[HECnet] PDP Ignorance

On Jul 14, 2011, at 4:53 PM, Steve Davidson wrote: Mark, Rare - probably depends on where you can look! :-) RT-11 will run on any of the PDP-11's. The RSX-11 family of OS's has specific requirements about memory amounts and memory management thus the SPD should be reviewed. RSTS/E (and M+) require memory management hardware. RSTS V4 (not /E) runs on a non-MMU machine, but it's very limited -- Basic-Plus only. The Pro-Series of systems could also be looked at for RT-11 and RSX (P/OS). In this space the Pro-380 is probably preferred. The problem here is finding a network card (DECNA) that does not cost as much (or more) than the rest of the system. Indeed. And they are quite slow because of the pathetic architecture. Also, all you get is the console display, unless you can find one of the 4-line UART cards that is so obscure that it's hard even to find a manual for it, or a reference to its name (it's PC3XC-BA... I had to look for that). I did a RSTS port, but that wasn't distributed. Disks on real hardware will be small and slow (an possibly expensive). On emulated systems they can be much bigger and many many times faster. The books you have detail the degree of expandability for each of these HW platforms (except maybe the Pro). You will be surprised at just how much can be done with these systems. The speed will be another story. Pro expansion is possible in theory, out of the question in practice. The needed details are undocumented in critical places. RT-11 Languages (from memory): MACRO-11 APL-11 BASIC-11 MU/BASIC-11 BASIC-PLUS/RT-11 FORTRAN-IV (FORTRAN 66 STD) PDP-11/C DECUS-C Also (via DECUS): Forth and Algol RSX-11 Languages (also from memory): MACRO-11 APL-11 BASIC-PLUS-2 FORTRAN-IV (FORTRAN 66 STD) FORTRAN-77 PDP-11/C DECUS-C COBOL-81, COBOL-11 And Coral-66, whatever that is. RSTS/E Languages (also from memory): The same as RSX-11 for the most part. That, plus BASIC-PLUS (the ancestor of BASIC-PLUS-2, but an interactive interpreter). And Forth (a port of the RT one with FIG-Forth features added, included in the most recent releases, unsupported). There was a port of DECUS Algol but some of the pieces may have gotten lost; I had it at DEC but I can't find some of the pieces, at least not all the sources. Also Dibol. And don't forget TECO, for any PDP-11 and any OS (except DOS and probably DSM). paul