From pao at mogwog.org  Thu Oct 13 15:43:19 2016
From: pao at mogwog.org (Paul Osborne)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2016 06:43:19 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] RIP Dennis Ritchie
Message-ID: <CABoOk8aeZwoMoZPvum3zzT++WT76hirQWU3Z=CBph58kZWGTMg@mail.gmail.com>

Wired is reporting this morning that Dennis has passed away.

:(

Paul
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From imp at bsdimp.com  Thu Oct 13 16:04:22 2016
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2016 00:04:22 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] RIP Dennis Ritchie
In-Reply-To: <CABoOk8aeZwoMoZPvum3zzT++WT76hirQWU3Z=CBph58kZWGTMg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CABoOk8aeZwoMoZPvum3zzT++WT76hirQWU3Z=CBph58kZWGTMg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CANCZdfoYEVGELr=orUqVqzw=gSWsrOCf1j7nx6X8EnfxTOqo7Q@mail.gmail.com>

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Ritchie says this is from 2011...

Warner

On Wed, Oct 12, 2016 at 11:43 PM, Paul Osborne <pao at mogwog.org> wrote:
> Wired is reporting this morning that Dennis has passed away.
>
> :(
>
> Paul


From dds at aueb.gr  Thu Oct 13 16:04:35 2016
From: dds at aueb.gr (Diomidis Spinellis)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2016 09:04:35 +0300
Subject: [TUHS] RIP Dennis Ritchie
In-Reply-To: <CABoOk8aeZwoMoZPvum3zzT++WT76hirQWU3Z=CBph58kZWGTMg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CABoOk8aeZwoMoZPvum3zzT++WT76hirQWU3Z=CBph58kZWGTMg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <9c9edf8b-b7bc-0d81-576b-1dafac1d816a@aueb.gr>

Wired is currently listing the 2011 article reporting the death of 
Dennis Ritchie as the second most popular one.  dmr left this world of 
transient bits exactly five years ago.

On 13/10/2016 08:43, Paul Osborne wrote:
> Wired is reporting this morning that Dennis has passed away.
>
> :(
>
> Paul
>



From dave at horsfall.org  Thu Oct 13 15:51:54 2016
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2016 16:51:54 +1100 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] RIP Dennis Ritchie
In-Reply-To: <CABoOk8aeZwoMoZPvum3zzT++WT76hirQWU3Z=CBph58kZWGTMg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CABoOk8aeZwoMoZPvum3zzT++WT76hirQWU3Z=CBph58kZWGTMg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1610131651030.853@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Thu, 13 Oct 2016, Paul Osborne wrote:

> Wired is reporting this morning that Dennis has passed away.

Five years ago, actually.

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."


From paosborne at gmail.com  Thu Oct 13 17:28:08 2016
From: paosborne at gmail.com (Paul Osborne)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2016 08:28:08 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] RIP Dennis Ritchie
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1610131651030.853@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <CABoOk8aeZwoMoZPvum3zzT++WT76hirQWU3Z=CBph58kZWGTMg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1610131651030.853@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <CABoOk8bokQEfPgc2BL-CgT3g0hZUfE+xb6J5ZbNpbXU5x53upQ@mail.gmail.com>

Yes. I should have double checked.

Apologies top all who entered a second stage of grieving.

Paul

On 13 Oct 2016 07:11, "Dave Horsfall" <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:

> On Thu, 13 Oct 2016, Paul Osborne wrote:
>
> > Wired is reporting this morning that Dennis has passed away.
>
> Five years ago, actually.
>
> --
> Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will
> suffer."
>
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From norman at oclsc.org  Thu Oct 13 22:51:35 2016
From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2016 08:51:35 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS]  RIP Dennis Ritchie
Message-ID: <20161013125135.1F91F4422E@lignose.oclsc.org>

The news of Dennis's demise is indeed an echo from five
years ago.

Dennis would have been amused.

Think of it is a day to think about Dennis and what he
gave us, instead of Trump and what he threatens.  I
suspect many of us could use that.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON


From clemc at ccc.com  Thu Oct 13 23:36:25 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2016 09:36:25 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] RIP Dennis Ritchie
In-Reply-To: <CABoOk8aeZwoMoZPvum3zzT++WT76hirQWU3Z=CBph58kZWGTMg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CABoOk8aeZwoMoZPvum3zzT++WT76hirQWU3Z=CBph58kZWGTMg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2PxSYgrOq45ivJLStOy4zeQnGq+8Opt_hHOxc3GLi_TYw@mail.gmail.com>

Paul,

As you now realize, Dennis left us 5 years ago after a long illness.  The
Labs had a wonderful memorial that I was lucky enough to be able to
participate.  The theme of the event was "Simply Genius."   My words are
that he was a remarkable person and I'm so glad to have known him.

BTW: I suspect your mistaking of the timing of his demise as being more
recent would have made him smile.   Just as he did when he discussed
Harvard never actually conferring his PhD due to a bureaucratic issue (a
number of people have tried to get this corrected even after setting up a
chair in honor but so far I do not believe the administration has relented).

Anyway - I agree that he was simply a genius.   We all lost a great man and
magnificent human being when he left us, and I miss talking to him.

Clem

On Thu, Oct 13, 2016 at 1:43 AM, Paul Osborne <pao at mogwog.org> wrote:

> Wired is reporting this morning that Dennis has passed away.
>
> :(
>
> Paul
>
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From aps at ieee.org  Thu Oct 13 23:50:36 2016
From: aps at ieee.org (Armando Stettner)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2016 06:50:36 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] RIP Dennis Ritchie
In-Reply-To: <20161013125135.1F91F4422E@lignose.oclsc.org>
References: <20161013125135.1F91F4422E@lignose.oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <D6025FAE-4E0E-4B53-A686-0E98A428C096@ieee.org>

Nicely said, Norman.

   aps

> On Oct 13, 2016, at 05:51, Norman Wilson <norman at oclsc.org> wrote:
> 
> The news of Dennis's demise is indeed an echo from five
> years ago.
> 
> Dennis would have been amused.
> 
> Think of it is a day to think about Dennis and what he
> gave us, instead of Trump and what he threatens.  I
> suspect many of us could use that.
> 
> Norman Wilson
> Toronto ON
> 


From brantleycoile at me.com  Fri Oct 14 00:54:27 2016
From: brantleycoile at me.com (Brantley Coile)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2016 10:54:27 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] RIP Dennis Ritchie
In-Reply-To: <9c9edf8b-b7bc-0d81-576b-1dafac1d816a@aueb.gr>
References: <CABoOk8aeZwoMoZPvum3zzT++WT76hirQWU3Z=CBph58kZWGTMg@mail.gmail.com>
 <9c9edf8b-b7bc-0d81-576b-1dafac1d816a@aueb.gr>
Message-ID: <7AC7EB62-C6C6-42CA-99F0-4FD321170950@me.com>

I think of Dennis almost daily, maybe because I program in C daily. 

I miss him. I would always seek him out at conferences for a chat and get his opinion on things. The power of his mind and his creative powers were exceeded only by his gentlemanliness. He was that rare combination of qualities, high functioning theoretical and practical, architect and builder, designer and coder. I learned to truly program from a combination of reading Dennis and Ken’s code (I can tell them apart) and reading Brian’s prose.

At SouthSuite our Plan 9 authentication server is named “dmr.”

  Brantley Coile
  http://coraid.com

> On Oct 13, 2016, at 2:04 AM, Diomidis Spinellis <dds at aueb.gr> wrote:
> 
> Wired is currently listing the 2011 article reporting the death of Dennis Ritchie as the second most popular one.  dmr left this world of transient bits exactly five years ago.
> 
> On 13/10/2016 08:43, Paul Osborne wrote:
>> Wired is reporting this morning that Dennis has passed away.
>> 
>> :(
>> 
>> Paul
>> 
> 



From dave at horsfall.org  Wed Oct 19 09:05:37 2016
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2016 10:05:37 +1100 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] [OT] VAXen, my children, just don't belong some places
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1610190959360.52197@aneurin.horsfall.org>

Time to post this again; warning: you need to uderstand the obscure 
references...  I've actually worked in places like this.

-----

VAXen, my children, just don't belong some places.  In my business, I am 
frequently called by small sites and startups having VAX problems.  So when 
a friend of mine in an Extremely Large Financial Institution (ELFI) called 
me one day to ask for help, I was intrigued because this outfit is a 
really major VAX user - they have several large herds of VAXen - and 
plenty of sharp VAXherds to take care of them.
 
So I went to see what sort of an ELFI mess they had gotten into.  It seems 
they had shoved a small 750 with two RA60's running a single application, 
PC style, into a data center with two IBM 3090's and just about all the 
rest of the disk drives in the world.  The computer room was so big it had 
three street addresses.  The operators had only IBM experience and, to 
quote my friend, they were having "a little trouble adjusting to the VAX", 
were a bit hostile towards it and probably needed some help with system 
management.  Hmmm, Hostility...  Sigh.
 
Well, I thought it was pretty ridiculous for an outfit with all that VAX 
muscle elsewhere to isolate a dinky old 750 in their Big Blue Country, and 
said so bluntly.  But my friend patiently explained that although small, it 
was an "extremely sensitive and confidential application."  It seems that 
the 750 had originally been properly clustered with the rest of a herd and 
in the care of one of their best VAXherds.  But the trouble started when 
the Chief User went to visit his computer and its VAXherd.
 
He came away visibly disturbed and immediately complained to the ELFI's 
Director of Data Processing that, "There are some very strange people in 
there with the computers."  Now since this user person was the Comptroller 
of this Extremely Large Financial Institution, the 750 had been promptly 
hustled over to the IBM data center which the Comptroller said, "was a 
more suitable place."  The people there wore shirts and ties and didn't 
wear head bands or cowboy hats.
 
So my friend introduced me to the Comptroller, who turned out to be five 
feet tall, 85 and a former gnome of Zurich.  He had a young apprentice 
gnome who was about 65.  The two gnomes interviewed me in whispers for 
about an hour before they decided my modes of dress and speech were 
suitable for managing their system and I got the assignment.
 
There was some confusion, understandably, when I explained that I would 
immediately establish a procedure for nightly backups.  The senior gnome 
seemed to think I was going to put the computer in reverse, but the 
apprentice's son had an IBM PC and he quickly whispered that "backup" 
meant making a copy of a program borrowed from a friend and why was I 
doing that?  Sigh.
 
I was shortly introduced to the manager of the IBM data center, who 
greeted me with joy and anything but hostility.  And the operators really 
weren't hostile - it just seemed that way.  It's like the driver of a Mack 
18 wheeler, with a condo behind the cab, who was doing 75 when he ran over 
a moped doing its best to get away at 45.  He explained sadly, "I really 
warn't mad at mopeds but to keep from runnin' over that'n, I'da had to 
slow down or change lanes!"
 
Now the only operation they had figured out how to do on the 750 was 
reboot it.  This was their universal cure for any and all problems.  
After all it works on a PC, why not a VAX?  Was there a difference?  
Sigh.
 
But I smiled and said, "No sweat, I'll train you.  The first command you 
learn is HELP" and proceeded to type it in on the console terminal.  So 
the data center manager, the shift supervisor and the eight day operators 
watched the LA100 buzz out the usual introductory text.  When it finished 
they turned to me with expectant faces and I said in an avuncular manner, 
"This is your most important command!"
 
The shift supervisor stepped forward and studied the text for about a 
minute.  He then turned with a very puzzled expression on his face and 
asked, "What do you use it for?"  Sigh.
 
Well, I tried everything.  I trained and I put the doc set on shelves by 
the 750 and I wrote a special 40 page doc set and then a four page doc 
set.  I designed all kinds of command files to make complex operations into 
simple foreign commands and I taped a list of these simplified commands to 
the top of the VAX.  The most successful move was adding my home phone 
number.
 
The cheat sheets taped on the top of the CPU cabinet needed continual 
maintenance, however.  It seems the VAX was in the quietest part of the 
data center, over behind the scratch tape racks.  The operators ate lunch 
on the CPU cabinet and the sheets quickly became coated with pizza 
drippings, etc.
 
But still the most used solution to hangups was a reboot and I gradually 
got things organized so that during the day when the gnomes were using the 
system, the operators didn't have to touch it.  This smoothed things out a 
lot.
 
Meanwhile, the data center was getting new TV security cameras, a halon 
gas fire extinguisher system and an immortal power source.  The data center 
manager apologized because the VAX had not been foreseen in the plan and 
so could not be connected to immortal power.  The VAX and I felt a little 
rejected but I made sure that booting on power recovery was working right.  
At least it would get going again quickly when power came back.
 
Anyway, as a consolation prize, the data center manager said he would have 
one of the security cameras adjusted to cover the VAX.  I thought to 
myself, "Great, now we can have 24 hour video tapes of the operators 
eating Chinese takeout on the CPU."  I resolved to get a piece of plastic 
to cover the cheat sheets.
 
One day, the apprentice gnome called to whisper that the senior was going 
to give an extremely important demonstration.  Now I must explain that what 
the 750 was really doing was holding our National Debt.  The Reagan 
administration had decided to privatize it and had quietly put it out for 
bid.  My Extreme Large Financial Institution had won the bid for it and 
was, as ELFIs are wont to do, making an absolute bundle on the float.
 
On Monday the Comptroller was going to demonstrate to the board of 
directors how he could move a trillion dollars from Switzerland to the 
Bahamas.  The apprentice whispered, "Would you please look in on our 
computer?  I'm sure everything will be fine, sir, but we will feel better 
if you are present.  I'm sure you understand?"  I did.
 
Monday morning, I got there about five hours before the scheduled demo to 
check things over.  Everything was cool.  I was chatting with the shift 
supervisor and about to go upstairs to the Comptroller's office.  Suddenly 
there was a power failure.
 
The emergency lighting came on and the immortal power system took over the 
load of the IBM 3090s.  They continued smoothly, but of course the VAX, 
still on city power, died.  Everyone smiled and the dead 750 was no big 
deal because it was 7 AM and gnomes don't work before 10 AM.  I began 
worrying about whether I could beg some immortal power from the data 
center manager in case this was a long outage.
 
Immortal power in this system comes from storage batteries for the first 
five minutes of an outage.  Promptly at one minute into the outage we hear 
the gas turbine powered generator in the sub-basement under us 
automatically start up getting ready to take the load on the fifth minute.  
We all beam at each other.
 
At two minutes into the outage we hear the whine of the backup gas turbine 
generator starting.  The 3090s and all those disk drives are doing just 
fine.  Business as usual.  The VAX is dead as a door nail but what the hell.
 
At precisely five minutes into the outage, just as the gas turbine is 
taking the load, city power comes back on and the immortal power source 
commits suicide.  Actually it was a double murder and suicide because it 
took both 3090s with it.
 
So now the whole data center was dead, sort of.  The fire alarm system had 
its own battery backup and was still alive.  The lead acid storage 
batteries of the immortal power system had been discharging at a furious 
rate keeping all those big blue boxes running and there was a significant 
amount of sulfuric acid vapor.  Nothing actually caught fire but the smoke 
detectors were convinced it had.
 
The fire alarm klaxon went off and the siren warning of imminent halon gas 
release was screaming.  We started to panic but the data center manager 
shouted over the din, "Don't worry, the halon system failed its acceptance 
test last week.  It's disabled and nothing will happen."
 
He was half right, the primary halon system indeed failed to discharge. 
But the secondary halon system observed that the primary had conked and 
instantly did its duty, which was to deal with Dire Disasters.  It had 
twice the capacity and six times the discharge rate.
 
Now the ear splitting gas discharge under the raised floor was so massive 
and fast, it blew about half of the floor tiles up out of their framework. 
It came up through the floor into a communications rack and blew the cover 
panels off, decking an operator.  Looking out across that vast computer 
room, we could see the air shimmering as the halon mixed with it.
 
We stampeded for exits to the dying whine of 175 IBM disks.  As I was 
escaping I glanced back at the VAX, on city power, and noticed the usual 
flickering of the unit select light on its system disk indicating it was 
happily rebooting.
 
Twelve firemen with air tanks and axes invaded.  There were frantic phone 
calls to the local IBM Field Service office because both the live and 
backup 3090s were down.  About twenty minutes later, seventeen IBM CEs 
arrived with dozens of boxes and, so help me, a barrel.  It seems they knew 
what to expect when an immortal power source commits murder.
 
In the midst of absolute pandemonium, I crept off to the gnome office and 
logged on.  After extensive checking it was clear that everything was just 
fine with the VAX and I began to calm down.  I called the data center 
manager's office to tell him the good news.  His secretary answered with, 
"He isn't expected to be available for some time.  May I take a message?"  
I left a slightly smug note to the effect that, unlike some other 
computers, the VAX was intact and functioning normally.
 
Several hours later, the gnome was whispering his way into a demonstration 
of how to flick a trillion dollars from country 2 to country 5.  He was 
just coming to the tricky part, where the money had been withdrawn from 
Switzerland but not yet deposited in the Bahamas.  He was proceeding very 
slowly and the directors were spellbound.  I decided I had better check up 
on the data center.
 
Most of the floor tiles were back in place.  IBM had resurrected one of the 
3090s and was running tests.  What looked like a bucket brigade was 
working on the other one.  The communication rack was still naked and a 
fireman was standing guard over the immortal power corpse.  Life was 
returning to normal, but the Big Blue Country crew was still pretty shaky.
 
Smiling proudly, I headed back toward the triumphant VAX behind the tape 
racks where one of the operators was eating a plump jelly bun on the 750 
CPU.  He saw me coming, turned pale and screamed to the shift supervisor, 
"Oh my God, we forgot about the VAX!"  Then, before I could open my mouth, 
he rebooted it.  It was Monday, 19-Oct-1987.  VAXen, my children, just 
don't belong some places.

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."
_______________________________________________
Applix 1616 mailing list
Applix-L at object-craft.com.au
https://www.object-craft.com.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/applix-l


From akosela at andykosela.com  Wed Oct 19 13:35:28 2016
From: akosela at andykosela.com (Andy Kosela)
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2016 22:35:28 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] [OT] VAXen, my children, just don't belong some places
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1610190959360.52197@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1610190959360.52197@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <CALMnNGghxibhc=FAv5y_tjC3hK+6ymz+jZRgBmFXGOuVXBuwYA@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Oct 18, 2016 at 6:05 PM, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:

<snip>

What operating system was installed on that VAX?  VMS or UNIX?

--Andy


From crossd at gmail.com  Wed Oct 19 21:49:48 2016
From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross)
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2016 07:49:48 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] [OT] VAXen, my children, just don't belong some places
In-Reply-To: <CALMnNGghxibhc=FAv5y_tjC3hK+6ymz+jZRgBmFXGOuVXBuwYA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1610190959360.52197@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <CALMnNGghxibhc=FAv5y_tjC3hK+6ymz+jZRgBmFXGOuVXBuwYA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAEoi9W7yEx5+4ZS3X5MoFdkOMCtCVwKgSsyqpiGtKFF+G-kHJA@mail.gmail.com>

On Oct 18, 2016 11:36 PM, "Andy Kosela" <akosela at andykosela.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 18, 2016 at 6:05 PM, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> What operating system was installed on that VAX?  VMS or UNIX?

Based on his description of the 'HELP' command, mention of command
procedures, and talk about the manual set, I'd say VMS. VMS also had a
strong presence on Wall Street around that time.

I've always loved this story, but surely it's apocryphal? If Black Monday
had been due to an operator rebooting a VAX that would have certainly made
the news....

        - Dan C.
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From mj at mjturner.net  Thu Oct 20 06:53:42 2016
From: mj at mjturner.net (Michael-John Turner)
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2016 21:53:42 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <87wpkhhkan.fsf@finger.aaronsplace.co.uk>
References: <mailman.79.1468802270.30583.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <7E906B78-BBA7-4D15-95AD-F89E22EC8F44@kdbarto.org>
 <87wpkhhkan.fsf@finger.aaronsplace.co.uk>
Message-ID: <20161019205341.22ogpyp6wcsicks6@tesla.turnde.net>

On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 01:41:36PM +0100, Aaron Jackson wrote:
>When it comes to setting up UUCP today (purely for the fun of it), what
>choices do you have? Is it limited to SDF Public Unix?

Another option is UUHEC - http://www.uuhec.net.

Apologies for digging up such an old thread...

Cheers, MJ
-- 
Michael-John Turner * mj at mjturner.net * http://mjturner.net/ 



From aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk  Thu Oct 20 08:35:28 2016
From: aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk (Aaron Jackson)
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2016 23:35:28 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <20161019205341.22ogpyp6wcsicks6@tesla.turnde.net>
Message-ID: <87oa2g9dcf.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk>

Thanks Michael, that looks interesting.

Michael-John Turner writes:

> On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 01:41:36PM +0100, Aaron Jackson wrote:
>>When it comes to setting up UUCP today (purely for the fun of it), what
>>choices do you have? Is it limited to SDF Public Unix?
>
> Another option is UUHEC - http://www.uuhec.net.
>
> Apologies for digging up such an old thread...
>
> Cheers, MJ



From grog at lemis.com  Thu Oct 20 11:18:41 2016
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2016 12:18:41 +1100
Subject: [TUHS] [OT] VAXen, my children, just don't belong some places
In-Reply-To: <CAEoi9W7yEx5+4ZS3X5MoFdkOMCtCVwKgSsyqpiGtKFF+G-kHJA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1610190959360.52197@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <CALMnNGghxibhc=FAv5y_tjC3hK+6ymz+jZRgBmFXGOuVXBuwYA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W7yEx5+4ZS3X5MoFdkOMCtCVwKgSsyqpiGtKFF+G-kHJA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20161020011841.GC31179@eureka.lemis.com>

On Wednesday, 19 October 2016 at  7:49:48 -0400, Dan Cross wrote:
> On Oct 18, 2016 11:36 PM, "Andy Kosela" <akosela at andykosela.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Oct 18, 2016 at 6:05 PM, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>> What operating system was installed on that VAX?  VMS or UNIX?
>
>
> I've always loved this story, but surely it's apocryphal? If Black
> Monday had been due to an operator rebooting a VAX that would have
> certainly made the news....

Clearly some of the details are fictional or strongly exaggerated, but
could the story not be based on fact?  Ten years before this event I
was in a big company in Germany with IBM (3080) and UNIVAC (494)
computer systems, and we installed a little Tandem/16 machine in the
middle of it.  The IBM operators had to tend to the Tandem too, and
it's clear they didn't consider it a Real Computer.

But the details?  Sure, different shops have different cultures, but
backups, for example, went without saying.  In the days where tapes
were bigger than disks, we made a complete backup of the system every
night, which occasionally came in handy (see
http://www.lemis.com/grog/warstories/fuppurgestar.php for one example).

And reboots?  The IBM systems did an IPL (Initial Program Load, their
word for boot) every Monday morning.  All morning, if I recall
correctly.  The UNIVAC people and we smiled sympathetically and
carried on running.  But then, in our case the IBM people didn't come
closer to the system than to change tapes, and they didn't know how to
reboot it.  If they had done, there would have been hell to pay.  But
as I say, different cultures.

And the transfer itself?  This was 1987!  People didn't transfer that
much money.  By this time I was OS support manager for Tandem Europe,
and our customers included all large banks in Europe.  With the
exception of one large British bank (who used trained monkeys), all
banks had reasonably responsible operators.  The CHAPS system
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHAPS) had just gone live on our
platform, and the average transfer was "only" £5,000 million.  And of
course it used modern databases.  A failure of a machine in the
network could not have resulted in any loss of data integrity.

Finally, of course, the real reasons for Black Monday (1987) are
known.  They have nothing to do with (computer) operator error.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at FreeBSD.org for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft mail program
reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA
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From random832 at fastmail.com  Thu Oct 20 15:24:20 2016
From: random832 at fastmail.com (Random832)
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2016 01:24:20 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] [OT] VAXen, my children, just don't belong some places
In-Reply-To: <20161020011841.GC31179@eureka.lemis.com>
References: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1610190959360.52197@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <CALMnNGghxibhc=FAv5y_tjC3hK+6ymz+jZRgBmFXGOuVXBuwYA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W7yEx5+4ZS3X5MoFdkOMCtCVwKgSsyqpiGtKFF+G-kHJA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20161020011841.GC31179@eureka.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <1476941060.1129501.761635617.09F711C6@webmail.messagingengine.com>

On Wed, Oct 19, 2016, at 21:18, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
> But the details?  Sure, different shops have different cultures, but
> backups, for example, went without saying.  In the days where tapes
> were bigger than disks

Tapes are still bigger than disks, to my understanding. The state of the
art is 185 TB according to a quick google.


From dave at horsfall.org  Thu Oct 20 15:46:39 2016
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2016 16:46:39 +1100 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] [OT] VAXen, my children, just don't belong some places
In-Reply-To: <1476941060.1129501.761635617.09F711C6@webmail.messagingengine.com>
References: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1610190959360.52197@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <CALMnNGghxibhc=FAv5y_tjC3hK+6ymz+jZRgBmFXGOuVXBuwYA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W7yEx5+4ZS3X5MoFdkOMCtCVwKgSsyqpiGtKFF+G-kHJA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20161020011841.GC31179@eureka.lemis.com>
 <1476941060.1129501.761635617.09F711C6@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1610201641240.52197@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Thu, 20 Oct 2016, Random832 wrote:

> Tapes are still bigger than disks, to my understanding. The state of the 
> art is 185 TB according to a quick google.

As the old saying went, never underestimate the bandwidth of a 
station-wagon full of mag tapes...

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."


From b4 at gewt.net  Thu Oct 20 16:30:36 2016
From: b4 at gewt.net (Cory Smelosky)
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2016 23:30:36 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] [OT] VAXen, my children, just don't belong some places
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1610201641240.52197@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1610190959360.52197@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <CALMnNGghxibhc=FAv5y_tjC3hK+6ymz+jZRgBmFXGOuVXBuwYA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W7yEx5+4ZS3X5MoFdkOMCtCVwKgSsyqpiGtKFF+G-kHJA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20161020011841.GC31179@eureka.lemis.com>
 <1476941060.1129501.761635617.09F711C6@webmail.messagingengine.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1610201641240.52197@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <10A216EB-F29C-4313-A32B-C3FD31A27B19@gewt.net>

The bandwidth of a bandwagon?

Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 19, 2016, at 22:46, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
> 
>> On Thu, 20 Oct 2016, Random832 wrote:
>> 
>> Tapes are still bigger than disks, to my understanding. The state of the 
>> art is 185 TB according to a quick google.
> 
> As the old saying went, never underestimate the bandwidth of a 
> station-wagon full of mag tapes...
> 
> -- 
> Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."



From peter at rulingia.com  Thu Oct 20 17:06:12 2016
From: peter at rulingia.com (Peter Jeremy)
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2016 18:06:12 +1100
Subject: [TUHS] [OT] VAXen, my children, just don't belong some places
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1610201641240.52197@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1610190959360.52197@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <CALMnNGghxibhc=FAv5y_tjC3hK+6ymz+jZRgBmFXGOuVXBuwYA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W7yEx5+4ZS3X5MoFdkOMCtCVwKgSsyqpiGtKFF+G-kHJA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20161020011841.GC31179@eureka.lemis.com>
 <1476941060.1129501.761635617.09F711C6@webmail.messagingengine.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1610201641240.52197@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <20161020070612.GH62187@server.rulingia.com>

On 2016-Oct-20 16:46:39 +1100, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
>On Thu, 20 Oct 2016, Random832 wrote:
>
>> Tapes are still bigger than disks, to my understanding. The state of the 
>> art is 185 TB according to a quick google.
>
>As the old saying went, never underestimate the bandwidth of a 
>station-wagon full of mag tapes...

Actually, I think they've been eclipsed by microSD cards.  A microSD
card weighs ~0.25g and you can fit ~6000/l, with 256GB on each. (And,
unlike the 185TB tapes, you can actually buy 256GB cards and readers).

-- 
Peter Jeremy
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From arnold at skeeve.com  Thu Oct 20 17:44:24 2016
From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com)
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2016 01:44:24 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] [OT] VAXen, my children, just don't belong some places
In-Reply-To: <20161020070612.GH62187@server.rulingia.com>
References: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1610190959360.52197@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <CALMnNGghxibhc=FAv5y_tjC3hK+6ymz+jZRgBmFXGOuVXBuwYA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W7yEx5+4ZS3X5MoFdkOMCtCVwKgSsyqpiGtKFF+G-kHJA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20161020011841.GC31179@eureka.lemis.com>
 <1476941060.1129501.761635617.09F711C6@webmail.messagingengine.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1610201641240.52197@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20161020070612.GH62187@server.rulingia.com>
Message-ID: <201610200744.u9K7iO4Q023131@freefriends.org>

Peter Jeremy <peter at rulingia.com> wrote:

> On 2016-Oct-20 16:46:39 +1100, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
> >On Thu, 20 Oct 2016, Random832 wrote:
> >
> >> Tapes are still bigger than disks, to my understanding. The state of the 
> >> art is 185 TB according to a quick google.
> >
> >As the old saying went, never underestimate the bandwidth of a 
> >station-wagon full of mag tapes...
>
> Actually, I think they've been eclipsed by microSD cards.  A microSD
> card weighs ~0.25g and you can fit ~6000/l, with 256GB on each. (And,
> unlike the 185TB tapes, you can actually buy 256GB cards and readers).
>
> -- 
> Peter Jeremy

Indeed. This is well covered in https://what-if.xkcd.com/31/  :-)

Arnold


From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Thu Oct 20 23:42:21 2016
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2016 09:42:21 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] [OT] VAXen, my children, just don't belong some places
Message-ID: <20161020134221.B207818C098@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Random832

    > Tapes are still bigger than disks, to my understanding.

Makes sense. There's a lot more surface area on a tape than on a disk. Yes,
mechanical considerations mean you can pack the bits on a disk in more
densely, but not enough to offset the much greater surface area.

      Noel



From grog at lemis.com  Fri Oct 21 15:37:02 2016
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2016 16:37:02 +1100
Subject: [TUHS] Station wagon bandwidth (was: VAXen, my children,
 just don't belong some places)
In-Reply-To: <20161020070612.GH62187@server.rulingia.com>
References: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1610190959360.52197@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <CALMnNGghxibhc=FAv5y_tjC3hK+6ymz+jZRgBmFXGOuVXBuwYA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W7yEx5+4ZS3X5MoFdkOMCtCVwKgSsyqpiGtKFF+G-kHJA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20161020011841.GC31179@eureka.lemis.com>
 <1476941060.1129501.761635617.09F711C6@webmail.messagingengine.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1610201641240.52197@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20161020070612.GH62187@server.rulingia.com>
Message-ID: <20161021053702.GD31179@eureka.lemis.com>

On Thursday, 20 October 2016 at 18:06:12 +1100, Peter Jeremy wrote:
> On 2016-Oct-20 16:46:39 +1100, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
>> On Thu, 20 Oct 2016, Random832 wrote:
>>
>>> Tapes are still bigger than disks, to my understanding. The state of the
>>> art is 185 TB according to a quick google.
>>
>> As the old saying went, never underestimate the bandwidth of a
>> station-wagon full of mag tapes...
>
> Actually, I think they've been eclipsed by microSD cards.  A microSD
> card weighs ~0.25g and you can fit ~6000/l, with 256GB on each. (And,
> unlike the 185TB tapes, you can actually buy 256GB cards and readers).

Clearly TUHS has its sight set back decades, not months.  We discussed
exactly this topic less than 3 months ago, for example
http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2016-July/007270.html

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at FreeBSD.org for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft mail program
reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA
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From ram at rkrishnan.org  Sat Oct 22 15:10:11 2016
From: ram at rkrishnan.org (Ramakrishnan Muthukrishnan)
Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2016 10:40:11 +0530
Subject: [TUHS] export TERM=aaa-60
Message-ID: <1477113011.2181978.763788369.50E588C1@webmail.messagingengine.com>

Found this nice blog post today on the interweb that this group may find
very interesting....

<https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/10/export-termaaa-60/>

-- 
  Ramakrishnan


From clemc at ccc.com  Sun Oct 23 00:00:02 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2016 09:00:02 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] export TERM=aaa-60
In-Reply-To: <1477113011.2181978.763788369.50E588C1@webmail.messagingengine.com>
References: <1477113011.2181978.763788369.50E588C1@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2ORhji_Yk_M3KkFpRz11YAkNkF6PF9ztOKUdq7qrEN0yg@mail.gmail.com>

Excellent - thanks for the pointer.  I miss my AAA

On Sat, Oct 22, 2016 at 12:10 AM, Ramakrishnan Muthukrishnan <
ram at rkrishnan.org> wrote:

> Found this nice blog post today on the interweb that this group may find
> very interesting....
>
> <https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/10/export-termaaa-60/>
>
> --
>   Ramakrishnan
>
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From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Sun Oct 23 01:58:50 2016
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2016 11:58:50 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] export TERM=aaa-60
Message-ID: <20161022155850.4662C18C0BC@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Clem Cole

    > I miss my AAA

Well, I'm not sure I actually _miss_ mine (my old eyes prefer black on white),
but I definitely have fond memories of it. It was such a huge thing when I
finally managed to snag one to replace my (IIRC) VT52.

You could actually have three useful windows in Emacs!! And the detached
keyboard was definitely more ergonomic.

	 Noel


From clemc at ccc.com  Sun Oct 23 02:02:42 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2016 11:02:42 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] export TERM=aaa-60
In-Reply-To: <20161022155850.4662C18C0BC@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20161022155850.4662C18C0BC@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2OvNGXbeMN5kyURMVPSLDWvPuoPBY3mcW3zogEm=EWHMQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Oct 22, 2016 at 10:58 AM, Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
wrote:

> my old eyes prefer black on white


​Fair enough.​
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From grog at lemis.com  Sun Oct 23 09:09:51 2016
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Sun, 23 Oct 2016 10:09:51 +1100
Subject: [TUHS] export TERM=aaa-60
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2OvNGXbeMN5kyURMVPSLDWvPuoPBY3mcW3zogEm=EWHMQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20161022155850.4662C18C0BC@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
 <CAC20D2OvNGXbeMN5kyURMVPSLDWvPuoPBY3mcW3zogEm=EWHMQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20161022230951.GA97383@eureka.lemis.com>

On Saturday, 22 October 2016 at 11:02:42 -0500, Clem Cole wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 22, 2016 at 10:58 AM, Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
> wrote:
>
>> my old eyes prefer black on white
>
> Fair enough.

So do mine.  But they did when I was young, too.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at FreeBSD.org for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft mail program
reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA
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From usotsuki at buric.co  Sun Oct 23 10:04:32 2016
From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas)
Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2016 20:04:32 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] export TERM=aaa-60
In-Reply-To: <20161022230951.GA97383@eureka.lemis.com>
References: <20161022155850.4662C18C0BC@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
 <CAC20D2OvNGXbeMN5kyURMVPSLDWvPuoPBY3mcW3zogEm=EWHMQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20161022230951.GA97383@eureka.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1610222003520.19236@frieza.hoshinet.org>

On Sun, 23 Oct 2016, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:

> On Saturday, 22 October 2016 at 11:02:42 -0500, Clem Cole wrote:
>> On Sat, Oct 22, 2016 at 10:58 AM, Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> my old eyes prefer black on white
>>
>> Fair enough.
>
> So do mine.  But they did when I was young, too.

Mine still prefer 75% grey on black. xD  Or phosphor green.

-uso.


From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Mon Oct 24 01:02:57 2016
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Sun, 23 Oct 2016 11:02:57 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] VTServer/etc for V6 Unix
Message-ID: <20161023150257.38C5918C0AB@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

So, in a fit of brain-fade, I originally sent this to the Classic Computers
list, when it was probably really more appropriate for this one. (Apologies to
those who are subscribed to both, and are thus seeing this again.)


So, I'm trying to do what VTServer was invented for - load Unix into an actual
PDP-11, over its serial line, when one doesn't have machine-readable Unix on
any mass storage for the machine.

However, all the initial code that VTServer loads ('mkfs', etc) is V7-specific
(V6 has a slightly different file system format) - and I want to install V6.

Has anyone ever tweaked the programs which VTServer loads to do V6-format
filesystems? I did a quick Google, but didn't see anything.

Another option is to do something more V6-like, and copy a small bootable V6
file-system image over the serial line; that may be an easier way to go.

No biggie if not, it won't be much work to adapt things, but I figured I'd try
to avoid re-inventing the wheel...


Note that the installation procedures for V6 and V7 are wholly different,
something which confused a number of people on CCTalk.

The 'Setting up Unix' documents are more checklists, they don't go into a lot
of detail as to what is actually happening, so I have prepared two pages on the
Computer History wiki:

  http://gunkies.org/wiki/Installing_UNIX_Sixth_Edition
  http://gunkies.org/wiki/Installing_UNIX_Seventh_Edition

which go into more detail on what is actually happening.

      Noel


From helbig at mailbox.org  Mon Oct 24 16:11:50 2016
From: helbig at mailbox.org (Wolfgang Helbig)
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2016 08:11:50 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] VTServer/etc for V6 Unix
In-Reply-To: <20161023150257.38C5918C0AB@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20161023150257.38C5918C0AB@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <A18B1FB4-0CE1-40D5-861B-0F8FFFA85EB8@mailbox.org>

hi
in my courseware 

http://wwwlehre.dhbw-stuttgart.de/~helbig/os/index.html

i tried to explain installing v6.

greetings
wolfgang



From jsteve at superglobalmegacorp.com  Mon Oct 24 16:33:19 2016
From: jsteve at superglobalmegacorp.com (Jason Stevens)
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2016 14:33:19 +0800
Subject: [TUHS] VTServer/etc for V6 Unix
In-Reply-To: <20161023150257.38C5918C0AB@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20161023150257.38C5918C0AB@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <1CAAD214-07FE-4510-99EB-AE024AFC2719@superglobalmegacorp.com>

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These were the closest things I could find to official documentation on doing an install...  If anyone has anything better, I'm all ears.

I'll email Tore again about ID's I haven't forgotten..

On October 23, 2016 11:02:57 PM GMT+08:00, jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu wrote:
>So, in a fit of brain-fade, I originally sent this to the Classic
>Computers
>list, when it was probably really more appropriate for this one.
>(Apologies to
>those who are subscribed to both, and are thus seeing this again.)
>
>
>So, I'm trying to do what VTServer was invented for - load Unix into an
>actual
>PDP-11, over its serial line, when one doesn't have machine-readable
>Unix on
>any mass storage for the machine.
>
>However, all the initial code that VTServer loads ('mkfs', etc) is
>V7-specific
>(V6 has a slightly different file system format) - and I want to
>install V6.
>
>Has anyone ever tweaked the programs which VTServer loads to do
>V6-format
>filesystems? I did a quick Google, but didn't see anything.
>
>Another option is to do something more V6-like, and copy a small
>bootable V6
>file-system image over the serial line; that may be an easier way to
>go.
>
>No biggie if not, it won't be much work to adapt things, but I figured
>I'd try
>to avoid re-inventing the wheel...
>
>
>Note that the installation procedures for V6 and V7 are wholly
>different,
>something which confused a number of people on CCTalk.
>
>The 'Setting up Unix' documents are more checklists, they don't go into
>a lot
>of detail as to what is actually happening, so I have prepared two
>pages on the
>Computer History wiki:
>
>  http://gunkies.org/wiki/Installing_UNIX_Sixth_Edition
>  http://gunkies.org/wiki/Installing_UNIX_Seventh_Edition
>
>which go into more detail on what is actually happening.
>
>      Noel

-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Wed Oct 26 00:16:43 2016
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Tue, 25 Oct 2016 10:16:43 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] VTServer/etc for V6 Unix
Message-ID: <20161025141643.8470A18C0AB@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > I'll start with getting VTServer to run under V6 (my only Unix, don't
    > have anything later :-)

So, I just got VTServer runnin under V6: it successfully loaded a memory
diagnostic from the 'server', into the 'client', using 'vtboot' on the
latter. (Both running on emulated machines, for the moment - I thought I'd
take all the hardware-related variables out of the equation, until I have the
software all running OK.)

It didn't require as much work on VTServer as I thought it might: I had to
convert the C to the V6 dialect (no '+=', etc), and some other small things
(e.g. convert the TTY setup code), but in general, it was pretty smooth and
painless.


Note that it won't run under vanilla V6, which does not provide 8-bit input
and output on serial lines. I had previously added 'LITIN' and 'LITOUT' modes
(8-bit input and output) to my V6; since the mode word in stty/gtty was
already full, I had to extend the device interface to support them. I didn't
add ioctl() or anything later, I did an upward-compatible extension to
stty/gtty. (I'm a real NIH guy. :-)

My only real problem in getting VTServer running was with LITIN; I did it
some while back, but had never actually tested it (I was only using LITOUT,
for my custom program to talk to PDP-11 consoles, which also did downloads,
so needed 8-bit output). So when I went to use it, it didn't work, and it was
a real stumper! But I did eventually figure out what the problem was (after
writing a custom program to reach into the kernel and dump the entire state
of a serial line), and get it working.

(I had taken the shortcut of not fully understanding how the kernel serial
line code worked, just tried to install point fixes. This turned out not to
work, because of a side-effect elsewhere in the code. Moral of the story: you
can't change the operation of a piece of software without complete
understanding of how it works...)


Is there any interest in all this? If so, I can put together a web page with
the V6-verion VTServer source, along with the modified V6 serial line stuff
(including a short description of the extended stty/gtty interface), etc.


    > so if you turn up whatever you used to boot V6, it would probably still
    > be useful.

So I guess my next step, if I don't hear shortly from someone who has
previously used VTServer to install V6, is to start on actually getting
a V6 file system created.

I'm still vacillating over whether it would be better to go V6-style (and
just transfer a complete, small existing V6 filesystem), or V7-style (and
get stand-alone 'mkfs', etc running with V6-format file systems). Anyone
have an opinion?

	Noel


From clemc at ccc.com  Wed Oct 26 03:52:21 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Tue, 25 Oct 2016 13:52:21 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] VTServer/etc for V6 Unix
In-Reply-To: <20161025141643.8470A18C0AB@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20161025141643.8470A18C0AB@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2MJyFJD=wFwC1ULUPxcY0p-HSfj72BYeYkCu=hyG1v8sg@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Oct 25, 2016 at 10:16 AM, Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
wrote:

> Is there any interest in all this? If so, I can put together a web page
> with
> the V6-verion VTServer source, along with the modified V6 serial line stuff
> (including a short description of the extended stty/gtty interface), etc.
>
​Yes please....​




>
> So I guess my next step, if I don't hear shortly from someone who has
> previously used VTServer to install V6, is to start on actually getting
> a V6 file system created.
>
​I think there are rk05 images in bit savers, check out uv6swre​


>
> I'm still vacillating over whether it would be better to go V6-style (and
> just transfer a complete, small existing V6 filesystem),
>
​The issue is even at 9600 baud, you do need to download 2.4Mbytes which
will take​ a few minutes.  So you would need to create a very small root FS
and then you get into how much is enough.




> or V7-style (and
> get stand-alone 'mkfs', etc running with V6-format file systems). Anyone
> have an opinion?
>
​Basically it depends how many commands you need.   Clearly, you need to
V6-afy the V7 standalone system and then for each app you need, you have to
both v6-afy and add the #ifdef STANDALONE hacks.   Clearly you need mkfs,
and probably need a one or more other programs in the key of restor, tar,
tp, dd or the like to copy things.
That's going to be a bit a work - although once you have done it, it will
be handy I suspect.

Clem​
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From dugo at xs4all.nl  Thu Oct 27 04:44:28 2016
From: dugo at xs4all.nl (Jacob Goense)
Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2016 14:44:28 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] VTServer/etc for V6 Unix
In-Reply-To: <1CAAD214-07FE-4510-99EB-AE024AFC2719@superglobalmegacorp.com>
References: <20161023150257.38C5918C0AB@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
 <1CAAD214-07FE-4510-99EB-AE024AFC2719@superglobalmegacorp.com>
Message-ID: <d1571a14e2cb633b2bf7c9517641ea0f@xs4all.nl>

On 2016-10-24 02:33, Jason Stevens wrote:
> These were the closest things I could find to official documentation
> on doing an install... If anyone has anything better, I'm all ears.

SETTING UP UNIX − Sixth Edition is as official as it gets. There is
the issue with the non-existing man command. What are other things
you are missing? I'll gladly flesh out a simh EXPECT/SEND .ini with
comments and more things than just the bare install it currently
does.

I initially wrote it to demo V6&BSD, running in simh, in linux,
in jor1k, in javascript, in your browser. Unfortunately, anno 2016,
it is too slow for prime time. The great thing about the builtin
EXPECT/SEND is that it is easy to test if cookbook actually works.


From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Thu Oct 27 08:28:47 2016
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2016 18:28:47 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] VTServer/etc for V6 Unix
Message-ID: <20161026222847.BDE7D18C09B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Jacob Goense <dugo at xs4all.nl>

    > There is the issue with the non-existing man command. 

My page on "Bringing up V6 Unix on the Ersatz-11 PDP-11 Emulator" has a
section on man:

 http://mercury.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/V6Unix.html#man

It's pretty straight-forward.

	Noel


From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Sat Oct 29 23:15:49 2016
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Sat, 29 Oct 2016 09:15:49 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Booting PDP-11's from RX02's
Message-ID: <20161029131549.54CB718C0B8@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

So, I'm winding up to boot Unix V6 from an RX02 floppy. So I need two things:

- Details of how DEC ROM bootstraps boot from RX02's. I vaguely recall seeing
documentation of this somewhere (e.g. which sectors it loads, etc), but now I
can't find it. Don North has dumps of the RX02 ROM's, but I'm too lazy to read
through the code and figure out how they work. Is there some documentation
which covers it? I did a quick Google search, but if there is anything out
there, my Google-fu was inadequate.

- Did anyone ever do an RX02 driver for the V6 disk bootstrap? (Well, I guess
a V7 driver would work, too.) Note: what I need is _not_ either i) the Unix OS
driver for the RX02 (I found one of those already), or ii) a driver for the v7
standalone second-stage bootstrap (which would probably be in C). The thing
I'm looking for would be called rx.s, or something like that. Yes, I could
write it, but again, I'm lazy! :-)

      Noel


From ron at ronnatalie.com  Sun Oct 30 07:32:18 2016
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ron Natalie)
Date: Sat, 29 Oct 2016 17:32:18 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Booting PDP-11's from RX02's
In-Reply-To: <20161029131549.54CB718C0B8@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20161029131549.54CB718C0B8@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <005601d2322b$ee6bf240$cb43d6c0$@ronnatalie.com>

I think just like everything else the boot rom just pulls in the first
sector of the disk.   I had RX02s on many of the BRL Gateways (my
implementation that replaced your MIT Gateway while you were in exile).
We put a V6 file system and I must have had a regular V6 boot block on it
with a RX02.   There might be someone still at BRL who might remember where
this stuff is.   I certainly don't have it.

BRL PDP-11 kernels had both V6 and V7 file systems in them but I'd have to
believe I was booting off a V6 one.




From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Sun Oct 30 22:47:31 2016
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2016 08:47:31 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Booting PDP-11's from RX02's
Message-ID: <20161030124731.467BD18C0D3@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Don North <north at alum.mit.edu>

    > .. the hardware bootstrap reads track 1 sectors 1, 3, 5, 7

Ah, thanks for that. Starting to look at the code, I had missed the
interleave.

So does DEC do anything with track 0, or is it always just empty?

	Noel


From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Mon Oct 31 23:55:20 2016
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2016 09:55:20 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Booting PDP-11's from RX02's
Message-ID: <20161031135520.1276F18C0C9@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Don North

    > Track 0 is not used by standard DEC software

I wonder why DEC did't use track 0. The thing is small enough (256KB in the
original single-density) that even 1% is a good chunk to throw away. Does
anyone know? (I had a look online, but couldn't turn anything up.)

If I had to _guess_, one possibility would be that track 0 is the innermost
track, where the media is moving the slowest, and as a result it's more
error-prone. Another is that IBM used track 0 for something special, and DEC
tried to conform with that. But those are pure guesses, I would love to know
for sure.

	Noel


