[TUHS] Booting v6

[Carl Lowenstein]

> From: "Bill Cunningham" <billc_2 at charter.net>
> To: <tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org>
> Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2004 06:30:01 -0400
> Subject: [TUHS] Booting v6
> 
>     I was looking through the old archives at the old UNIX Dennis Ritchie
> submitted. I would like to know how to boot this. I can't seem to compile
> the PDP emulator(s) with djgpp or a non-linux system. I can with my linux.

See below for a session log showing booting 6th Ed Unix on a Linux system.

> Dennis said this version of unix was compiled with assembly, then into C if
> I'm not mistaken.

I'm pretty sure that by 6th Ed the system was mostly C, with only a
few assembly routines.

> Now the PDPs they were the machines with no monitors just
> printer tty type output correct?

High-resolution bit-mapped graphics at any reasonable price came along
a few years after 6th Ed.  Unix.  Character-cell CRT terminals that
could display 72x12 up to 80x24 characters on a screen were available
in 1975, but were pretty expensive.

Instructions for booting "uv6swre" are contained in the file "simh_swre.txt".
To make things easier for myself, I did the following:
$ cp unix0_v6_rk.dsk rk0.dsk
and so on for 1, 2, 3.
This gives me copies of the distribution disks that I can work with
without losing the originals.  Then I made a startup file "run.conf"
to contain the commands for the emulator.  Here is the result of a
very recent session:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Script started on Tue 06 Apr 2004 03:09:12 PM
PDT helium3$ cat run.conf
set cpu u18
set cpu 256k
attach rk0 rk0.dsk
attach rk1 rk1.dsk
attach rk2 rk2.dsk
attach rk3 rk3.dsk
boot rk0

helium3$ pdp11 run.conf

PDP-11 simulator V3.1-0
Disabling XQ
@unix

login: root
# date
Sat Aug 20 12:19:47 EDT 1994
# ls -l
total 182
drwxr-xr-x  2 bin      1040 Jan  1  1970 bin
drwxr-xr-x  2 bin       352 Jan  1  1970 dev
drwxr-xr-x  2 bin       304 Aug 20 12:19 etc
drwxr-xr-x  2 bin       336 Jan  1  1970 lib
drwxr-xr-x 17 bin       272 Jan  1  1970 mnt
drwxr-xr-x  2 bin        32 Jan  1  1970 mnt2
-rw-rw-rw-  1 root    28472 Aug 20 12:01 rkunix
-rwxr-xr-x  1 bin     28636 Aug 20 11:38 rkunix.40
drwxrwxrwx  2 bin       144 Aug 20 12:14 tmp
-rwxr-xr-x  1 bin     28472 Aug 20 12:01 unix
drwxr-xr-x 13 bin       224 Aug 20 12:22 usr
drwxr-xr-x  2 bin        32 Jan  1  1970 usr2
# stty
speed 110 baud
erase = '#'; kill = '@'
even odd -nl echo -tabs cr1 
# sync;sync
# 
Simulation stopped, PC: 034316 (ADD #26,R2)
sim> bye
Goodbye
helium3$ exit

Script done on Tue 06 Apr 2004 03:10:09 PM PDT
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
Notes:  the simh command for emulating a Unibus PDP11 with 18-bit
addressing is now "set cpu u18".

In the line "@unix" the "@" is the prompt from the boot program, "unix"
is your response to it.  Root has no password.

The disks are mounted	rk1 on /usr
			rk2 on /usr/source
			rk3 on /mnt

The default character erase and line kill characters shown by stty
are not what anyone is used to these days.

    carl
-- 
    carl lowenstein         marine physical lab     u.c. san diego
                                                 clowenst at ucsd.edu