From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Fri Dec  5 08:06:53 1997
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 09:06:53 +1100 (EST)
Subject: PDP 11 Discs - UK readers please
Message-ID: <199712042206.JAA04976@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

Can any of our UK PDP-11 people help this guy out? I don't know if the
disks contain Unix or other stuff.

	Warren

----- Forwarded message from Roger Chan -----

Date: Thu, 04 Dec 1997 10:31:07 +0000
To: wkt at cs.adfa.oz.au
From: Roger Chan <roger.chan at ucl.ac.uk>
Subject: PDP 11 Discs

Dear Warren,

	I was hoping you might be able to help me regarding some PDP 11 discs
which we have here, and wish to extract data from.

	The discs are labelled:

2315 Disc cartridge
12 Sector
DRI Part number 592

	We have a number of these discs containg data which we would like to
have converted into a format which can easily be read by a PC (ASCII, or
whatever.) 

	However, as you can tell by my e mail address, I'm in the UK and I was
wondering if you knew of anyone/ any group in Britain who could help me
with this task. If you do, I would be very grateful if you forwarded this
message on to them.


	Thank you very much,
	Roger Chan
	Dept. of Visual Science
	Institute of Ophthalmology
	University College London
	London
	EC1V 9EL
	UK
----- End of forwarded message from Roger Chan -----

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From uko at kortedala.educ.goteborg.se  Fri Dec  5 07:04:13 1997
From: uko at kortedala.educ.goteborg.se (uko at kortedala.educ.goteborg.se)
Date: Thu, 04 Dec 1997 13:04:13 -0800
Subject: PUPS Membership
Message-ID: <34871ACD.4ACC@usa.net>

I just bought an 11/23 with RL02 and i have litle problems setting it up
If anybody feels for helping please mail me at 
mario.jelica at usa.net


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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Fri Dec  5 12:25:54 1997
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 13:25:54 +1100 (EST)
Subject: PDP-11 Unix v5
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.95.971204172645.25398B-100000@rio.com> from Erin Corliss at "Dec 4, 97 05:35:12 pm"
Message-ID: <199712050225.NAA05350@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Erin Corliss:
> 
> My roommate and I have a PDP-11/23 Plus that has no disk or tape drives
> and no controller board for either.  I've been able to boot Unix version 5
> on an emulator here, and from what I've read, this operating system should
> be able to boot on the PDP-11/23.  The operating system has a kernel in
> the root directory called "unix", which is about 23 kilobytes long.  I am
> trying to set the computer up to boot from a serial port which will be
> connected to a Linux machine, which will simulate an RK05 disk drive.
> Does anyone know where the low level routines for reading and writing on
> an RK series drive are found?  Are they built into the kernel or are they
> in some separate device driver or module?  Also, I need to know what
> memory locations are used as registers by the RK05 drive and what commands
> can be given to it, so if anyone has spec sheets for it....

Eric, I don't think this is going to work. The RK05 driver is in the
kernel, and it plays with the RK05 hardware registers. You aren't going
to be able to emulate these, as far as I can tell.

If you tell us where you live, perhaps someone on the list might be
able to help you find an appropriate drive and disks for your 11/23+.

I do have some old ('74) spec sheets for the RK05 drives.

Does anybody else have other suggestions???

Best wishes,

	Warren

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Fri Dec  5 13:30:01 1997
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 14:30:01 +1100 (EST)
Subject: PDP-11 Unix v5
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.95.971204185633.27884A-100000@rio.com> from Erin Corliss at "Dec 4, 97 07:14:18 pm"
Message-ID: <199712050330.OAA05624@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Erin Corliss:
> 
> 
> On Fri, 5 Dec 1997, Warren Toomey wrote:
> 
> > Eric, I don't think this is going to work. The RK05 driver is in the
> > kernel, and it plays with the RK05 hardware registers. You aren't going
> > to be able to emulate these, as far as I can tell.
> 
> I was looking at a disassembly of the boot sector on one of the disk
> images I downloaded and from what I could see the software talks to the
> hardware through memory addresses in the area of 177xxx, in a similar
> fashion to the way Apple II's and Amiga's talk to their hardware.  If I
> can get information about what addresses and values are used to control
> the RK05, I think it would be possible to gut out some non-essential part
> of the kernel, the tape drive controller for example, and replace it with
> code that sends and receives RK05 commands and data through the serial
> port.  I would then search through the kernel and replace all of the
> references to the RK05's registers to BSR's that went to appropriate
> places in my serial port routines....  I've performed similar kludging on
> PC's and Amigas, so I'm pretty certain I can manage it if I have the right
> information to start with.
> 
> > If you tell us where you live, perhaps someone on the list might be
> > able to help you find an appropriate drive and disks for your 11/23+.
> 
> That would be easier...
> Eugene, Oregon, USA
> 
> > I do have some old ('74) spec sheets for the RK05 drives.
> 
> Any chance I could get a peek?

Eric, I'll put you on the PUPS mailing list so you'll get any replies from
the other members. I'll try and scan in the RK05 docs and put them up via
ftp for you.

	Warren

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Fri Dec  5 14:33:37 1997
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 15:33:37 +1100 (EST)
Subject: PDP-11 Unix v5
In-Reply-To: <6B84B1FF221BD011B0AC08002BE6920656D2F5@excmso.mso.dec.com> from Bob Supnik at "Dec 4, 97 11:26:15 pm"
Message-ID: <199712050433.PAA05757@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Bob Supnik:
> Warren,
> 
> The RK05 is implicitly documented in the sources to the PDP-11
> simulator, if that would help.

Yes, I hadn't thought of that. Other places are the Lions commentary,
and the Unix source of course.

Thanks for the reply Bob.

	Warren

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Fri Dec  5 14:49:13 1997
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 15:49:13 +1100 (EST)
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
Message-ID: <199712050449.PAA05787@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

Ok, it would be nice to have a way of installing Unix onto a PDP-11 without a
tape drive. Here's a proposal: please comment on it (i.e shoot it down!). I
actually wrote a very similar system to move files off my Apple ][ once.


The PDP-11 is connected serially to another computer, using a DL11 port. The
other computer will simulate one or more disk drives which are acessible by
commands sent over the serial line.

The idea is that a person can hand-enter the boot code to retrieve the
`boot block' from the simulated disk drive. From there, the bootstrap
can retrieve the Unix kernel, which can then use the simulated drive as
the root filesystem. The user can then log in, use mkfs to build a filesystem
on a real disk drive, and install a suitable Unix kernel without requiring a
tape drive.

The protocol used must be simple enough that bootstraps can be entered
manually - at least to get the boot block from the second computer.


Minimalist Protocol
-------------------

4-byte commands are sent from the PDP-11 to the other computer. The
command structure is:

	Byte 0:	What command to perform
	Byte 1: On which remote drive to perform the command
	Byte 2: Low-order bits of block number
	Byte 3: High-order bits of block number

Blocks are 512 bytes. The commands allow access to 65,536 blocks (32Megs)
on 256 virtual disk drives. Of course, an alternate view could be 65,536
on 256 platters, giving 8G of disk space.

Commands are:	0x00		NOP		Do nothing
		0x01		READ		Read specified block
		0x02		WRITE		Write specified block

NOP:	The second computer does nothing in response. However, this can be
	used to determine if the PDP-11 is actually sending commands.

READ:	The second computer returns 512 bytes which contains the requested
	block. There is no checksum, framing bytes or block# details.

WRITE:	The PDP-11 sends 512 bytes which contains the requested block.
	There is no checksum, framing bytes or block# details. The second
	computer does nothing in response.

Drawbacks: Line noise is gonna really cause havoc. Only one command can be
	pending, as the PDP-11 has no idea what block is what when it comes
	back from the second computer.

Advantages: Should be easy to write bootstrap and /usr/mdec software, and a
	kernel-level device driver should be very easy. Altering v5, v6, v7
	2.9BSD and 2.11BSD should be straight-forward.

Do we need a more sophisticated protocol with checksums, multiple outstanding
commands, acknowledgments, framing bytes etc.?

Cheers all,

	Warren

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From erin at corliss.com  Fri Dec  5 09:45:21 1997
From: erin at corliss.com (Erin Corliss)
Date: Thu, 04 Dec 1997 23:45:21 +0000
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
Message-ID: <34874091.3F778FE9@corliss.com>

> The PDP-11 is connected serially to another computer, using a DL11
port. The
> other computer will simulate one or more disk drives which are
acessible by
> commands sent over the serial line.

Does the DL11 port have an interrupt that is driven when data is
received, or do processes have to constantly poll it to receive data?

Is the information stored on a PDP-11 disk in 8 or 9 bit words?  How
many bits per word are transmitted/received by the DL11?


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From robin at falstaf.demon.co.uk  Fri Dec  5 18:51:33 1997
From: robin at falstaf.demon.co.uk (Robin Birch)
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 08:51:33 +0000
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
In-Reply-To: <34874091.3F778FE9@corliss.com>
Message-ID: <57g$OAAVC8h0Ewlc@falstaf.demon.co.uk>

This shouldn't be a problem.  Thinking from a 2.11 point of view, if
something that could load the standalone kernel was written and an
additional deveice driver included that would talk over the serial line
once the standalone stuff was up you could treat the PC, or whatever, as
a tape drive.  Whilst this doesn't give all the frills of full disc
access it has a couple of good thigs to it:

1)  The only stuff that has to be loaded over the serial line without
the benefit of lots of code that can do error checking is the initial
standalone loader.

2)  The standalone loader can then treat the serial port as a tape drive
which is a relatively simple process as far as the loader is concerned
and so you would only need a driver that looked like a TS11 (say) but
talked to a serial port.

3)  The PC end would then just have a simple prog that would treat the
files on the PC as tape files which would make shipping stuff around
easy as we could then do this as dump or tar forms which could be just
ftp'd etc from archives.

It would be slow but it would get things going quite simply.

Ideas + comments please?

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

M1ASU           Old computers and radios always welcome

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From allisonp at world.std.com  Fri Dec  5 20:59:28 1997
From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 05:59:28 -0500
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
Message-ID: <199712051059.AA16527@world.std.com>


<Does the DL11 port have an interrupt that is driven when data is
<received, or do processes have to constantly poll it to receive data?

Yes or you can poll.

<Is the information stored on a PDP-11 disk in 8 or 9 bit words?  How
<many bits per word are transmitted/received by the DL11?

Disks are 8bit (2 8bit, 1 word = 16bits) and the DL can be set to send 
7 or 8 bits and with or with out parity.

Allison


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From neil at skatter.usask.ca  Sat Dec  6 02:40:07 1997
From: neil at skatter.usask.ca (Neil Johnson)
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 10:40:07 -0600 (CST)
Subject: PDP-11 Unix v5
Message-ID: <199712051640.KAA05287@skatter.USask.Ca>

It may be difficult to find a Q-bus RK05 controller. RL01/RL02 drives
and controllers are a lot more common, and bigger, so might be a better 
choice. You might have to switch to v6 Unix to get the RL support though.


Neil

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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Sat Dec  6 02:53:53 1997
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 08:53:53 -0800 (PST)
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal (fwd)
Message-ID: <9712051653.AA01585@alph02.triumf.ca>

> Ok, it would be nice to have a way of installing Unix onto a PDP-11 without a
> tape drive. Here's a proposal: please comment on it (i.e shoot it down!). I
> actually wrote a very similar system to move files off my Apple ][ once.
> 
> The PDP-11 is connected serially to another computer, using a DL11 port. The
> other computer will simulate one or more disk drives which are acessible by
> commands sent over the serial line.
> [Protocol description]
> Do we need a more sophisticated protocol with checksums, multiple outstanding
> commands, acknowledgments, framing bytes etc.?

Your proposal sounds very similar to the existing protocol (RSP) used
to access remote block-addressable devices (TU58's) over a DL11 port.
Why not just choose the RSP protocol?  It has the advantages of already
being defined and it already has support in most DEC OS's.  It could
be easily extended to support larger devices.  And RSP-servers
already exist for BSD-ish systems - see, for example, 

ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/utils/tu58

Tim. (shoppa at triumf.ca)

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Sun Dec  7 14:15:41 1997
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 15:15:41 +1100 (EST)
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
In-Reply-To: <57g$OAAVC8h0Ewlc@falstaf.demon.co.uk> from Robin Birch at "Dec 5, 97 08:51:33 am"
Message-ID: <199712070415.PAA06858@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Robin Birch:
> This shouldn't be a problem.  Thinking from a 2.11 point of view, if
> something that could load the standalone kernel was written and an
> additional deveice driver included that would talk over the serial line
> once the standalone stuff was up you could treat the PC, or whatever, as
> a tape drive.  Whilst this doesn't give all the frills of full disc
> access it has a couple of good thigs to it:

I was thinking of simulating a disk, as then we could manipulate the
disk image using an emulator on the PC end, and still use it on the PDP-11
end. I've made some changes to the suggestions I emailed, and if I get some
time just after Xmas, I'll try to get something working under v6. Then I
can port it up to v7 and 2BSD.

	Warren

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Sun Dec  7 14:17:16 1997
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 15:17:16 +1100 (EST)
Subject: PDP-11 Unix v5
In-Reply-To: <199712051640.KAA05287@skatter.USask.Ca> from Neil Johnson at "Dec 5, 97 10:40:07 am"
Message-ID: <199712070417.PAA06883@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Neil Johnson:
> It may be difficult to find a Q-bus RK05 controller. RL01/RL02 drives
> and controllers are a lot more common, and bigger, so might be a better 
> choice. You might have to switch to v6 Unix to get the RL support though.

Given how close v6 and v6 were, backporting the RL driver to v5 shouldn't
present too many problems. I hope :-)

	Warren

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Sun Dec  7 14:18:42 1997
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 15:18:42 +1100 (EST)
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <9712051653.AA01585@alph02.triumf.ca> from Tim Shoppa at "Dec 5, 97 08:53:53 am"
Message-ID: <199712070418.PAA06903@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Tim Shoppa:
> Your proposal sounds very similar to the existing protocol (RSP) used
> to access remote block-addressable devices (TU58's) over a DL11 port.
> Why not just choose the RSP protocol?  It has the advantages of already
> being defined and it already has support in most DEC OS's.  It could
> be easily extended to support larger devices.  And RSP-servers
> already exist for BSD-ish systems - see, for example, 
> 
> ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/utils/tu58
> 
> Tim. (shoppa at triumf.ca)

How complex is the tu58 protocol? I wanted something that we could
hand-toggle the boot code, if necessary. I'll pull that file and have a look.
Thanks Tim,

	Warren

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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Sun Dec  7 15:17:23 1997
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Sat, 6 Dec 1997 21:17:23 -0800 (PST)
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
Message-ID: <9712070517.AA22184@alph02.triumf.ca>

> How complex is the tu58 protocol? I wanted something that we could
> hand-toggle the boot code, if necessary.

Many (most) Q-bus processors have TU58 bootstraps in firmware.
Certainly all 11/73B, 11/83, 11/93, 11/84, and 11/94 have the
bootstraps.

Later Unibus processors (11/24, 11/44) often had TU58 bootstrap
PROMs to boot diagnostics from TU58.

The TU58 drivers aren't as simple as RK05 drivers (is anything as
simple as a RK05 driver?) but they are comparable with, say, 
RL01/02 and RX02 drivers.

One thing we don't want people doing is thinking that the TU58
protocol can be used as a poor man's system disk.  Yes, it is
flexible enough to be used as such, but it would be cruel to
allow anyone to do that to themselves :-)

Tim. (shoppa at triumf.ca)

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From pete at indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk  Mon Dec  8 03:18:36 1997
From: pete at indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk (Pete Turnbull <pnt103@cs.york.ac.uk>)
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 17:18:36 +0000
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
Message-ID: <9712071718.ZM1055@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>

On Dec 6, 21:17, Tim Shoppa wrote:

> Many (most) Q-bus processors have TU58 bootstraps in firmware.
> Certainly all 11/73B, 11/83, 11/93, 11/84, and 11/94 have the
> bootstraps.

Are you sure, Tim?  My 11/73 doesn't, and according to my microPDP-11
Maintenance Manual, only the 11/23+ and microPDP-11/23 have TU58 -- the only
tape devices listed for 11/73 and 11/83 are TK25 and TK50 (my manual is too
old to include 11/53 and 11/93).

-- 

Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Dept. of Computer Science
						University of York

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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Mon Dec  8 04:05:23 1997
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 10:05:23 -0800 (PST)
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
Message-ID: <9712071805.AA01939@alph02.triumf.ca>

> > Many (most) Q-bus processors have TU58 bootstraps in firmware.
> > Certainly all 11/73B, 11/83, 11/93, 11/84, and 11/94 have the
> > bootstraps.
> 
> Are you sure, Tim?  My 11/73 doesn't

Is this a KDJ11A (dual-height, no boot ROMs on the CPU board) or
a KDJ11B (quad-height, boot ROMs on the CPU board)?  If you 
have a KDJ11A, then your boot ROM resides in a MXV11, a BDV11, or
elsewhere (possibly a third-party controller) in your system.  (You'll
notice that I said "11/73B" in my above message, because the
KDJ11A has no boot ROMs at all...)

My KDJ11B has the following built in bootstraps (listed through
"Setup" in the boot menu or with a "Boot" followed by a "?"):

 DU     0-255   CPU ROM  RDnn, RXnn, RC25, RAnn
 DL     0-3     CPU ROM  RL01, RL02
 DX     0-1     CPU ROM  RX01
 DY     0-1     CPU ROM  RX02
 DD     0-1     CPU ROM  TU58
 DK     0-7     CPU ROM  RK05
 MU     0-255   CPU ROM  TK50, TU81
 MS     0-3     CPU ROM  TK25, TS05
 XH     0-1     CPU ROM  DECNET ETHERNET
 NU     0-15    CPU ROM  DECNET DUV11
 NE     0-15    CPU ROM  DECNET DLV11-E
 NF     0-15    CPU ROM  DECNET DLV11-F
 
If your KDJ11B doesn't allow you to see the above list, then
the boot menu has been disabled and it has been set to only
auto-boot.  I can tell you how to reconfigure to get at the
boot menu.

> and according to my microPDP-11
> Maintenance Manual, only the 11/23+ and microPDP-11/23 have TU58 -- the only
> tape devices listed for 11/73 and 11/83 are TK25 and TK50 (my manual is too
> old to include 11/53 and 11/93).

Part of the confusion may lie in the fact that TU58's appear to the system
to be disk (block-addressable) instead of tape devices :-).  The downside,
of course, is that it's a disk with a 30-second seek time!

I certainly don't want anyone to think that I'm extolling the TU58 as a
perfect wonderful device.  There are lots of reasons to *not* use them.  My
point was mainly that the RSP (radial serial protocol) used to speak to
them is well-defined and already exists; there's no use in re-inventing
the wheel.

Tim. (shoppa at triumf.ca)

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From pete at indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk  Mon Dec  8 07:10:43 1997
From: pete at indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk (Pete Turnbull <pnt103@cs.york.ac.uk>)
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 21:10:43 +0000
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
In-Reply-To: Tim Shoppa <shoppa@alph02.triumf.ca>
        "Re: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal" (Dec  7, 10:05)
References: <9712071805.AA01939@alph02.triumf.ca>
Message-ID: <9712072110.ZM1505@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>

On Dec 7, 10:05, Tim Shoppa wrote:
> > > Many (most) Q-bus processors have TU58 bootstraps in firmware.
> > > Certainly all 11/73B, 11/83, 11/93, 11/84, and 11/94 have the
> > > bootstraps.
> >
> > Are you sure, Tim?  My 11/73 doesn't

> Is this a KDJ11A (dual-height, no boot ROMs on the CPU board) or

Well, my KDJ11 systems are somewhat non-standard, so it's possibly not
relevant. I can't easily check ATM, as they're running live Unix systems :-)
 My point
was that I didn't think the TU58 was in all revisions of the bootstrap ROMs.

I know how to get the information (from a variety of revisions and CPUs)
because I not only have the documentation, I used to be employed as a
maintenance 'engineer' on QBus systems.

> Part of the confusion may lie in the fact that TU58's appear to the system
> to be disk (block-addressable) instead of tape devices :-).

Indeed, but we both know that DD means tape :-)

> The downside,
> of course, is that it's a disk with a 30-second seek time!

But still better than some systems.  (Fond memories of TU56's on a PDP8, and
not-so-fond memories of friends' Commodore disks, which seemed slower even
than that).

And as Tim points out, RSP is well-defined, tried, and tested.

-- 

Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Dept. of Computer Science
						University of York

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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Mon Dec  8 10:14:41 1997
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 16:14:41 -0800 (PST)
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
Message-ID: <9712080014.AA24774@alph02.triumf.ca>

> Well, my KDJ11 systems are somewhat non-standard, so it's possibly not
> relevant. I can't easily check ATM, as they're running live Unix systems :-)
>  My point
> was that I didn't think the TU58 was in all revisions of the bootstrap ROMs.
> 
> I know how to get the information (from a variety of revisions and CPUs)
> because I not only have the documentation, I used to be employed as a
> maintenance 'engineer' on QBus systems.

OK, then, I *think* the most complete official summary of hardware bootstraps is
Micronote #15, something that every Q-bus maintenance engineer ought to
have readily available...  If our esteemed list-owner will allow me to post an
excerpt from it:

*begin excerpt*


        +============+======================================================+
        |            |                                                      |
        |    BOOT    |                  DESCRIPTION                         |
        |   DEVICE   |                                                      |
        |            |                                                      |
        +============+======================================================+
        | BDV11      | Bus Terminator, Bootstrap & Diagnostic ROM           |
        |            |   used primarily with older LSI-11 configurations    |
        +------------+------------------------------------------------------+
        | MXV11-A2   | Bootstrap ROM set designed for MXV11-A board         |
        +------------+------------------------------------------------------+
        | MXV11-B2   | Bootstrap ROM set designed for MXV11-BF & MRV11-D    |
        +------------+------------------------------------------------------+
        | KDF11-BA   | Bootstrap ROM on board PDP-11/23+ systems            |
        +------------+------------------------------------------------------+
        | KDF11-BE   | Bootstrap ROM on board MicroPDP-11/23 systems        |
        +------------+------------------------------------------------------+
        | KDF11-BF   | New Bootstrap ROM for PDP-11/23+ and MicroPDP-11/23  |
        +------------+------------------------------------------------------+
        | KXT11-A2   | Bootstrap ROM on board Falcon                        |
        +------------+------------------------------------------------------+
        | KXT11-A5   | Bootstrap ROM on board Falcon-Plus                   |
        +------------+------------------------------------------------------+
        | KDJ11-B    | Bootstrap ROM on board MicroPDP-11/73 CPU            |
        +------------+------------------------------------------------------+
        | uVAX I     | Bootstrap ROM on board MicroVAX I CPU                |
        +============+======================================================+

                                                                Page 2



                        BOOTSTRAP DEVICE SUPPORT

        +==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+
        |  DEVICE  |  BDV11   | MXV11-A2 | MXV11-B2 | KDF11-BA | KDF11-BE |
        |          |          |          |          |          |          |
        |          |  Rev A   |          |see Note 2| part no  | part no. |
        |          |          |          |          |  23-339E2|  23-157E4|
        |          |see Note 1|          |          |  23-340E2|  23-158E4|
        +==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+
        |  RX01    |    X     |     X    |     X    |     X    |     X    |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RX02    |    X     |     X    |     X    |     X    |     X    |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  TU58    |see Note 1|     X    |     X    |     X    |     X    |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RL01/2  |    X     |     X    |     X    |     X    |     X    |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  MRV11-C |          |     X    |          |     X    |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  MRV11-D |          |          |          |          |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RK05    |    X     |     X    |          |          |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RX50    |          |          |     X    |          |     X    |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RD51    |          |          |     X    |          |     X    |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RD52    |          |          |          |          |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  TSV05   |          |          |     X    |          |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  TK25    |          |          |          |          |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RC25    |          |          |          |          |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  DEQNA   |          |          |          |          |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  DLV11-E |    X     |          |     X    |     X    |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  DLV11-F |    X     |          |     X    |     X    |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  DUV11   |    X     |          |     X    |     X    |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  DPV11   |          |          |     X    |          |          |
        +==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+

                                                                Page 3



                        BOOTSTRAP DEVICE SUPPORT

        +==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+
        |  DEVICE  | KDF11-BF | KXT11-A2 | KXT11-A5 | KDJ11-B  |  uVAX I  |
        |          |          |          |          |          |          |
        |          | part no  |          |          |available |available |
        |          |  23-183E4|          |          |  on CPU  |  on CPU  |
        |          |  23-184E4|          |          |board only|board only|
        +==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+
        |  RX01    |    X     |     X    |     X    |     X    |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RX02    |    X     |     X    |     X    |     X    |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  TU58    |    X     |     X    |     X    |     X    |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RL01/2  |    X     |          |     X    |     X    |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  MRV11-C |          |          |          |          |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  MRV11-D |          |          |          |          |     X    |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RK05    |          |          |          |     X    |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RX50    |     X    |          |     X    |     X    |     X    |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RD51    |     X    |          |     X    |     X    |     X    |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RD52    |     X    |          |          |     X    |     X    |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  TSV05   |     X    |          |          |          |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  TK25    |     X    |          |          |     X    |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RC25    |     X    |          |          |See note 3|See note 3|
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  DEQNA   |     X    |          |          |     X    |     X    |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  DLV11-E |          |          |          |     X    |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  DLV11-F |          |          |          |     X    |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  DUV11   |          |          |          |     X    |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  DPV11   |          |          |          |          |          |
        +==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+

                                                                Page 4



                        NOTES:
                        ------

        (1)     The information in the BDV11 column refers to the Rev A
                chips.  There were also Rev O chips and an additional TU58
                chip that can be added to the board:

                Rev O:

                        Part numbers 23-010E2, 23-011E2

                        Does NOT support:
                                DLV11-F, RX02 as bootable devices


                TU58 ROM:

                        Part number 23-126F3

                        Inserted into socket XE40.  Other ROM must be
                        Rev A.  Allows use of the TU58 DECtape II as
                        a bootable device.


*end excerpt*

It looks to me like the only devices with more complete than TU58
hardware bootstrap support in the Q-bus world are RX01 and RX02...  and
RX02 is already supported for the standalone utilities in
BSD2.11, thanks to the efforts of someone who will here go nameless :-)

Tim.

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From zomad at rio.com  Tue Dec  9 01:03:34 1997
From: zomad at rio.com (Erin Corliss)
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 07:03:34 -0800 (PST)
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
In-Reply-To: <9712070517.AA22184@alph02.triumf.ca>
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.95.971208064741.29193B-100000@rio.com>



On Sat, 6 Dec 1997, Tim Shoppa wrote:

> One thing we don't want people doing is thinking that the TU58
> protocol can be used as a poor man's system disk.  Yes, it is
> flexible enough to be used as such, but it would be cruel to
> allow anyone to do that to themselves :-)

Ummm....  I'd just like to point out here that if I was intending to put
PDP-11 Unix to any meaningful use (which *would* be a terrible thing to 
do to myself) I'd just run an emulator on one of my other computers.  What
I'm looking for here is a project I can kill some of my weekends on.  I
was thinking eventually I could wire the /usr/games/chess up to my web
page so people could "Play a game of chess with the PDP-11!", you know, as
kind of a freak show act....


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From dseagrav at bsdserver.tek-star.net  Tue Dec  9 03:35:02 1997
From: dseagrav at bsdserver.tek-star.net (Daniel A. Seagraves)
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 11:35:02 -0600 (CST)
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.95.971208064741.29193B-100000@rio.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.BSI.3.95.971208113224.9085A-100000@bsdserver.tek-star.net>

On Mon, 8 Dec 1997, Erin Corliss wrote:

> Ummm....  I'd just like to point out here that if I was intending to put
> PDP-11 Unix to any meaningful use (which *would* be a terrible thing to 
> do to myself) I'd just run an emulator on one of my other computers.  What
> I'm looking for here is a project I can kill some of my weekends on.  I
> was thinking eventually I could wire the /usr/games/chess up to my web
> page so people could "Play a game of chess with the PDP-11!", you know, as
> kind of a freak show act....

Freak show?  Actually, an emulator on a PC would be more of a freak show!
I have come to the conclusion that PCs are freaks - REAL computers come in
racks!  The bigger the better, unless I can't store it...
(Speaking of which:  Anyone want an IBM S/34 in running condition with
software?  [Loads of 8" floppies])




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From zomad at rio.com  Tue Dec  9 08:19:01 1997
From: zomad at rio.com (Erin Corliss)
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 14:19:01 -0800 (PST)
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSI.3.95.971208113224.9085A-100000@bsdserver.tek-star.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.95.971208135352.26457B-100000@rio.com>



On Mon, 8 Dec 1997, Daniel A. Seagraves wrote:

> Freak show?  Actually, an emulator on a PC would be more of a freak show!

Well, personally I think it's the *realness* of the thing that sells
tickets to freak shows.  You can paint all the pictures of two headed
babies you want, but the guy who has a living one in a jar is the one who
draws the crowd.  8^)

> I have come to the conclusion that PCs are freaks - REAL computers come in
> racks!  The bigger the better, unless I can't store it...

I'm not going to argue for PC's.  My roommate & I have about 20 of them
lying around and we've been working furiously lately to consolidate them
into one big rackmounted, networked Linux system.  In fact one of the
projects that's been slowly moving toward the front of my mind is to
modify the forking and piping system in Linux so that the OS can
dynamically allocate networked motherboards when it needs to run new
tasks...  Like if you run two tasks from the console it will run one on
the local machine and pick a remote machine on the network to run the next
one, then pipe the output from both of them back to the console so they
both appear to have been run on the local machine.  It wouldn't increase
the "BogoMips" but it would be nice for graphics rendering,
inexpensive multiuser systems, or anything else that needs or can use
multiple processes.  But I digress.  Yes, PC's are built like a psychotic
dog-mansion, but unless someone offered me a PDP-11 with a 64-bit data bus
that was made with modern chip manufacturing techniques and had a decent
user interface & peripherals, I'd still choose a PC over a PDP-11.



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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Tue Dec  9 09:16:11 1997
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 15:16:11 -0800 (PST)
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.95.971208064741.29193B-100000@rio.com> from "Erin Corliss" at Dec 8, 97 07:03:34 am
Message-ID: <9712082316.AA10544@alph02.triumf.ca>

> Ummm....  I'd just like to point out here that if I was intending to put
> PDP-11 Unix to any meaningful use (which *would* be a terrible thing to 
> do to myself) I'd just run an emulator on one of my other computers.  What
> I'm looking for here is a project I can kill some of my weekends on.  I
> was thinking eventually I could wire the /usr/games/chess up to my web
> page so people could "Play a game of chess with the PDP-11!", you know, as
> kind of a freak show act....

Well, if you just want a minimal system that can play simple games
through the console port, you don't need any of the Unices.  RT-11
is perfectly servicable and will boot from floppy or TU58 quite nicely; it's
even possible to have a working TCP/IP implementation on a 11/03
this way.

Tim.

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From allisonp at world.std.com  Tue Dec  9 11:17:02 1997
From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 20:17:02 -0500
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
Message-ID: <199712090117.AA23476@world.std.com>


<dog-mansion, but unless someone offered me a PDP-11 with a 64-bit data bus
<that was made with modern chip manufacturing techniques and had a decent
<user interface & peripherals, I'd still choose a PC over a PDP-11.

The 32bit version is called a vax!  I'll take a vax over a PC anyday.
Come to mention it I have 6 Vaxen and 4 operating qbus pdp-11s.

Allison


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From zomad at rio.com  Tue Dec  9 12:21:45 1997
From: zomad at rio.com (Erin Corliss)
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 18:21:45 -0800 (PST)
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
In-Reply-To: <199712090117.AA23476@world.std.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.95.971208182054.13496A-100000@rio.com>



On Mon, 8 Dec 1997, Allison J Parent wrote:

> 
> <dog-mansion, but unless someone offered me a PDP-11 with a 64-bit data bus
> <that was made with modern chip manufacturing techniques and had a decent
> <user interface & peripherals, I'd still choose a PC over a PDP-11.
> 
> The 32bit version is called a vax!  I'll take a vax over a PC anyday.
> Come to mention it I have 6 Vaxen and 4 operating qbus pdp-11s.

Who wouldn't?  (As long as I could put Unix on it instead of VMS, of
course.)


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From allisonp at world.std.com  Tue Dec  9 13:32:43 1997
From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 22:32:43 -0500
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
Message-ID: <199712090332.AA28543@world.std.com>


<Who wouldn't?  (As long as I could put Unix on it instead of VMS, of
<course.)

Maybe real Unix but I've deleted ultrix in favor of VMS!  Maybe NetBSD 
will sort out some of the problems.

Allison


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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Fri Dec  5 08:06:53 1997
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 09:06:53 +1100 (EST)
Subject: PDP 11 Discs - UK readers please
Message-ID: <199712042206.JAA04976@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

Can any of our UK PDP-11 people help this guy out? I don't know if the
disks contain Unix or other stuff.

	Warren

----- Forwarded message from Roger Chan -----

Date: Thu, 04 Dec 1997 10:31:07 +0000
To: wkt at cs.adfa.oz.au
From: Roger Chan <roger.chan at ucl.ac.uk>
Subject: PDP 11 Discs

Dear Warren,

	I was hoping you might be able to help me regarding some PDP 11 discs
which we have here, and wish to extract data from.

	The discs are labelled:

2315 Disc cartridge
12 Sector
DRI Part number 592

	We have a number of these discs containg data which we would like to
have converted into a format which can easily be read by a PC (ASCII, or
whatever.) 

	However, as you can tell by my e mail address, I'm in the UK and I was
wondering if you knew of anyone/ any group in Britain who could help me
with this task. If you do, I would be very grateful if you forwarded this
message on to them.


	Thank you very much,
	Roger Chan
	Dept. of Visual Science
	Institute of Ophthalmology
	University College London
	London
	EC1V 9EL
	UK
----- End of forwarded message from Roger Chan -----

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From uko at kortedala.educ.goteborg.se  Fri Dec  5 07:04:13 1997
From: uko at kortedala.educ.goteborg.se (uko at kortedala.educ.goteborg.se)
Date: Thu, 04 Dec 1997 13:04:13 -0800
Subject: PUPS Membership
Message-ID: <34871ACD.4ACC@usa.net>

I just bought an 11/23 with RL02 and i have litle problems setting it up
If anybody feels for helping please mail me at 
mario.jelica at usa.net


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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Fri Dec  5 12:25:54 1997
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 13:25:54 +1100 (EST)
Subject: PDP-11 Unix v5
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.95.971204172645.25398B-100000@rio.com> from Erin Corliss at "Dec 4, 97 05:35:12 pm"
Message-ID: <199712050225.NAA05350@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Erin Corliss:
> 
> My roommate and I have a PDP-11/23 Plus that has no disk or tape drives
> and no controller board for either.  I've been able to boot Unix version 5
> on an emulator here, and from what I've read, this operating system should
> be able to boot on the PDP-11/23.  The operating system has a kernel in
> the root directory called "unix", which is about 23 kilobytes long.  I am
> trying to set the computer up to boot from a serial port which will be
> connected to a Linux machine, which will simulate an RK05 disk drive.
> Does anyone know where the low level routines for reading and writing on
> an RK series drive are found?  Are they built into the kernel or are they
> in some separate device driver or module?  Also, I need to know what
> memory locations are used as registers by the RK05 drive and what commands
> can be given to it, so if anyone has spec sheets for it....

Eric, I don't think this is going to work. The RK05 driver is in the
kernel, and it plays with the RK05 hardware registers. You aren't going
to be able to emulate these, as far as I can tell.

If you tell us where you live, perhaps someone on the list might be
able to help you find an appropriate drive and disks for your 11/23+.

I do have some old ('74) spec sheets for the RK05 drives.

Does anybody else have other suggestions???

Best wishes,

	Warren

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Fri Dec  5 13:30:01 1997
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 14:30:01 +1100 (EST)
Subject: PDP-11 Unix v5
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.95.971204185633.27884A-100000@rio.com> from Erin Corliss at "Dec 4, 97 07:14:18 pm"
Message-ID: <199712050330.OAA05624@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Erin Corliss:
> 
> 
> On Fri, 5 Dec 1997, Warren Toomey wrote:
> 
> > Eric, I don't think this is going to work. The RK05 driver is in the
> > kernel, and it plays with the RK05 hardware registers. You aren't going
> > to be able to emulate these, as far as I can tell.
> 
> I was looking at a disassembly of the boot sector on one of the disk
> images I downloaded and from what I could see the software talks to the
> hardware through memory addresses in the area of 177xxx, in a similar
> fashion to the way Apple II's and Amiga's talk to their hardware.  If I
> can get information about what addresses and values are used to control
> the RK05, I think it would be possible to gut out some non-essential part
> of the kernel, the tape drive controller for example, and replace it with
> code that sends and receives RK05 commands and data through the serial
> port.  I would then search through the kernel and replace all of the
> references to the RK05's registers to BSR's that went to appropriate
> places in my serial port routines....  I've performed similar kludging on
> PC's and Amigas, so I'm pretty certain I can manage it if I have the right
> information to start with.
> 
> > If you tell us where you live, perhaps someone on the list might be
> > able to help you find an appropriate drive and disks for your 11/23+.
> 
> That would be easier...
> Eugene, Oregon, USA
> 
> > I do have some old ('74) spec sheets for the RK05 drives.
> 
> Any chance I could get a peek?

Eric, I'll put you on the PUPS mailing list so you'll get any replies from
the other members. I'll try and scan in the RK05 docs and put them up via
ftp for you.

	Warren

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Fri Dec  5 14:33:37 1997
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 15:33:37 +1100 (EST)
Subject: PDP-11 Unix v5
In-Reply-To: <6B84B1FF221BD011B0AC08002BE6920656D2F5@excmso.mso.dec.com> from Bob Supnik at "Dec 4, 97 11:26:15 pm"
Message-ID: <199712050433.PAA05757@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Bob Supnik:
> Warren,
> 
> The RK05 is implicitly documented in the sources to the PDP-11
> simulator, if that would help.

Yes, I hadn't thought of that. Other places are the Lions commentary,
and the Unix source of course.

Thanks for the reply Bob.

	Warren

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Fri Dec  5 14:49:13 1997
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 15:49:13 +1100 (EST)
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
Message-ID: <199712050449.PAA05787@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

Ok, it would be nice to have a way of installing Unix onto a PDP-11 without a
tape drive. Here's a proposal: please comment on it (i.e shoot it down!). I
actually wrote a very similar system to move files off my Apple ][ once.


The PDP-11 is connected serially to another computer, using a DL11 port. The
other computer will simulate one or more disk drives which are acessible by
commands sent over the serial line.

The idea is that a person can hand-enter the boot code to retrieve the
`boot block' from the simulated disk drive. From there, the bootstrap
can retrieve the Unix kernel, which can then use the simulated drive as
the root filesystem. The user can then log in, use mkfs to build a filesystem
on a real disk drive, and install a suitable Unix kernel without requiring a
tape drive.

The protocol used must be simple enough that bootstraps can be entered
manually - at least to get the boot block from the second computer.


Minimalist Protocol
-------------------

4-byte commands are sent from the PDP-11 to the other computer. The
command structure is:

	Byte 0:	What command to perform
	Byte 1: On which remote drive to perform the command
	Byte 2: Low-order bits of block number
	Byte 3: High-order bits of block number

Blocks are 512 bytes. The commands allow access to 65,536 blocks (32Megs)
on 256 virtual disk drives. Of course, an alternate view could be 65,536
on 256 platters, giving 8G of disk space.

Commands are:	0x00		NOP		Do nothing
		0x01		READ		Read specified block
		0x02		WRITE		Write specified block

NOP:	The second computer does nothing in response. However, this can be
	used to determine if the PDP-11 is actually sending commands.

READ:	The second computer returns 512 bytes which contains the requested
	block. There is no checksum, framing bytes or block# details.

WRITE:	The PDP-11 sends 512 bytes which contains the requested block.
	There is no checksum, framing bytes or block# details. The second
	computer does nothing in response.

Drawbacks: Line noise is gonna really cause havoc. Only one command can be
	pending, as the PDP-11 has no idea what block is what when it comes
	back from the second computer.

Advantages: Should be easy to write bootstrap and /usr/mdec software, and a
	kernel-level device driver should be very easy. Altering v5, v6, v7
	2.9BSD and 2.11BSD should be straight-forward.

Do we need a more sophisticated protocol with checksums, multiple outstanding
commands, acknowledgments, framing bytes etc.?

Cheers all,

	Warren

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From erin at corliss.com  Fri Dec  5 09:45:21 1997
From: erin at corliss.com (Erin Corliss)
Date: Thu, 04 Dec 1997 23:45:21 +0000
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
Message-ID: <34874091.3F778FE9@corliss.com>

> The PDP-11 is connected serially to another computer, using a DL11
port. The
> other computer will simulate one or more disk drives which are
acessible by
> commands sent over the serial line.

Does the DL11 port have an interrupt that is driven when data is
received, or do processes have to constantly poll it to receive data?

Is the information stored on a PDP-11 disk in 8 or 9 bit words?  How
many bits per word are transmitted/received by the DL11?


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From robin at falstaf.demon.co.uk  Fri Dec  5 18:51:33 1997
From: robin at falstaf.demon.co.uk (Robin Birch)
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 08:51:33 +0000
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
In-Reply-To: <34874091.3F778FE9@corliss.com>
Message-ID: <57g$OAAVC8h0Ewlc@falstaf.demon.co.uk>

This shouldn't be a problem.  Thinking from a 2.11 point of view, if
something that could load the standalone kernel was written and an
additional deveice driver included that would talk over the serial line
once the standalone stuff was up you could treat the PC, or whatever, as
a tape drive.  Whilst this doesn't give all the frills of full disc
access it has a couple of good thigs to it:

1)  The only stuff that has to be loaded over the serial line without
the benefit of lots of code that can do error checking is the initial
standalone loader.

2)  The standalone loader can then treat the serial port as a tape drive
which is a relatively simple process as far as the loader is concerned
and so you would only need a driver that looked like a TS11 (say) but
talked to a serial port.

3)  The PC end would then just have a simple prog that would treat the
files on the PC as tape files which would make shipping stuff around
easy as we could then do this as dump or tar forms which could be just
ftp'd etc from archives.

It would be slow but it would get things going quite simply.

Ideas + comments please?

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

M1ASU           Old computers and radios always welcome

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From allisonp at world.std.com  Fri Dec  5 20:59:28 1997
From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 05:59:28 -0500
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
Message-ID: <199712051059.AA16527@world.std.com>


<Does the DL11 port have an interrupt that is driven when data is
<received, or do processes have to constantly poll it to receive data?

Yes or you can poll.

<Is the information stored on a PDP-11 disk in 8 or 9 bit words?  How
<many bits per word are transmitted/received by the DL11?

Disks are 8bit (2 8bit, 1 word = 16bits) and the DL can be set to send 
7 or 8 bits and with or with out parity.

Allison


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From neil at skatter.usask.ca  Sat Dec  6 02:40:07 1997
From: neil at skatter.usask.ca (Neil Johnson)
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 10:40:07 -0600 (CST)
Subject: PDP-11 Unix v5
Message-ID: <199712051640.KAA05287@skatter.USask.Ca>

It may be difficult to find a Q-bus RK05 controller. RL01/RL02 drives
and controllers are a lot more common, and bigger, so might be a better 
choice. You might have to switch to v6 Unix to get the RL support though.


Neil

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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Sat Dec  6 02:53:53 1997
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 08:53:53 -0800 (PST)
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal (fwd)
Message-ID: <9712051653.AA01585@alph02.triumf.ca>

> Ok, it would be nice to have a way of installing Unix onto a PDP-11 without a
> tape drive. Here's a proposal: please comment on it (i.e shoot it down!). I
> actually wrote a very similar system to move files off my Apple ][ once.
> 
> The PDP-11 is connected serially to another computer, using a DL11 port. The
> other computer will simulate one or more disk drives which are acessible by
> commands sent over the serial line.
> [Protocol description]
> Do we need a more sophisticated protocol with checksums, multiple outstanding
> commands, acknowledgments, framing bytes etc.?

Your proposal sounds very similar to the existing protocol (RSP) used
to access remote block-addressable devices (TU58's) over a DL11 port.
Why not just choose the RSP protocol?  It has the advantages of already
being defined and it already has support in most DEC OS's.  It could
be easily extended to support larger devices.  And RSP-servers
already exist for BSD-ish systems - see, for example, 

ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/utils/tu58

Tim. (shoppa at triumf.ca)

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Sun Dec  7 14:15:41 1997
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 15:15:41 +1100 (EST)
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
In-Reply-To: <57g$OAAVC8h0Ewlc@falstaf.demon.co.uk> from Robin Birch at "Dec 5, 97 08:51:33 am"
Message-ID: <199712070415.PAA06858@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Robin Birch:
> This shouldn't be a problem.  Thinking from a 2.11 point of view, if
> something that could load the standalone kernel was written and an
> additional deveice driver included that would talk over the serial line
> once the standalone stuff was up you could treat the PC, or whatever, as
> a tape drive.  Whilst this doesn't give all the frills of full disc
> access it has a couple of good thigs to it:

I was thinking of simulating a disk, as then we could manipulate the
disk image using an emulator on the PC end, and still use it on the PDP-11
end. I've made some changes to the suggestions I emailed, and if I get some
time just after Xmas, I'll try to get something working under v6. Then I
can port it up to v7 and 2BSD.

	Warren

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Sun Dec  7 14:17:16 1997
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 15:17:16 +1100 (EST)
Subject: PDP-11 Unix v5
In-Reply-To: <199712051640.KAA05287@skatter.USask.Ca> from Neil Johnson at "Dec 5, 97 10:40:07 am"
Message-ID: <199712070417.PAA06883@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Neil Johnson:
> It may be difficult to find a Q-bus RK05 controller. RL01/RL02 drives
> and controllers are a lot more common, and bigger, so might be a better 
> choice. You might have to switch to v6 Unix to get the RL support though.

Given how close v6 and v6 were, backporting the RL driver to v5 shouldn't
present too many problems. I hope :-)

	Warren

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From wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au  Sun Dec  7 14:18:42 1997
From: wkt at henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 15:18:42 +1100 (EST)
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <9712051653.AA01585@alph02.triumf.ca> from Tim Shoppa at "Dec 5, 97 08:53:53 am"
Message-ID: <199712070418.PAA06903@henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>

In article by Tim Shoppa:
> Your proposal sounds very similar to the existing protocol (RSP) used
> to access remote block-addressable devices (TU58's) over a DL11 port.
> Why not just choose the RSP protocol?  It has the advantages of already
> being defined and it already has support in most DEC OS's.  It could
> be easily extended to support larger devices.  And RSP-servers
> already exist for BSD-ish systems - see, for example, 
> 
> ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/utils/tu58
> 
> Tim. (shoppa at triumf.ca)

How complex is the tu58 protocol? I wanted something that we could
hand-toggle the boot code, if necessary. I'll pull that file and have a look.
Thanks Tim,

	Warren

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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Sun Dec  7 15:17:23 1997
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Sat, 6 Dec 1997 21:17:23 -0800 (PST)
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
Message-ID: <9712070517.AA22184@alph02.triumf.ca>

> How complex is the tu58 protocol? I wanted something that we could
> hand-toggle the boot code, if necessary.

Many (most) Q-bus processors have TU58 bootstraps in firmware.
Certainly all 11/73B, 11/83, 11/93, 11/84, and 11/94 have the
bootstraps.

Later Unibus processors (11/24, 11/44) often had TU58 bootstrap
PROMs to boot diagnostics from TU58.

The TU58 drivers aren't as simple as RK05 drivers (is anything as
simple as a RK05 driver?) but they are comparable with, say, 
RL01/02 and RX02 drivers.

One thing we don't want people doing is thinking that the TU58
protocol can be used as a poor man's system disk.  Yes, it is
flexible enough to be used as such, but it would be cruel to
allow anyone to do that to themselves :-)

Tim. (shoppa at triumf.ca)

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From pete at indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk  Mon Dec  8 03:18:36 1997
From: pete at indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk (Pete Turnbull <pnt103@cs.york.ac.uk>)
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 17:18:36 +0000
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
Message-ID: <9712071718.ZM1055@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>

On Dec 6, 21:17, Tim Shoppa wrote:

> Many (most) Q-bus processors have TU58 bootstraps in firmware.
> Certainly all 11/73B, 11/83, 11/93, 11/84, and 11/94 have the
> bootstraps.

Are you sure, Tim?  My 11/73 doesn't, and according to my microPDP-11
Maintenance Manual, only the 11/23+ and microPDP-11/23 have TU58 -- the only
tape devices listed for 11/73 and 11/83 are TK25 and TK50 (my manual is too
old to include 11/53 and 11/93).

-- 

Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Dept. of Computer Science
						University of York

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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Mon Dec  8 04:05:23 1997
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 10:05:23 -0800 (PST)
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
Message-ID: <9712071805.AA01939@alph02.triumf.ca>

> > Many (most) Q-bus processors have TU58 bootstraps in firmware.
> > Certainly all 11/73B, 11/83, 11/93, 11/84, and 11/94 have the
> > bootstraps.
> 
> Are you sure, Tim?  My 11/73 doesn't

Is this a KDJ11A (dual-height, no boot ROMs on the CPU board) or
a KDJ11B (quad-height, boot ROMs on the CPU board)?  If you 
have a KDJ11A, then your boot ROM resides in a MXV11, a BDV11, or
elsewhere (possibly a third-party controller) in your system.  (You'll
notice that I said "11/73B" in my above message, because the
KDJ11A has no boot ROMs at all...)

My KDJ11B has the following built in bootstraps (listed through
"Setup" in the boot menu or with a "Boot" followed by a "?"):

 DU     0-255   CPU ROM  RDnn, RXnn, RC25, RAnn
 DL     0-3     CPU ROM  RL01, RL02
 DX     0-1     CPU ROM  RX01
 DY     0-1     CPU ROM  RX02
 DD     0-1     CPU ROM  TU58
 DK     0-7     CPU ROM  RK05
 MU     0-255   CPU ROM  TK50, TU81
 MS     0-3     CPU ROM  TK25, TS05
 XH     0-1     CPU ROM  DECNET ETHERNET
 NU     0-15    CPU ROM  DECNET DUV11
 NE     0-15    CPU ROM  DECNET DLV11-E
 NF     0-15    CPU ROM  DECNET DLV11-F
 
If your KDJ11B doesn't allow you to see the above list, then
the boot menu has been disabled and it has been set to only
auto-boot.  I can tell you how to reconfigure to get at the
boot menu.

> and according to my microPDP-11
> Maintenance Manual, only the 11/23+ and microPDP-11/23 have TU58 -- the only
> tape devices listed for 11/73 and 11/83 are TK25 and TK50 (my manual is too
> old to include 11/53 and 11/93).

Part of the confusion may lie in the fact that TU58's appear to the system
to be disk (block-addressable) instead of tape devices :-).  The downside,
of course, is that it's a disk with a 30-second seek time!

I certainly don't want anyone to think that I'm extolling the TU58 as a
perfect wonderful device.  There are lots of reasons to *not* use them.  My
point was mainly that the RSP (radial serial protocol) used to speak to
them is well-defined and already exists; there's no use in re-inventing
the wheel.

Tim. (shoppa at triumf.ca)

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From pete at indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk  Mon Dec  8 07:10:43 1997
From: pete at indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk (Pete Turnbull <pnt103@cs.york.ac.uk>)
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 21:10:43 +0000
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
In-Reply-To: Tim Shoppa <shoppa@alph02.triumf.ca>
        "Re: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal" (Dec  7, 10:05)
References: <9712071805.AA01939@alph02.triumf.ca>
Message-ID: <9712072110.ZM1505@indy.dunnington.york.ac.uk>

On Dec 7, 10:05, Tim Shoppa wrote:
> > > Many (most) Q-bus processors have TU58 bootstraps in firmware.
> > > Certainly all 11/73B, 11/83, 11/93, 11/84, and 11/94 have the
> > > bootstraps.
> >
> > Are you sure, Tim?  My 11/73 doesn't

> Is this a KDJ11A (dual-height, no boot ROMs on the CPU board) or

Well, my KDJ11 systems are somewhat non-standard, so it's possibly not
relevant. I can't easily check ATM, as they're running live Unix systems :-)
 My point
was that I didn't think the TU58 was in all revisions of the bootstrap ROMs.

I know how to get the information (from a variety of revisions and CPUs)
because I not only have the documentation, I used to be employed as a
maintenance 'engineer' on QBus systems.

> Part of the confusion may lie in the fact that TU58's appear to the system
> to be disk (block-addressable) instead of tape devices :-).

Indeed, but we both know that DD means tape :-)

> The downside,
> of course, is that it's a disk with a 30-second seek time!

But still better than some systems.  (Fond memories of TU56's on a PDP8, and
not-so-fond memories of friends' Commodore disks, which seemed slower even
than that).

And as Tim points out, RSP is well-defined, tried, and tested.

-- 

Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Dept. of Computer Science
						University of York

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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Mon Dec  8 10:14:41 1997
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 16:14:41 -0800 (PST)
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
Message-ID: <9712080014.AA24774@alph02.triumf.ca>

> Well, my KDJ11 systems are somewhat non-standard, so it's possibly not
> relevant. I can't easily check ATM, as they're running live Unix systems :-)
>  My point
> was that I didn't think the TU58 was in all revisions of the bootstrap ROMs.
> 
> I know how to get the information (from a variety of revisions and CPUs)
> because I not only have the documentation, I used to be employed as a
> maintenance 'engineer' on QBus systems.

OK, then, I *think* the most complete official summary of hardware bootstraps is
Micronote #15, something that every Q-bus maintenance engineer ought to
have readily available...  If our esteemed list-owner will allow me to post an
excerpt from it:

*begin excerpt*


        +============+======================================================+
        |            |                                                      |
        |    BOOT    |                  DESCRIPTION                         |
        |   DEVICE   |                                                      |
        |            |                                                      |
        +============+======================================================+
        | BDV11      | Bus Terminator, Bootstrap & Diagnostic ROM           |
        |            |   used primarily with older LSI-11 configurations    |
        +------------+------------------------------------------------------+
        | MXV11-A2   | Bootstrap ROM set designed for MXV11-A board         |
        +------------+------------------------------------------------------+
        | MXV11-B2   | Bootstrap ROM set designed for MXV11-BF & MRV11-D    |
        +------------+------------------------------------------------------+
        | KDF11-BA   | Bootstrap ROM on board PDP-11/23+ systems            |
        +------------+------------------------------------------------------+
        | KDF11-BE   | Bootstrap ROM on board MicroPDP-11/23 systems        |
        +------------+------------------------------------------------------+
        | KDF11-BF   | New Bootstrap ROM for PDP-11/23+ and MicroPDP-11/23  |
        +------------+------------------------------------------------------+
        | KXT11-A2   | Bootstrap ROM on board Falcon                        |
        +------------+------------------------------------------------------+
        | KXT11-A5   | Bootstrap ROM on board Falcon-Plus                   |
        +------------+------------------------------------------------------+
        | KDJ11-B    | Bootstrap ROM on board MicroPDP-11/73 CPU            |
        +------------+------------------------------------------------------+
        | uVAX I     | Bootstrap ROM on board MicroVAX I CPU                |
        +============+======================================================+

                                                                Page 2



                        BOOTSTRAP DEVICE SUPPORT

        +==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+
        |  DEVICE  |  BDV11   | MXV11-A2 | MXV11-B2 | KDF11-BA | KDF11-BE |
        |          |          |          |          |          |          |
        |          |  Rev A   |          |see Note 2| part no  | part no. |
        |          |          |          |          |  23-339E2|  23-157E4|
        |          |see Note 1|          |          |  23-340E2|  23-158E4|
        +==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+
        |  RX01    |    X     |     X    |     X    |     X    |     X    |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RX02    |    X     |     X    |     X    |     X    |     X    |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  TU58    |see Note 1|     X    |     X    |     X    |     X    |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RL01/2  |    X     |     X    |     X    |     X    |     X    |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  MRV11-C |          |     X    |          |     X    |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  MRV11-D |          |          |          |          |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RK05    |    X     |     X    |          |          |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RX50    |          |          |     X    |          |     X    |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RD51    |          |          |     X    |          |     X    |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RD52    |          |          |          |          |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  TSV05   |          |          |     X    |          |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  TK25    |          |          |          |          |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RC25    |          |          |          |          |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  DEQNA   |          |          |          |          |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  DLV11-E |    X     |          |     X    |     X    |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  DLV11-F |    X     |          |     X    |     X    |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  DUV11   |    X     |          |     X    |     X    |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  DPV11   |          |          |     X    |          |          |
        +==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+

                                                                Page 3



                        BOOTSTRAP DEVICE SUPPORT

        +==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+
        |  DEVICE  | KDF11-BF | KXT11-A2 | KXT11-A5 | KDJ11-B  |  uVAX I  |
        |          |          |          |          |          |          |
        |          | part no  |          |          |available |available |
        |          |  23-183E4|          |          |  on CPU  |  on CPU  |
        |          |  23-184E4|          |          |board only|board only|
        +==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+
        |  RX01    |    X     |     X    |     X    |     X    |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RX02    |    X     |     X    |     X    |     X    |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  TU58    |    X     |     X    |     X    |     X    |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RL01/2  |    X     |          |     X    |     X    |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  MRV11-C |          |          |          |          |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  MRV11-D |          |          |          |          |     X    |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RK05    |          |          |          |     X    |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RX50    |     X    |          |     X    |     X    |     X    |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RD51    |     X    |          |     X    |     X    |     X    |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RD52    |     X    |          |          |     X    |     X    |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  TSV05   |     X    |          |          |          |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  TK25    |     X    |          |          |     X    |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  RC25    |     X    |          |          |See note 3|See note 3|
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  DEQNA   |     X    |          |          |     X    |     X    |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  DLV11-E |          |          |          |     X    |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  DLV11-F |          |          |          |     X    |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  DUV11   |          |          |          |     X    |          |
        +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
        |  DPV11   |          |          |          |          |          |
        +==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+==========+

                                                                Page 4



                        NOTES:
                        ------

        (1)     The information in the BDV11 column refers to the Rev A
                chips.  There were also Rev O chips and an additional TU58
                chip that can be added to the board:

                Rev O:

                        Part numbers 23-010E2, 23-011E2

                        Does NOT support:
                                DLV11-F, RX02 as bootable devices


                TU58 ROM:

                        Part number 23-126F3

                        Inserted into socket XE40.  Other ROM must be
                        Rev A.  Allows use of the TU58 DECtape II as
                        a bootable device.


*end excerpt*

It looks to me like the only devices with more complete than TU58
hardware bootstrap support in the Q-bus world are RX01 and RX02...  and
RX02 is already supported for the standalone utilities in
BSD2.11, thanks to the efforts of someone who will here go nameless :-)

Tim.

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From zomad at rio.com  Tue Dec  9 01:03:34 1997
From: zomad at rio.com (Erin Corliss)
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 07:03:34 -0800 (PST)
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
In-Reply-To: <9712070517.AA22184@alph02.triumf.ca>
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.95.971208064741.29193B-100000@rio.com>



On Sat, 6 Dec 1997, Tim Shoppa wrote:

> One thing we don't want people doing is thinking that the TU58
> protocol can be used as a poor man's system disk.  Yes, it is
> flexible enough to be used as such, but it would be cruel to
> allow anyone to do that to themselves :-)

Ummm....  I'd just like to point out here that if I was intending to put
PDP-11 Unix to any meaningful use (which *would* be a terrible thing to 
do to myself) I'd just run an emulator on one of my other computers.  What
I'm looking for here is a project I can kill some of my weekends on.  I
was thinking eventually I could wire the /usr/games/chess up to my web
page so people could "Play a game of chess with the PDP-11!", you know, as
kind of a freak show act....


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From dseagrav at bsdserver.tek-star.net  Tue Dec  9 03:35:02 1997
From: dseagrav at bsdserver.tek-star.net (Daniel A. Seagraves)
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 11:35:02 -0600 (CST)
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.95.971208064741.29193B-100000@rio.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.BSI.3.95.971208113224.9085A-100000@bsdserver.tek-star.net>

On Mon, 8 Dec 1997, Erin Corliss wrote:

> Ummm....  I'd just like to point out here that if I was intending to put
> PDP-11 Unix to any meaningful use (which *would* be a terrible thing to 
> do to myself) I'd just run an emulator on one of my other computers.  What
> I'm looking for here is a project I can kill some of my weekends on.  I
> was thinking eventually I could wire the /usr/games/chess up to my web
> page so people could "Play a game of chess with the PDP-11!", you know, as
> kind of a freak show act....

Freak show?  Actually, an emulator on a PC would be more of a freak show!
I have come to the conclusion that PCs are freaks - REAL computers come in
racks!  The bigger the better, unless I can't store it...
(Speaking of which:  Anyone want an IBM S/34 in running condition with
software?  [Loads of 8" floppies])




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From zomad at rio.com  Tue Dec  9 08:19:01 1997
From: zomad at rio.com (Erin Corliss)
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 14:19:01 -0800 (PST)
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSI.3.95.971208113224.9085A-100000@bsdserver.tek-star.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.95.971208135352.26457B-100000@rio.com>



On Mon, 8 Dec 1997, Daniel A. Seagraves wrote:

> Freak show?  Actually, an emulator on a PC would be more of a freak show!

Well, personally I think it's the *realness* of the thing that sells
tickets to freak shows.  You can paint all the pictures of two headed
babies you want, but the guy who has a living one in a jar is the one who
draws the crowd.  8^)

> I have come to the conclusion that PCs are freaks - REAL computers come in
> racks!  The bigger the better, unless I can't store it...

I'm not going to argue for PC's.  My roommate & I have about 20 of them
lying around and we've been working furiously lately to consolidate them
into one big rackmounted, networked Linux system.  In fact one of the
projects that's been slowly moving toward the front of my mind is to
modify the forking and piping system in Linux so that the OS can
dynamically allocate networked motherboards when it needs to run new
tasks...  Like if you run two tasks from the console it will run one on
the local machine and pick a remote machine on the network to run the next
one, then pipe the output from both of them back to the console so they
both appear to have been run on the local machine.  It wouldn't increase
the "BogoMips" but it would be nice for graphics rendering,
inexpensive multiuser systems, or anything else that needs or can use
multiple processes.  But I digress.  Yes, PC's are built like a psychotic
dog-mansion, but unless someone offered me a PDP-11 with a 64-bit data bus
that was made with modern chip manufacturing techniques and had a decent
user interface & peripherals, I'd still choose a PC over a PDP-11.



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From shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca  Tue Dec  9 09:16:11 1997
From: shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 15:16:11 -0800 (PST)
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.95.971208064741.29193B-100000@rio.com> from "Erin Corliss" at Dec 8, 97 07:03:34 am
Message-ID: <9712082316.AA10544@alph02.triumf.ca>

> Ummm....  I'd just like to point out here that if I was intending to put
> PDP-11 Unix to any meaningful use (which *would* be a terrible thing to 
> do to myself) I'd just run an emulator on one of my other computers.  What
> I'm looking for here is a project I can kill some of my weekends on.  I
> was thinking eventually I could wire the /usr/games/chess up to my web
> page so people could "Play a game of chess with the PDP-11!", you know, as
> kind of a freak show act....

Well, if you just want a minimal system that can play simple games
through the console port, you don't need any of the Unices.  RT-11
is perfectly servicable and will boot from floppy or TU58 quite nicely; it's
even possible to have a working TCP/IP implementation on a 11/03
this way.

Tim.

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From allisonp at world.std.com  Tue Dec  9 11:17:02 1997
From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 20:17:02 -0500
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
Message-ID: <199712090117.AA23476@world.std.com>


<dog-mansion, but unless someone offered me a PDP-11 with a 64-bit data bus
<that was made with modern chip manufacturing techniques and had a decent
<user interface & peripherals, I'd still choose a PC over a PDP-11.

The 32bit version is called a vax!  I'll take a vax over a PC anyday.
Come to mention it I have 6 Vaxen and 4 operating qbus pdp-11s.

Allison


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From zomad at rio.com  Tue Dec  9 12:21:45 1997
From: zomad at rio.com (Erin Corliss)
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 18:21:45 -0800 (PST)
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
In-Reply-To: <199712090117.AA23476@world.std.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.95.971208182054.13496A-100000@rio.com>



On Mon, 8 Dec 1997, Allison J Parent wrote:

> 
> <dog-mansion, but unless someone offered me a PDP-11 with a 64-bit data bus
> <that was made with modern chip manufacturing techniques and had a decent
> <user interface & peripherals, I'd still choose a PC over a PDP-11.
> 
> The 32bit version is called a vax!  I'll take a vax over a PC anyday.
> Come to mention it I have 6 Vaxen and 4 operating qbus pdp-11s.

Who wouldn't?  (As long as I could put Unix on it instead of VMS, of
course.)


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From allisonp at world.std.com  Tue Dec  9 13:32:43 1997
From: allisonp at world.std.com (Allison J Parent)
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 22:32:43 -0500
Subject: PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal
Message-ID: <199712090332.AA28543@world.std.com>


<Who wouldn't?  (As long as I could put Unix on it instead of VMS, of
<course.)

Maybe real Unix but I've deleted ultrix in favor of VMS!  Maybe NetBSD 
will sort out some of the problems.

Allison


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