[TUHS] SysV* on a PDP-11

segaloco via TUHS tuhs at tuhs.org
Thu Mar 7 09:29:16 AEST 2024


Just to bring it full circle, after a bit of discussion it looks like what Henry is working with is the initial System V release for PDP-11/70, not some fabled PDP-11 SVR2, so the documentation I linked as well as some material on squoze.net concerning System V in SimH all apply directly. Subject adjusted accordingly.

- Matt G.

On Wednesday, March 6th, 2024 at 1:55 PM, Henry Bent <henry.r.bent at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 6 Mar 2024 at 16:51, segaloco <segaloco at protonmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Wednesday, March 6th, 2024 at 1:16 PM, Henry Bent <henry.r.bent at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hello all,
>>>
>>> I have a distribution of SVR2 on the PDP-11 that I have managed to get booting into the initial root dump, but it is not clear to me how to proceed from there to format a /usr filesystem and setup for multi-user.
>>>
>>> ...
>>>
>>> I haven't managed to find any installation manuals or the like on Bitsavers, and I can't even manage to find a listing in the source of the expected disk partitions/sizes. I feel very much like I am stumbling in the dark here and would appreciate any pointers to how to proceed. Thanks!
>>>
>>> -Henry
>>
>> First off I didn't know SVR2 made it to the PDP-11, I thought they cut it off after the initial System V release, is what you have AT&T or some derivative version?
>>
>> Second, this is the setup instructions for DEC processors for the initial release of System V which included the PDP-11/70: https://archive.org/details/unix-system-administrators-guide-5-0/04%20Setting%20Up%20The%20UNIX%20System%20%28DEC%29/
>>
>> Additionally, here is the Operator's Guide which details bootstrapping the system among other things: https://archive.org/details/unix-system-operators-guide-release-5-0/mode/2up
>>
>> While not SVR2, hopefully the differences are minimal enough that you can use those. Good luck!
>>
>> Also regarding finding more documentation, sadly AT&T stripped out the /usr/doc materials with System V, so these critical pieces of documentation actually can't be found in a typical system distribution, rather, you had to get the paper copies. I'm not aware of any discovery of TROFF sources for any of this stuff past System III, I do have it on my long-term list to eventually synthesize copies of said documents from available scans so they can be more easily diff'd, but my current focus is much, much earlier.
>
> Thank you, this is a wonderful starting point. I often forget that sometimes archive.org will have documentation that is not duplicated in other sources, so this is a welcome reminder. I'll read through all of this and report back.
>
> -Henry
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