On Apr 4, 2013, at 6:44 PM, Clem Cole wrote:
...
But that's for terminals up to 9600 baud. For networking, you'd use a DMC-11 unless your OS supported the cheaper devices and money was that tight -- that one goes back to about 1976 and delivers up to 1 Mb/s depending on model (up to 56 kB/s long haul, given suitable modems).
Hmm - are the DMC and DMR that old? I remember fighting the firmware in the them to allow high speed serial networking. They had a dedicated microprocessor on them (8080A or 8085 IIRC - but it may have been something custom). They were expensive, which why Berk-NET used 9600 baud serial lines, until we got 3COM & Interlan Ethernet cards at Berkeley in 1983.
My 1976 Peripherals Handbook has a description of the DMC-11 in it. And I also remember it was used in Typeset-11, which had a custom network implementation specific to it that included Phase III style routing back in 1978. (No relationship to DECnet at all either in architecture or implementation.)
A DMC-11 is essentially a KMC-11 with programming fixed in ROM, rather than dowloadable in RAM, plus a line card. The KMC-11 processor is a custom engine, its instruction set looks somewhat like microcode. No connection to any Intel chips, that couldn't possibly have come within a mile of the performance requirements. Come to think of it, the first use of a 808x series chip in DEC products I can think of is the head servo control processor in the RA80. There may have been 8031s in some other spots, I no longer remember where I saw those.
...
But I do remember our college main timesharing system, in 1973, a PDP-11/20 with 28 kW of memory, RSTS V4A, and 16 terminals on 16 separate KL11 or DL11 interfaces. Oh yes, and a mean time between crashes of about 1 day.
Are you sure it was a 11/20, not an 11/40? I did not think RSTS could run without the MMU. With 16 DL/KL11's even with an 11/40 the interrupt rate had to been wretched.
Positive. It was RSTS V4A-12, which did not use an MMU and required only 28 kW of memory (24 kW for a minimal install). RSTS started requiring an MMU in version 5, the first version that was called RSTS/E (for "Extended" as in extended memory).
And yes, a box full of single line serial cards. Most of them ran at 110 Baud driving ASR33s; one or two were talking to TI Silent 700 terminals (300 baud printing on thermal paper), and one was feeding a Beehive editing terminal, don't remember what speed, almost certainly no higher than 1200 Baud because it was about 1000 feet from the computer. All this on 20 mA current loop connections, no RS232 as far as I remember. (The Beehive was for the London Stage project, an amazingly complex project to digitize and index a large body of historical reference books, back when OCR didn't really exist yet. There's a neat book about it, "Travels in Computerland" by the project director prof. Ben Schneider.)
Also an RK05 for system disk, an RF11 swap disk, and some DECtapes for additional file storage in case you wanted to save more stuff than could fit on the "large disk" (i.e., the RK05).
Because of the reliability issues, we had a long battle with DEC to get it fixed. The actual root cause may have been interference from the nearby campus FM broadcast transmitter (3 kW around 90 MHz). But whatever it was, we never got a real fix for that; eventually DEC threw in the towel and delivered a "replacement part" -- an 11/45 with a pile of new peripherals and a RSTS/E kit. :-) That did the job.
paul
There was the Algol derivative used mainly by the British armed forces. Coral66 was the name. I have a manual for it.
From: "Bob Armstrong" <bob at jfcl.com>
Sender: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 20:57:11 -0700
To: <hecnet at Update.UU.SE>
ReplyTo: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: [HECnet] Algol compiler for VAX/VMS?
Is there an Algol (probably the Algol68 dialect, but I m flexible) for VAX/VMS?
Thanks,
Bob
On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 10:22 PM, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
On 04/04/2013 10:12 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
Yes. I had one on my 11/34a years ago; it was in an external expansion chassis. I did love that mux, though! I got one again a couple of years ago, not sure which machine I'll put it in.
How many external chassis did you have for that system?
Only one external Unibus chassis, but it was a BA11-F, the big one that
took up almost two feet of rack space.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
Hello!
Oh that's what it is? There's a very big cat resting on it. He
believes he owns the entire building and the cats who are there work
for him. And he represents the individuals outside.
-----
Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com
"This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."
On 04/04/2013 10:12 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
Yes. I had one on my 11/34a years ago; it was in an external expansion chassis. I did love that mux, though! I got one again a couple of years ago, not sure which machine I'll put it in.
How many external chassis did you have for that system?
Only one external Unibus chassis, but it was a BA11-F, the big one that
took up almost two feet of rack space.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
On 2013-04-05 04:10, Dave McGuire wrote:
On 04/04/2013 10:01 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
Apparently not. The reason I came up with the device is that I used a
PDP 11/40 with a DU11 to connect to a Burroughs B7700 using an RJE
like
protocol. It was called SYSTEM/SATCOM IIRC. The PDP ran RT-11 V4.
Other
than that, networks were built using 1200 baud modems on serial lines.
No DMF32 nor DZ11 in '79. How did one connect all those VT52's and
LA36's, via a DL11?
I thought DZ11s were around back then. But if not, the DH11 sure
was, 16
lines, DMA output.
Pretty sure they had DMA input too.
Nope. DMA output only.
Crap, really?
Yup. However, it at least have a decent input buffer, so with some good programming you don't need to have one interrupt per character, when things are getting bogged down.
But that's for terminals up to 9600 baud.
19.2K.
Not the original DH-11. 9600 was the highest, unless you count the
external clock ability they have.
Mine was a DH-11AD, and it definitely went to 19.2K.
I think you need to refresh your memory... :-)
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/unibus/EK-0DH11-MM-003_Apr75.pdf
But they DH-11 is way better than a DZ-11. The only problem being (as
mentioned), they were big. A whole 9-slot backplane for one controller.
Yes. I had one on my 11/34a years ago; it was in an external
expansion chassis. I did love that mux, though! I got one again a
couple of years ago, not sure which machine I'll put it in.
I think I might still have access to one stashed away, but for most of the time, I've actually used an Emulex controller that is DH-11 compatible, but a single card.
(And that one actually can do 19200, but only have a little more limited modem control.)
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
On 4 Apr 2013, at 22:10, "Dave McGuire" <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
On 04/04/2013 10:01 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
Apparently not. The reason I came up with the device is that I used a
PDP 11/40 with a DU11 to connect to a Burroughs B7700 using an RJE like
protocol. It was called SYSTEM/SATCOM IIRC. The PDP ran RT-11 V4. Other
than that, networks were built using 1200 baud modems on serial lines.
No DMF32 nor DZ11 in '79. How did one connect all those VT52's and
LA36's, via a DL11?
I thought DZ11s were around back then. But if not, the DH11 sure
was, 16
lines, DMA output.
Pretty sure they had DMA input too.
Nope. DMA output only.
Crap, really?
But that's for terminals up to 9600 baud.
19.2K.
Not the original DH-11. 9600 was the highest, unless you count the
external clock ability they have.
Mine was a DH-11AD, and it definitely went to 19.2K.
But they DH-11 is way better than a DZ-11. The only problem being (as
mentioned), they were big. A whole 9-slot backplane for one controller.
Yes. I had one on my 11/34a years ago; it was in an external expansion chassis. I did love that mux, though! I got one again a couple of years ago, not sure which machine I'll put it in.
How many external chassis did you have for that system?
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
On 04/04/2013 10:01 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
Apparently not. The reason I came up with the device is that I used a
PDP 11/40 with a DU11 to connect to a Burroughs B7700 using an RJE like
protocol. It was called SYSTEM/SATCOM IIRC. The PDP ran RT-11 V4. Other
than that, networks were built using 1200 baud modems on serial lines.
No DMF32 nor DZ11 in '79. How did one connect all those VT52's and
LA36's, via a DL11?
I thought DZ11s were around back then. But if not, the DH11 sure
was, 16
lines, DMA output.
Pretty sure they had DMA input too.
Nope. DMA output only.
Crap, really?
But that's for terminals up to 9600 baud.
19.2K.
Not the original DH-11. 9600 was the highest, unless you count the
external clock ability they have.
Mine was a DH-11AD, and it definitely went to 19.2K.
But they DH-11 is way better than a DZ-11. The only problem being (as
mentioned), they were big. A whole 9-slot backplane for one controller.
Yes. I had one on my 11/34a years ago; it was in an external expansion chassis. I did love that mux, though! I got one again a couple of years ago, not sure which machine I'll put it in.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
On 2013-04-05 02:02, Dave McGuire wrote:
On 04/04/2013 05:28 PM, Paul_Koning at Dell.com wrote:
Apparently not. The reason I came up with the device is that I used a
PDP 11/40 with a DU11 to connect to a Burroughs B7700 using an RJE like
protocol. It was called SYSTEM/SATCOM IIRC. The PDP ran RT-11 V4. Other
than that, networks were built using 1200 baud modems on serial lines.
No DMF32 nor DZ11 in '79. How did one connect all those VT52's and
LA36's, via a DL11?
I thought DZ11s were around back then. But if not, the DH11 sure was, 16
lines, DMA output.
Pretty sure they had DMA input too.
Nope. DMA output only.
But that's for terminals up to 9600 baud.
19.2K.
Not the original DH-11. 9600 was the highest, unless you count the external clock ability they have.
But they DH-11 is way better than a DZ-11. The only problem being (as mentioned), they were big. A whole 9-slot backplane for one controller.
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 8:16 PM, Cory Smelosky <b4 at gewt.net> wrote:
On 04/04/2013 08:02 PM, Clem Cole wrote:
nope. we did not run decnet in those days. remember I'm one of the
authors of the original tcp/ip implementation for vms :-)
Ah right. I forgot about that!
On Apr 4, 2013, at 6:50 PM, "Cory Smelosky" <b4 at gewt.net> wrote:
On 04/04/2013 06:44 PM, Clem Cole wrote:
below..
On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 5:28 PM, <Paul_Koning at dell.com
<mailto:Paul_Koning at dell.com>> wrote:
I thought DZ11s were around back then.
They are just becoming popular in the early 1980s, but is possible they
were around by 1979.
But Cory is using VMS 1.x. I'm trying to remember, we had VAX Serial
#1 at CMU in 1977/78 - which ran VMS 1.x of course. It must have been
connected to the original "CMU Front End" which were dedicated PDP-11s,
filled with DL11s and CMU ASLI's. Originally, which Front End machine
dedicate which systems you saw. The connection between the host to the
front end was parallel port, it must have been an DR-11B's back to back
but I've forgotten what that HW was (boy those bits have rotted in my
memory).
But if not, the DH11 sure was, 16 lines, DMA output.
And unless you used Able Computer's clone of it the (DHDM), a full
Unibus "system unit" of TTL hardware. What a beast, but full modem
control that the DZ did not do and actually could drive the lines
without killing the processor., which DZs and DL/KL's did..
But that's for terminals up to 9600 baud. For networking, you'd
use a DMC-11 unless your OS supported the cheaper devices and money
was that tight -- that one goes back to about 1976 and delivers up
to 1 Mb/s depending on model (up to 56 kB/s long haul, given
suitable modems).
Hmm - are the DMC and DMR that old? I remember fighting the firmware in
the them to allow high speed serial networking. They had a dedicated
microprocessor on them (8080A or 8085 IIRC - but it may have been
something custom). They were expensive, which why Berk-NET used 9600
baud serial lines, until we got 3COM & Interlan Ethernet cards at
Berkeley in 1983.
CMU would get Xerox 3Mhz Ethernet cards for many of the Vaxen and 11s in
the 70s when it was still just Xerox. What would become the Cisco
Router has it origin in some work using PDP-11's and Xerox cards to
create the "distributed front-end" - which allowed more terminals to be
connected to N machines and you could get to any system that was on the
any of the front ends. It was all very cool and bleeding edge..
Lots of terminals with single line interfaces would be really ugly.
Amen. DZ's were not much better either, because the interrupt rate at
9600 would like a 1MIP Vax.
But I do remember our college main timesharing system, in 1973, a
PDP-11/20 with 28 kW of memory, RSTS V4A, and 16 terminals on 16
separate KL11 or DL11 interfaces. Oh yes, and a mean time between
crashes of about 1 day.
Are you sure it was a 11/20, not an 11/40? I did not think RSTS could
run without the MMU. With 16 DL/KL11's even with an 11/40 the
interrupt rate had to been wretched.
That said, in late 1979 when I was at Tek Labs, I took an 11/70 and put
96 serial ports of Able DH/DM into it. Amazingly enough that V7 Unix
box provided more cycles to more people than the CDC Cyber it sat next
too in the machine room.
Clem
Along with having a memory of all of this, you wouldn't happen to have
VMS 1.x kits, would you? I'm having difficulty tracking down DECnet for
this.
--
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Experiments
--
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Experiments
Hello!
Of course. Six cybermen are working to make sure you forget all sorts
of things related to the area around you.
-----
Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com
"This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."
