From crossd at gmail.com Thu Aug 1 01:34:53 2024 From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross) Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2024 11:34:53 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Interesting history of Bell Labs Message-ID: Steve Bellovin just posted this on Mastodon, I thought it might interest some folks here. It's more about Bell Labs than Unix, but of course Unix, as a product of Bell Labs, is related and is mentioned. - Dan C. https://www.construction-physics.com/p/what-would-it-take-to-recreate-bell From clemc at ccc.com Fri Aug 2 04:09:20 2024 From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole) Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2024 14:09:20 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] SDF Beget's ICM - Interim Computer Museum Message-ID: Please excuse the wide distribution, but I suspect this will have general interest in all of these communities due to the loss of the LCM+Labs. The good folks from SDF.org are trying to create the Interim Computer Museum: https://icm.museum/join.html As Lars pointed out in an earlier message to COFF there is a 1hr presentation on the plans for the ICM. https://toobnix.org/w/ozjGgBQ28iYsLTNbrczPVo FYI: The yearly (Bootstrap) subscription is $36 They need to money to try to keep some of these systems online and available. The good news is that it looks like many of the assets, such as Miss Piggy, the Multics work, the Toads, and others, from the old LCM are going to be headed to a new home. ᐧ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com Fri Aug 2 11:55:40 2024 From: gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com (Gregg Levine) Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2024 21:55:40 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] SDF Beget's ICM - Interim Computer Museum In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hello! Pardon me for asking Clem, but would you mind naming the survivors? I have an idea what these Toads are, and of course what Multics happened to be, but that's it. ----- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again." ----- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again." On Thu, Aug 1, 2024 at 2:10 PM Clem Cole wrote: > > Please excuse the wide distribution, but I suspect this will have general interest in all of these communities due to the loss of the LCM+Labs. > > The good folks from SDF.org are trying to create the Interim Computer Museum: > https://icm.museum/join.html > > As Lars pointed out in an earlier message to COFF there is a 1hr presentation on the plans for the ICM. https://toobnix.org/w/ozjGgBQ28iYsLTNbrczPVo > > FYI: The yearly (Bootstrap) subscription is $36 > They need to money to try to keep some of these systems online and available. The good news is that it looks like many of the assets, such as Miss Piggy, the Multics work, the Toads, and others, from the old LCM are going to be headed to a new home. > ᐧ From lars at nocrew.org Fri Aug 2 15:32:46 2024 From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff) Date: Fri, 02 Aug 2024 05:32:46 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] SDF Beget's ICM - Interim Computer Museum In-Reply-To: (Gregg Levine's message of "Thu, 1 Aug 2024 21:55:40 -0400") References: Message-ID: <7wr0b7v69t.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> I think this is off topic for TUHS and more appropriate for COFF. Gregg Levine wrote: > Pardon me for asking Clem, but would you mind naming the survivors? I > have an idea what these Toads are, and of course what Multics happened > to be, but that's it. We don't know exactly yet, but according to the video, there's a VAX 7000 and a DEC-2020. The TOAD computers are XKL's PDP-10 remake; there's also another one called SC-40. Stephen also mentions Multics tapes were rescued. Maybe the best way to see what is there right now, is to dial into "ssh menu at sdf.org" [-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-] -+- SDF Vintage Systems REMOTE ACCESS -+- [-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-] [a] multics Multics MR12.8 Honeywell 6180 [b] toad-2 TOPS-20 7(110131)-1 XKL TOAD-2 [c] twenex TOPS-20 7(63327)-6 XKL TOAD-2 [d] sc40 TOPS-20 7(21733) SC Group SC40 [e] lc ITS ver 1648 PDP-10 KS10 [f] ka1050 TOPS-10 6.03a sim KA10 1050 [g] kl2065 TOPS-10 7.04 sim KL10 2065 [h] rosenkrantz OpenVMS 7.3 VAX 7000-640 [i] tss8 TSS/8 PDP-8/e [j] ibm4361 VM/SP5 Hercules 4361 [k] ibm7094 CTSS i7094 [l] cdc6500 NOS 1.3 DTCyber CDC-6500 [z] bitzone NetBSD BBS AMD64 [1] Proceed to the UNIX Systems sub-menu [2] Information about Vintage Systems at SDF.ORG And the Unix section: [a] misspiggy UNIX v7 PDP-11/70 [c] lcm3b2 UNIX SVR3.2.3 AT&T 3B2/1000-70 [d] guildenstern BSD 4.3 simh MicroVAX 3900 [e] snake BSD 2.11 PDP-11/84 [f] hkypux HP/UX 10.20 HP9000/715 [g] truly TRU64 5.0 DEC Alpha 500au [h] three SunOS 4.1.1 Sun-3/160 [i] indy IRIX 6.5 SGI Indy R5000 [j] ultra Ultrix 4.5 simh MicroVAX 3900 From clemc at ccc.com Sat Aug 3 00:58:43 2024 From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole) Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2024 10:58:43 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] SDF Beget's ICM - Interim Computer Museum In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Greg, this needs to move to COFF, so I'm BCCing TUHS in my reply. (My error in the original message was that I should have BCC'd everyone but COFF, so replies were directed there. Mei culpa). However, since I have seen different people on all these lists bemoan the loss of the LCM+L, I hope that by the broader announcement, a number of you will consider the $36/yr membership to help Stephen and his team to be able to keep these systems running and the at least the "labs" port of the old LCM+L mission alive. On Thu, Aug 1, 2024 at 9:56 PM Gregg Levine wrote: > Hello! > Pardon me for asking Clem, but would you mind naming the survivors? The details are still coming out from Stephen and friends -- I would recommend listening to his presentation and then maybe joining the List Server at SDF by sending a (plain text) email to majordomo at sdf.org with the subject and body containing the line: subscribe museum-l I have an idea what these Toads are, and of course what Multics happened to > be, but that's it. > LCM+L owned a real Honeywell 6180 front panel. The folks in their lab interfaced it to a microcontroller (I think it was an RP3 or 4, but it could be something like a BeagleBone, I never knew). It was running Multics Release 12.8 on a SimH-derived Honeywell 6180 [I'm not sure if those changes ever made it back to OpenSIMH - I have not personally tried it myself]. This system seems to have been moved to SDF's new site. Also, a number of the MIT Multics tapes had been donated to the LCM+L. These have survived, and the SDF has them. I'll not repeat Stephen's report here, but he describes what they have and are doing. Miss Piggy is the PDP 11/70 that Microsoft purchased and used for their SW original development. It has been running a flavor of Unix Seventh Edition - I do not know what type of updates were added, but I expect the DEC v7m and the V7 addendum to be there. You can log in and try it yourself by ssh menu at sdf.org" and picking Miss Piggy in the UNIX submenu. Miss Piggy used to live and be on display at the LCM+L, but Stephen and the SDF were involved in its admin/operation. Stephen says in his presentation that they are trying to get Miss Piggy back up and running [my >>guess<< is that the "Miss Piggy" instance on the SDF menu is currently running on an OpenSIMH instance while the real hardware is being set up at the new location]. In the early 1980s, as DEC started to de-commit to the 36-bit line after they introduced the 32-bit Vax systems, a number of PDP-10 clones appeared on the market. For instance, the System Concepts SC-40 was what Comp-U-Serve primarily switched to. Similarly, many ex-Stanford AI types forked to create the Toad Systems XXL, a KL10 clone. SDF and LCM+L owned several of these two styles of systems and were on display and available for login. Since Twenex.org is live (and has been) and Stephen shows a picture of the SC40, again, I am (again) >>guessing<< that these have all been moved to the new location for SDF. Stephen mentioned in his presentation that they have the LCM-L's Vax7000 but do not yet have the 3-phase power in their computer room. He suggested that it is one of the most popular machines in the SDF menu, and they intend to make it live shortly. It is unclear what became of some of the other items. It was pointed out that running a CDC6500 is extremely expensive to operate from a power standpoint, so they offer an NOS login using the DTCyber simulator. He never mentioned what became of the former Purdue machine that the LCM owned and had restored. I am interested in knowing what happened to the two PDP-7s. I know that at least one was privately owned, but was being restored and displayed at the LCM+L. It was one of these systems that Unix V0 was resurrected and ran for the UNIX 50th Anniversary Party that the LCM+L hosted. The LCM+L had some interesting peripherals. For instance, the console for Miss Piggy was a somewhat rare ASR37 [which is Upper/Lower case and the "native" terminal for Research Unix]. I hope they have it also. The LCM+L had a number of different types of tape transports for recovering old data. Stephen mentioned that they have some of these but did not elaborate. Clem -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Aug 6 13:26:57 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Tue, 06 Aug 2024 03:26:57 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Other POSIX Candidates? Message-ID: I'm paraphrasing here but I've read in a few places something to the effect that UNIX was "selected" as the basis on which to build a portable operating system standard, which of course we all know as POSIX. However, I got thinking on the implications of that phrasing, and have to ask, was there actually a "selection" made picking UNIX over some other candidate, or was it pretty much established from the outset of pursuing a standard that UNIX was going to get standardized? Another way to put it would be as a chicken and egg, which came first, desire for a portable base system definition that UNIX happened to fit nicely, or the ongoing need for UNIX standardization finding sponsorship by the working groups, IEEE, etc.? Did any other OS contend for this coveted honor? - Matt G. From ggm at algebras.org Tue Aug 6 13:38:46 2024 From: ggm at algebras.org (George Michaelson) Date: Tue, 6 Aug 2024 13:38:46 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] Other POSIX Candidates? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: its weak thinking on my part, but I always understood the POSIX branding to be a very explicit nod to this being a stamp of approval on a burgeoning UNIX-varieties ecology. I do not think VMS, or a DOS derivitive, or PICK was a serious consideration except perhaps in a post-fact rationalisation. 1 let's invent our own 2 let's not thats too stupid 3 so all the mainframe OS targetting IBM are not really much more than JCL or what MIT and Stanford do and anyway 4 nobody buys anything but minicomputers now and they all run versions of unix but 5 porting is a royal pain. 6 ok so lets pick a subset of required behaviour to make C and shell work 7 and for good measure is there anyone here who seriously wants VMS? No 8 ok done. Now, for the next 15 committee meetings, lets have many fine luncheons 9