15 Jun
2014
15 Jun
'14
6:19 p.m.
Jay Forrester, who invented core memory, first described it in
a lab notebook 65 years ago today.
(Thanks to the Living Computer Museum, through whose Twitter
feed I learned this tidbit. It's a place--the real museum,
not just the Twitter feed--many on this list might enjoy:
among their aged-but-working computers are a Xerox Star and
a PDP-7.)
Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
16 Jun
16 Jun
4:13 p.m.
Small correction: not a Star, an Alto. :-)
Sent from my android device.
-----Original Message-----
From: Norman Wilson <norman(a)oclsc.org>
To: tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org
Sent: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 11:19 AM
Subject: [TUHS] Happy birthday, core dumped
Jay Forrester, who invented core memory, first described it in
a lab notebook 65 years ago today.
(Thanks to the Living Computer Museum, through whose Twitter
feed I learned this tidbit. It's a place--the real museum,
not just the Twitter feed--many on this list might enjoy:
among their aged-but-working computers are a Xerox Star and
a PDP-7.)
Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
_______________________________________________
TUHS mailing list
TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org
https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
10:01 p.m.
Hello!
Interesting.
I know I've seen the Star system rig before. But the Xerox Alto one is
new to me. Wasn't the PDP-7 the fellow where UNIX really got its start
on before they moved it to a PDP-11?
-----
Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8(a)gmail.com
"This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."
On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 12:13 PM, <iking(a)killthewabbit.org> wrote:
Small correction: not a Star, an Alto. :-)
Sent from my android device.
-----Original Message-----
From: Norman Wilson <norman(a)oclsc.org>
To: tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org
Sent: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 11:19 AM
Subject: [TUHS] Happy birthday, core dumped
Jay Forrester, who invented core memory, first described it in
a lab notebook 65 years ago today.
(Thanks to the Living Computer Museum, through whose Twitter
feed I learned this tidbit. It's a place--the real museum,
not just the Twitter feed--many on this list might enjoy:
among their aged-but-working computers are a Xerox Star and
a PDP-7.)
Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
_______________________________________________
TUHS mailing list
TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org
https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
_______________________________________________
TUHS mailing list
TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org
https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
17 Jun
17 Jun
1:38 a.m.
Gregg Levine scripsit:
I know I've seen the Star system rig before. But
the Xerox Alto one is
new to me. Wasn't the PDP-7 the fellow where UNIX really got its start
on before they moved it to a PDP-11?
It was. The 18-bit systems were the red-headed stepchild of the DEC world.
The PDP-1, PDP-4, and PDP-7 systems had no DEC-supplied operating system,
and the PDP-9 only a minimal one, about like OS/8. Not until the terminal
18-bit system, the PDP-15, were PDP-11 class operating systems provided.
Consequently, the Bell Labs PDP-7 was essentially useless.
--
John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan(a)ccil.org
Awk!" sed Grep. "A fscking python is perloining my Ruby; let me bash
him with a Cshell! Vi didn't I mount it on a troff?" --Francis Turner
1:56 a.m.
On Monday, 16 June 2014 at 21:38:40 -0400, John Cowan wrote:
Gregg Levine scripsit:
Sounds like it was crying out for somebody to write an operating
system for it :-)
Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog(a)FreeBSD.org for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft MUA reports
problems, please read http://tinyurl.com/broken-mua
I know I've seen the Star system rig before.
But the Xerox Alto one is
new to me. Wasn't the PDP-7 the fellow where UNIX really got its start
on before they moved it to a PDP-11?
It was. The 18-bit systems were the red-headed stepchild of the DEC world.
The PDP-1, PDP-4, and PDP-7 systems had no DEC-supplied operating system,
and the PDP-9 only a minimal one, about like OS/8. Not until the terminal
18-bit system, the PDP-15, were PDP-11 class operating systems provided.
Consequently, the Bell Labs PDP-7 was essentially useless.
3:13 a.m.
Well, the University of Oregon might disagree with you about the PDP-7. They ran the
DECsys monitor, which ISTR was the first such software product from DEC outside the
36-bit line (the PDP-6 and -7 were introduced in the same year). U of O took delivery of
their -7 in 1966 and it saw active service for at least three decades, with over thirty
doctorates earned based on research performed on the system. Hardly useless....
It's always been a bit of a mystery to me why Thompson and Ritchie decided they
needed to write a new executive - UNICS - rather than use DECsys. True, DECsys isn't
anything to shout about and Unix is clearly more useful - but IMHO Spacewar! could have
been coded in the DECsys 'environment'. I infer that they saw broader utility
and application in a more capable executive - which obviously turned out to be true!
The U of O PDP-7 is the one currently residing at the Living Computer Museum (I used to
maintain it).
And what's wrong with OS/8? Minimal, yes - what do you want, Windows Vista? :-) -
Ian
Sent from my android device.
-----Original Message-----
From: John Cowan <cowan(a)mercury.ccil.org>
To: Gregg Levine <gregg.drwho8(a)gmail.com>
Cc: tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org
Sent: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 6:38 PM
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Happy birthday, core dumped
Gregg Levine scripsit:
I know I've seen the Star system rig before. But
the Xerox Alto one is
new to me. Wasn't the PDP-7 the fellow where UNIX really got its start
on before they moved it to a PDP-11?
It was. The 18-bit systems were the red-headed stepchild of the DEC world.
The PDP-1, PDP-4, and PDP-7 systems had no DEC-supplied operating system,
and the PDP-9 only a minimal one, about like OS/8. Not until the terminal
18-bit system, the PDP-15, were PDP-11 class operating systems provided.
Consequently, the Bell Labs PDP-7 was essentially useless.
--
John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan(a)ccil.org
Awk!" sed Grep. "A fscking python is perloining my Ruby; let me bash
him with a Cshell! Vi didn't I mount it on a troff?" --Francis Turner
_______________________________________________
TUHS mailing list
TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org
https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
12:14 p.m.
iking(a)killthewabbit.org scripsit:
Well, the University of Oregon might disagree with you
about the PDP-7.
They ran the DECsys monitor,
Ah, I didn't know about that. Still, pretty sub-minimal: Fortran II,
assembler, editor, period. It made OS/8 look quite rich by comparison.
Hardly useless....
However, according to the manual, DECsys required an 8Kword PDP-7, whereas
the "Space Travel" (not "Spacewar!") machine had only 4Kwords.
And what's wrong with OS/8?
Nothing. Indeed, I cut my teeth on it on a PDP-8/M with 8K and a single
DECtape with the driver in ROM. I was using the term descriptively to
indicate the kind of OS available for the PDP-9. A modified version also
ran on the '15, it seems. But the native OSes were DOS-15 (roughly RT-11)
and RSX-15 (a classic DEC RSX).
--
John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan(a)ccil.org
"Not to know The Smiths is not to know K.X.U." --K.X.U.
18 Jun
18 Jun
4:21 p.m.
On Jun 17, 2014, at 5:14 AM, John Cowan wrote:
Yes, thanks for the correction - a slip of the virtual tongue. I
didn't realize the Bell Labs machine was so basic - in fact, it was
my understanding that the basic machine was 8Kwords. The machine at
LCM actually has 16K, with a DEC field mod to allow it to be
addressed in PDP-9/15 fashion.
OK, we're good then. :-) I have a soft spot for the 12-bit
machines, if it doesn't show. -- Ian
iking(a)killthewabbit.org scripsit:
U of O also had FOCAL running on it, which may have been a local port
- I'll have to find out.
Well, the University of Oregon might disagree
with you about the
PDP-7.
They ran the DECsys monitor,
Ah, I didn't know about that. Still, pretty sub-minimal: Fortran II,
assembler, editor, period. It made OS/8 look quite rich by
comparison. Hardly useless....
However, according to the manual, DECsys required an 8Kword PDP-7,
whereas
the "Space Travel" (not "Spacewar!") machine had only 4Kwords.
And
what's wrong with OS/8?
Nothing. Indeed, I cut my teeth on it on a PDP-8/M with 8K and a
single
DECtape with the driver in ROM. I was using the term descriptively to
indicate the kind of OS available for the PDP-9. A modified
version also
ran on the '15, it seems. But the native OSes were DOS-15 (roughly
RT-11)
and RSX-15 (a classic DEC RSX).
3609
days inactive
3612
days old
7 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
-
Greg 'groggy' Lehey -
Gregg Levine -
Ian King -
iking＠killthewabbit.org
-
John Cowan -
Norman Wilson