[TUHS] PDP-10 UNIX?

[Arthur Krewat]

On 9/17/2017 10:34 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> On 2017-09-17 18:33, Arthur Krewat <krewat at kilonet.net> wrote:
>
>> Was there ever a UNIX or even the thought of porting one to a PDP-10?
>
> Definitely a thought. An attempt was started on NetBSD for the PDP-10, 
> and it sortof got halfway of getting into single-user, but I'm not 
> sure if the person who worked on it just got distracted, or if he hit 
> problems that were really hard to solve. I certainly know the person, 
> and can find out more if people really are interested.
>
I for one would be VERY interested. It would be an interesting exercise 
to try it out on a SIMH emulator.
>> 8-bit bytes would have been a wasteful exercise, but you never know.
>> (losing 4 bits of every 36-bit word)
>
> Uh... Why 8 bit bytes? That way lies madness. There exists a really 
> good C compiler for TOPS-20 - KCC. It uses 9 bits per byte. Works like 
> a charm, except when some people write portable code that is not so 
> portable. ;-)
>
> KCC was written by KLH, unless I remember wrong. Same guy who also 
> wrote the KLH-10 emulator.
9 bits would work - and still, waste 4 bits of the 36-bit word ... any 
code carried over from elsewhere would never use the 9th bit unless you 
know of stuff that does?

And yup, I remember KLH, not personally, but as the KLH-10 author :)