[TUHS] kernel boots kernel in 1977

[Peter Yardley]

I have memories of my colleague repairing that core memory with a large magnifier and a fine soldering iron.

> On 19 Sep 2024, at 8:52 AM, Luther Johnson <luther.johnson at makerlisp.com> wrote:
> 
> Even better were DG Novas with core memory, just turn the machine off, come back in the morning, turn on the machine, pick up where you left off :)
> On 09/18/2024 03:38 PM, ron minnich wrote:
>> Interesting about the amiga. I'm assuming their firmware zeros memory on reset, so you have to do handoff from kernel to kernel, not via a reset and so on? 
>> 
>> What was particularly nice about the V6/PDP-11 case: we were able to yank reset, which let us cleanly reset/disable devices, because everything was in memory when we got back. I miss the simplicity of the old machines.
>> 
>> On Wed, Sep 18, 2024 at 3:07 PM Christian Hopps <chopps at chopps.org> wrote:
>> 
>> We had/have this functionality in the Amiga port of NetBSD.
>> 
>> It is implemented as `/dev/reload` device and you copy a kernel image to it. In locore.s there's code that copies the kernel image over top of the running kernel and then restarts. I believe for it to work nothing below the copy code in locore.s can change :)
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> Chris.
>> 
>> Phil Budne <phil at ultimate.com> writes:
>> 
>> > ron minnich wrote:
>> >> But I'm wondering: is Ed's work in 1977 the first "kernel boots kernel" or
>> >> was there something before?
>> >
>> > There was!  The PDP-7 UNIX listings contain a program trysys.s
>> > https://github.com/DoctorWkt/pdp7-unix/blob/master/src/sys/trysys.s
>> > that reboots the system by reading a.out into user memory (in the high
>> > 4K of core), then copies it to low memory and jumping to the entry
>> > point.  The name suggests its original intended use was to test a new
>> > system (kernel).
>> >
>> > P.S.
>> > Normal bootable system images seem to have been stored in reserved
>> > tracks of the (fixed head) disk (that are inacessible via system calls):
>> >
>> > https://github.com/DoctorWkt/pdp7-unix/blob/master/src/sys/maksys.s
>> > reads a.out and uses I/O instructions to write it out.
>> >
>> > P.P.S.
>> > Accordingly, I put together a "paper tape" for booting the system:
>> > https://github.com/DoctorWkt/pdp7-unix/blob/master/src/other/pbboot.s
>> >
>> > P.P.P.S.
>> > The system (kernel) is 3K words, the last 1K of low memory
>> > used for the character table for the vector graphics controller.
>> >
>> > The definitions for the table are compiled by
>> > https://github.com/DoctorWkt/pdp7-unix/blob/master/src/cmd/cas.s
>> > from definition file
>> > https://github.com/DoctorWkt/pdp7-unix/blob/master/src/sys/cas.in
>> > (after, ISTR, figuring out the ordering of the listing pages!)
>> >
>> > I don't think we ever figured out how the initial character table
>> > is loaded into core.  One thing that was missing from the table
>> > was the dispatch array, which I recreated:
>> > https://github.com/DoctorWkt/pdp7-unix/blob/master/src/other/chrtbl.s
>> >
>> > The system (kernel) could be built for a "cold start", reloading the
>> > disk (prone to head crashes?) from paper tape? But I don't think
>> > anyone ever reconstructed the procedure for rebuilding a disk that way.
>> >
>> > The disk was two sided, and the running system only used one side:
>> > https://github.com/DoctorWkt/pdp7-unix/blob/master/src/cmd/dsksav.s
>> > https://github.com/DoctorWkt/pdp7-unix/blob/master/src/cmd/dskres.s
>> > appear to be programs to save and restore the filesystem from the
>> > "other" side of the disk.
>> 
> 

.1.3.6.1.4.1.8852.4.2
Peter Yardley
peter.martin.yardley at gmail.com