosophy Behind Motorola's 68000", publication no.AR208.  The
same sort of instruction/address-mode orthogonality as found in the PDP11, is
one of the big features.

> Terrible cpu, we should junk them all... ;-)   ...so I can collect them.

All right, providing I can have the ones on this side of the Atlantic...

-- 

Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Dept. of Computer Science
						University of York

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From pete at dunnington.u-net.com  Thu Apr 16 07:30:12 1998
From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 21:30:12 GMT
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere) 
Message-ID: <9804152230.ZM16484@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>

On Apr 15, 22:41, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Apr 1998, Milo Velimirovic wrote:
>
> > QBUS 11/2 11/03 11/23 11/53 11/73 11/83
> > Unibus 11/05 11/10 11/15 11/20 11/24 11/3411/35 11/40 11/44 11/45 11/55
           11/60 11/70 11/84...

> Two additions to make the list officially complete:
>
> QBUS: 11/93
> Unibus: 11/94

And one more to make the list officially really complete:

Unibus:  11/04
(which, despite the numer, is more like an 11/34 than anything else).

BTW, the 11/2 is a board, not a machine.  Machines with 11/2s were sold as
11/03s.  And of course there's the Falcon (etc) range of boards, which used the
same microprocessors and bus interface as QBus machines, but had memory and I/O
integrated onto one board.  They're not really PDP-11s, though.

-- 

Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Dept. of Computer Science
						University of York

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From bqt at Update.UU.SE  Thu Apr 16 07:56:14 1998
From: bqt at Update.UU.SE (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 23:56:14 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: PDP-11 Addressing Modes
In-Reply-To: <9804152208.ZM16395@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <Pine.VUL.3.93.980415234941.9250J-100000@Zeke.Update.UU.SE>

On Wed, 15 Apr 1998, Pete Turnbull wrote:

> On Apr 14, 23:53, Allison J Parent wrote:
> > <What do people here on the list think of the flexibility and
> > <generality of the PDP-11's addressing modes?  Is this a well thought
> > <out architecture in your view?  How are the PDP-11's addressing modes
> > <better or worse than those of other processors, past and present?
> >
> > Personally I consider it a high point in 16 bit computing and one that
> > is a standard of comparison.  VAX carried this to the 32bit realm.  I
> > know of few 16 bit microprocessors that are as capable as the PDP-11
> > and as fast (the ti9900 was good but slow, Z8000 was close).
> 
> Don't forget the 68000.  Motorola deliberately adopted a lot of similar design
> features for the 68K; there's a very interesting design paper still available
> called "Design Philosophy Behind Motorola's 68000", publication no.AR208.  The
> same sort of instruction/address-mode orthogonality as found in the PDP11, is
> one of the big features.

You got to be kidding?!?

<FLAME ON>
The 68K is a miserable beast at the best of times.
Separated address and data registers, PC is a special register, some
addressing modes are not allowed in some instructions, some manipulations
can only be done on data register, not address registers, immediate mode
is just an assembler fake, it's actually another instruction, the
semantics of some instructions differ depending on what type of arguments
you use, writing PIC can be a real pain unless you have the 68K20. The
list is long and sad.

The 68K is what happens if you take a good design (PDP-11) and mungle up
every part of the design. It's like if they never really understood why
the PDP-11 was done they way it was, and copied the parts they though
nifty and continued with adding their own strange ideas on top of it.
<FLAME OFF>

Having said all this, it's still a nice thing compared to Intel stuff, I
guess. :-) (But I've only programmed the Z80...)

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol


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From johnh at psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au  Thu Apr 16 08:00:52 1998
From: johnh at psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au (John Holden)
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 08:00:52 +1000
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
Message-ID: <199804152200.IAA06424@psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au>


> Well, as far as I know, all of the already have switching supplies...
> Possibly not the 11/15 and 11/20, but if anyone has one of those, and
> makes such a modification, I *will* brand him as an heretic. :-)

	The 11/20 used a switch mode power supply (H720) (I still have a
functional machine!). You would have to go back to something like a PDP8/e
(got one of these two!) for a huge linear power supply. It has a huge SCR for
the overvoltage crowbar in order to dump all the energy in the filter capacitors

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From bqt at Update.UU.SE  Thu Apr 16 08:00:20 1998
From: bqt at Update.UU.SE (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 00:00:20 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere) 
In-Reply-To: <9804152230.ZM16484@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <Pine.VUL.3.93.980415235648.9250K-100000@Zeke.Update.UU.SE>

On Wed, 15 Apr 1998, Pete Turnbull wrote:

> On Apr 15, 22:41, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> > On Wed, 15 Apr 1998, Milo Velimirovic wrote:
> >
> > > QBUS 11/2 11/03 11/23 11/53 11/73 11/83
> > > Unibus 11/05 11/10 11/15 11/20 11/24 11/3411/35 11/40 11/44 11/45 11/55
>            11/60 11/70 11/84...
> 
> > Two additions to make the list officially complete:
> >
> > QBUS: 11/93
> > Unibus: 11/94
> 
> And one more to make the list officially really complete:
> 
> Unibus:  11/04
> (which, despite the numer, is more like an 11/34 than anything else).

Sigh. Why can't I get the last word. :-)
Is there anyone who can figure out any more models?

> BTW, the 11/2 is a board, not a machine.  Machines with 11/2s were sold as
> 11/03s.  And of course there's the Falcon (etc) range of boards, which used the
> same microprocessors and bus interface as QBus machines, but had memory and I/O
> integrated onto one board.  They're not really PDP-11s, though.

Eh? I'd definitely say that the Falcon was a PDP-11, it does sport a F11.
Actually, it was called the 11/21, or something like that, wasn't it?
But it was a board, and not a machine...
What about the VT103?

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol


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From pete at dunnington.u-net.com  Thu Apr 16 09:08:26 1998
From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 23:08:26 GMT
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
In-Reply-To: Johnny Billquist <bqt@Update.UU.SE>
        "Re: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)" (Apr 16,  0:00)
References: <Pine.VUL.3.93.980415235648.9250K-100000@Zeke.Update.UU.SE>
Message-ID: <9804160008.ZM16648@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>

On Apr 16,  0:00, Johnny Billquist wrote:

> Sigh. Why can't I get the last word. :-)

If I'd been quicker off the mark with my 11/04, you would have :-)

> Eh? I'd definitely say that the Falcon was a PDP-11, it does sport a F11.
> Actually, it was called the 11/21, or something like that, wasn't it?
> But it was a board, and not a machine...

That was the one called an SBC-11/21 Single Board Computer, aka KXT11.  Wasn't
it a T11 processor?  It had ODT in ROM, not in microcode.  There's one with a
J11, too.  Was that a Falcon+ ?  I think there were three versions altogether.
 Anyway, I just meant that the Falcons weren't sold in quite the same way; the
ones I've seen have been used more like today's embedded processors, set up to
do a very specific task, rather than to run a general-purpose O/S.  I expect it
could run RT-11, though.  The User's Guide I have says the ROM includes
DD/DX/DY bootstraps, among others.  I've certainly seen at least one in a
BA11-N box with other DEC cards, though that particular one didn't have any
disks.


-- 

Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Dept. of Computer Science
						University of York

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From allisonp at world.std.com  Thu Apr 16 12:06:40 1998
From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 22:06:40 -0400
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
Message-ID: <199804160206.AA10172@world.std.com>


<That was the one called an SBC-11/21 Single Board Computer, aka KXT11.  W
<it a T11 processor?  It had ODT in ROM, not in microcode.  There's one wi

KXT-11 was the t-11 cpu, duart (2 dl lines), PIOs ram and prom on one dual 
width card.  It was designed as a bus master.

KXT-11+ was also T-11, quad width with peripherals on board but could work 
as both bus master and bus slave.

KXJ-11 was the later versionusing the J-11 cpu.

< Anyway, I just meant that the Falcons weren't sold in quite the same way
<ones I've seen have been used more like today's embedded processors, set 
<do a very specific task, rather than to run a general-purpose O/S.  I exp
<could run RT-11, though.  The User's Guide I have says the ROM includes
<DD/DX/DY bootstraps, among others.  I've certainly seen at least one in 
<BA11-N box with other DEC cards, though that particular one didn't have a
<disks.

The were intended to replace lsi-11/03 and /2 cpus for embedded operation.
They with proper memory would run Rt-11 and could be used for a self 
development system.  At one time I had one in a BA11-va (showbox) with
a RXV21 and MXV11 and it was a very good 32k RT-11 system.

I also reassembled a MDS-11A a Vt100 with a PDP-11 qbus inside as a 
desktop development system for PDP-11.

Allison


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From jp at spektr.ludvika.se  Thu Apr 16 18:58:50 1998
From: jp at spektr.ludvika.se (Jorgen Pehrson)
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 10:58:50 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: Strategy for inst. UNIX on my PDP11?
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.3.96.980416103935.9120A-100000@spektr.ludvika.se>

Hi,
What's the best way of installing UNIX on my PDP11/83?
What I have:
PDP11/83, RD52, a QIC tape streamer doing some sort of TS11 emulation.

A MicroVAX II with a TK50 streamer and NetBSD installed. DEQNA ethernet.
And I have a spare DEQNA laying about.

What I was thinking of doing is writing the distribution to TK50 on the
MVII, move the TK50 streamer to the PDP and go from there. 

Is the RD52 big enough to contain a complete system?

What UNIX versions will work on my PDP? I was thinking of installing
2.11BSD.


Thanks for any input!

--
Jorgen Pehrson                   HP 9000/380 (NetBSD/hp300 1.3)
jp at spektr.ludvika.se             DECstation 5000/200 (NetBSD/pmax 1.3)
PDP11/83 - Intergraph InterAct - VAXstation 2000 (VMS 5.5-2)


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From sms at moe.2bsd.com  Fri Apr 17 01:47:14 1998
From: sms at moe.2bsd.com (Steven M. Schultz)
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 08:47:14 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Strategy for inst. UNIX on my PDP11?
Message-ID: <199804161547.IAA12057@moe.2bsd.com>

Greetings -

> From: Jorgen Pehrson <jp at spektr.ludvika.se>
> 
> What's the best way of installing UNIX on my PDP11/83?
> What I have:
> PDP11/83, RD52, a QIC tape streamer doing some sort of TS11 emulation.

	That tape device sounds like it is a TK25.  It uses the DC600A
	(60mb) cartridges.  

> A MicroVAX II with a TK50 streamer and NetBSD installed. DEQNA ethernet.
> And I have a spare DEQNA laying about.

	The DEQNA is supported by 2.11BSD so it would be a good idea to add
	that board to the 11/83.

> What I was thinking of doing is writing the distribution to TK50 on the
> MVII, move the TK50 streamer to the PDP and go from there. 

	Ok - that will work fine.  Another possiibility would be to move the
	TK25 (QIC) drive to the uVax-II and write the tapes to DC600A tapes. 
	Then move the TK25 back to the 11/25 and boot

> Is the RD52 big enough to contain a complete system?

	Alas no.  The RD52 is only ~30mb (the RD53 is about 70mb and the RD54
	is ~159mb).  A complete 2.11 system needs about 100mb (~8mb for a 
	root filesystem, 4mb for a swap partition and ~80mb for sources plus
	binaries).  A ZIP cartridge will (just) hold a complete 2.11 system
	(with about 8mb left over).  To hold a complete 2.11 system you'll 
	need either two RD53 drives or a single RD54.

	A minimal system (root filesystem plus selected binaries from /usr) 
	could be installed on a RD52 but it would definitely not be a complete
	system capable of recompiling itself.

> What UNIX versions will work on my PDP? I was thinking of installing
> 2.11BSD.

	2.11 is an excellent match for the 11/83.  Earlier versions (2.9 for
	example) will have a difficult time because MSCP support did not 
	arrive until 2.10BSD.  TMSCP support was not present until 2.10.1BSD

	Steven Schultz
	sms at moe.2bsd.com


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From robin at falstaf.demon.co.uk  Fri Apr 17 07:12:45 1998
From: robin at falstaf.demon.co.uk (Robin Birch)
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 22:12:45 +0100
Subject: Strategy for inst. UNIX on my PDP11?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.NEB.3.96.980416103935.9120A-100000@spektr.ludvika.se>
Message-ID: <5kppZIANRnN1EwQW@falstaf.demon.co.uk>

In message <Pine.NEB.3.96.980416103935.9120A-100000 at spektr.ludvika.se>,
Jorgen Pehrson <jp at spektr.ludvika.se> writes
>Hi,
>What's the best way of installing UNIX on my PDP11/83?
>What I have:
>PDP11/83, RD52, a QIC tape streamer doing some sort of TS11 emulation.
>
>A MicroVAX II with a TK50 streamer and NetBSD installed. DEQNA ethernet.
>And I have a spare DEQNA laying about.
>
>What I was thinking of doing is writing the distribution to TK50 on the
>MVII, move the TK50 streamer to the PDP and go from there. 
>
Yes, this will be the simplest way
>Is the RD52 big enough to contain a complete system?
>
no, an RD54 is probably the best to aim for if you can get your hands on
one.
>What UNIX versions will work on my PDP? I was thinking of installing
>2.11BSD.

That will do fine
>
>
>Thanks for any input!
>
>--
>Jorgen Pehrson                   HP 9000/380 (NetBSD/hp300 1.3)
>jp at spektr.ludvika.se             DECstation 5000/200 (NetBSD/pmax 1.3)
>PDP11/83 - Intergraph InterAct - VAXstation 2000 (VMS 5.5-2)
>
Cheers

Robin
Robin Birch     robin at falstaf.demon.co.uk

M1ASU/2E0ARJ    Old computers and radios always welcome


From jp at spektr.ludvika.se  Sat Apr 18 07:46:33 1998
From: jp at spektr.ludvika.se (Jorgen Pehrson)
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 23:46:33 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: Slightly offtopic...
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.3.96.980417233447.17135B-100000@spektr.ludvika.se>

Hi,
I have a little problem installing 2.11BSD on my PDP11/83. I have a TK50
tape with the distribution and a TK50 drive from a uvaxII. The controller
board is a M7546 that comes from another vax. The original tape drive in
this PDP is an TK25 drive which I have disconnected. How should the
TK50controller be strapped? The TK25 answered at 17772520. Should the TK50
be there as well? (I haven't got a clue howthe QBus works... I know it's
some kind of cascading thing though so I guess it matters in what order
the boards are placed in the machine)

Thanks for any help!

--
Jorgen Pehrson                  HP 9000/380 (NetBSD/hp300 1.3)
jp at spektr.ludvika.se            DECstation 5000/200 (NetBSD/pmax 1.3)
http://spektr.ludvika.se/museum VAXstation 2000 (VMS 5.5-2)


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From sms at moe.2bsd.com  Sat Apr 18 09:50:25 1998
From: sms at moe.2bsd.com (Steven M. Schultz)
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 16:50:25 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Slightly offtopic...
Message-ID: <199804172350.QAA06940@moe.2bsd.com>

Jorgen -

	Hello.  

> From: Jorgen Pehrson <jp at spektr.ludvika.se>

> I have a little problem installing 2.11BSD on my PDP11/83. I have a TK50
> tape with the distribution and a TK50 drive from a uvaxII. The controller
> board is a M7546 that comes from another vax. The original tape drive in
> this PDP is an TK25 drive which I have disconnected. How should the
> TK50controller be strapped? The TK25 answered at 17772520. Should the TK50

	That is the correct address for the first TS controller in the system.

	Despite the name ("TK25") the TK25 is a TS device and not a TMSCP 
	device.

> be there as well? (I haven't got a clue howthe QBus works... I know it's

	No.  The TK50 should be at the first TMSCP address which is 172150.

	You do not have to (indeed, you can not) set the vector on the M7546
	because TMSCP devices are 'programmable' - the kernel will assign
	a unique vector to the controller at boot time.

	Steven Schultz
	sms at moe.2bsd.com


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From sms at moe.2bsd.com  Sat Apr 18 10:38:02 1998
From: sms at moe.2bsd.com (Steven M. Schultz)
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 17:38:02 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: ERROR in previous mail item (TMSCP)
Message-ID: <199804180038.RAA07251@moe.2bsd.com>

Hello -

	I looked at the wrong line in the dtab file earlier.  

	The primary TMSCP address (where the TQK50 adaptor should go) is
	174500.  I accidentally gave the address of the first MSCP ('ra')
	earlier.

	So if you have both a TK50 and a TK25 the boards should be set like
	this

		TK25	172520
		TK50	174500

	Sorry for any confusion I caused.

	Steven



From edgee at cyberpass.net  Thu Apr  2 12:15:20 1998
From: edgee at cyberpass.net (Ed G.)
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 22:15:20 -0400
Subject: SCO Licenses-where are they?
Message-ID: <199804020315.WAA25507@renoir.op.net>

Has anyone gotten their "Antique Source Code License" yet?

I sent in my signed contract to the SCO 3/11/98, but I haven't heard
a thing.

Ed

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Thu Apr  2 14:14:09 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 14:14:09 +1000 (EST)
Subject: SCO Licenses-where are they?
In-Reply-To: <199804020315.WAA25507@renoir.op.net> from "Ed G." at "Apr 1, 98 10:15:20 pm"
Message-ID: <199804020414.OAA11901@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Ed G.:
> Has anyone gotten their "Antique Source Code License" yet?
> I sent in my signed contract to the SCO 3/11/98, but I haven't heard
> a thing.
> Ed

This is the word from Dion, as at 1st April:

	Well, we have 12 licenses accumulated here and I haven't got any
	"system" set up to deal with these.  I will probably just send
	you a list of the peoples' names and addresses by postal mail.
	Hope that's not too primitive.

I asked if he could send me the list via PGP email, but he countered
that they were all on paper, and he didn't have the time to send me the
list. However, he did say:

	I will just drop them into a DHL or similar express shipment
	thing.  Hopefully in a day or two.

Now, I'm not sure if this means:

	+ he will ship the licenses in a day or two,
	+ he will ship me the list in a day or two,
	+ it will only take a day or two for the list to reach me.

However, the worst-case scenario is that the licenses will be posted
in a day or two, and they should reach you quickly after that.

I checked my bank account, and SCO removed $100 on the 24th March.
I take this to indicate that I am now licensed. I don't know if this
is of much help, though.

I am waiting in anticipation, as we all are.

BTW First person to announce their license in the mailing list wins.
Wins what, I haven't a clue ;-)

	Warren

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Thu Apr  2 15:36:04 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 15:36:04 +1000 (EST)
Subject: Early DEC support for UNIX?
Message-ID: <199804020536.PAA12273@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

I was just browsing for web pages related to PDP-11s and UNIX, and I found:

	http://idefix-45.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/museum/pdp/unix-E.html

which has a most interesting paragraph at the bottom:

	Officially Digital Equipment did not support Unix. With the
	maintenance technicians we made the agreement that the hardware was
	OK, when their test programs did not produce error messages.

	At the end of 1983 we found out that within Digital there was a
	very small group which distributed Unix V7 with support and drivers
	for all PDP 11 models and devices. Sources were distributed freely to
	all source licensees of Bell labs. From then on we have used that
	distribution. 

Does anybody know what `distribution from within Digital' is being
referred to here, and how I can get my hands on it, for the archive.
Is this an early Ultrix?

I've mailed the maintainer of the web page in question for more information.

	Warren

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From johnh at psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au  Thu Apr  2 17:04:51 1998
From: johnh at psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au (John Holden)
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 17:04:51 +1000
Subject: Early DEC support for UNIX?
Message-ID: <199804020704.RAA25088@psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au>


> Does anybody know what `distribution from within Digital' is being
> referred to here, and how I can get my hands on it, for the archive.
> Is this an early Ultrix?


	I have an Edition 7 distribution from DEC. The work was largely
done by Fred Canter, along with Jerry Brenner and Armando Stettner. It
had prebuilt kernels as follows :-

	CPU	Disk	Tape
	11/23	RL02	TU10
	11/34	RK06	TE10
	11/40	RK07	TU16
	11/60	RM02	TE16
	11/44	RM03	TS11
	11/45	RP03	
	11/70	RP04
		RP05
		RP06

	I have a 1600bpi tape, but haven't tried to read it lately.


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From allisonp at world.std.com  Fri Apr  3 00:54:01 1998
From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 09:54:01 -0500
Subject: Early DEC support for UNIX?
Message-ID: <199804021454.AA19193@world.std.com>


<> Does anybody know what `distribution from within Digital' is being
<> referred to here, and how I can get my hands on it, for the archive.
<> Is this an early Ultrix?
<
<
<	I have an Edition 7 distribution from DEC. The work was largely
<done by Fred Canter, along with Jerry Brenner and Armando Stettner. It
<had prebuilt kernels as follows :-

So happens I have a tk50 tape labeled ULRIX-11 X3.1 27-jul-87.

Never looked at it as its apparently a tarball and all my systems with
tk50 to date are rt-11/rsts or VMS.  I keep meaning to look at it with
the VAX ULTRIX4.2 VS2000.

Allison


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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Fri Apr  3 08:41:49 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 08:41:49 +1000 (EST)
Subject: Ultrix for PDP-11
Message-ID: <199804022241.IAA12757@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

Briefly, Jean tells me the stuff I saw on his web page (early DEC support)
is called UNIX V7M RELEASE 2.1. There's a copy of _a_ V7M in the archive, but
I've asked Jean to look at his tape so we can compare contents.

John Holden, as you saw, also has a tape with lots of pre-built kernels.
I've asked John if we can get a copy of this tape too.

A few people mentioned Ultrix for the PDP-11. This is probably a dumb
question, but I assume DEC still owns these systems. Would it be possible
(and/or worth it) to ask DEC to make it freely available to licensees?

I guess we could ask Bob Supnik about it.

Thanks again,
	Warren

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Fri Apr  3 09:59:47 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 09:59:47 +1000 (EST)
Subject: Ultrix: reply from Bob Supnik
Message-ID: <199804022359.JAA12908@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

All,
	I've just received this reply from Bob Supnik on PDP-11 Ultrix: 


> If you can clear the other license issues (SCO's) Digital would have no
> problem giving a free license to its value add, whatever that was.
>
> That is, if the user can obtain a valid license from SCO, either binary
> or source, Digital will agree to license its portion at no cost under
> existing terms.

I asked him if DEC would permit us to distribute Ultrix to LICENSEES ONLY,
if some license agreement was also distributed. Awaiting a reply....

	Warren

P.S Ken, Allison, can you send in some tape images??? Thanks 8-)

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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Fri Apr  3 10:00:40 1998
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 16:00:40 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
In-Reply-To: <199803280050.LAA05410@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> from "Warren Toomey" at Mar 28, 98 11:50:54 am
Message-ID: <9804030000.AA00122@alph02.triumf.ca>

> I suspect the FP emulation in Bob's Emulator, so it might be worth
> watching the floating point values in the program. Bob mailed me during
> the week, and I sent him a virgin binary of factor so he could verify that
> there is a bug.

More evidence of a bug is that 'vi' doesn't work right under Bob
Supnik's emulator, either.  At one point Steven Schultz made some
private speculations to me about where the problem might be, but
I've forgotten the details.  Is it possible that these two bugs
are both due to FP emulation?  Does the 2.11BSD 'vi' even use
the FP registers?

Tim. (shoppa at triumf.ca)

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Fri Apr  3 10:16:15 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 10:16:15 +1000 (EST)
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
In-Reply-To: <9804030000.AA00122@alph02.triumf.ca> from Tim Shoppa at "Apr 2, 98 04:00:40 pm"
Message-ID: <199804030016.KAA12956@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Tim Shoppa:
> > I suspect the FP emulation in Bob's Emulator [breaking factor(6)]
> More evidence of a bug is that 'vi' doesn't work right under Bob
> Supnik's emulator, either.  At one point Steven Schultz made some
> private speculations to me about where the problem might be, but
> I've forgotten the details.  Is it possible that these two bugs
> are both due to FP emulation?  Does the 2.11BSD 'vi' even use
> the FP registers?

Don't know about vi FP, I could go have a look at the source. No, vi
doesn't appear to use any floating point.

I asked Bob about the factor(6) bug in my Ultrix mail, he didn't mention
it, but he might at some stage. I'll keep people informed.

As for vi, what was the abnormal behaviour?

	Warren

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From sms at moe.2bsd.com  Fri Apr  3 10:50:26 1998
From: sms at moe.2bsd.com (Steven M. Schultz)
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 16:50:26 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator?
Message-ID: <199804030050.QAA07798@moe.2bsd.com>

> Tim. (shoppa at triumf.ca)

> More evidence of a bug is that 'vi' doesn't work right under Bob
> Supnik's emulator, either.  At one point Steven Schultz made some
> private speculations to me about where the problem might be, but
> I've forgotten the details.  Is it possible that these two bugs
> are both due to FP emulation?  Does the 2.11BSD 'vi' even use
> the FP registers?

	To the best of my knowledge 'vi' does NOT use any FP at all (other than
	the usual 32 bit arithmetic that all programs do if they do any 'long'
	arithmetic).

	My speculation is that there's a MMU emulation bug somewhere.  'vi' is
	a overlaid split I/D program.  Overlays in 2.11BSD are done via
	'page flipping' (altering MMU registers).  Also 2.11 uses the 'expand
	downward' bit on the stack (as well as relying on MMR3 - i think that's
	the one - for instruction restart after growing the stack).  If there's
	a subtle gotcha in the MMU emulation that will cause problems 
	eventually.  2.11 is not alone in using the ED bit and instruction
	restart - if the problem is MMU related it could show up under other
	systems (V7).   It would be interesting to know if 'vi' encountered
	problems on V7 but V7 doesn't have usermode overlays so getting 'vi'
	to run would be very problematic.

	Steven


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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Fri Apr  3 11:00:34 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 11:00:34 +1000 (EST)
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator?
In-Reply-To: <199804030050.QAA07798@moe.2bsd.com> from "Steven M. Schultz" at "Apr 2, 98 04:50:26 pm"
Message-ID: <199804030100.LAA13088@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Steven M. Schultz:
[re bugs in Bob Sunik's PDP emulator]

> 	My speculation is that there's a MMU emulation bug somewhere.  'vi' is
> 	a overlaid split I/D program.  Overlays in 2.11BSD are done via
> 	'page flipping' (altering MMU registers).  Also 2.11 uses the 'expand
> 	downward' bit on the stack (as well as relying on MMR3 - i think that's
> 	the one - for instruction restart after growing the stack).  If there's
> 	a subtle gotcha in the MMU emulation that will cause problems 
> 	eventually.  2.11 is not alone in using the ED bit and instruction
> 	restart - if the problem is MMU related it could show up under other
> 	systems (V7).   It would be interesting to know if 'vi' encountered
> 	problems on V7 but V7 doesn't have usermode overlays so getting 'vi'
> 	to run would be very problematic.
> 
> 	Steven

The 2bsd distribution in the archive comes with an early non-overlayed vi
which compiles on V7. However, I haven't got it to work correctly yet. I
suspect that the /etc/termcap entry I was using is not recognised by this
early version of termlib.

This is all irrelevant to the emulator bug, BTW.
Steven, have you mentioned your hypothesis to Bob?

	Warren

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From edgee at cyberpass.net  Fri Apr  3 12:15:08 1998
From: edgee at cyberpass.net (Ed G.)
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 22:15:08 -0400
Subject: What's magtape good for anyway?
In-Reply-To: <199803251433.AA22737@world.std.com>
Message-ID: <199804030315.WAA06617@renoir.op.net>

> Mag tape has
> several things that make it difficult, one is old (late 60s and through

In old movies, filmmakers often focused on spinning tape 
drives when they wanted to show a computer "thinking."  What is it 
about tape drives that made them such a powerful symbol for big, 
complicated computer systems?

> the 70s) drives had a difficult time starting and stopping without 
> breaking tape or resorting to complex(then standards) controllers.  This 
> lead to things like large interrecord gaps (start, speed up read, stop,
> backspace records, stop, read) due to the inerta of starting and stoping 
> the reels.  Also fixed record sizes were used to make blocks about the 
> same length so blocks and marks could be differentiated using simple 
> timers.

Was dectape an attempt to remedy some of these problems?  My 
hazy recollection was that you could treat dectape in some ways as if 
it were a disk.

> Magtape was for the longest time the only portable media, which lead to 
> the ansi/EBCDIC problems (Evryone else and IBM/HP).  It was generally 
> used for archival storage making file organized access excess overhead.  
> While often used as block oriented, many systems used it more as a stream 
> device where the high volume storage (relative to the disks of the time) 
> capability was available.

How much data can magtape hold?  If magtape was a portable media, 
does that mean that the manufacturers agreed on the width of 
the tape, the density of recording, the method of recording bits, 
etc.?

I have an old 9 track tape from a computer course I took in 1980.  
For sentimental reasons I'd love to get a copy of its contents.  Is 
this possible do you think?

> When processing was done on early system usually two or three drives were 
> involved as one of two were for reading  and the third was writing results
> usually due to memory size limitations of the time compared to the amount 
> of data.  Alot of magtapes lore is a result of historical use.

Is 'merge sort' an example of an application that required three tape 
drives?

 Ed

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From allisonp at world.std.com  Fri Apr  3 15:44:23 1998
From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 00:44:23 -0500
Subject: What's magtape good for anyway?
Message-ID: <199804030544.AA14598@world.std.com>


<Was dectape an attempt to remedy some of these problems?  My 
<hazy recollection was that you could treat dectape in some ways as if 
<it were a disk.

Dectape was an attempt to achive moderate amount of storage at low cost 
with good reliability.  It's stop, turnaround time was poor but the cost 
was very low.  It was preceeded by linktape which was very much similar.

<How much data can magtape hold?  If magtape was a portable media, 

varies with the size of the reel and the density it was recorded at.

<does that mean that the manufacturers agreed on the width of 
<the tape, the density of recording, the method of recording bits, 
<etc.?

To a point.  

<I have an old 9 track tape from a computer course I took in 1980.  
<For sentimental reasons I'd love to get a copy of its contents.  Is 
<this possible do you think?

Highly likely if you can find someone with a drive.

<Is 'merge sort' an example of an application that required three tape 
<drives?

Thats a typical one.  Sometimes 4 drives were used plus maybe a disk
system.  Two for source material, one for intermediate results, one or
more for programs and the last for final results.  Some machines were
very limited in the local memory they had so programs often were broken 
into small modules and loaded (chained) as needed on the fly.  Imagine
processing 500k of data in a 16k memory where a portion was also used 
for program code.

Allison


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From grog at lemis.com  Fri Apr  3 16:41:11 1998
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg Lehey)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 15:41:11 +0900
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
In-Reply-To: <9804030000.AA00122@alph02.triumf.ca>; from Tim Shoppa on Thu, Apr 02, 1998 at 04:00:40PM -0800
References: <199803280050.LAA05410@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> <9804030000.AA00122@alph02.triumf.ca>
Message-ID: <19980403154111.63328@papillon.lemis.com>

On Thu,  2 April 1998 at 16:00:40 -0800, Tim Shoppa wrote:
>> I suspect the FP emulation in Bob's Emulator, so it might be worth
>> watching the floating point values in the program. Bob mailed me during
>> the week, and I sent him a virgin binary of factor so he could verify that
>> there is a bug.
>
> More evidence of a bug is that 'vi' doesn't work right under Bob
> Supnik's emulator, either.  At one point Steven Schultz made some
> private speculations to me about where the problem might be, but
> I've forgotten the details.  Is it possible that these two bugs
> are both due to FP emulation?  Does the 2.11BSD 'vi' even use
> the FP registers?

FWIW, I've used the latest (and not yet committed) version of the
Begemot emulator to run 2.11BSD for over a week.  In that time, I
applied multiple patches to the system.  I did have some as yet
unexplained problems with the assembler, which Steven Schultz
considers to be due to the emulator (more specifically, instruction
restart), but Hartmut Brandt (the principal author) thinks this is
unlikely.  vi works as well as vi ever works.

Greg

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From sms at moe.2bsd.com  Fri Apr  3 17:50:23 1998
From: sms at moe.2bsd.com (Steven M. Schultz)
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 23:50:23 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
Message-ID: <199804030750.XAA10664@moe.2bsd.com>

Greg -

> FWIW, I've used the latest (and not yet committed) version of the
> Begemot emulator to run 2.11BSD for over a week.  In that time, I

	AH, a new and improved version?  Great!  SOmething to look forward to.

> unexplained problems with the assembler, which Steven Schultz
> considers to be due to the emulator (more specifically, instruction
> restart), but Hartmut Brandt (the principal author) thinks this is unlikely.

	It was a possibility - the only other thing which I've seen cause
	similar problems was bad memory/cache.  I presumed your memory
	wasn't failing ;).

	Programs suddenly dying for no apparent reason on otherwise healthy 
	"hardware" led me to suspect a problem with the emulator.  The final
	arbiter of course is a real PDP-11 :)

	I take it then that the problems went away as mysteriously as they
	arrived and that all is well with your system (no more assembler
	or kernel recompile troubles)?

	Not having any great need of an emulated PDP-11 I've not pursued
	the (suspected) bug in Bob Supnik's emulator.  Even on a PentiumPro
	an emulated 11 is slower than a real 11/73 (and a lot slower than an
	11/93 - which I should cease neglecting and stuff a SCSI card into
	some day as I did with the 11/73).

	Steven


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From grog at lemis.com  Fri Apr  3 18:26:21 1998
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg Lehey)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 17:26:21 +0900
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
In-Reply-To: <199804030750.XAA10664@moe.2bsd.com>; from Steven M. Schultz on Thu, Apr 02, 1998 at 11:50:23PM -0800
References: <199804030750.XAA10664@moe.2bsd.com>
Message-ID: <19980403172621.30485@papillon.lemis.com>

On Thu,  2 April 1998 at 23:50:23 -0800, Steven M. Schultz wrote:
> Greg -
>
>> FWIW, I've used the latest (and not yet committed) version of the
>> Begemot emulator to run 2.11BSD for over a week.  In that time, I
>
> 	AH, a new and improved version?  Great!  SOmething to look forward to.

It's the one I've been using all along.  I never used an older version.

>> unexplained problems with the assembler, which Steven Schultz
>> considers to be due to the emulator (more specifically, instruction
>> restart), but Hartmut Brandt (the principal author) thinks this is unlikely.
>
> 	It was a possibility - the only other thing which I've seen cause
> 	similar problems was bad memory/cache.  I presumed your memory
> 	wasn't failing ;).

Reasonable assumption.

> 	Programs suddenly dying for no apparent reason on otherwise healthy
> 	"hardware" led me to suspect a problem with the emulator.  The final
> 	arbiter of course is a real PDP-11 :)

Sure, that makes sense.  I did too, but I couldn't see anything obvious.

> 	I take it then that the problems went away as mysteriously as they
> 	arrived and that all is well with your system (no more assembler
> 	or kernel recompile troubles)?

Well, not quite.  I finally got back to the real work I should have
been doing, and I haven't had time to look at it again since.  But
they went into hiding when I tried to show them to Hartmut :-) I think
we still have a problem somewhere.  BTW, Hartmut had already upgraded
to PL 40? before I tried to start, so I'm still not completely
convinced that it's not something I did wrong in upgrading.

> 	Not having any great need of an emulated PDP-11 I've not pursued
> 	the (suspected) bug in Bob Supnik's emulator.  Even on a PentiumPro
> 	an emulated 11 is slower than a real 11/73 (and a lot slower than an
> 	11/93 - which I should cease neglecting and stuff a SCSI card into
> 	some day as I did with the 11/73).

Interesting.  I was running this on an AMD K6/233, which should be
slower than a PPro, and I had the impression it was faster.  Does
anybody have some benchmarks?

Greg

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From pete at dunnington.u-net.com  Fri Apr  3 22:17:19 1998
From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 12:17:19 GMT
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
In-Reply-To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
        "Re: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!" (Apr  3, 17:26)
References: <199804030750.XAA10664@moe.2bsd.com> 
	<19980403172621.30485@papillon.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <9804031317.ZM14102@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>

On Apr 3, 17:26, Greg Lehey wrote:
> On 2 April 1998 at 23:50:23 -0800, Steven M. Schultz wrote:

> > 	Not having any great need of an emulated PDP-11 I've not pursued
> > 	the (suspected) bug in Bob Supnik's emulator.  Even on a PentiumPro
> > 	an emulated 11 is slower than a real 11/73 (and a lot slower than an
> > 	11/93 - which I should cease neglecting and stuff a SCSI card into
> > 	some day as I did with the 11/73).
>
> Interesting.  I was running this on an AMD K6/233, which should be
> slower than a PPro, and I had the impression it was faster.  Does
> anybody have some benchmarks?

I don't have numbers for anything running under the emulator, but I do have
Dhrystone sources (and some figures for real PDP-11s of various sorts with
various operating systems and compilers).  If anyone wants to try it, I can
post the source.

-- 

Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Dept. of Computer Science
						University of York

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From pete at dunnington.u-net.com  Fri Apr  3 22:11:00 1998
From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 12:11:00 GMT
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
In-Reply-To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
        "Re: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!" (Apr  3, 15:41)
References: <199803280050.LAA05410@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> 
	<9804030000.AA00122@alph02.triumf.ca> 
	<19980403154111.63328@papillon.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <9804031311.ZM14096@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>

On Apr 3, 15:41, Greg Lehey wrote:
> Subject: Re: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
> On Thu,  2 April 1998 at 16:00:40 -0800, Tim Shoppa wrote:
> >> I suspect the FP emulation in Bob's Emulator, so it might be worth
> >> watching the floating point values in the program. Bob mailed me during
> >> the week, and I sent him a virgin binary of factor so he could verify that
> >> there is a bug.

I'd be very surprised if factor used FP.  My 7th Edition system's offline ATM,
so I can't check the source.

> > More evidence of a bug is that 'vi' doesn't work right under Bob
> > Supnik's emulator, either.  At one point Steven Schultz made some
> > private speculations to me about where the problem might be, but
> > I've forgotten the details.  Is it possible that these two bugs
> > are both due to FP emulation?  Does the 2.11BSD 'vi' even use
> > the FP registers?

Dunno, but I'd be surprised.

> applied multiple patches to the system.  I did have some as yet
> unexplained problems with the assembler, which Steven Schultz
> considers to be due to the emulator (more specifically, instruction
> restart), but Hartmut Brandt (the principal author) thinks this is
> unlikely.

Well, it is one of the areas that causes trouble on different flavours of
PDP-11.  Both DEC and Unix O/S's had all sorts of games being played in the
trap recovery code, according to which processor the O/S thought it was running
under.  But AFAIK, that code only gets called if an instruction is aborted,
which I wouldn't expect would happen exactly the same way every time factor was
run (but again, I'm speculating without having looked at the code).

-- 

Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Dept. of Computer Science
						University of York

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From pete at dunnington.u-net.com  Fri Apr  3 22:01:48 1998
From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 12:01:48 GMT
Subject: What's magtape good for anyway?
In-Reply-To: "Ed G." <edgee@cyberpass.net>
        "Re: What's magtape good for anyway?" (Apr  2, 22:15)
References: <199804030315.WAA06617@renoir.op.net>
Message-ID: <9804031301.ZM14090@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>

On Apr 2, 22:15, Ed G. wrote:
> Subject: Re: What's magtape good for anyway?

> Was dectape an attempt to remedy some of these problems?  My
> hazy recollection was that you could treat dectape in some ways as if
> it were a disk.

Yes, in the sense that you could perform random-access operations on it.  I
used a PDP-8 that had twin DECtape instead of disks.  It supported 4(?)
teletypes in a multi-user environment.  But DECtape was not 1/2" tape, nor did
it use reels like the ones that later became standard.

> How much data can magtape hold?  If magtape was a portable media,
> does that mean that the manufacturers agreed on the width of
> the tape, the density of recording, the method of recording bits,
> etc.?

Yes to all of those, though there are three standard recording densities
(80bpi, 1600bpi, 6250bpi) and several recording methods (NRZ, NRZI, PE, etc).
 There are different standard lengths too:  600' 1200' 2400'.

> I have an old 9 track tape from a computer course I took in 1980.
> For sentimental reasons I'd love to get a copy of its contents.  Is
> this possible do you think?

Shouldn't be hard, unless it's suffered from print-through after 18 years.
 It's probably 800bpi (NRZI) or 1600bpi (PE).  Whether you can understand the
contents depends on the format of the data, of course.


-- 

Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Dept. of Computer Science
						University of York

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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Fri Apr  3 23:50:14 1998
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 05:50:14 -0800 (PST)
Subject: What's magtape good for anyway?
In-Reply-To: <199804030315.WAA06617@renoir.op.net> from "Ed G." at Apr 2, 98 10:15:08 pm
Message-ID: <9804031350.AA00796@alph02.triumf.ca>

> > Mag tape has
> > several things that make it difficult, one is old (late 60s and through
> 
> In old movies, filmmakers often focused on spinning tape 
> drives when they wanted to show a computer "thinking."  What is it 
> about tape drives that made them such a powerful symbol for big, 
> complicated computer systems?

You have to realize that disk storage on mainframe systems in the
1960's was usually quite small.  Almost all "large-scale" processing
was from tape drive(s) to tape drive(s).  If you find a really good
reference on sorting and collating (Knuth, for example) a lot of
effort is made on doing things with as little core and disk space
as possible.  Most of these methods are still used today on really
large data sets (for example, FFT's on multi-gigabyte data sets
which are never entirely in memory.)

> > the 70s) drives had a difficult time starting and stopping without 
> > breaking tape or resorting to complex(then standards) controllers.  This 
> > lead to things like large interrecord gaps (start, speed up read, stop,
> > backspace records, stop, read) due to the inerta of starting and stoping 
> > the reels.  Also fixed record sizes were used to make blocks about the 
> > same length so blocks and marks could be differentiated using simple 
> > timers.
> 
> Was dectape an attempt to remedy some of these problems?  My 
> hazy recollection was that you could treat dectape in some ways as if 
> it were a disk.

DECtape was very much different from other tape media of the time.
You didn't treat it as a disk in just some ways, you treated it as
a disk in all ways.

At the time of DECtape, the most inexpensive removable disk media was
the RK05 DECpack, which cost about $150-$200 per platter.  DECtape was
created as a more affordable "disk-like" removable media so that
each user could carry his files around with him.

> > Magtape was for the longest time the only portable media, which lead to 
> > the ansi/EBCDIC problems (Evryone else and IBM/HP).  It was generally 
> > used for archival storage making file organized access excess overhead.  
> > While often used as block oriented, many systems used it more as a stream 
> > device where the high volume storage (relative to the disks of the time) 
> > capability was available.
> 
> How much data can magtape hold?

A 1600 bpi 2400 foot 9-track holds about 40 Megabytes if you use long
blocks.  Other more recent magtapes (i.e. DLT's) hold 40-100 Gigabytes per
reel/cartridge.  Some specialized optical tape media hold Terabytes
per reel.

>  If magtape was a portable media, 
> does that mean that the manufacturers agreed on the width of 
> the tape, the density of recording, the method of recording bits, 
> etc.?

Absolutely.  There are ANSI standards for all of the above.  Despite
what others claim, interchangability was always rather straightforward,
and the worst problems are the "concepts" not supported by some operating
systems (i.e. Unix lacks file support for anything other than a file that's
just a stream-of-bytes).

> I have an old 9 track tape from a computer course I took in 1980.  
> For sentimental reasons I'd love to get a copy of its contents.  Is 
> this possible do you think?

Absolutely.  Part of my current profession is reading 9- (and 7-) tracks
that are up to 35 years old.

> > When processing was done on early system usually two or three drives were 
> > involved as one of two were for reading  and the third was writing results
> > usually due to memory size limitations of the time compared to the amount 
> > of data.  Alot of magtapes lore is a result of historical use.

These uses aren't just historical - many of us still deal with datasets
that are Terabytes in size and which cannot be disk (or core) resident.

Tim. (shoppa at triumf.ca)

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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Fri Apr  3 23:55:06 1998
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 05:55:06 -0800 (PST)
Subject: What's magtape good for anyway?
In-Reply-To: <9804031301.ZM14090@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk> from "Pete Turnbull" at Apr 3, 98 12:01:48 pm
Message-ID: <9804031355.AA32661@alph02.triumf.ca>

> > How much data can magtape hold?  If magtape was a portable media,
> > does that mean that the manufacturers agreed on the width of
> > the tape, the density of recording, the method of recording bits,
> > etc.?
> 
> Yes to all of those, though there are three standard recording densities
> (80bpi, 1600bpi, 6250bpi) and several recording methods (NRZ, NRZI, PE, etc).

But in the 9-track world at least, 800 BPI was always NRZI, 1600 BPI
(and 3200 BPI) was always PE, and 6250 BPI was always a specific type
of GCR.  

In the 7-track world, recording was almost always NRZI.  One manufacturer
did make a 7-track PE system, but it was never a standard.

Tim.

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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Sat Apr  4 00:00:44 1998
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 06:00:44 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
In-Reply-To: <199804030750.XAA10664@moe.2bsd.com> from "Steven M. Schultz" at Apr 2, 98 11:50:23 pm
Message-ID: <9804031400.AA23631@alph02.triumf.ca>

> 	Not having any great need of an emulated PDP-11 I've not pursued
> 	the (suspected) bug in Bob Supnik's emulator.  Even on a PentiumPro
> 	an emulated 11 is slower than a real 11/73 (and a lot slower than an
> 	11/93 - which I should cease neglecting and stuff a SCSI card into
> 	some day as I did with the 11/73).

On a cow orker's 200 MHz Pentium Pro, Bob Supnik's emulator (compiled
with gcc and running under Linux) is about twice as fast as a real
11/73 for most CPU-intensive operations.  Speeds for I/O based
operations can range from incredibly faster to incredibly slower
than a real -11, of course, and a lot of the interrupt and device
priority schemes seem seriously out of whack with how a real PDP-11
works.  And speed also depends on whether the MMU
is enabled or not, too.

The same emulator running on a 7-year-old 133 MHz DEC Alpha is about
a third the speed of a real 11/73 (slow enough that a lot of 60 Hz
line-time-clock interrupts go uncounted under RT-11, for example!)

Tim.

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From pete at dunnington.u-net.com  Sat Apr  4 03:38:52 1998
From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 17:38:52 GMT
Subject: What's magtape good for anyway?
In-Reply-To: Tim Shoppa <shoppa@alph02.triumf.ca>
        "Re: What's magtape good for anyway?" (Apr  3,  5:55)
References: <9804031355.AA32661@alph02.triumf.ca>
Message-ID: <9804031838.ZM14499@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>

On Apr 3,  5:55, Tim Shoppa wrote:
> > Yes to all of those, though there are three standard recording densities
> > (80bpi, 1600bpi, 6250bpi) and several recording methods (NRZ, NRZI, PE,
etc).
>
> But in the 9-track world at least, 800 BPI was always NRZI, 1600 BPI
> (and 3200 BPI) was always PE, and 6250 BPI was always a specific type
> of GCR.

Yes, I didn't mean to imply you could have any mixture.  It's always irritated
me that I can't read 800bpi tapes on my 1600bpi drive simply because it doesn't
have the (optional) NRZI board.

-- 

Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Dept. of Computer Science
						University of York

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From sms at moe.2bsd.com  Sat Apr  4 06:28:54 1998
From: sms at moe.2bsd.com (Steven M. Schultz)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 12:28:54 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
Message-ID: <199804032028.MAA25193@moe.2bsd.com>

Tim -

> From: Tim Shoppa <shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca>
> On a cow orker's 200 MHz Pentium Pro, Bob Supnik's emulator (compiled

	He's in the "dairy business"? :-) :-)

> with gcc and running under Linux) is about twice as fast as a real
> 11/73 for most CPU-intensive operations.  Speeds for I/O based
> operations can range from incredibly faster to incredibly slower

	Ok - I finally got around to retrying Bob's emulator.  This is using
	gcc 2.8.1 under BSD/OS 3.1 with a PPro 200 and the Dhrystone 2.1 (C
	language version) program.

	Running under the emulator I get 555 dhrystones/second.  On a real
	11/73 I see 664 dhrystones/sec.

	I/O operations are faster but I suspect a some of that is
	due to Ultra-Wide Barracuda drives vs. HP 3724 and an Emulex UC08.

> than a real -11, of course, and a lot of the interrupt and device
> priority schemes seem seriously out of whack with how a real PDP-11

	The line frequency clock seems to be acting strange.    When running
	the dhrystone program I see:

Measured time too small to obtain meaningful results
Please increase number of runs

	EVEN THOUGH the (wall clock) run time for 20000 dhrystones was 36 
	seconds.

> The same emulator running on a 7-year-old 133 MHz DEC Alpha is about

	I recall when the DEC rep here brought in one of the first 150mhz
	Alpha systems.  Thought it was awesome that a machine could do a
	3 phase build of GCC in about 1 hour.  Ummm, today a PPro can do it
	in about 15 or 20 minutes ;)

	Other benchmarks of possible interest:

	A recompile of the 2.11BSD C compiler:

11/44	9min 20sec
11/73   9min 33sec
11/93   6min 43sec
emulated PDP-11 5min 25sec (BUT the 'time' reported with "time make" was 10min
			    4 sec)

	the 44 and 73 are suprisingly close because the 44 was hobbled with
	RA81s on a UDA50 while the 73 had a HP3724S on Emulex UC08.  Alas,
	the RA81 died so I no longer have a 44 to test with (until I get a RA9x
	or something myself since the support department refused to do it).

	Interesting that the emulated one is faster on this test even though
	the dhrystone rating is about 20% slower.

	Steven


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From bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se  Sat Apr  4 23:40:02 1998
From: bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1998 15:40:02 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: Sunchip package [was Assember in C?]
In-Reply-To: <199803172059.HAA01365@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.95q.980404153822.15388A-100000@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE>

> > > P.S.  As I suspected and feared,
> > 
> > 	% diff -r Trees/V7/usr/src/cmd/c Xinu/src/cmd/cc11
> > 
> > indicates the C compiler provided in all these archives (Xinu,
> > CHIP, sunCHIP) are directly derived from the V6/V7 compiler.
> 
> So is the DECUS C compiler, I hear. Is there any native C compiler
> for the PDP-11 which isn't derived from V6/V7?

Well, the obvious answer is DEC's (nowadays MENTEC's) own ANSI C
compiler, which runs under RSX and RSTS/e (not sure about RT-11
though...)

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
CS student at Uppsala University  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at minsk.docs.uu.se       ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol


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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Sun Apr  5 05:16:02 1998
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1998 11:16:02 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Sunchip package [was Assember in C?]
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.95q.980404153822.15388A-100000@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> from "Johnny Billquist" at Apr 4, 98 03:40:02 pm
Message-ID: <9804041916.AA21693@alph02.triumf.ca>

> > So is the DECUS C compiler, I hear. Is there any native C compiler
> > for the PDP-11 which isn't derived from V6/V7?
> 
> Well, the obvious answer is DEC's (nowadays MENTEC's) own ANSI C
> compiler, which runs under RSX and RSTS/e (not sure about RT-11
> though...)

Yes, it does run under RT-11 (that's the only version I've used.)
But I've no idea of the lineage of that particular compiler - it wouldn't
surprise me to find out that it was derived from V6/V7 in some way.
(Though clearly with entirely new run-time libraries.)

As long as we're on the subject: has anyone succesfully cross-compiled
using 'gcc' on some non-11 platform to produce PDP-11 object code, which
they than succesfully ran?  While the compiler seems to work fine, I've
run into confusion when trying to use the *.h files from 2.11BSD to
do something useful.

Tim. (shoppa at triumf.ca)

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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Sun Apr  5 06:43:25 1998
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1998 12:43:25 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
In-Reply-To: <199804032028.MAA25193@moe.2bsd.com> from "Steven M. Schultz" at Apr 3, 98 12:28:54 pm
Message-ID: <9804042043.AA19446@alph02.triumf.ca>

> > with gcc and running under Linux) is about twice as fast as a real
> > 11/73 for most CPU-intensive operations.  Speeds for I/O based
> > operations can range from incredibly faster to incredibly slower
> 
> 	Ok - I finally got around to retrying Bob's emulator.  This is using
> 	gcc 2.8.1 under BSD/OS 3.1 with a PPro 200 and the Dhrystone 2.1 (C
> 	language version) program.
> 
> 	Running under the emulator I get 555 dhrystones/second.  On a real
> 	11/73 I see 664 dhrystones/sec.

I suspect that the emulator will be quite slow on any math-heavy
benchmark - and your observations confirm this.  Doesn't Bob's
emulator do the FP operations by converting everything to IEEE
and back for each and every operand?

> > than a real -11, of course, and a lot of the interrupt and device
> > priority schemes seem seriously out of whack with how a real PDP-11
> 
> 	The line frequency clock seems to be acting strange.    When running
> 	the dhrystone program I see:
> 
> Measured time too small to obtain meaningful results
> Please increase number of runs
> 
> 	EVEN THOUGH the (wall clock) run time for 20000 dhrystones was 36 
> 	seconds.

On my cow-oreker's Pentium Pro, the line-time clock under Bob's emulator
appears to work fine, but it "misses" a lot of ticks when running on
my 7-year-old Alpha.  I've never looked at the logic to figure out exactly
what is going on, but I suspect that I couldn't emulate the interrupt/
priority structure any better than Bob's already done!

> 	Other benchmarks of possible interest:
> 
> 	A recompile of the 2.11BSD C compiler:
> 
> 11/44	9min 20sec
> 11/73   9min 33sec
> 11/93   6min 43sec
> emulated PDP-11 5min 25sec

For most "real" PDP-11 emulation uses this is probably a more realistic
benchark than the Dhrystone.  I know lots of currently-being-used-and-
maintained PDP-11 applications, and none of them are heavy on FP - all
the FP-specific stuff got migrated to a faster machine the instant
the faster machine became available.  (You'd be amazed at the awful
machines that I've seen people use *just* because it did their integral
faster.  Farms of I860's and I960's were the rage a couple of years ago,
and boy was that an icky development platform.)

> (BUT the 'time' reported with "time make" was 10min
> 			    4 sec)

The line-time-clock on Bob's emulator doesn't necessarily have anything
to do with reality.  On my cow-orker's 200 MHz pentium Pro, it ticks
about twice as fast as real time, but on my Alpha it'll often not tick
at all if there's something else keeping the (emulated) CPU busy.  I
think other emulators (like John Wilson's) put more emphasis on real-time
applications and probably emulate the line-time-clock more faithfully.

> 	Interesting that the emulated one is faster on this test even though
> 	the dhrystone rating is about 20% slower.

Again, I think the C recompile is probably a better benchmark - unless
someone's specifically interested primarily in FP emulation, which I think
is likely to be the exception.

Tim. (shoppa at triumf.ca)

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Sun Apr  5 09:30:24 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Sun, 5 Apr 1998 09:30:24 +1000 (EST)
Subject: licenses mail today
In-Reply-To: <19980403095446.48700@sco.com> from Dion Johnson at "Apr 3, 98 09:54:46 am"
Message-ID: <199804042330.JAA28084@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Dion Johnson:
> I think I can get the licenses mailed today to the licensees.

Ta!

	Warren

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From grog at lemis.com  Mon Apr  6 09:45:32 1998
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg Lehey)
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 09:15:32 +0930
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
In-Reply-To: <9804031317.ZM14102@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>; from Pete Turnbull on Fri, Apr 03, 1998 at 12:17:19PM +0000
References: <199804030750.XAA10664@moe.2bsd.com> <19980403172621.30485@papillon.lemis.com> <grog@lemis.com> <9804031317.ZM14102@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <19980406091532.27504@freebie.lemis.com>

On Fri,  3 April 1998 at 12:17:19 +0000, Pete Turnbull wrote:
> On Apr 3, 17:26, Greg Lehey wrote:
>> On 2 April 1998 at 23:50:23 -0800, Steven M. Schultz wrote:
>
>>> 	Not having any great need of an emulated PDP-11 I've not pursued
>>> 	the (suspected) bug in Bob Supnik's emulator.  Even on a PentiumPro
>>> 	an emulated 11 is slower than a real 11/73 (and a lot slower than an
>>> 	11/93 - which I should cease neglecting and stuff a SCSI card into
>>> 	some day as I did with the 11/73).
>>
>> Interesting.  I was running this on an AMD K6/233, which should be
>> slower than a PPro, and I had the impression it was faster.  Does
>> anybody have some benchmarks?
>
> I don't have numbers for anything running under the emulator, but I do have
> Dhrystone sources (and some figures for real PDP-11s of various sorts with
> various operating systems and compilers).  If anyone wants to try it, I can
> post the source.

I'd be interested.

Greg

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From grog at lemis.com  Mon Apr  6 10:16:56 1998
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg Lehey)
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 09:46:56 +0930
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
In-Reply-To: <199804032028.MAA25193@moe.2bsd.com>; from Steven M. Schultz on Fri, Apr 03, 1998 at 12:28:54PM -0800
References: <199804032028.MAA25193@moe.2bsd.com>
Message-ID: <19980406094656.23449@freebie.lemis.com>

On Fri,  3 April 1998 at 12:28:54 -0800, Steven M. Schultz wrote:
> 	Ok - I finally got around to retrying Bob's emulator.  This is using
> 	gcc 2.8.1 under BSD/OS 3.1 with a PPro 200 and the Dhrystone 2.1 (C
> 	language version) program.
>
> 	Other benchmarks of possible interest:
>
> 	A recompile of the 2.11BSD C compiler:
>
> 11/44	9min 20sec
> 11/73   9min 33sec
> 11/93   6min 43sec
> emulated PDP-11 5min 25sec (BUT the 'time' reported with "time make" was 10min
> 			    4 sec)
>

I don't know which directories you compiled, but here are the results
on a K6/233 running FreeBSD 3.0 and the Begemot emulator:

/usr/src/lib/c2	            39.4 real        30.5 user         8.4 sys
/usr/src/lib/ccom	   223.6 real       186.9 user        36.2 sys
/usr/src/lib/cpp	    55.6 real        41.9 user        13.3 sys

date(1) showed times consistent with time(1).

Greg

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From pete at dunnington.u-net.com  Mon Apr  6 11:44:16 1998
From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull)
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 01:44:16 GMT
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
In-Reply-To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
        "Re: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!" (Apr  6,  9:15)
References: <199804030750.XAA10664@moe.2bsd.com> 
	<19980403172621.30485@papillon.lemis.com>  <grog@lemis.com> 
	<9804031317.ZM14102@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk> 
	<19980406091532.27504@freebie.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <9804060244.ZM28168@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>

On Apr 6,  9:15, Greg Lehey wrote:
> On Fri,  3 April 1998 at 12:17:19 +0000, Pete Turnbull wrote:
> > I don't have numbers for anything running under the emulator, but I do have
> > Dhrystone sources (and some figures for real PDP-11s of various sorts with
> > various operating systems and compilers).  If anyone wants to try it, I can
> > post the source.
>
> I'd be interested.

I don't want to clutter everyone's mailbox with a 32K file, so I've put it on

http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/dhrystone.c

and anyone who wants can grab it from there.  If there's any problem accessing
that page from that server, please do two things:
1) tell me! so I can complain, and
2) try http://www.personal.u-net.com/~dunnington/public/dhrystone.c
   or http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/ and follow the "no intel" link :-)

-- 

Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Dept. of Computer Science
						University of York

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From sms at moe.2bsd.com  Mon Apr  6 14:25:26 1998
From: sms at moe.2bsd.com (Steven M. Schultz)
Date: Sun, 5 Apr 1998 21:25:26 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
Message-ID: <199804060425.VAA11498@moe.2bsd.com>

> From: Greg Lehey <grog at lemis.com>
> I don't know which directories you compiled, but here are the results
> on a K6/233 running FreeBSD 3.0 and the Begemot emulator:
 
> /usr/src/lib/c2	            39.4 real        30.5 user         8.4 sys
> /usr/src/lib/ccom	   223.6 real       186.9 user        36.2 sys

	I just compiled the 'ccom' directory (the C compiler itself) and not
	the optimizer or preprocessor

> date(1) showed times consistent with time(1).

	Interesting!  So P11's time/clock handling is doing the right/expected
	thing.

	I'd give P11 a try but it's refusing to configure and build at the 
	moment.  Also the version (2.0) in the archive is about 4 years old 
	and only (from the looks of it) supports RL02 disks.  I've a nice 
	RP06 image built using Bob's emulator that I could "boot up"  if 
	P11 handled 'SMD' (i.e 'xp') disks.

	Steven


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From grog at lemis.com  Mon Apr  6 14:38:00 1998
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg Lehey)
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 14:08:00 +0930
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator!
In-Reply-To: <199804060425.VAA11498@moe.2bsd.com>; from Steven M. Schultz on Sun, Apr 05, 1998 at 09:25:26PM -0700
References: <199804060425.VAA11498@moe.2bsd.com>
Message-ID: <19980406140800.57401@freebie.lemis.com>

On Sun,  5 April 1998 at 21:25:26 -0700, Steven M. Schultz wrote:
>> From: Greg Lehey <grog at lemis.com>
>> I don't know which directories you compiled, but here are the results
>> on a K6/233 running FreeBSD 3.0 and the Begemot emulator:
>
>> /usr/src/lib/c2	            39.4 real        30.5 user         8.4 sys
>> /usr/src/lib/ccom	   223.6 real       186.9 user        36.2 sys
>
> 	I just compiled the 'ccom' directory (the C compiler itself) and not
> 	the optimizer or preprocessor

Hmm.  That's a big difference in favour of Begemot.

>> date(1) showed times consistent with time(1).
>
> 	Interesting!  So P11's time/clock handling is doing the right/expected
> 	thing.

It's not 100% accurate.  On my machine, it loses a few minutes a day.
But all the numbers add up, and it didn't lose noticably more time
during the build.

> 	I'd give P11 a try but it's refusing to configure and build at the
> 	moment.  Also the version (2.0) in the archive is about 4 years old
> 	and only (from the looks of it) supports RL02 disks.  I've a nice
> 	RP06 image built using Bob's emulator that I could "boot up"  if
> 	P11 handled 'SMD' (i.e 'xp') disks.

I'll put some stuff together.  I've exchanged some mail on the
subjecte today with Jörg Micheel, one of the authors.  Hartmut Brandt,
the other, is in Germany and thus probably sleeping.  The version I
have him includes images for 2.11BSD, which I can't give to anybody,
though I suppose we can make an exception in your case :-)  I'll see
what I can put together.

Greg


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From Bob.Supnik at digital.com  Tue Apr  7 07:25:57 1998
From: Bob.Supnik at digital.com (Bob Supnik)
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 17:25:57 -0400 
Subject: Bug in Bob Supnik's Emulator?
Message-ID: <6B84B1FF221BD011B0AC08002BE69206683E78@excmso.mso.dec.com>

There is indeed a bug in the floating point emulator: MODf was setting
the condition codes off the integer result, not the fractional result.

To fix the bug, look for this code fragment in source module pdp11_fp.c

case 3:							/* MODf */
	ReadFP (&fsrc, GeteaFP (dstspec, lenf), dstspec, lenf);
	F_LOAD (qdouble, FR[ac], fac);
	newV = modfp11 (&fac, &fsrc, &modfrac);
	F_STORE (qdouble, fac, FR[ac | 1]);
	F_STORE (qdouble, modfrac, FR[ac]);
==>	FPS = setfcc (FPS, fac.h, newV);
	break;

Change the indicated code line to be:

==>	FPS = setfcc (FPS, modfrac.h, newV);

and recompile.

Thanks to Warren Toomey for getting me the source to FACTOR, which
showed the bug.

(I can't believe this is the problem with vi, but who knows?  A bug in
MODf could affect the binary to decimal conversion routines in the run
time libraries.)

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From sms at moe.2bsd.com  Tue Apr  7 08:03:34 1998
From: sms at moe.2bsd.com (Steven M. Schultz)
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 15:03:34 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: modf
Message-ID: <199804062203.PAA28357@moe.2bsd.com>

Bob -

> Change the indicated code line to be:
> 
> ==>	FPS = setfcc (FPS, modfrac.h, newV);
> 
> and recompile.
> 
> Thanks to Warren Toomey for getting me the source to FACTOR, which
> showed the bug.

	The 'primes' program also uses 'modf' so it might encounter the same
	problem as FACTOR.

> (I can't believe this is the problem with vi, but who knows?  A bug in
> MODf could affect the binary to decimal conversion routines in the runtime

	'modf' is used in the runtime routines which compute 'long' (and
	unsigned long) remainders.  So if 'vi' is doing something like 
	"long % X" or "unsigned long % X" it's possible (likely) that it's 
	getting a wrong answer and becoming extremely confused.

	I'll check this later tonight.

	Steven


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From djenner at halcyon.com  Tue Apr  7 08:58:38 1998
From: djenner at halcyon.com (David C. Jenner)
Date: Mon, 06 Apr 1998 15:58:38 -0700
Subject: License AU-1 arrives!
Message-ID: <35295E1E.DD7BB731@halcyon.com>

I don't know if this is the first posting, but it sure is the first
license: AU-1!

Now, to do something with it.

Dave

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Tue Apr  7 09:56:31 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 09:56:31 +1000 (EST)
Subject: License AU-1 arrives!
In-Reply-To: <35295E1E.DD7BB731@halcyon.com> from "David C. Jenner" at "Apr 6, 98 03:58:38 pm"
Message-ID: <199804062356.JAA00432@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by David C. Jenner:
> I don't know if this is the first posting, but it sure is the first
> license: AU-1!
> 
> Now, to do something with it.
> Dave

You swine Dave, you beat us all! Congratulations. Once I hear from
Dion, you'll get access to the archive.

	Warren

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From djenner at halcyon.com  Tue Apr  7 10:05:21 1998
From: djenner at halcyon.com (David C. Jenner)
Date: Mon, 06 Apr 1998 17:05:21 -0700
Subject: License AU-1 arrives!
References: <199804062356.JAA00432@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>
Message-ID: <35296DC1.36FFDB54@halcyon.com>

Well, I agree.  I really shouldn't have been first.  Probably you,
Warren, should have been an "honorary" first, for all the effort you put
into it.

But, look at it this way.  Notice that the licenses are all "AU-#".  We
are all paying homage to "au" for bring this about.

Dave

Warren Toomey wrote:
> 
> In article by David C. Jenner:
> > I don't know if this is the first posting, but it sure is the first
> > license: AU-1!
> >
> > Now, to do something with it.
> > Dave
> 
> You swine Dave, you beat us all! Congratulations. Once I hear from
> Dion, you'll get access to the archive.
> 
>         Warren

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Tue Apr  7 10:09:43 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 10:09:43 +1000 (EST)
Subject: License AU-1 arrives!
In-Reply-To: <35296DC1.36FFDB54@halcyon.com> from "David C. Jenner" at "Apr 6, 98 05:05:21 pm"
Message-ID: <199804070009.KAA00531@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by David C. Jenner:
> Well, I agree.  I really shouldn't have been first.  Probably you,
> Warren, should have been an "honorary" first, for all the effort you put
> into it.
> 
> But, look at it this way.  Notice that the licenses are all "AU-#".  We
> are all paying homage to "au" for bring this about.
> Dave

I don't think the licensing section in San Francisco knows me from Adam.
I asked Dion if AU stood for Ancient Unix, Australia or both :-)

I'm so glad at least two people have got licenses (Charles Retter too).
It sets a legal precedent, in case SCO ever change their mind.

	Warren

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From johnh at psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au  Tue Apr  7 10:35:46 1998
From: johnh at psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au (John Holden)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 10:35:46 +1000
Subject: License AU-1 arrives!
Message-ID: <199804070035.KAA11206@psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au>


	Perhaps we should ask SCO to issue licence AU-0 to Warren, in keeping
with his work on maintaining interest in old versions of Unix and we all
know that computer programmers start counting from zero!

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From edgee at cyberpass.net  Tue Apr  7 10:42:54 1998
From: edgee at cyberpass.net (Ed G.)
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 20:42:54 -0400
Subject: Mag Tape Bug in Bob's Emulator?
Message-ID: <199804070042.UAA07206@renoir.op.net>

Is this another bug?  What do you all think?

Ed G.

sim> att tm0 emutar.tap
TM: creating new file
sim> cont

ta: not found
# tar cvf /dev/rmt0 mysqrt.c
a mysqrt.c 1 blocks
# cd tmp
# tar vxf /dev/rmt0
x mysqrt.c, 383 bytes, 1 tape blocks
x mysqrt.c, 383 bytes, 1 tape blocks
x mysqrt.c, 383 bytes, 1 tape blocks
x mysqrt.c, 383 bytes, 1 tape blocks
x mysqrt.c, 383 bytes, 1 tape blocks
x mysqrt.c, 383 bytes, 1 tape blocks
...etc. 

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From edgee at cyberpass.net  Tue Apr  7 10:42:54 1998
From: edgee at cyberpass.net (Ed G.)
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 20:42:54 -0400
Subject: Floating Point Bug in Bob's Emulator
Message-ID: <199804070042.UAA07198@renoir.op.net>

I wrote a little square root program in "C" to test the floating
point in Bob Supnik's emulator (see attached code).  The program
works fine under Linux, but bombs on Bob's emulator, confirming
people's theory that the emulator has a floating point bug. 

I used Newton's method for the algorithm and only uses add,
subtract, multiply and divide.  The emulator produced identical
incorrect results for two different versions of the program one using
floats, the other doubles.

Here's what the program does on Bob Supnik's emulator:

# cc mysqrt.c
# a.out
Initial guess: 85070586659632214000000000000000000000.0000000000000000

guess: 1.0000000000000000
guess: 85070586659632214000000000000000000000.0000000000000000
guess: 1.0000000000000000
guess: 85070586659632214000000000000000000000.0000000000000000
guess: 1.0000000000000000
guess: 85070586659632214000000000000000000000.0000000000000000
guess: 1.0000000000000000

Here's what the program does on Linux:

[root at oskar uv7]# gcc mysqrt.c 
[root at oskar uv7]# a.out
Initial guess: 1.0000000000000000

guess: 1.5000000000000000
guess: 1.4166666666666667
guess: 1.4142156862745099
guess: 1.4142135623746899

My square root is: 1.4142135623746899

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From edgee at cyberpass.net  Tue Apr  7 10:42:54 1998
From: edgee at cyberpass.net (Ed G.)
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 20:42:54 -0400
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
Message-ID: <199804070043.UAA07210@renoir.op.net>

Curious about how heavily uv7 relies on floating point?

I was.  I wrote a little program to count the occurences of op code
'17' (the prefix for all PDP-11 floating point op codes) in Unix
executables.  It would seem from my results that Unix relies rather
heavily on floating point.  

Are my results in error?

Here's what I found in the bin directory:

awk 2540
refer 1644
xsend 1326
tbl 1315
graph 1300
xget 1288
adb 1152
eqn 918
enroll 915
neqn 874
nroff 841
make 822
spline 812
yacc 789
sa 714
tar 706
lex 628
tek 618
prof 608
t300s 604
dc 601
vplot 582
iostat 579
t300 576
t450 574
em 530
bc 509
ratfor 474
quot 452
tsort 407
sh 381
expr 380
units 379
ac 365
sort 358
ps 327
restor 323
rmail 321
ptx 320
egrep 313
ls 310
ps.old 306
m4 304
random 298
su 296
tp 285
ops 282
diff 277
pr 275
sed 267
dump 261
deroff 255
icheck 251
ls.11 249
ld 246
login 240
cptree 230
passwd 227
login.old 218
cc 210
prep 205
at 203
dumpdir 197
join 196
wc 193
tc 192
nm 191
pstat 190
file 187
pr.old 186
crypt 182
date 181
grep 180
ranlib 174
fgrep 172
ncheck 159
checkeq 157
du 155
who 152
od 151
roff 149
ar 146
vpr 144
tk 141
time 139
rm 138
mv 134
newgrp 133
factor 132
write 125
primes 124
cmp 121
dfOLD 120
size 117
v6sh 116
vcopy 113
col 110
ln 106
sum 105
clri 104
tail 103
sleep 101
stty 98
touch 96
tty 91
split 90
uniq 89
rev 86
chown 84
kill 83
yes 79
tr 58
sp 57
test 53
basename 34
tee 24
echo 4
sync 2
u3b2 0

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Tue Apr  7 10:46:42 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 10:46:42 +1000 (EST)
Subject: License AU-1 arrives!
In-Reply-To: <199804070035.KAA11206@psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au> from John Holden at "Apr 7, 98 10:35:46 am"
Message-ID: <199804070046.KAA00659@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by John Holden:
> 	Perhaps we should ask SCO to issue licence AU-0 to Warren, in keeping
> with his work on maintaining interest in old versions of Unix and we all
> know that computer programmers start counting from zero!

I like that :-) and will pass it on to Dion. I think mine's in the mail
already, though. And of course I'm away for Easter, so it'll sit forlorn
in my mail box until Tuesday next week.

For those people interested in the PUP Archive, once their license arrives.
It is still changing (growing), as we get stuff. We plan to do a `freeze'
of material around the end of April, and cut a CD image then.

Anybody who wants a CD copy will get this CD image. The archive will diverge
from the CD of course, but I will be providing ftp access. We don't want to
create new images more than once or twice a year. You will need to pay the
volunteers to burn and mail you a CD.

Cheers,
	Warren

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Tue Apr  7 10:51:05 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 10:51:05 +1000 (EST)
Subject: Mag Tape Bug in Bob's Emulator?
In-Reply-To: <199804070042.UAA07206@renoir.op.net> from "Ed G." at "Apr 6, 98 08:42:54 pm"
Message-ID: <199804070051.KAA00727@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Ed G.:
> Is this another bug?  What do you all think?

Is your tape just a raw format tape, or are you using the 32-bit
preamble/postambles to indicate the record/block sizes?

Read the tail-end of simh_doc.txt for details.

	Warren

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From grog at lemis.com  Tue Apr  7 14:21:15 1998
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg Lehey)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 13:51:15 +0930
Subject: License AU-1 arrives!
In-Reply-To: <199804070046.KAA00659@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>; from Warren Toomey on Tue, Apr 07, 1998 at 10:46:42AM +1000
References: <199804070035.KAA11206@psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au> <199804070046.KAA00659@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>
Message-ID: <19980407135115.06874@freebie.lemis.com>

On Tue,  7 April 1998 at 10:46:42 +1000, Warren Toomey wrote:
> In article by John Holden:
>> 	Perhaps we should ask SCO to issue licence AU-0 to Warren, in keeping
>> with his work on maintaining interest in old versions of Unix and we all
>> know that computer programmers start counting from zero!
>
> I like that :-) and will pass it on to Dion. I think mine's in the mail
> already, though. And of course I'm away for Easter, so it'll sit forlorn
> in my mail box until Tuesday next week.
>
> For those people interested in the PUP Archive, once their license arrives.
> It is still changing (growing), as we get stuff. We plan to do a `freeze'
> of material around the end of April, and cut a CD image then.
>
> Anybody who wants a CD copy will get this CD image. The archive will diverge
> from the CD of course, but I will be providing ftp access. We don't want to
> create new images more than once or twice a year. You will need to pay the
> volunteers to burn and mail you a CD.

Anybody who gets a tape from me will get the latest version.  The same
will probably apply to CDs if I ever get round to installing a burner.

Greg

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From grog at lemis.com  Tue Apr  7 14:23:13 1998
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg Lehey)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 13:53:13 +0930
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
In-Reply-To: <199804070043.UAA07210@renoir.op.net>; from Ed G. on Mon, Apr 06, 1998 at 08:42:54PM -0400
References: <199804070043.UAA07210@renoir.op.net>
Message-ID: <19980407135313.43010@freebie.lemis.com>

On Mon,  6 April 1998 at 20:42:54 -0400, Ed G. wrote:
> Curious about how heavily uv7 relies on floating point?
>
> I was.  I wrote a little program to count the occurences of op code
> '17' (the prefix for all PDP-11 floating point op codes) in Unix
> executables.  It would seem from my results that Unix relies rather
> heavily on floating point.
>
> Are my results in error?

How did you recognize the instructions words?  Just because it's in
the text segment doesn't mean it's instructions.

Greg

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Tue Apr  7 15:51:21 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 15:51:21 +1000 (EST)
Subject: Receipt of 12 License Details
Message-ID: <199804070551.PAA01173@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

All,
	I have the list of the first 12 SCO AU license holders in front of
me. Unfortunately, I'm not one of them :-( Anyway, things are humming along.

Charles, David, Doug, Ed, James, Jennine, John, Jorgen, Ken, Matthias,
Paul P, Paul V, Steven

Cheers,
	Warren

P.S Matthias has the most interesting number, AU-3B	 8-)


From m at mbsks.franken.de  Tue Apr  7 18:43:01 1998
From: m at mbsks.franken.de (Matthias Bruestle)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 10:43:01 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: Receipt of 12 License Details
In-Reply-To: <199804070551.PAA01173@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> from Warren Toomey at "Apr 7, 98 03:51:21 pm"
Message-ID: <m0yMTy9-000HqDC@mbsks.franken.de>

Mahlzeit


According to Warren Toomey:
> 	I have the list of the first 12 SCO AU license holders in front of
> me. Unfortunately, I'm not one of them :-( Anyway, things are humming along.
Then you still have the chance to get AU-0. :)

> P.S Matthias has the most interesting number, AU-3B	 8-)
Because of the AT&T Unix computers?


Mahlzeit

endergone Zwiebeltuete

-- 
insanity inside

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From djenner at halcyon.com  Wed Apr  8 00:29:55 1998
From: djenner at halcyon.com (David C. Jenner)
Date: Tue, 07 Apr 1998 07:29:55 -0700
Subject: Receipt of 12 License Details
References: <199804070551.PAA01173@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>
Message-ID: <352A3863.279915CF@halcyon.com>

Hey, maybe you can be AU-0 after all.  That's an excellent idea!
Dave

Warren Toomey wrote:
> 
> All,
>         I have the list of the first 12 SCO AU license holders in front of
> me. Unfortunately, I'm not one of them :-( Anyway, things are humming along.
> 
> Charles, David, Doug, Ed, James, Jennine, John, Jorgen, Ken, Matthias,
> Paul P, Paul V, Steven
> 
> Cheers,
>         Warren
> 
> P.S Matthias has the most interesting number, AU-3B      8-)

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From neil at skatter.usask.ca  Wed Apr  8 01:12:14 1998
From: neil at skatter.usask.ca (Neil Johnson)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 09:12:14 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Receipt of 12 License Details
Message-ID: <199804071512.JAA18391@hydrus.USask.Ca>

I'm actually a bit happy to see I'm not on the list. I was
a little disappointed that only 12 people had applied given
the number of signatures on the petition.

Neil

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Wed Apr  8 08:07:19 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 08:07:19 +1000 (EST)
Subject: Receipt of 12 License Details
In-Reply-To: <199804071512.JAA18391@hydrus.USask.Ca> from Neil Johnson at "Apr 7, 98 09:12:14 am"
Message-ID: <199804072207.IAA02178@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Neil Johnson:
> I'm actually a bit happy to see I'm not on the list. I was
> a little disappointed that only 12 people had applied given
> the number of signatures on the petition.
> Neil

Afert sleeping on it, and inspecting the bundle of 12 from Dion yesterday,
I see the AU-12 license is dated 16th March. Now I know SCO took their
license fee from my account on the 24th of March. Therefore I suspect that
licensing haven't passed the paperwork on to Dion, for those licenses
processed after the 16th March.

This probably indicates that there are more licenses still in the works.
I should get some mail from Dion today, and I'll pass on anything relevant.

	Warren

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Wed Apr  8 08:33:46 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 08:33:46 +1000 (EST)
Subject: More licenses in the works
In-Reply-To: <19980407152602.02045@sco.com> from Dion Johnson at "Apr 7, 98 03:26:02 pm"
Message-ID: <199804072233.IAA02379@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Dion Johnson:
> I just received 12 more licenses signed by the NJ legal folks.
> But yours was not in this batch.
> I will get these copied and off to you tomorrow (I think).

Thanks Dion, I know you're working hard there. It looks like legal are
the bottleneck.

	Warren

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From edgee at cyberpass.net  Wed Apr  8 13:25:33 1998
From: edgee at cyberpass.net (Ed G.)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 23:25:33 -0400
Subject: Mag Tape Bug in Bob's Emulator?
In-Reply-To: <199804070255.MAA00874@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>
References: <199804070248.WAA14210@renoir.op.net> from "Ed G." at "Apr 6, 98 10:48:17 pm"
Message-ID: <199804080325.XAA26771@renoir.op.net>

> Yeah, I haven't used the tape stuff much, mainly because of the muck
> around building the pre/postambles per record.

I've got perl scripts that do this.  I'd be happy to donate them to 
the archive if you're interested.

> An alternate solution is to mount the tape image as a disk, e.g RK1
> 
> Then tar vxf /dev/rrk1	:-)

Yes, this works well for getting info into the emulator.  

However, I was not able to use this method to get info out of the 
emulator.  In particular when I first got the emulator I wanted to 
examine all the files on the rl0 disk using the much nicer work 
environment provided by Linux.  Having tar write to rl1 fails 
around the 1.4 Meg mark (anyone know why?), whereas I was able to 
dump the entire contents of the rl disk to a simtape with no problem.

Here's what happened when I tried to dump the entire rl0 disk:

Ed

sim> att rl1 junk.dsk
RL: creating new file
sim> cont

# pwd
/
# tar cvf /dev/rrl1 *
tar:    p: cannot open file
a bin/ac 20 blocks
a bin/ar 20 blocks
a bin/arcv 8 blocks
a bin/at 17 blocks
a bin/basename 4 blocks
a bin/login.old 18 blocks
a bin/cat 8 blocks
a bin/cb 11 blocks
a bin/cc 13 blocks
a bin/checkeq 9 blocks
a bin/chgrp 10 blocks
a bin/chmod 7 blocks
a bin/chown 10 blocks
a bin/clri 7 blocks
a bin/cmp 9 blocks
a bin/col 10 blocks
a bin/comm 10 blocks
a bin/cp 7 blocks
a bin/crypt 10 blocks
a bin/cu 14 blocks
a bin/date 12 blocks
a bin/dcheck 9 blocks
a bin/dd 14 blocks
a bin/deroff 18 blocks
a bin/df 7 blocks
a bin/diff 19 blocks
a bin/du 8 blocks
a bin/dump 17 blocks
a bin/dumpdir 16 blocks
a bin/echo 1 blocks
a bin/ed 22 blocks
a bin/egrep 18 blocks
a bin/expr 17 blocks
a bin/fgrep 11 blocks
a bin/file 13 blocks
a bin/find 22 blocks
a bin/graph 30 blocks
a bin/grep 12 blocks
a bin/icheck 14 blocks
a bin/iostat 22 blocks
a bin/join 12 blocks
a bin/kill 7 blocks
a bin/ld 22 blocks
a bin/ln 8 blocks
a bin/login 19 blocks
a bin/look 10 blocks
a bin/ls 20 blocks
a bin/mail 26 blocks
a bin/mesg 7 blocks
a bin/mkdir 8 blocks
a bin/mv 13 blocks
a bin/ncheck 10 blocks
a bin/newgrp 16 blocks
a bin/nice 9 blocks
a bin/nm 12 blocks
a bin/od 12 blocks
a bin/ps 19 blocks
a bin/passwd 17 blocks
a bin/pr 22 blocks
a bin/prof 22 blocks
a bin/v6sh 11 blocks
a bin/pstat 16 blocks
a bin/ptx 16 blocks
a bin/pwd 7 blocks
a bin/quot 19 blocks
a bin/random 13 blocks
a bin/ranlib 12 blocks
a bin/restor 24 blocks
a bin/rev 7 blocks
a bin/rm 10 blocks
a bin/rmdir 8 blocks
a bin/sa 23 blocks
a bin/size 8 blocks
a bin/sleep 6 blocks
a bin/sort 19 blocks
a bin/sp 5 blocks
a bin/spline 18 blocks
a bin/split 8 blocks
a bin/strip 8 blocks
a bin/stty 11 blocks
a bin/su 22 blocks
a bin/sum 8 blocks
a bin/sync 1 blocks
a bin/tail 4 blocks
a bin/tc 17 blocks
a bin/tee 3 blocks
a bin/test 6 blocks
a bin/time 11 blocks
a bin/tk 11 blocks
a bin/touch 6 blocks
a bin/tr 6 blocks
a bin/tsort 16 blocks
a bin/tty 6 blocks
a bin/uniq 9 blocks
a bin/units 19 blocks
a bin/vpr 16 blocks
a bin/wc 12 blocks
a bin/who 13 blocks
a bin/write 11 blocks
a bin/yes 5 blocks
a bin/1 1 blocks
a bin/calendar 1 blocks
a bin/diff3 1 blocks
a bin/false 1 blocks
a bin/lookbib 1 blocks
a bin/lorder 1 blocks
a bin/man 2 blocks
a bin/nohup 1 blocks
a bin/plot 1 blocks
a bin/spell 2 blocks
a bin/true 0 blocks
a bin/lint 1 blocks
a bin/notavail link to bin/lint
a bin/pcc link to bin/lint
a bin/struct link to bin/lint
a bin/adb 54 blocks
a bin/awk 89 blocks
a bin/bc 26 blocks
a bin/cptree 16 blocks
a bin/poke6 19 blocks
a bin/dc 45 blocks
a bin/em 36 blocks
a bin/enroll 31 blocks
a bin/eqn 56 blocks
a bin/m4 27 blocks
a bin/make 40 blocks
a bin/neqn 51 blocks
a bin/nroff 75 blocks
a bin/prep 14 blocks
a bin/ratfor 27 blocks
a bin/roff 17 blocks
a bin/sed 26 blocks
a bin/sh 34 blocks
a bin/tar 35 blocks
a bin/tbl 60 blocks
a bin/tp 20 blocks
a bin/xget 41 blocks
a bin/xsend 42 blocks
a bin/factor 6 blocks
a bin/primes 6 blocks
a bin/yacc 48 blocks
a bin/lex 57 blocks
a bin/tek 21 blocks
a bin/t300 20 blocks
a bin/t300s 20 blocks
a bin/t450 20 blocks
a bin/vplot 22 blocks
a bin/refer 58 blocks
a bin/as 11 blocks
a bin/ops 16 blocks
a bin/f77 link to bin/lint
a bin/vcopy 8 blocks
a bin/learn 1 blocks
a bin/notmade link to bin/learn
a bin/troff link to bin/learn
a bin/dfOLD 7 blocks
a bin/ls.11 16 blocks
a bin/.profile 1 blocks
a bin/ps.old 18 blocks
a bin/rmail link to bin/mail
a bin/m68k link to bin/false
a bin/u3b2 link to bin/false
a bin/pr.old 16 blocks
a boot 19 blocks
a dev/makefile 6 blocks
tar: dev/console is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/tty is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/mem is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/kmem is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/null is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/mt0 is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/ttya is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/swap is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/ttye is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/nmt0: cannot open file
tar: dev/tty2 is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/tty3 is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/rmt0: cannot open file
tar: dev/tty4 is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/nrmt0: cannot open file
tar: dev/rl0 is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/rl1 is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/rrl0 is not a file. Not dumped
tar: dev/rrl1 is not a file. Not dumped
tar: etc: cannot open file
tar: global: cannot open file
tar: global.c: cannot open file
tar: global.s: cannot open file
tar: hello: cannot open file
tar: hello.c: cannot open file
tar: hello.s: cannot open file
tar: lib: cannot open file
tar: lost+found: cannot open file
tar: mnt: cannot open file
tar: mysqrt.c: cannot open file
tar: mysqrt.s: cannot open file
tar: normps: cannot open file
tar: nothing: cannot open file
tar: nothing.c: cannot open file
tar: nothing.s: cannot open file
tar: rkunix: cannot open file
tar: rl1unix: cannot open file
tar: stand: cannot open file
tar: tmp: cannot open file
tar: u1: cannot open file
tar: unix: cannot open file
tar: usr: cannot open file
# 


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From edgee at cyberpass.net  Wed Apr  8 13:25:33 1998
From: edgee at cyberpass.net (Ed G.)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 23:25:33 -0400
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
In-Reply-To: <19980407135313.43010@freebie.lemis.com>
References: <199804070043.UAA07210@renoir.op.net>; from Ed G. on Mon, Apr 06, 1998 at 08:42:54PM -0400
Message-ID: <199804080325.XAA26777@renoir.op.net>

> How did you recognize the instructions words?  Just because it's in
> the text segment doesn't mean it's instructions.

Yes, this occurred to me too.  My perl script doesn't do any fancy
decoding; it just looks for words beginning with octal 17.  After 
some thought I came to the conclusion that the percentage of data 
words miscounted as floating pt. ops (FPOs) is negligible.

Here's my reasoning--tell me what you think:

It seemed to me that the two potential sources of fake FPOs are 
addresses and data words.  Have I left anything out?

I don't believe that addresses are a problem because the programs
would have to be at least 170000 octal (61441 decimal) bytes long to
generate these addresses at compile time.  In fact, the largest 
program in the bin directory is awk at 45,260 bytes.  cc is only 6510 
bytes (those guys at bell labs really knew how to pack it in!)

That leaves data.  What percent of the data words do you think begin 
with 17 octal?

Here's my "guestimate":  17 octal is a 6 bit binary number. 
Assuming the probability of any bit being one is .5, the probability
of finding a word whose first six bits are one would be 1/2^6 or 1
in 64 which is 1 in 128 bytes.  

I examined the run time image of factor.  It was 3072 bytes long, of 
which 222 bytes or less than 10% appeared to be global data.  
Counting immediate operands, I think it is reasonable to assume a 
10-1 code to data ratio.

That would mean for factor that 2 of the 132 FPOs would be bogus
(111* 1/64 = 2 approx).  

Most programs are bigger than factor, however.  cptree and ops are 
close to the average size (around 7800 bytes) for an executable in 
the bin directory.  So for the average program you might expect to 
see 7800*.1*1/128 = 6 bogus FPOs.

"there are lies, damn lies and statistics"--Mark Twain (I think)

Ed G. 

List of floating point ops by program:

awk 2540
refer 1644
xsend 1326
tbl 1315
graph 1300
xget 1288
adb 1152
eqn 918
enroll 915
neqn 874
nroff 841
make 822
spline 812
yacc 789
sa 714
tar 706
lex 628
tek 618
prof 608
t300s 604
dc 601
vplot 582
iostat 579
t300 576
t450 574
em 530
bc 509
ratfor 474
quot 452
tsort 407
sh 381
expr 380
units 379
ac 365
sort 358
ps 327
restor 323
rmail 321
ed 321
mail 321
ptx 320
egrep 313
ls 310
ps.old 306
m4 304
random 298
su 296
tp 285
ops 282
cu 282
diff 277
pr 275
poke6 275
sed 267
find 267
dump 261
deroff 255
icheck 251
ls.11 249
ld 246
login 240
cptree 230
passwd 227
login.old 218
cc 210
prep 205
at 203
dumpdir 197
join 196
wc 193
tc 192
nm 191
pstat 190
file 187
pr.old 186
crypt 182
date 181
grep 180
ranlib 174
fgrep 172
ncheck 159
checkeq 157
du 155
who 152
as 152
od 151
look 149
roff 149
ar 146
vpr 144
dd 141
tk 141
time 139
rm 138
cb 134
mv 134
comm 133
newgrp 133
dcheck 132
factor 132
rmdir 125
write 125
primes 124
cmp 121
dfOLD 120
df 120
size 117
v6sh 116
vcopy 113
nice 113
col 110
ln 106
sum 105
clri 104
cat 103
tail 103
sleep 101
stty 98
mkdir 98
mesg 96
cp 96
touch 96
strip 96
tty 91
chmod 90
split 90
uniq 89
pwd 86
rev 86
chown 84
chgrp 84
kill 83
arcv 83
yes 79
tr 58
sp 57
test 53
basename 34
tee 24
echo 4
sync 2
finddouble.pl 0
u3b2 0
1 0
f77 0
lint 0
finddouble.pl~ 0
true 0
spell 0
troff 0
notmade 0
nohup 0
diff3 0
learn 0
notavail 0
findfp.pl~ 0
lookbib 0
pcc 0
man 0
plot 0
m68k 0
false 0
findfp.pl 0
struct 0
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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Wed Apr  8 13:33:29 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 13:33:29 +1000 (EST)
Subject: Getting Files In/Out of PDP-11 Simulators
In-Reply-To: <199804080325.XAA26771@renoir.op.net> from "Ed G." at "Apr 7, 98 11:25:33 pm"
Message-ID: <199804080333.NAA03044@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Ed G.:

	[getting files in/out of PDP-11 simulators]
> > An alternate solution is to mount the tape image as a disk, e.g RK1
> > Then tar vxf /dev/rrk1	:-)
> 
> Yes, this works well for getting info into the emulator.  
> 
> However, I was not able to use this method to get info out of the 
> emulator.  In particular when I first got the emulator I wanted to 
> examine all the files on the rl0 disk using the much nicer work 
> environment provided by Linux.  Having tar write to rl1 fails 
> around the 1.4 Meg mark (anyone know why?), whereas I was able to 
> dump the entire contents of the rl disk to a simtape with no problem.

Some simulators open a truncated file, and then die once it gets to a
certain size. A solution here is to cp an existing big file over to the
desired disk image. It will, of course, be overwritten as you tar out
to the disk image.

Specific problems are touched on below:
 
> Here's what happened when I tried to dump the entire rl0 disk:
> tar: dev/console is not a file. Not dumped

V7 tar cannot dump device files.

> tar: etc: cannot open file

Probably your disk image has been corrupted. Use /etc/fsck if it
exists, otherwise icheck, ncheck and dcheck. For instance, the Supnik
RL02 image has got a small, recoverable problem. The Supnik V7 RK05 image
seems to be completely stuffed, and fsck gives up on it.

I do have new images for these, and I should pass them on to Bob.

	Warren

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From grog at lemis.com  Wed Apr  8 14:03:57 1998
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg Lehey)
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 13:33:57 +0930
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
In-Reply-To: <199804080325.XAA26777@renoir.op.net>; from Ed G. on Tue, Apr 07, 1998 at 11:25:33PM -0400
References: <199804070043.UAA07210@renoir.op.net>; <19980407135313.43010@freebie.lemis.com> <199804080325.XAA26777@renoir.op.net>
Message-ID: <19980408133357.40721@freebie.lemis.com>

On Tue,  7 April 1998 at 23:25:33 -0400, Ed G. wrote:
>> How did you recognize the instructions words?  Just because it's in
>> the text segment doesn't mean it's instructions.
>
> Yes, this occurred to me too.  My perl script doesn't do any fancy
> decoding; it just looks for words beginning with octal 17.  After
> some thought I came to the conclusion that the percentage of data
> words miscounted as floating pt. ops (FPOs) is negligible.
>
> Here's my reasoning--tell me what you think:
>
> (reasoning omitted)

You don't say whether you restricted your search to the text segment.
Anyway, at this point, I would have modified the script somewhat to
display the locations of the words, and then would have looked at the
text with adb to see what purpose they serve.  Considering that
floating point was an option, I find it hard to believe that so many
programs, in particular things like tar, would use FP.

Greg

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Wed Apr  8 14:12:29 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 14:12:29 +1000 (EST)
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
In-Reply-To: <19980408133357.40721@freebie.lemis.com> from Greg Lehey at "Apr 8, 98 01:33:57 pm"
Message-ID: <199804080412.OAA03122@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Greg Lehey:
> Considering that
> floating point was an option, I find it hard to believe that so many
> programs, in particular things like tar, would use FP.

I know zip all about PDP-11 FP, but I know that when I was getting my
Apout V7 simulator working (which doesn't do FP, by the way), I had to
at least emulate setd, because crt0 in V7 starts with:

start:
        setd
        mov     2(sp),r0
        clr     -2(r0)

	Warren


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From johnh at psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au  Wed Apr  8 14:11:22 1998
From: johnh at psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au (John Holden)
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 14:11:22 +1000
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
Message-ID: <199804080411.OAA06388@psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au>


> After some thought I came to the conclusion that the percentage of data 
> words miscounted as floating pt. ops (FPOs) is negligible.

	I think that you will find that the compiler and assember always
generate relative addressing for subroutines and jumps. Any call to an
earlier address will generate a negative number, hence lots of 017xxxx
numbers in the text image.


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From edgee at cyberpass.net  Wed Apr  8 14:27:40 1998
From: edgee at cyberpass.net (Ed G.)
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 00:27:40 -0400
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
In-Reply-To: <19980408133357.40721@freebie.lemis.com>
References: <199804080325.XAA26777@renoir.op.net>; from Ed G. on Tue, Apr 07, 1998 at 11:25:33PM -0400
Message-ID: <199804080427.AAA00145@renoir.op.net>

> text with adb to see what purpose they serve.  Considering that
> floating point was an option, I find it hard to believe that so many
> programs, in particular things like tar, would use FP.

My guess is that the floating point code is dragged in when certain 
library routines (e.g., printf and libc) are used, even if the 
floating point features of the routines are not used.

Consider this:

Two programs hello.c and nothing.c, identical except that hello.c 
contains a single printf("hello world\n") inside main.  nothing.c 
has nothing in its main loop.  

Program--Size--Number of FPOs Reported by my perl script
===========================================
nothing.c, 312 bytes, 2
hello.c, 4804 bytes, 115

See what I mean?

Ed

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From sms at moe.2bsd.com  Wed Apr  8 14:34:43 1998
From: sms at moe.2bsd.com (Steven M. Schultz)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 21:34:43 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
Message-ID: <199804080434.VAA19850@moe.2bsd.com>

> From: John Holden <johnh at psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au>
> 
> 	I think that you will find that the compiler and assember always
> generate relative addressing for subroutines and jumps. Any call to an

	Not quite 'always'.  In some cases yes, relative addressing is
	generated but quite frequently you'll see absolute addresses
	used.  Why?  I don't know ;)

	On some machines mode 3 is a bit faster than mode 6 but I doubt that
	was the reason.

	Steven Schultz


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From grog at lemis.com  Wed Apr  8 15:15:08 1998
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg Lehey)
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 14:45:08 +0930
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
In-Reply-To: <199804080427.AAA00145@renoir.op.net>; from Ed G. on Wed, Apr 08, 1998 at 12:27:40AM -0400
References: <199804080325.XAA26777@renoir.op.net>; <19980408133357.40721@freebie.lemis.com> <199804080427.AAA00145@renoir.op.net>
Message-ID: <19980408144508.09240@freebie.lemis.com>

On Wed,  8 April 1998 at  0:27:40 -0400, Ed G. wrote:
>> text with adb to see what purpose they serve.  Considering that
>> floating point was an option, I find it hard to believe that so many
>> programs, in particular things like tar, would use FP.
>
> My guess is that the floating point code is dragged in when certain
> library routines (e.g., printf and libc) are used, even if the
> floating point features of the routines are not used.
>
> Consider this:
>
> Two programs hello.c and nothing.c, identical except that hello.c
> contains a single printf("hello world\n") inside main.  nothing.c
> has nothing in its main loop.
>
> Program--Size--Number of FPOs Reported by my perl script
> ===========================================
> nothing.c, 312 bytes, 2
> hello.c, 4804 bytes, 115
>
> See what I mean?

I don't see that this proves anything.  You really need to look at
those words and see how they are used.

Greg

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From bqt at Update.UU.SE  Wed Apr  8 17:53:37 1998
From: bqt at Update.UU.SE (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 09:53:37 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
In-Reply-To: <199804080325.XAA26777@renoir.op.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.VUL.3.93.980408094723.13372A-100000@Zeke.Update.UU.SE>

On Tue, 7 Apr 1998, Ed G. wrote:

> > How did you recognize the instructions words?  Just because it's in
> > the text segment doesn't mean it's instructions.
> 
> Yes, this occurred to me too.  My perl script doesn't do any fancy
> decoding; it just looks for words beginning with octal 17.  After 
> some thought I came to the conclusion that the percentage of data 
> words miscounted as floating pt. ops (FPOs) is negligible.
> 
> Here's my reasoning--tell me what you think:
> 
> It seemed to me that the two potential sources of fake FPOs are 
> addresses and data words.  Have I left anything out?
> 
> I don't believe that addresses are a problem because the programs
> would have to be at least 170000 octal (61441 decimal) bytes long to
> generate these addresses at compile time.  In fact, the largest 
> program in the bin directory is awk at 45,260 bytes.  cc is only 6510 
> bytes (those guys at bell labs really knew how to pack it in!)
> 
> That leaves data.  What percent of the data words do you think begin 
> with 17 octal?
> 
> Here's my "guestimate":  17 octal is a 6 bit binary number. 
> Assuming the probability of any bit being one is .5, the probability
> of finding a word whose first six bits are one would be 1/2^6 or 1
> in 64 which is 1 in 128 bytes.  

You are making atleast four assumptions which are wrong here.

1) Data starts from address 0. They most likely do not.
2) 17 is not 6 bits, it's four! You are talking about octal representation
   of 16 bits, which means that the highest digit can only be 0 or 1.
3) All data are not words. How about bytes? If a byte is in the range
   240-255 and on an odd address, you'll catch it as a FP opcode.
4) Not all data are addresses. Most negative numbers will have 17 as the
   high four bits.

Of these four assumptions, the fourth is the most serious, and probably
the cause of most of your "hits". You'll have to do better...

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol


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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Thu Apr  9 07:37:36 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 07:37:36 +1000 (EST)
Subject: Have a safe Easter!
Message-ID: <199804082137.HAA04236@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

Easter's here, I'm off to a friend's wedding. Have a safe & happy break, and
I'll see (hear?) from you all on Tuesday.

	Warren

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Thu Apr  9 07:43:42 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 07:43:42 +1000 (EST)
Subject: Yet more licenses
Message-ID: <199804082143.HAA04280@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

----- Forwarded message from Dion Johnson -----

I have 13 more licenses for you, being copied now.
I will mail these off tomorrow or Friday.

Dion

----- End of forwarded message from Dion Johnson -----

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From Bob.Supnik at digital.com  Fri Apr 10 23:19:59 1998
From: Bob.Supnik at digital.com (Bob Supnik)
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 09:19:59 -0400
Subject: Floating Point Bug in Bob's Emulator - second one found
Message-ID: <6B84B1FF221BD011B0AC08002BE692066DD917@excmso.mso.dec.com>

	A second bug has been found in the floating point emulator.  The
first (in MODf) caused FACTOR to malfunction.  This one causes problems
in AWK.

	The bug is in LDEXP.  In pdp11_fp.c:

	case 015:						/* LDEXP
*/
		dst = (dstspec <= 07)? R[dstspec]: ReadW (GeteaW
(dstspec));
		F_LOAD (qdouble, FR[ac], fac);
		fac.h = (fac.h & ~FP_EXP) | (((dst + FP_BIAS) &
FP_M_EXP) << FP_V_EXP);
		newV = 0;
	==>	if ((dst > 0177) || (dst <= 0177600)) {

	Change the indicated line to:

		if ((dst > 0177) && (dst <= 0177600)) {

	The test case is:

	# awk 'END {print 1+2}' < /dev/null

	incorrectly produced 0, now produces 3.

	/Bob Supnik

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From Bob.Supnik at digital.com  Fri Apr 10 23:50:56 1998
From: Bob.Supnik at digital.com (Bob Supnik)
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 09:50:56 -0400
Subject: Question re TM11 boostrap
Message-ID: <6B84B1FF221BD011B0AC08002BE692066DD91B@excmso.mso.dec.com>

Several people have asked for a bootstrap for the TM11 magtape. V2.3a
has a simple bootstrap that just reads the first magtape record and
jumps to it.  However, John Holden points out that the M9301 bootstrap
actually skips the first record and reads the second.

Does anyone have source code for an actual TM11 bootstrap?

What do the various versions of UNIX expect in a bootable tape image,
particularly BSD 2.9 and 2.11?

Thanks /Bob Supnik

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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Sat Apr 11 02:35:38 1998
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 08:35:38 -0800 (PDT)
Subject: Question re TM11 boostrap
In-Reply-To: <6B84B1FF221BD011B0AC08002BE692066DD91B@excmso.mso.dec.com> from "Bob Supnik" at Apr 10, 98 09:50:56 am
Message-ID: <9804101535.AA06532@alph02.triumf.ca>

> Several people have asked for a bootstrap for the TM11 magtape. V2.3a
> has a simple bootstrap that just reads the first magtape record and
> jumps to it.  However, John Holden points out that the M9301 bootstrap
> actually skips the first record and reads the second.

It depends on which OS (and version) you're using, but most of
DEC's later OS's made some attempt to have bootable tapes be
ANSI-labeled volumes.  This meant that the boot block had to come
after the VOL1 header.  See, for example, the source code to
RT-11's DUP utility.

> Does anyone have source code for an actual TM11 bootstrap?

I certainly have some boot ROM's that I can disassemble.  I'll
also check my DEC manuals for the toggle-in bootstraps.

I know that in some cases it was necessary to re-execute the toggle-in
bootstrap if the real boot block was the second file/record.

Also note that it wasn't until the late 70's/early 80's that DEC
adopted the "second block is the boot block" strategy.  You're
likely to see different things depending on when a bootstrap was
written.

> What do the various versions of UNIX expect in a bootable tape image,
> particularly BSD 2.9 and 2.11?

2.11 plays it safe by putting down two copies of the boot block at
the beginning of the tape, each ending with a filemark.

All Q-bus tape bootstraps that might reside in a 11/53's console firmware
would be looking for the boot block to be the second block on tape.  But
as the TM11 wasn't a Q-bus device I don't think the 11/53 firmware is
going to resolve this issue.

A side comment on the emulator:  Have you ever considered putting the
11/53 firmware into your emulator, so that users can use the bootstraps
and diagnostics built into it?  Would there be copyright problems to
resolve before you could do this?

Tim. (shoppa at triumf.ca)

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From sms at moe.2bsd.com  Sat Apr 11 02:01:24 1998
From: sms at moe.2bsd.com (Steven M. Schultz)
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 09:01:24 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Question re TM11 boostrap
Message-ID: <199804101601.JAA14552@moe.2bsd.com>

Bob, et al -

> Several people have asked for a bootstrap for the TM11 magtape. V2.3a
> has a simple bootstrap that just reads the first magtape record and

	For booting 2.xBSD that will work fine.

> jumps to it.  However, John Holden points out that the M9301 bootstrap
> actually skips the first record and reads the second.

	True - and that's precisely why bootable tapes (at least starting with
	2.9BSD, not sure about V7) have two copies of the tapebootblock at
	the front.  The layout of a boottape is:

		tapeboot
		tapeboot
		boot
		<filemark>
		standaloneprogram 1
		<filemark>
		...

> Does anyone have source code for an actual TM11 bootstrap?

	What I use (it's in the 2.11 setup documentation) is:

If no other means are available, the following code can be keyed in
and executed at (say) 0100000 to boot from a TM tape drive (the magic number
172526 is the address of the TM-11 current memory address register;
an adjustment may be necessary if your controller is at a nonstandard
address):

012700  (mov $unit, r0)
000000  (normally unit 0)
012701  (mov $172526, r1)
172526
010141  (mov r1, -(r1))
012741  (mov $60003, -(r1))
060003  (if unit 1 use 060403, etc)
000777  (br .)

	This does nothing more than read the first record (much like V2.3a
	already does) into location 0.  Then a ^E is typed followed by 
	"g 0".

> What do the various versions of UNIX expect in a bootable tape image,
> particularly BSD 2.9 and 2.11?

	The tape bootblocks for 2.xBSD all know to skip TWO copies of the
	tapebootblock in order to find the 'boot' program.

	The actual standalone programs present differ between 2.9 and 2.11
	but 2.11's is:

		tapeboot
		tapeboot
		boot
		<filemark>
		disklabel
		<filemark>
		mkfs
		<filemark>
		restor
		<filemark>
		icheck
		<filemark>
		dump of root fs
		<filemark>

	For 2.11 the 'tapeboot' is a universal bootblock - it can handle
	all 4 tape drive types (MS, MM, MT, TMSCP).  2.9 on the otherhand
	has different tapebootblocks at the front of the tape depending on
	the drive type (MS or MM/MT, no TMSCP support in 2.9).  Thus if you
	have a MS bootblock you can't boot from the tape on a MT based system.

	Steven Schultz


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From edgee at cyberpass.net  Sat Apr 11 12:40:35 1998
From: edgee at cyberpass.net (Ed G.)
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 22:40:35 -0400
Subject: Bob's Magtape Vindicated-Unix to Blame!
Message-ID: <199804110245.WAA07389@renoir.op.net>

I described in an earlier post how uv7 tar would fail, extracting the 
same file over and over again (see below for example).  

It turns out that Bob's magtape works just fine:  the problem is in 
tar!

uv7 tar has a bug in it--a misplaced assignment--which causes it to 
read the first block over and over (see below for example) when 
used with the 'f' option.  

The bug is indirectly a result of a trick tar uses to determine the
block size on the mag tape:  rather than interrogate Unix about the
block size (can someone tell me how do this?),  tar first attempts to 
read the maximum block size supported by tar (20*512 bytes).  The 
number of bytes actually returned is taken to be the actual block 
size and is used by tar for reads thereafter.

Two simple workarounds for /dev/rmt0 are:

tar vx0
and
tar vxfb /dev/rmt0 1
 
The problem:

# tar vxf /dev/rmt0
x mysqrt.c, 383 bytes, 1 tape blocks
x mysqrt.c, 383 bytes, 1 tape blocks
x mysqrt.c, 383 bytes, 1 tape blocks
x mysqrt.c, 383 bytes, 1 tape blocks
x mysqrt.c, 383 bytes, 1 tape blocks
etc.

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From edgee at cyberpass.net  Sat Apr 11 12:40:34 1998
From: edgee at cyberpass.net (Ed G.)
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 22:40:34 -0400
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.VUL.3.93.980408094723.13372A-100000@Zeke.Update.UU.SE>
References: <199804080325.XAA26777@renoir.op.net>
Message-ID: <199804110246.WAA07393@renoir.op.net>

I'd like to thank everyone who wrote me on this subject, 
and especially those described the weaknesses they saw in my 
reasoning.  

I have found it useful sometimes to take a step back and reconsider 
what it is I am trying do and how I am trying to do it.  

My purpose here was to get a sense for how heavily the Unix utilities
rely on floating point.  I was not looking for a numerically exact 
"right" answer, but rather an estimate which was good enough.

At this point, now that I have access to the source code, it seems to 
me that an easier and more accurate way of doing that would be to 
count the occurences of floats and doubles using grep or a similar 
utility.  What do you all think?

> You are making atleast four assumptions which are wrong here.
> 
> 1) Data starts from address 0. They most likely do not.

I'm not sure what you mean here; can you elaborate?  

As I see it my key assumption about data was that it is 
relatively small in size compared to code in a given program file.  
This was certainly the case with factor, where less than 10% of the 
runtime image consisted of static data.

> 2) 17 is not 6 bits, it's four! You are talking about octal representation
>    of 16 bits, which means that the highest digit can only be 0 or 1.

You are absolutely right.  Thank you for pointing this out.  

> 3) All data are not words. How about bytes? If a byte is in the range
>    240-255 and on an odd address, you'll catch it as a FP opcode.

My routine scanned words, not bytes, so I don't think this would 
apply.

> 4) Not all data are addresses. Most negative numbers will have 17 as the
>    high four bits.

This is true.  But if data is negligible compared to code, then I
don't see how this wouldn't affect an estimate very much.

Ed 

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From edgee at cyberpass.net  Sat Apr 11 12:40:35 1998
From: edgee at cyberpass.net (Ed G.)
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 22:40:35 -0400
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
In-Reply-To: <199804080411.OAA06388@psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au>
Message-ID: <199804110245.WAA07386@renoir.op.net>

> 	I think that you will find that the compiler and assember always
> generate relative addressing for subroutines and jumps. Any call to an
> earlier address will generate a negative number, hence lots of 017xxxx
> numbers in the text image.

I am not an expert on PDP-11 op codes, so you may well be right about 
this.  

In response to your criticism, I looked up jmp and branch 
instructions in the *Processor Handbook*.  Based only on my quick 
skim of the handbook, I don't think negative relative addresses would 
be a problem because: 

1. branch instructions are followed by a signed byte offset (-128, 
127).  This would not be a problem for my routine which only looks at 
the first four bits of every word and would ignore the offset in the 
odd byte.

2. jump instructions, which seem at first glance to be a problem 
because they are followed by a 16 bit word, are not because they 
always use absolute addressing, never relative and hence would never 
be followed by a negative number.

Ed

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From neil at skatter.usask.ca  Tue Apr 14 01:21:45 1998
From: neil at skatter.usask.ca (Neil Johnson)
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 09:21:45 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Question re TM11 boostrap
Message-ID: <199804131521.JAA21310@hydrus.USask.Ca>

I have booted a TMB11 with a simple program to load the first record into block
0. The tape must be rewound to BOT, then the program at location 0 run. I
don't think the 9301 bootstrap actually skips the first record. Hope this
helps.

Neil

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Tue Apr 14 20:23:21 1998
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 20:23:21 +1000 (EST)
Subject: More licenses have arrived!
Message-ID: <199804141023.UAA09911@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

All, The latest batch of licenses has arrived from Dion at SCO:

	Stefan Bieschewski, Robin Birch, W. Bulte, Anthony Duell,
	Alexander Duerrschnabel, Kevin Dunlap, Arno Griffioen, Neil Johnson,
	Greg Lehey, Kirk McKusick, Joseph Myers, Carl Phillips, Jason Wells

As always, if you want access to the on-line PUPS Archive, or a copy
on tape/CD, then email your request to pupsarchive at minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au.
You will receive a form reply, and we will process it as soon as possible.
Note that we won't start burning the first CDs until around the 21st April.

If you want on-line access, I will need a fax number or a PGP key so that
I can mail you the access details, with a moderate amount of security. I
won't accept PGP keys via email. I'll accept keys via finger, web page,
key signing service, etc. Please include the method to obtain your key
in your email request above.

Cheers,
	Warren

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From rdkeys at seedlab1.cropsci.ncsu.edu  Wed Apr 15 04:44:16 1998
From: rdkeys at seedlab1.cropsci.ncsu.edu (Robert D. Keys)
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 14:44:16 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
Message-ID: <199804141844.OAA03748@seedlab1.cropsci.ncsu.edu>

Greetings to the list, and thanks to Warren for telling me about it.

I am quite interested in the older unices, and especially the potential
for home use on a smallish box of some sort.  (Nostalgia trip, but why
are most of us here?)

Sadly, my only experiences with PDP-11ish things are so long ago as to
be rather faded.  We used one box (two small chassis about 8 inches high
stacked together -- possibly PDP-8 or PDP-11) as some sort of remote job
entry terminal that the grad students would be occasionally allowed to
touch and load their SAS jobs up from (mid 70's) to the mainframe at
Iowa State U.   I remember the two DEC boxes and some sort of glass tty,
and a paper tape reader that was used to boot it in some way, should
the woeful grad student crash it late at night.  That got me rather
interested in computers and for several years after that time when I
came to NCSU, I tried all kinds of ways to fund and coerce some sort
of Heathkit version of that with some sort of early unix out of the
powers that be, but they tended to think it was computing and not
agronomy, so I wound up doing that with z80's and s-100 bus crates that
could be hooked up to the mainframe remotely via CP/M and paper tape or
81K floppies locally.  But, that has always perked my interest in the
old unix beasts.  I still have the old pdp-11 Heathkit manual sets and
builders instructions, should I find one in the bilges somewhere....(:+}}...

Anyway, I was noticing the pdp-11 system 5/6/7 binaries and the freebie
sco licenses on Minnie, and was wondering where to go for info on how
to bring the things up.  I saw one emulator for DOS? --- (neat way maybe
to use an old 4 meg dos box?).  Can these things be made to run via
a 386/486 bootstrap and emulator, on something like a minix/aix/FreeBSD
sort of machine?  I would expect something like a maintenance boot disk,
and a minimal file system to get the machine up and into the emulator
proper, might be feasible, maybe?

Also, I see pdp-11ish things in surplus around here quite often.
What would be needed to cobble together a system, for a minimal system 7
sort of box to play with?  If there were a list of required boards and
chassis for various levels of system, that might help a newbie get some
sort of machine together.

Thanks, and any comments for the newbie are appreciated.

Bob Keys
rdkeys at seedlab1.cropsci.ncsu.edu




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From pete at dunnington.u-net.com  Wed Apr 15 12:31:22 1998
From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 02:31:22 GMT
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
In-Reply-To: "Robert D. Keys" <rdkeys@seedlab1.cropsci.ncsu.edu>
        "PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)" (Apr 14, 14:44)
References: <199804141844.OAA03748@seedlab1.cropsci.ncsu.edu>
Message-ID: <9804150331.ZM9568@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>

On Apr 14, 14:44, Robert D. Keys wrote:

> I am quite interested in the older unices, and especially the potential
> for home use on a smallish box of some sort.  (Nostalgia trip, but why
> are most of us here?)

> Anyway, I was noticing the pdp-11 system 5/6/7 binaries and the freebie
> sco licenses on Minnie, and was wondering where to go for info on how
> to bring the things up.  I saw one emulator for DOS? --- (neat way maybe
> to use an old 4 meg dos box?).  Can these things be made to run via
> a 386/486 bootstrap and emulator, on something like a minix/aix/FreeBSD
> sort of machine?  I would expect something like a maintenance boot disk,
> and a minimal file system to get the machine up and into the emulator
> proper, might be feasible, maybe?

Yes, you want one of the emulator packages and a disk image for that.  BTW, the
disk images I've seen don't have man pages, so you may want to download those
separately.

> Also, I see pdp-11ish things in surplus around here quite often.
> What would be needed to cobble together a system, for a minimal system 7
> sort of box to play with?  If there were a list of required boards and
> chassis for various levels of system, that might help a newbie get some
> sort of machine together.

There are so many permutations, it's hard to make a list.  There are two
general classes of PDP-11, QBus and Unibus.  Most even-numbered models are
Unibus, most odd-numbered models are QBus (but not all).  QBus machines tend to
be smaller.

As to operating system versions, 2.11BSD needs at least an 11/73 or 83 to run,
as it needs memory management with separate address spaces for instructions and
data.  7th Edition will also run on those machines, and if the kernel is
suitably compiled, will also run on smaller machines such as 11/23s, which are
quite common.  Early versions will run on a whole range of models.

Whatever you get, you'll need a processor (which might be a single card or as
many as ten), memory (256K will do fine for 7th Edition, but more is better),
at least one serial line unit for a terminal (or PC with terminal emulation
software), and a disk controller with a suitable hard disk.  Here again there
are lots of possibilities, you want at least 10MB for 7th Edition and a lot
more for BSD.

Others may wish to expand on what I've written.  Personally, I'd go see what
you can find, describe it to the list, and wait for the 101 pieces of advice
you'll get from all of us about its suitability/desirability :-)

-- 

Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Dept. of Computer Science
						University of York

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From edgee at cyberpass.net  Wed Apr 15 13:09:26 1998
From: edgee at cyberpass.net (Ed G.)
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 23:09:26 -0400
Subject: PDP-11 Addressing Modes
Message-ID: <199804150309.XAA00267@renoir.op.net>

The first line of chapter on addressing modes in the *processor
handbook* states:

"In the PDP-11 family, all operand addressing is accomplished through
the eight general purpose registers."

If I understand correctly, even things like immediate operands and
addresses are represented as an addressing mode of a register, namely
the PC.  I think this is quite cool.

What do people here on the list think of the flexibility and 
generality of the PDP-11's addressing modes?  Is this a well thought
out architecture in your view?  How are the PDP-11's addressing modes
better or worse than those of other processors, past and present?

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From edgee at cyberpass.net  Wed Apr 15 13:09:26 1998
From: edgee at cyberpass.net (Ed G.)
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 23:09:26 -0400
Subject: Floating Point-How Important
In-Reply-To: <9804111346.ZM7828@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>
References: "Ed G." <edgee@cyberpass.net>        "Re: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?" (Apr 10, 22:40)
Message-ID: <199804150309.XAA00270@renoir.op.net>

> What about position-independent code?

Your query got me thinking about the various addressing modes 
of the PDP-11 and how they might affect my brute force approach to 
estimating floating point ops for C programs.  Is this what you meant 
when you asked about position independent code?

And yes, these addressing modes could mean the death knell for my 
approach.

Index mode is definitely a problem as C programs seem to use r5 as a
frame pointer with both positive and *negative* 16 bit offsets (see
assembly language listing of my square root program below).

I don't think PC relative mode (e.g., clr addr) is a problem 
(if the data segment follows the text, then the offsets would all be 
positive and all less than the size of the program).

Is there such a thing as PC relative mode for the jmp op 
code?  In other words, can you make long + or -32K relative jumps on 
the PDP-11? If so, this too could potentially confound my estimates.

.globl	_absv
.text
_absv:
~~absv:
jsr	r5,csv
~n=4
jbr	L1
L2:clrf	r0
cmpf	4(r5),r0
cfcc
jge	L4
movf	4(r5),r0
negf	r0
jbr	L3
jbr	L5
L4:movf	4(r5),r0
jbr	L3
L5:L3:jmp	cret
L1:jbr	L2
.globl	_mysqrt
.text
_mysqrt:
~~mysqrt:
jsr	r5,csv
~n=4
jbr	L6
L7:~g=177762
~err=177752
movf	4(r5),r0
divf	$40400,r0
movf	r0,-16(r5)
.data
L10000:77777;177776;177777;177777
.text
movf	4(r5),r0
divf	L10000,r0
movf	r0,-26(r5)
movf	-16(r5),r0
movf	r0,-(sp)
mov	$L9,-(sp)
jsr	pc,_printf
add	$12,sp
L10:movf	-16(r5),r0
mulf	-16(r5),r0
subf	4(r5),r0
movf	r0,-(sp)
jsr	pc,_absv
add	$10,sp
cmpf	-26(r5),r0
cfcc
jgt	L11
movf	-16(r5),r0
mulf	-16(r5),r0
addf	4(r5),r0
movf	$40400,r1
mulf	-16(r5),r1
divf	r1,r0
movf	r0,-16(r5)
movf	-16(r5),r0
movf	r0,-(sp)
mov	$L12,-(sp)
jsr	pc,_printf
add	$12,sp
jbr	L10
L11:movf	-16(r5),r0
jbr	L8
L8:jmp	cret
L6:sub	$20,sp
jbr	L7
.globl	_main
.text
_main:
~~main:
jsr	r5,csv
jbr	L13
L14:.data
L10001:77777;177776;177777;177777
.text
movf	L10001,r0
movf	r0,-16(r5)
~n=177762
movf	-16(r5),r0
movf	r0,-(sp)
jsr	pc,_mysqrt
add	$10,sp
movf	r0,-(sp)
mov	$L16,-(sp)
jsr	pc,_printf
add	$12,sp
L15:jmp	cret
L13:sub	$10,sp
jbr	L14
.globl	fltused
.globl
.data
L9:.byte 111,156,151,164,151,141,154,40,147,165,145,163,163,72
.byte 40,45,56,61,66,146,12,12,0
L12:.byte 147,165,145,163,163,72,40,45,56,61,66,146,12,0
L16:.byte 12,115,171,40,163,161,165,141,162,145,40,162,157,157
.byte 164,40,151,163,72,40,45,56,61,66,146,12,0

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From allisonp at world.std.com  Wed Apr 15 13:53:58 1998
From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 23:53:58 -0400
Subject: PDP-11 Addressing Modes
Message-ID: <199804150353.AA11012@world.std.com>


<"In the PDP-11 family, all operand addressing is accomplished through
<the eight general purpose registers."
<
<If I understand correctly, even things like immediate operands and
<addresses are represented as an addressing mode of a register, namely
<the PC.  I think this is quite cool.

Same for stack relative access.

The PDP-11 archetecture was an example of CISC to the max for 16 bit 
machines, compared to most micros it has more and richers instruction
set, addressing modes and highlights what can be attained when all 
registers are general.  Added to a two address structure those registers 
and addressing modes make for flexibility and programming power.

...yes a PC relative jump could easily be done with an add r7!

<What do people here on the list think of the flexibility and 
<generality of the PDP-11's addressing modes?  Is this a well thought
<out architecture in your view?  How are the PDP-11's addressing modes
<better or worse than those of other processors, past and present?

Personally I consider it a high point in 16 bit computing and one that 
is a standard of comparison.  VAX carried this to the 32bit realm.  I
know of few 16 bit microprocessors that are as capable as the PDP-11 
and as fast (the ti9900 was good but slow, Z8000 was close).  The 
various chip versions of the PDP-11 (lsi11, T11, F11, J11) have achieved
performace exceeding many of the conteporary microprocessors in code
density and execution speed.  The PDP-11 and the C language are an 
excellent match, both for addressing modes and effienctcy of compilation.
It is also a good foundation for FORTH.

Terrible cpu, we should junk them all... ;-)   ...so I can collect them.

Allison



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From milov at toes.its.uwlax.edu  Wed Apr 15 23:17:47 1998
From: milov at toes.its.uwlax.edu (Milo Velimirovic)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 98 08:17:47 -0500
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
References: <199804141844.OAA03748@seedlab1.cropsci.ncsu.edu>
	<9804150331.ZM9568@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <9804151317.AA04337@toes.its.uwlax.edu>

Hi,

>
>
>Begin forwarded message:
>[snip]
>On Apr 14, 14:44, Robert D. Keys wrote:
>
[snip]

>
>> Also, I see pdp-11ish things in surplus around here quite often.
>> What would be needed to cobble together a system, for a minimal system 7
>> sort of box to play with?  If there were a list of required boards and
>> chassis for various levels of system, that might help a newbie get some
>> sort of machine together.
>
>There are so many permutations, it's hard to make a list.  There are two
>general classes of PDP-11, QBus and Unibus.  Most even-numbered models are
>Unibus, most odd-numbered models are QBus (but not all).  QBus machines tend to
>be smaller.

QBUS 11/2 11/03 11/23 11/53 11/73 11/83
Unibus 11/05 11/10 11/15 11/20 11/24 11/3411/35 11/40 11/44 11/45 11/55 11/60 11/70 11/84...

Odd numbered machines where the odd digit is a 5 are usually a Unibus machine.
(They're also old and will eat you out of house and home with their appetite
for electricity. :) 

Has anyone looked at the possibility of retrofitting older pdp11's with modern
switching power supplies to ease the electricity demands...?  
(donning asbestos suit in anticipation of cries of "heretic" and "Frankenstein"...)
>
>As to operating system versions, 2.11BSD needs at least an 11/73 or 83 to run,

How about an 11/44? 

>as it needs memory management with separate address spaces for instructions and
>data.  7th Edition will also run on those machines, and if the kernel is
>suitably compiled, will also run on smaller machines such as 11/23s, which are
>quite common.  Early versions will run on a whole range of models.
>
>Whatever you get, you'll need a processor (which might be a single card or as
>many as ten), memory (256K will do fine for 7th Edition, but more is better),
>at least one serial line unit for a terminal (or PC with terminal emulation
>software), and a disk controller with a suitable hard disk.  Here again there
>are lots of possibilities, you want at least 10MB for 7th Edition and a lot
>more for BSD.
>
>Others may wish to expand on what I've written.  Personally, I'd go see what
>you can find, describe it to the list, and wait for the 101 pieces of advice
>you'll get from all of us about its suitability/desirability :-)
>
>-- 
>
>Pete						Peter Turnbull
>						Dept. of Computer Science
>						University of York
>
---
Milo Velimirovic       <Milo.Velimirovic at uwlax.edu>
Unix Computer Network Administrator  (608) 785-8030
Information Technology Services -- Network Services
University of Wisconsin - La Crosse
La Crosse, Wisconsin 54601 USA    43 48 05 N 91 14 22 W



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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Thu Apr 16 01:03:00 1998
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 07:03:00 -0800 (PDT)
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
In-Reply-To: <9804151317.AA04337@toes.its.uwlax.edu> from "Milo Velimirovic" at Apr 15, 98 08:17:47 am
Message-ID: <9804151403.AA13468@alph02.triumf.ca>

> Has anyone looked at the possibility of retrofitting older pdp11's with modern
> switching power supplies to ease the electricity demands...?  
> (donning asbestos suit in anticipation of cries of "heretic" and "Frankenstein"...)

It's hardly heretical - all Unibus 11's have always had switching
power supplies for the high-current (+5V and - for core machines - +20V)
lines.  Depending on the exact model, +15 and/or -15 may have come
from a linear power supply, but these are very low-current lines and
not a major factor in power consumption.

The way to greatly reduce the power consumption of a big Unibus -11
is to go to a more modern CPU and memory in the original backplane.
For an extreme example, a 11/70 with 2 MW of core memory in MJ11 boxes
will draw about 70 Amps at 120 VAC, for over 8kW of power consumption.
But you can replace the 11/70 CPU set with a Quickware replacment
and take the CPU part of power consumption down to 3 or so Amps at
120 VAC, or under 0.4kW.

> >As to operating system versions, 2.11BSD needs at least an 11/73 or 83 to run,
> 
> How about an 11/44? 

Yep, does work.  (I had always been promising Steven that I would get
the FP emulator working so I could run it on my FP-less 11/44, but
I got a FP board before I got the emulator going.  So you need the FP
board for a 11/44, still!)

Tim.

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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Thu Apr 16 01:06:41 1998
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 07:06:41 -0800 (PDT)
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
In-Reply-To: <9804150331.ZM9568@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk> from "Pete Turnbull" at Apr 15, 98 02:31:22 am
Message-ID: <9804151406.AA09801@alph02.triumf.ca>

> Whatever you get, you'll need a processor (which might be a single card or as
> many as ten), memory (256K will do fine for 7th Edition, but more is better),
> at least one serial line unit for a terminal (or PC with terminal emulation
> software), and a disk controller with a suitable hard disk.  Here again there
> are lots of possibilities, you want at least 10MB for 7th Edition and a lot
> more for BSD.

One important point to note is that if you want support for modern MSCP
disk devices, you want to go with 2.11BSD.  The most modern disk devices
supported by 7th Edition are the RL02 and the various Massbus disks.

Tim. (shoppa at triumf.ca)

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From rdkeys at seedlab1.cropsci.ncsu.edu  Thu Apr 16 00:25:26 1998
From: rdkeys at seedlab1.cropsci.ncsu.edu (Robert D. Keys)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 10:25:26 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
In-Reply-To: <9804151317.AA04337@toes.its.uwlax.edu> from Milo Velimirovic at "Apr 15, 98 08:17:47 am"
Message-ID: <199804151425.KAA04925@seedlab1.cropsci.ncsu.edu>

> >There are so many permutations, it's hard to make a list.  There are two
> >general classes of PDP-11, QBus and Unibus.  Most even-numbered models are
> >Unibus, most odd-numbered models are QBus (but not all).  QBus machines tend
> >to be smaller.
> 
> QBUS 11/2 11/03 11/23 11/53 11/73 11/83
> Unibus 11/05 11/10 11/15 11/20 11/24 11/3411/35 11/40 11/44 11/45 11/55
>        11/60 11/70 11/84...
> 
> Odd numbered machines where the odd digit is a 5 are usually a Unibus machine.

Which would be the ones to look out for for practical unix use?

> (They're also old and will eat you out of house and home with their appetite
> for electricity. :) 

I have heard that from the computer students around here who chuckle at
the thought that I would attempt to run such a beastie.  They are chasing
Alphas and Pentiums, whilst I am chasing pdp11s?  Interesting directions.

For the sake of discussion, what sorts of power requirements would be
required for a lowend version 7 or 2.11 BSD box?  Say that I wanted
a machine that would allow me to troff/Tex a little, and do some
minor C compiling, associated with that.

> Has anyone looked at the possibility of retrofitting older pdp11's with modern
> switching power supplies to ease the electricity demands...?  

I often use old DEC linear power supplies to run some of my antique radio
equipment.  The power supplies themselves are not that much of an efficiency
thing, but the loads probably are.  Minimizing unneeded loads on a home
system would be of merit.  That is why I was wondering what sort of mininmal
box would do for home use, and still give some kind of reasonable service.
The electicity mongers need to be fed, but I don't need to treat them
to a full 7 course meal every day.

Are there special electrical requirements?  I can always find a separate
20 or 30 amp 115 volt circuit, but the 220 lines are tied up in my
antique radio transmitters.  Just how hungry are these pdp11s?

> (donning asbestos suit in anticipation of cries of "heretic" and
> "Frankenstein"...)

Don't worry, I still keep my ol' net asbestos flak suit hanging up in the
corner, for occasional donning.....(:+}}....  It is a little dusty.
It be faire windes and following seas about the net mostly, these days.
I consider it great fun to resurrect the old dinosaurs.  I still keep
a few 8 inch CP/M S-100 boxes running, for fun.  Alas, finding parts is
always a problem, anymore, especially in the deep south where silicon
valley ain't.  You have to make do with what you can cobble together.
I find that I mix and mash parts from old surplus radio equipment, 
computers, or whatever until I can make the thing work.  That is as
much the fun of it as actually watching the platters whirr and spin.

> >As to operating system versions, 2.11BSD needs at least an 11/73 or 83
> >to run,
> 
> How about an 11/44? 
> 
> >as it needs memory management with separate address spaces for instructions
> >and data.  7th Edition will also run on those machines, and if the kernel is
> >suitably compiled, will also run on smaller machines such as 11/23s, which
> >are quite common.  Early versions will run on a whole range of models.

What exactly were the Heathkit things in relation to the mainstream pdp11s?
There was a unix that was available on the Heathkit boxes, but I never did
get enough money together at the time to get one --- had to settle for that
CP/M thingie, instead.

> >Whatever you get, you'll need a processor (which might be a single card or as
> >many as ten), memory (256K will do fine for 7th Edition, but more is better),
> >at least one serial line unit for a terminal (or PC with terminal emulation
> >software), and a disk controller with a suitable hard disk.  Here again there
> >are lots of possibilities, you want at least 10MB for 7th Edition and a lot
> >more for BSD.

What would BSD be comfy with, with a little space for play.  I remember
the old Xenix boxes that we had (RS 16B things) ran a sort of v7 in about
15 megs HD.  The FreeBSD things require 100 or so megs to come up.
What sizes of HD would one be looking out for, in the surplus piles?

> >Others may wish to expand on what I've written.  Personally, I'd go see what
> >you can find, describe it to the list, and wait for the 101 pieces of advice
> >you'll get from all of us about its suitability/desirability :-)

I enjoy all the advice and comments.

Thanks to all for them.

Bob Keys


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From sms at moe.2bsd.com  Thu Apr 16 01:22:57 1998
From: sms at moe.2bsd.com (Steven M. Schultz)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 08:22:57 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
Message-ID: <199804151522.IAA22441@moe.2bsd.com>

Milo -

	Hi.

> From: Milo Velimirovic <milov at toes.its.uwlax.edu>
> 
> How about an 11/44? 
	
	Indeed the 11/44 will work and very well with 2.11BSD.  Before the
	one at work got shutdown (RA81 failure and the support department here
	doesn't like PDP-11s and refuses to help fix it) the care and feeding
	of 2.11 was shared between a 11/44 (for UNIBUS related stuff) and a
	11/73 (for QBUS).

	The 11/84 and 94 will also work very well.  Qbus models from the 11/53
	on up will also work (the 53 hasn't actually been 'tested' but "should"
	work, the 73, 83, 93 are all known to work).

	While the 11/45 has the MMU aspects required (split I/D and supervisor
	mode) it doesn't support enough memory.  The 11/45 can only have 248kb
	of memory and a full 2.11 kernel+networking+diskcache+datastructures 
	setup weighs in at almost 400kb

	Steven


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From allisonp at world.std.com  Thu Apr 16 01:50:47 1998
From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 11:50:47 -0400
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
Message-ID: <199804151550.AA21199@world.std.com>


<> QBUS 11/2 11/03 11/23 11/53 11/73 11/83

<> (They're also old and will eat you out of house and home with their app
<> for electricity. :) 

None the above systems are tough it really depends on the disks used.  The 
later of the three in the microPDP-11 format (ba23/123) are very resonable 
using MSCP and MFM drives.  The QBUS-11s are modest power compared to the 
Ubus-11s.

Also the Qbus-11s win in the small sizing as well.  I have two BA11n boxen 
one with 11/23b and the other 11/73, RX02, RL02, and MSCP disks all in one
50" rack.

<For the sake of discussion, what sorts of power requirements would be
<required for a lowend version 7 or 2.11 BSD box?  Say that I wanted
<a machine that would allow me to troff/Tex a little, and do some
<minor C compiling, associated with that.

A qbus 11/73 (or 83)  a meg of ram and disks would be comfortably under 
500 watts.  Adding an RL02 is not painful though it uses more than the 
CPU box total.  The massbus disks or RK/RMs are high power just for the 
spindle motors.

<> Has anyone looked at the possibility of retrofitting older pdp11's with
<> switching power supplies to ease the electricity demands...?  

You could if you set up event, ACOK and DCOK.  Most of the DEC supplies 
are actually lowvoltage switchers (744s) and the later ones are high 
voltage swicthers (BA11s/BA32/BA123... all qbus).

<Are there special electrical requirements?  I can always find a separate
<20 or 30 amp 115 volt circuit, but the 220 lines are tied up in my
<antique radio transmitters.  Just how hungry are these pdp11s?

The bigger Ubus machines and some of the bigger (physically too) disks
are killer though most common PDP11s are really quite moderate to small in 
their needs.

<I consider it great fun to resurrect the old dinosaurs.  I still keep
<a few 8 inch CP/M S-100 boxes running, for fun.  Alas, finding parts is

Smae here, the CCS2200 with DISCUS 10m and two SA800s challenge the 11/23
for power needed!

<What exactly were the Heathkit things in relation to the mainstream pdp11
<There was a unix that was available on the Heathkit boxes, but I never di
<get enough money together at the time to get one --- had to settle for th
<CP/M thingie, instead.

The H11 was a LSI11/03 cpu with heath equivelents for DLs and memorys, the 
disks however were strange.

<What would BSD be comfy with, with a little space for play.  I remember
<the old Xenix boxes that we had (RS 16B things) ran a sort of v7 in abou
<15 megs HD.  The FreeBSD things require 100 or so megs to come up.
<What sizes of HD would one be looking out for, in the surplus piles?

I ahve V7 up on an 11/73 on one RL02 pack (10mb) and it's cramped with 
about 4mb free.  Two RL02s would be pretty good.  If I can get 2.11 up
that will talk to the MSCP disks RD52(31mb)/53(71mb) and I'd expect plenty 
of space then.

Allison


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From DSEAGRAV at toad.xkl.com  Thu Apr 16 02:39:56 1998
From: DSEAGRAV at toad.xkl.com (Daniel A. Seagraves)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 09:39:56 -0700
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
In-Reply-To: <199804151550.AA21199@world.std.com>
Message-ID: <13348030224.14.DSEAGRAV@toad.xkl.com>

[What PDP-11s run Unix...]
I currently run Version 7 on a PDP-11/83 Q-bus box stored under my bed.
(I have a hospital bed, the kind you can crank up and down - Mine's about
3/4 the way up)
The RL02 I boot from is twice the size of the CPU!
I also have an MSCP device that I load RT-11 from.
BTW, there is a setting in the '83 Setup program called allow-alternate-bootblock,
you can directly boot Unix by enabling this.  Does that work on an 11/73 as well?
I just turn on the RL, start the disk and the CPU at the same time, and the disk
comes ready just at the 9-step check finishes.
I say unix and off it goes.
Now, I I could just get it to see my DHQ11...
-------

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From tih+mail at Hamartun.Priv.NO  Thu Apr 16 02:42:54 1998
From: tih+mail at Hamartun.Priv.NO (Tom Ivar Helbekkmo)
Date: 15 Apr 1998 18:42:54 +0200
Subject: PDP-11 Addressing Modes
In-Reply-To: "Ed G."'s message of "Tue, 14 Apr 1998 23:09:26 -0400"
References: <199804150309.XAA00267@renoir.op.net>
Message-ID: <86ogy3kpdd.fsf@barsoom.Hamartun.Priv.NO>

"Ed G." <edgee at cyberpass.net> writes:

> What do people here on the list think of the flexibility and 
> generality of the PDP-11's addressing modes?  Is this a well thought
> out architecture in your view?  How are the PDP-11's addressing modes
> better or worse than those of other processors, past and present?

It's simply beautiful.  The PDP-11 architecture is the pinnacle of
16-bit computing, as the 6502 (the world's first RISC chip) is the
unchallenged champion of elegance in 8-bit microprocessors.  The
cleanliness and orthogonality of the PDP-11 is a wonder to behold.
To top it off, they also knew when to _break_ orthogonality to make
proper use of the addressing mode bit combinations that don't make
sense for use with the program counter.

A good friend of mine, for whom I have much respect, claims that the
PDP-10 is even more beautiful.  I can't comment on this, not knowing
that architecture, but myself I've seen nothing to challenge the '11.

Among more modern processors, I'm quite partial to Motorola's MC68K.
I also like the Transputer -- who doesn't?  As for microcontrollers,
I've worked quite a bit with the Intel MCS-51 chips, and enjoyed it.

For the definition of "butt ugly", see the Intel i386 and its ilk.

-tih
-- 
Popularity is the hallmark of mediocrity.  --Niles Crane, "Frasier"

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From DSEAGRAV at toad.xkl.com  Thu Apr 16 04:16:24 1998
From: DSEAGRAV at toad.xkl.com (Daniel A. Seagraves)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 11:16:24 -0700
Subject: PDP-11 Addressing Modes
In-Reply-To: <86ogy3kpdd.fsf@barsoom.Hamartun.Priv.NO>
Message-ID: <13348047785.14.DSEAGRAV@toad.xkl.com>

[PDP-10 inst. set is nicer than PDP-11...]

Not sure about that, I haven't play with either enough to compare them.
But, judging by the pictures I have, a PDP-11/70 is about 1/2 as cool looking
as a KA-10!

[I *HAVE* to scan these and put them online sometime...]
-------

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From tih+mail at Hamartun.Priv.NO  Thu Apr 16 04:02:02 1998
From: tih+mail at Hamartun.Priv.NO (Tom Ivar Helbekkmo)
Date: 15 Apr 1998 20:02:02 +0200
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
In-Reply-To: "Steven M. Schultz"'s message of "Wed, 15 Apr 1998 08:22:57 -0700 (PDT)"
References: <199804151522.IAA22441@moe.2bsd.com>
Message-ID: <86g1jfklph.fsf@barsoom.Hamartun.Priv.NO>

"Steven M. Schultz" <sms at moe.2bsd.com> writes:

> 	Indeed the 11/44 will work and very well with 2.11BSD.  Before the
> 	one at work got shutdown (RA81 failure and the support department here
> 	doesn't like PDP-11s and refuses to help fix it) the care and feeding
> 	of 2.11 was shared between a 11/44 (for UNIBUS related stuff) and a
> 	11/73 (for QBUS).

Do you have the documentation you need for that RA81, Steven?  I've
got the user's manual here, which isn't much, of course, but at least
tells you how to hook up a terminal, run diagnostics, and interpret
the results...

-tih
-- 
Popularity is the hallmark of mediocrity.  --Niles Crane, "Frasier"

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From bqt at Update.UU.SE  Thu Apr 16 05:48:00 1998
From: bqt at Update.UU.SE (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 21:48:00 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
In-Reply-To: <199804110246.WAA07393@renoir.op.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.VUL.3.93.980415214003.8466A-100000@Zeke.Update.UU.SE>

On Fri, 10 Apr 1998, Ed G. wrote:

> My purpose here was to get a sense for how heavily the Unix utilities
> rely on floating point.  I was not looking for a numerically exact 
> "right" answer, but rather an estimate which was good enough.
> 
> At this point, now that I have access to the source code, it seems to 
> me that an easier and more accurate way of doing that would be to 
> count the occurences of floats and doubles using grep or a similar 
> utility.  What do you all think?

Would probably be a better idea, yes. :-)

> > You are making atleast four assumptions which are wrong here.
> > 
> > 1) Data starts from address 0. They most likely do not.
> 
> I'm not sure what you mean here; can you elaborate?  
> 
> As I see it my key assumption about data was that it is 
> relatively small in size compared to code in a given program file.  
> This was certainly the case with factor, where less than 10% of the 
> runtime image consisted of static data.

But you made an assumption that addrtesses to data don't come in theflt.
op-code range, since few programs have that much data. But, by assuming
that they don't have "that much" data, you must also assume that whatever
little dtaa there is don't start at a high address. Your program can have
as little as one word of data, located at 177776, referenced a zillion
times, and your algorithm will catch it as a zillion flt. ops.

> > 3) All data are not words. How about bytes? If a byte is in the range
> >    240-255 and on an odd address, you'll catch it as a FP opcode.
> 
> My routine scanned words, not bytes, so I don't think this would 
> apply.

Oh, it most definitely does.

Tell me, what is the difference between a string of two bytes, a word, and
an instruction in memory?

Nothing. It's just a question of how you look at it.

So when you are talking about a word, how do you know that the programmer
didn't write two bytes there?

The reason I said "odd addres" was because the byte at the odd address is
the high byte of the word you are looking at.

> > 4) Not all data are addresses. Most negative numbers will have 17 as the
> >    high four bits.
> 
> This is true.  But if data is negligible compared to code, then I
> don't see how this wouldn't affect an estimate very much.

That is a good point. But it's still a problem.
The point is more or less always, but a lot of small errors...
:-)

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol


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From bqt at Update.UU.SE  Thu Apr 16 06:06:30 1998
From: bqt at Update.UU.SE (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 22:06:30 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: Floating Point-How Important to Unix?
In-Reply-To: <199804110245.WAA07386@renoir.op.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.VUL.3.93.980415215418.9250A-100000@Zeke.Update.UU.SE>

On Fri, 10 Apr 1998, Ed G. wrote:

> I am not an expert on PDP-11 op codes, so you may well be right about 
> this.  
> 
> In response to your criticism, I looked up jmp and branch 
> instructions in the *Processor Handbook*.  Based only on my quick 
> skim of the handbook, I don't think negative relative addresses would 
> be a problem because: 
> 
> 1. branch instructions are followed by a signed byte offset (-128, 
> 127).  This would not be a problem for my routine which only looks at 
> the first four bits of every word and would ignore the offset in the 
> odd byte.

Correct.

> 2. jump instructions, which seem at first glance to be a problem 
> because they are followed by a 16 bit word, are not because they 
> always use absolute addressing, never relative and hence would never 
> be followed by a negative number.

2 wrong.

. Where did you get the idea that jump instructions have to be absolute?
. What about jumps to absolute addresses in the flt. op-code range?

I'm not sure about the 2BSD assembler, but the normal way of coding is to
have *all* addressing relative in the DEC assemblers. That means not just
jumps, but all instructions which takes arguments.
Almost all have word arguments, branch being one of the few exceptions.

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol


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From bqt at Update.UU.SE  Thu Apr 16 06:33:19 1998
From: bqt at Update.UU.SE (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 22:33:19 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: PDP-11 Addressing Modes
In-Reply-To: <199804150309.XAA00267@renoir.op.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.VUL.3.93.980415223118.9250F-100000@Zeke.Update.UU.SE>

On Tue, 14 Apr 1998, Ed G. wrote:

> The first line of chapter on addressing modes in the *processor
> handbook* states:
> 
> "In the PDP-11 family, all operand addressing is accomplished through
> the eight general purpose registers."
> 
> If I understand correctly, even things like immediate operands and
> addresses are represented as an addressing mode of a register, namely
> the PC.  I think this is quite cool.
> 
> What do people here on the list think of the flexibility and 
> generality of the PDP-11's addressing modes?  Is this a well thought
> out architecture in your view?  How are the PDP-11's addressing modes
> better or worse than those of other processors, past and present?

The PDP-11 did it right, all others did it wrong. :-)

Well, at least as long as you're talking about general register machines.
(And points could be made that the M68K isn't very general about its
registers...)

For accumulator machines, I guess the vote goes to the PDP-10.

All with a big :-) of course. This is religion...

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol


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From bqt at Update.UU.SE  Thu Apr 16 06:41:02 1998
From: bqt at Update.UU.SE (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 22:41:02 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
In-Reply-To: <9804151317.AA04337@toes.its.uwlax.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.VUL.3.93.980415223736.9250G-100000@Zeke.Update.UU.SE>

On Wed, 15 Apr 1998, Milo Velimirovic wrote:

> QBUS 11/2 11/03 11/23 11/53 11/73 11/83
> Unibus 11/05 11/10 11/15 11/20 11/24 11/3411/35 11/40 11/44 11/45 11/55 11/60 11/70 11/84...

Two additions to make the list officially complete:

QBUS: 11/93
Unibus: 11/94

The last PDP-11s by DEC.

Then you have the never-11s. (See the FAQ.)

> Odd numbered machines where the odd digit is a 5 are usually a Unibus machine.
> (They're also old and will eat you out of house and home with their appetite
> for electricity. :) 

They are also normally just about the same machine as the next number in
line, but for OEM markets.

11/05 - 11/10
11/15 - 11/20
11/35 - 11/40

> Has anyone looked at the possibility of retrofitting older pdp11's with modern
> switching power supplies to ease the electricity demands...?  
> (donning asbestos suit in anticipation of cries of "heretic" and "Frankenstein"...)

:-)

Well, as far as I know, all of the already have switching supplies...
Possibly not the 11/15 and 11/20, but if anyone has one of those, and
makes such a modification, I *will* brand him as an heretic. :-)

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol


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From pete at dunnington.u-net.com  Thu Apr 16 07:08:01 1998
From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 21:08:01 GMT
Subject: PDP-11 Addressing Modes
In-Reply-To: allisonp@world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
        "Re: PDP-11 Addressing Modes" (Apr 14, 23:53)
References: <199804150353.AA11012@world.std.com>
Message-ID: <9804152208.ZM16395@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>

On Apr 14, 23:53, Allison J Parent wrote:
> <What do people here on the list think of the flexibility and
> <generality of the PDP-11's addressing modes?  Is this a well thought
> <out architecture in your view?  How are the PDP-11's addressing modes
> <better or worse than those of other processors, past and present?
>
> Personally I consider it a high point in 16 bit computing and one that
> is a standard of comparison.  VAX carried this to the 32bit realm.  I
> know of few 16 bit microprocessors that are as capable as the PDP-11
> and as fast (the ti9900 was good but slow, Z8000 was close).

Don't forget the 68000.  Motorola deliberately adopted a lot of similar design
features for the 68K; there's a very interesting design paper still available
called "Design Philosophy Behind Motorola's 68000", publication no.AR208.  The
same sort of instruction/address-mode orthogonality as found in the PDP11, is
one of the big features.

> Terrible cpu, we should junk them all... ;-)   ...so I can collect them.

All right, providing I can have the ones on this side of the Atlantic...

-- 

Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Dept. of Computer Science
						University of York

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From pete at dunnington.u-net.com  Thu Apr 16 07:30:12 1998
From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 21:30:12 GMT
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere) 
Message-ID: <9804152230.ZM16484@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>

On Apr 15, 22:41, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Apr 1998, Milo Velimirovic wrote:
>
> > QBUS 11/2 11/03 11/23 11/53 11/73 11/83
> > Unibus 11/05 11/10 11/15 11/20 11/24 11/3411/35 11/40 11/44 11/45 11/55
           11/60 11/70 11/84...

> Two additions to make the list officially complete:
>
> QBUS: 11/93
> Unibus: 11/94

And one more to make the list officially really complete:

Unibus:  11/04
(which, despite the numer, is more like an 11/34 than anything else).

BTW, the 11/2 is a board, not a machine.  Machines with 11/2s were sold as
11/03s.  And of course there's the Falcon (etc) range of boards, which used the
same microprocessors and bus interface as QBus machines, but had memory and I/O
integrated onto one board.  They're not really PDP-11s, though.

-- 

Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Dept. of Computer Science
						University of York

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From bqt at Update.UU.SE  Thu Apr 16 07:56:14 1998
From: bqt at Update.UU.SE (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 23:56:14 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: PDP-11 Addressing Modes
In-Reply-To: <9804152208.ZM16395@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <Pine.VUL.3.93.980415234941.9250J-100000@Zeke.Update.UU.SE>

On Wed, 15 Apr 1998, Pete Turnbull wrote:

> On Apr 14, 23:53, Allison J Parent wrote:
> > <What do people here on the list think of the flexibility and
> > <generality of the PDP-11's addressing modes?  Is this a well thought
> > <out architecture in your view?  How are the PDP-11's addressing modes
> > <better or worse than those of other processors, past and present?
> >
> > Personally I consider it a high point in 16 bit computing and one that
> > is a standard of comparison.  VAX carried this to the 32bit realm.  I
> > know of few 16 bit microprocessors that are as capable as the PDP-11
> > and as fast (the ti9900 was good but slow, Z8000 was close).
> 
> Don't forget the 68000.  Motorola deliberately adopted a lot of similar design
> features for the 68K; there's a very interesting design paper still available
> called "Design Philosophy Behind Motorola's 68000", publication no.AR208.  The
> same sort of instruction/address-mode orthogonality as found in the PDP11, is
> one of the big features.

You got to be kidding?!?

<FLAME ON>
The 68K is a miserable beast at the best of times.
Separated address and data registers, PC is a special register, some
addressing modes are not allowed in some instructions, some manipulations
can only be done on data register, not address registers, immediate mode
is just an assembler fake, it's actually another instruction, the
semantics of some instructions differ depending on what type of arguments
you use, writing PIC can be a real pain unless you have the 68K20. The
list is long and sad.

The 68K is what happens if you take a good design (PDP-11) and mungle up
every part of the design. It's like if they never really understood why
the PDP-11 was done they way it was, and copied the parts they though
nifty and continued with adding their own strange ideas on top of it.
<FLAME OFF>

Having said all this, it's still a nice thing compared to Intel stuff, I
guess. :-) (But I've only programmed the Z80...)

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol


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From johnh at psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au  Thu Apr 16 08:00:52 1998
From: johnh at psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au (John Holden)
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 08:00:52 +1000
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
Message-ID: <199804152200.IAA06424@psychvax.psych.usyd.edu.au>


> Well, as far as I know, all of the already have switching supplies...
> Possibly not the 11/15 and 11/20, but if anyone has one of those, and
> makes such a modification, I *will* brand him as an heretic. :-)

	The 11/20 used a switch mode power supply (H720) (I still have a
functional machine!). You would have to go back to something like a PDP8/e
(got one of these two!) for a huge linear power supply. It has a huge SCR for
the overvoltage crowbar in order to dump all the energy in the filter capacitors

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From bqt at Update.UU.SE  Thu Apr 16 08:00:20 1998
From: bqt at Update.UU.SE (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 00:00:20 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere) 
In-Reply-To: <9804152230.ZM16484@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <Pine.VUL.3.93.980415235648.9250K-100000@Zeke.Update.UU.SE>

On Wed, 15 Apr 1998, Pete Turnbull wrote:

> On Apr 15, 22:41, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> > On Wed, 15 Apr 1998, Milo Velimirovic wrote:
> >
> > > QBUS 11/2 11/03 11/23 11/53 11/73 11/83
> > > Unibus 11/05 11/10 11/15 11/20 11/24 11/3411/35 11/40 11/44 11/45 11/55
>            11/60 11/70 11/84...
> 
> > Two additions to make the list officially complete:
> >
> > QBUS: 11/93
> > Unibus: 11/94
> 
> And one more to make the list officially really complete:
> 
> Unibus:  11/04
> (which, despite the numer, is more like an 11/34 than anything else).

Sigh. Why can't I get the last word. :-)
Is there anyone who can figure out any more models?

> BTW, the 11/2 is a board, not a machine.  Machines with 11/2s were sold as
> 11/03s.  And of course there's the Falcon (etc) range of boards, which used the
> same microprocessors and bus interface as QBus machines, but had memory and I/O
> integrated onto one board.  They're not really PDP-11s, though.

Eh? I'd definitely say that the Falcon was a PDP-11, it does sport a F11.
Actually, it was called the 11/21, or something like that, wasn't it?
But it was a board, and not a machine...
What about the VT103?

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol


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From pete at dunnington.u-net.com  Thu Apr 16 09:08:26 1998
From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 23:08:26 GMT
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
In-Reply-To: Johnny Billquist <bqt@Update.UU.SE>
        "Re: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)" (Apr 16,  0:00)
References: <Pine.VUL.3.93.980415235648.9250K-100000@Zeke.Update.UU.SE>
Message-ID: <9804160008.ZM16648@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>

On Apr 16,  0:00, Johnny Billquist wrote:

> Sigh. Why can't I get the last word. :-)

If I'd been quicker off the mark with my 11/04, you would have :-)

> Eh? I'd definitely say that the Falcon was a PDP-11, it does sport a F11.
> Actually, it was called the 11/21, or something like that, wasn't it?
> But it was a board, and not a machine...

That was the one called an SBC-11/21 Single Board Computer, aka KXT11.  Wasn't
it a T11 processor?  It had ODT in ROM, not in microcode.  There's one with a
J11, too.  Was that a Falcon+ ?  I think there were three versions altogether.
 Anyway, I just meant that the Falcons weren't sold in quite the same way; the
ones I've seen have been used more like today's embedded processors, set up to
do a very specific task, rather than to run a general-purpose O/S.  I expect it
could run RT-11, though.  The User's Guide I have says the ROM includes
DD/DX/DY bootstraps, among others.  I've certainly seen at least one in a
BA11-N box with other DEC cards, though that particular one didn't have any
disks.


-- 

Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Dept. of Computer Science
						University of York

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From allisonp at world.std.com  Thu Apr 16 12:06:40 1998
From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 22:06:40 -0400
Subject: PDP-11 Newbie Alert --- (gotta start somewhere)
Message-ID: <199804160206.AA10172@world.std.com>


<That was the one called an SBC-11/21 Single Board Computer, aka KXT11.  W
<it a T11 processor?  It had ODT in ROM, not in microcode.  There's one wi

KXT-11 was the t-11 cpu, duart (2 dl lines), PIOs ram and prom on one dual 
width card.  It was designed as a bus master.

KXT-11+ was also T-11, quad width with peripherals on board but could work 
as both bus master and bus slave.

KXJ-11 was the later versionusing the J-11 cpu.

< Anyway, I just meant that the Falcons weren't sold in quite the same way
<ones I've seen have been used more like today's embedded processors, set 
<do a very specific task, rather than to run a general-purpose O/S.  I exp
<could run RT-11, though.  The User's Guide I have says the ROM includes
<DD/DX/DY bootstraps, among others.  I've certainly seen at least one in 
<BA11-N box with other DEC cards, though that particular one didn't have a
<disks.

The were intended to replace lsi-11/03 and /2 cpus for embedded operation.
They with proper memory would run Rt-11 and could be used for a self 
development system.  At one time I had one in a BA11-va (showbox) with
a RXV21 and MXV11 and it was a very good 32k RT-11 system.

I also reassembled a MDS-11A a Vt100 with a PDP-11 qbus inside as a 
desktop development system for PDP-11.

Allison


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From jp at spektr.ludvika.se  Thu Apr 16 18:58:50 1998
From: jp at spektr.ludvika.se (Jorgen Pehrson)
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 10:58:50 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: Strategy for inst. UNIX on my PDP11?
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.3.96.980416103935.9120A-100000@spektr.ludvika.se>

Hi,
What's the best way of installing UNIX on my PDP11/83?
What I have:
PDP11/83, RD52, a QIC tape streamer doing some sort of TS11 emulation.

A MicroVAX II with a TK50 streamer and NetBSD installed. DEQNA ethernet.
And I have a spare DEQNA laying about.

What I was thinking of doing is writing the distribution to TK50 on the
MVII, move the TK50 streamer to the PDP and go from there. 

Is the RD52 big enough to contain a complete system?

What UNIX versions will work on my PDP? I was thinking of installing
2.11BSD.


Thanks for any input!

--
Jorgen Pehrson                   HP 9000/380 (NetBSD/hp300 1.3)
jp at spektr.ludvika.se             DECstation 5000/200 (NetBSD/pmax 1.3)
PDP11/83 - Intergraph InterAct - VAXstation 2000 (VMS 5.5-2)


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From sms at moe.2bsd.com  Fri Apr 17 01:47:14 1998
From: sms at moe.2bsd.com (Steven M. Schultz)
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 08:47:14 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Strategy for inst. UNIX on my PDP11?
Message-ID: <199804161547.IAA12057@moe.2bsd.com>

Greetings -

> From: Jorgen Pehrson <jp at spektr.ludvika.se>
> 
> What's the best way of installing UNIX on my PDP11/83?
> What I have:
> PDP11/83, RD52, a QIC tape streamer doing some sort of TS11 emulation.

	That tape device sounds like it is a TK25.  It uses the DC600A
	(60mb) cartridges.  

> A MicroVAX II with a TK50 streamer and NetBSD installed. DEQNA ethernet.
> And I have a spare DEQNA laying about.

	The DEQNA is supported by 2.11BSD so it would be a good idea to add
	that board to the 11/83.

> What I was thinking of doing is writing the distribution to TK50 on the
> MVII, move the TK50 streamer to the PDP and go from there. 

	Ok - that will work fine.  Another possiibility would be to move the
	TK25 (QIC) drive to the uVax-II and write the tapes to DC600A tapes. 
	Then move the TK25 back to the 11/25 and boot

> Is the RD52 big enough to contain a complete system?

	Alas no.  The RD52 is only ~30mb (the RD53 is about 70mb and the RD54
	is ~159mb).  A complete 2.11 system needs about 100mb (~8mb for a 
	root filesystem, 4mb for a swap partition and ~80mb for sources plus
	binaries).  A ZIP cartridge will (just) hold a complete 2.11 system
	(with about 8mb left over).  To hold a complete 2.11 system you'll 
	need either two RD53 drives or a single RD54.

	A minimal system (root filesystem plus selected binaries from /usr) 
	could be installed on a RD52 but it would definitely not be a complete
	system capable of recompiling itself.

> What UNIX versions will work on my PDP? I was thinking of installing
> 2.11BSD.

	2.11 is an excellent match for the 11/83.  Earlier versions (2.9 for
	example) will have a difficult time because MSCP support did not 
	arrive until 2.10BSD.  TMSCP support was not present until 2.10.1BSD

	Steven Schultz
	sms at moe.2bsd.com


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From robin at falstaf.demon.co.uk  Fri Apr 17 07:12:45 1998
From: robin at falstaf.demon.co.uk (Robin Birch)
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 22:12:45 +0100
Subject: Strategy for inst. UNIX on my PDP11?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.NEB.3.96.980416103935.9120A-100000@spektr.ludvika.se>
Message-ID: <5kppZIANRnN1EwQW@falstaf.demon.co.uk>

In message <Pine.NEB.3.96.980416103935.9120A-100000 at spektr.ludvika.se>,
Jorgen Pehrson <jp at spektr.ludvika.se> writes
>Hi,
>What's the best way of installing UNIX on my PDP11/83?
>What I have:
>PDP11/83, RD52, a QIC tape streamer doing some sort of TS11 emulation.
>
>A MicroVAX II with a TK50 streamer and NetBSD installed. DEQNA ethernet.
>And I have a spare DEQNA laying about.
>
>What I was thinking of doing is writing the distribution to TK50 on the
>MVII, move the TK50 streamer to the PDP and go from there. 
>
Yes, this will be the simplest way
>Is the RD52 big enough to contain a complete system?
>
no, an RD54 is probably the best to aim for if you can get your hands on
one.
>What UNIX versions will work on my PDP? I was thinking of installing
>2.11BSD.

That will do fine
>
>
>Thanks for any input!
>
>--
>Jorgen Pehrson                   HP 9000/380 (NetBSD/hp300 1.3)
>jp at spektr.ludvika.se             DECstation 5000/200 (NetBSD/pmax 1.3)
>PDP11/83 - Intergraph InterAct - VAXstation 2000 (VMS 5.5-2)
>
Cheers

Robin
Robin Birch     robin at falstaf.demon.co.uk

M1ASU/2E0ARJ    Old computers and radios always welcome


From jp at spektr.ludvika.se  Sat Apr 18 07:46:33 1998
From: jp at spektr.ludvika.se (Jorgen Pehrson)
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 23:46:33 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: Slightly offtopic...
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.3.96.980417233447.17135B-100000@spektr.ludvika.se>

Hi,
I have a little problem installing 2.11BSD on my PDP11/83. I have a TK50
tape with the distribution and a TK50 drive from a uvaxII. The controller
board is a M7546 that comes from another vax. The original tape drive in
this PDP is an TK25 drive which I have disconnected. How should the
TK50controller be strapped? The TK25 answered at 17772520. Should the TK50
be there as well? (I haven't got a clue howthe QBus works... I know it's
some kind of cascading thing though so I guess it matters in what order
the boards are placed in the machine)

Thanks for any help!

--
Jorgen Pehrson                  HP 9000/380 (NetBSD/hp300 1.3)
jp at spektr.ludvika.se            DECstation 5000/200 (NetBSD/pmax 1.3)
http://spektr.ludvika.se/museum VAXstation 2000 (VMS 5.5-2)


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From sms at moe.2bsd.com  Sat Apr 18 09:50:25 1998
From: sms at moe.2bsd.com (Steven M. Schultz)
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 16:50:25 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Slightly offtopic...
Message-ID: <199804172350.QAA06940@moe.2bsd.com>

Jorgen -

	Hello.  

> From: Jorgen Pehrson <jp at spektr.ludvika.se>

> I have a little problem installing 2.11BSD on my PDP11/83. I have a TK50
> tape with the distribution and a TK50 drive from a uvaxII. The controller
> board is a M7546 that comes from another vax. The original tape drive in
> this PDP is an TK25 drive which I have disconnected. How should the
> TK50controller be strapped? The TK25 answered at 17772520. Should the TK50

	That is the correct address for the first TS controller in the system.

	Despite the name ("TK25") the TK25 is a TS device and not a TMSCP 
	device.

> be there as well? (I haven't got a clue howthe QBus works... I know it's

	No.  The TK50 should be at the first TMSCP address which is 172150.

	You do not have to (indeed, you can not) set the vector on the M7546
	because TMSCP devices are 'programmable' - the kernel will assign
	a unique vector to the controller at boot time.

	Steven Schultz
	sms at moe.2bsd.com


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From sms at moe.2bsd.com  Sat Apr 18 10:38:02 1998
From: sms at moe.2bsd.com (Steven M. Schultz)
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 17:38:02 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: ERROR in previous mail item (TMSCP)
Message-ID: <199804180038.RAA07251@moe.2bsd.com>

Hello -

	I looked at the wrong line in the dtab file earlier.  

	The primary TMSCP address (where the TQK50 adaptor should go) is
	174500.  I accidentally gave the address of the first MSCP ('ra')
	earlier.

	So if you have both a TK50 and a TK25 the boards should be set like
	this

		TK25	172520
		TK50	174500

	Sorry for any confusion I caused.

	Steven



