CAPS-11 Revived on Original Iron!!

[Lou]

Folks,

Last night we finally got CAPS-11 running on our 11/04 with TA11/
TU60. Jack R. was given a set of original DEC CAPS-11 cassettes during
one of his recent expeditions. These included bootable cassettes,
object files, and all the sources. He mailed them to me, and I was
able to recover the contents of these original 37 year old tapes on my
TU60.

To actually run CAPS-11, the SPD (on bitsavers) says that one
needs a programmer's console. Since my 11/04 only has the operator's
console (that I wirewrapped for it), I had to also build a switch
register, which I finished yesterday, basically the logic from M105
plus four bus drivers). Indeed the secondary loader examines the
switch register.

CAPS-11 is quite small. It has PIP, PAL, ODT, and a text editor.
There must be a way to comple basic-11 to also run under CAPS-11, but
I haven't worked on that yet.

Since I have the CT: handler working properly under RT-11V4, I
was able to copy off the tape contents to RL02, and then copy them out
to the PC. I am also able to create new bootable cassettes.

Today I intend to clean up and organize the files, by cassette,
and send copies to Jack, Al, Bob S. and Wolfgang, who would all
usually be intersted in such things.

We also have TADP.

The manuals for CAPS-11 are still to be found. If anyone has them
on their shelves, please let me know.

Lou

PS. Before I actually had the tapes and knew they were readable, I did
some work trying to recover TU60 cassettes on an audiocassette deck
(with CAPS-8 tapes). Indeed this can be done. I digitized the playback
audio from a good quality home stereo cassette deck with a PC.
Converting the digitized audio into a raw file, I was able to make
excel spreadsheets (from information in the TU60 and CAPS-8 manuals)
to digest header blocks and data blocks, recover the data, and
calculate and verifying the TU60 checksum (the checksum calculated,
written, and verified by the TU60's own formatter). These spreadsheets
only analyze one block at a time, since I did not bother to automate
the process further once I could read Jack's tapes on my TU60. It
should be noted that CAPS-8 and CAPS-11 block formats are the same.

PPS. It's almost five years ago that I posted on alt.sys.pdp8 that I
had gotten CAPS-8 running (on this very same TU60).

[Robert Adamson <rwadamsonhotmail<dot>com>]

Congratulations!
A great effort.

[paramucho]

On Sun, 23 Oct 2011 09:16:25 -0700 (PDT), Lou
<lfe...@alumni.princeton.edu> wrote:

That's great news and great work--I've scoured the web a number of
times looking for for anything on CAPS-11--it's been the "missing
link" of DEC PDP-11 operating systems.

I recently decoded the system structure and the full system API of the
XXDP V2 "small monitor" from the binaries (which I'll get around to
describing on-line sometime (and yes, it is weird)). If the sources
are available for CAPS-11 then it should be relatively simple to put
together a system description. I'll be interested to see TADP as well.

It looks like most of the CAPS-11 software came from the papertape
"system", so they probably ported the orginal version of PDP-11
papertape BASIC, which I seem to recall was written for them at
Dartmouth (I once had the source listings).

Regarding the manuals, I seem to recall Andy Stewart saying that he
knew someone with some CAPS-11 stuff...but that was a few years ago.










Ian

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <4ea54452...@news.optusnet.com.au>,

para...@hotmail.com (paramucho) writes:
>
> That's great news and great work--I've scoured the web a number of
> times looking for for anything on CAPS-11--it's been the "missing
> link" of DEC PDP-11 operating systems.
>

And all this time I thought that was IAS!! Anybody know where to find
a copy of that capable of being run on PDP-11 hardware? :-)

bill

--
Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves
bill...@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton |
Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include <std.disclaimer.h>

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2011-10-24 14.47, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> In article<4ea54452...@news.optusnet.com.au>,
> para...@hotmail.com (paramucho) writes:
>>
>> That's great news and great work--I've scoured the web a number of
>> times looking for for anything on CAPS-11--it's been the "missing
>> link" of DEC PDP-11 operating systems.
>>
>
> And all this time I thought that was IAS!! Anybody know where to find
> a copy of that capable of being run on PDP-11 hardware? :-)

If you find a copy, I'm sure it will be capable of running on PDP-11
hardware ;-)

As for the CAPS-11 work. Excellent! Really good work! (Who know where a
TU60 lies, but don't know where to find a controller...)

Johnny

[paramucho]

On 24 Oct 2011 12:47:23 GMT, bill...@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon)
wrote:

>In article <4ea54452...@news.optusnet.com.au>,
> para...@hotmail.com (paramucho) writes:
>>
>> That's great news and great work--I've scoured the web a number of
>> times looking for for anything on CAPS-11--it's been the "missing
>> link" of DEC PDP-11 operating systems.
>>
>
>And all this time I thought that was IAS!! Anybody know where to find
>a copy of that capable of being run on PDP-11 hardware? :-)

I didn't know it was missing! I've had this V3.0 magtape distribution
sitting a directory for a while now:

http://pdp-11.org.ru/files/rsx-11/ias30sys.zip

Described below as a TU10 distribution:

http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/pipermail/simh/2006-December/003803.html

I tried to install on a simulated RL02 it tonight under SIMH. It boots
up nicely and asks all the right questions, but after doing the badblk
check all I get are disk errors and then tape errors (I can't get E11
to run on 64-bit Windows and my emulator doesn't do tapes).

Perhaps someone else will have more success...

Ian

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <j83o0v$eon$2...@iltempo.update.uu.se>,

I just looked thru my recently re-opened stash and the strangest one
I found was a TK-25 controller. Now if I only had a TK-25. :-)

And while I am at it, anybody got an old DEC Card Reader or an OPSCAN20
sitting around that they want to get rid of? :-)

And, just out of curiosity, I have seen card readers mentioned and paper
tape reader and punch, but I have never seen mention of a DEC Card Punch.
Was there such a beast?

[vaxorcist]

>
> And all this time I thought that was IAS!!  Anybody know where to find
> a copy of that capable of being run on PDP-11 hardware?  :-)
>

Hi,

I've successfully installed IAS V3 from the tape image with the
following simh PDP-11 config:

; --------------------------------------------

; PDP-11/60 WITH 256KB (=128 KWORDS) MEMORY

; --------------------------------------------

SET CPU 11/60

SET CPU 256K



; -------------------------------------

; CONSOLE SETTINGS

; -------------------------------------

SET CONSOLE TELNET=5555


; -------------------------------------

; DISABLED DEVICES WE DON'T WANT/NEED

; -------------------------------------

; NO TQK50 TMSCP DISK CONTROLLER

SET TQ DISABLED



; NO DELQA/DEQNA QBUS ETHERNET CONTROLLER

SET XQ DISABLED



; NO RP/RM MASSBUS DISK PACK DRIVES

SET RP DISABLED



; NO RH70/RH11 MASSBUS ADAPTER

SET RHA DISABLED



; NO RK11/RK05 CARTRIDGE DISK

SET RK DISABLED



; NO RX11/RX01 FLOPPY DISK

SET RX DISABLED



; NO RQDX3/UDA50 MSCP DISK CONTROLLER

SET RQ DISABLED



; NO DHQ11 TERMINAL MULTIPLEXER

SET VH DISABLED



; NO PC11 PAPER TAPE READER

SET PTR DISABLED



; NO PC11 PAPER TAPE PUNCH

SET PTP DISABLED



; -------------------------------------

; LINE CLOCK

; -------------------------------------

SET CLK 50HZ



; -------------------------------------

; LP11 LINE PRINTER

; -------------------------------------

SET LPT ENABLED

ATTACH LPT LPT.TXT



; -------------------------------------

; ONE TU10 MAGTAPE

; -------------------------------------

SET TM ENABLED

;SET TM0 LOCKED

ATTACH TM0 IAS.tap

SET TM1 DISABLED

SET TM2 DISABLED

SET TM3 DISABLED

SET TM4 DISABLED

SET TM5 DISABLED

SET TM6 DISABLED

SET TM7 DISABLED



; -------------------------------------

; TWO RL01 DISKS

; -------------------------------------

SET RL0 RL01

SET RL1 RL01

SET RL2 DISABLED

SET RL3 DISABLED

; CREATE/USE DISK FILE

ATTACH RL0 IASV30.DSK



; -------------------------------------

; TWO RK07 DISKS

; -------------------------------------

SET HK0 RK07

SET HK1 RK07

SET HK2 DISABLED

SET HK3 DISABLED

SET HK4 DISABLED

SET HK5 DISABLED

SET HK6 DISABLED

SET HK7 DISABLED



; -------------------------------------

; ONE DZ11 TERMINAL MULTIPLEXER

; -------------------------------------

SET DZ LINES=8



; -------------------------------------

; BOOT

; -------------------------------------

BOOT RL0


Regards,

Ulli

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2011-10-24 17.48, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> In article<j83o0v$eon$2...@iltempo.update.uu.se>,

> Johnny Billquist<b...@softjar.se> writes:
>> On 2011-10-24 14.47, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>> In article<4ea54452...@news.optusnet.com.au>,
>>> para...@hotmail.com (paramucho) writes:
>>>>
>>>> That's great news and great work--I've scoured the web a number of
>>>> times looking for for anything on CAPS-11--it's been the "missing
>>>> link" of DEC PDP-11 operating systems.
>>>>
>>>
>>> And all this time I thought that was IAS!! Anybody know where to find
>>> a copy of that capable of being run on PDP-11 hardware? :-)
>>
>> If you find a copy, I'm sure it will be capable of running on PDP-11
>> hardware ;-)
>>
>> As for the CAPS-11 work. Excellent! Really good work! (Who know where a
>> TU60 lies, but don't know where to find a controller...)
>
> I just looked thru my recently re-opened stash and the strangest one
> I found was a TK-25 controller. Now if I only had a TK-25. :-)
>
> And while I am at it, anybody got an old DEC Card Reader or an OPSCAN20
> sitting around that they want to get rid of? :-)
>
> And, just out of curiosity, I have seen card readers mentioned and paper
> tape reader and punch, but I have never seen mention of a DEC Card Punch.
> Was there such a beast?

I don't think so.

Johnny

[Jerome H. Fine]

>Bill Gunshannon wrote:

>I just looked thru my recently re-opened stash and the strangest one
>I found was a TK-25 controller. Now if I only had a TK-25. :-)
>

I used to use the TK25 as my primary backup about 15 years
ago - before I switched to the TK70. That was when I did all
my development on an actual DEC system. I am not sure if the
TK25 is still working. I will check it out next time I have the
opportunity.

Do you want the TK25 just to see if it works or do you have
some media that you want to read? Which operating system
will you be using - RSX?

Of course, if you want a really slow media, the TU-58 is great!!

I did attempt to use the TK50, but the verify cycle took so long
that it was useless to rely on the TK50. When I managed to
acquire a TK70, I bulk erased some of the TK50 media and
used them in the TK70 without difficulty. However, recently,
I attempted to use the TK70 in a PDP-11/23 system. DO
NOT attempt that exercise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You will probably
end up trashing your TK70 media. However, even though
the TK70 is not supported by the PDP-11/73 as far as DEC
is concerned, under RT-11 I have always found it to be
completely reliable - as well as quite efficient - the verify
cycle (read the file back and compare it with the original
device) under BUP is just as fast as the original write of
the device.

Jerome Fine

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <4ea6b8fe$0$281$1472...@news.sunsite.dk>,

"Jerome H. Fine" <ever...@nospam.com> writes:
> >Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>
>>I just looked thru my recently re-opened stash and the strangest one
>>I found was a TK-25 controller. Now if I only had a TK-25. :-)
>>
> I used to use the TK25 as my primary backup about 15 years
> ago - before I switched to the TK70. That was when I did all
> my development on an actual DEC system. I am not sure if the
> TK25 is still working. I will check it out next time I have the
> opportunity.
>
> Do you want the TK25 just to see if it works or do you have
> some media that you want to read?

NOthing I have to read now, but if it uses the same QIC tapes that
Sun's 1/4" did I have lots of scratch media. :-)

> Which operating system
> will you be using - RSX?

Most likely BSD unless we eventually see the long awaited "hobbyist"
license. (No, I am not holding my breath!!)

>
> Of course, if you want a really slow media, the TU-58 is great!!

Still have one double TU80 drive. Would have to tear it apart and
check it out before using it though. I seem to remember the rubber
pich wheels turning to gum with age. I have a bunch of tapes. But
I would probably see if someone wanted them for their content before
trashing them. I imagine I could find someone who had old tapes they
were willing to get rid of.

>
> I did attempt to use the TK50, but the verify cycle took so long
> that it was useless to rely on the TK50. When I managed to
> acquire a TK70, I bulk erased some of the TK50 media and
> used them in the TK70 without difficulty. However, recently,
> I attempted to use the TK70 in a PDP-11/23 system. DO
> NOT attempt that exercise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You will probably
> end up trashing your TK70 media. However, even though
> the TK70 is not supported by the PDP-11/73 as far as DEC
> is concerned, under RT-11 I have always found it to be
> completely reliable - as well as quite efficient - the verify
> cycle (read the file back and compare it with the original
> device) under BUP is just as fast as the original write of
> the device.

I have maybe a dozen TK50's but don't know if any of them would
be working at this point. Another retirement project now that I
have free time.

Sure wish whoever actually owned it now would release all the old
PDP-11 OSes under something usable, like a BSD-style License or
even the Gnu Public Virus. I would still like to do some playing
with the sources and I actually have the time now. But I expect
they will go the same way Primos did.... :-(

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2011-10-25 16.28, Jerome H. Fine wrote:
> I did attempt to use the TK50, but the verify cycle took so long
> that it was useless to rely on the TK50. When I managed to
> acquire a TK70, I bulk erased some of the TK50 media and
> used them in the TK70 without difficulty. However, recently,
> I attempted to use the TK70 in a PDP-11/23 system. DO
> NOT attempt that exercise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You will probably
> end up trashing your TK70 media. However, even though
> the TK70 is not supported by the PDP-11/73 as far as DEC
> is concerned, under RT-11 I have always found it to be
> completely reliable - as well as quite efficient - the verify
> cycle (read the file back and compare it with the original
> device) under BUP is just as fast as the original write of
> the device.

Hmm. I fail to see why a TK70 wouldn't work in an 11/23. And DEC did
support the TK70 on 11/73, as far as DEC was concerned. Both RSX and
RSTS/E supports it atleast. Can't really speak for RT-11 (as usual).

Johnny

[Rob Brown]

On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 at 15:40 +0200, Johnny Billquist wrote:

> And DEC did support the TK70 on 11/73, as far as DEC was concerned.

> Both RSX and RSTS/E supports it at least. Can't really speak for
> RT-11 (as usual).

I don't know about this. I just checked my collection of SPDs:

RT-11 versions 5.4D and 5.6
RSTS/E versions 9.5 and 10.1
Micro/RSX versions 4.0 and 4.5
RSX-11M versions 3.2, 4.1, 4.3, 4.7, and 4.8
RSX-11M-Plus versions 4.0 through 4.6

TK70 is not mentioned in any of them.

Of course as we all know, "not supported" <> "won't work". And I too
have spoken with people who were using TK70s on DEC PDP-11 OSes.

- Rob


--

Rob Brown b r o w n a t g m c l d o t c o m
G. Michaels Consulting Ltd. (780)438-9343 (voice)
Edmonton (780)437-3367 (FAX)
http://gmcl.com/

[Rob Brown]

On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 at 15:40 +0200, Johnny Billquist wrote:

> On 2011-10-25 16.28, Jerome H. Fine wrote:
>> I attempted to use the TK70 in a PDP-11/23 system. DO
>> NOT attempt that exercise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You will probably
>> end up trashing your TK70 media.

> Hmm. I fail to see why a TK70 wouldn't work in an 11/23.

Maybe an 11/23 is so slow that it cannot keep the device streaming and
it just has to keep running the tape back and forth. That might be a
definition of "trashing" your tape.

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2011-10-25 17.54, Rob Brown wrote:
>
> On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 at 15:40 +0200, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>
>> And DEC did support the TK70 on 11/73, as far as DEC was concerned.
>> Both RSX and RSTS/E supports it at least. Can't really speak for RT-11
>> (as usual).
>
> I don't know about this. I just checked my collection of SPDs:
>
> RT-11 versions 5.4D and 5.6
> RSTS/E versions 9.5 and 10.1
> Micro/RSX versions 4.0 and 4.5
> RSX-11M versions 3.2, 4.1, 4.3, 4.7, and 4.8
> RSX-11M-Plus versions 4.0 through 4.6
>
> TK70 is not mentioned in any of them.
>
> Of course as we all know, "not supported" <> "won't work". And I too
> have spoken with people who were using TK70s on DEC PDP-11 OSes.

Ouch! You are right. The SPDs don't seem to mention the TK70. I remember
very well some specifics on how RSTS/E check for TK70 during
installation, though. That should be easy to find by just googling for it.

As for RSX, things like the error logger definitely handles the TK70
(See LB:[104,10]ETK70.CNF)

But it appears that DEC/Mentec never officially said TK70. Oh well. I
should have checked, and not just inferred from the behavior and code.

As for actually working, yes. The TK70 works the same way as the TK50.
So if you support one, the other will work too. You can even use a TK50
drive on a TK70 controller, which is advantegous since the TQK70 is
better/faster than the TQK50. And then, of course, TK70 drives can also
read TK50 media.

Johnny

[Jerome H. Fine]

>Bill Gunshannon wrote:

>NOthing I have to read now, but if it uses the same QIC tapes that
>Sun's 1/4" did I have lots of scratch media. :-)
>
>

Most TK25 tapes are DC600A, no more or less! A few others may also be OK,
but those are the usual requirement.

Jerome Fine

[Scott Dorsey]

However, if you have old ones.... beware because a lot of them have belts
that have failed.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Jerome H. Fine]

>Johnny Billquist wrote:

> Hmm. I fail to see why a TK70 wouldn't work in an 11/23. And DEC did
> support the TK70 on 11/73, as far as DEC was concerned. Both RSX and
> RSTS/E supports it atleast. Can't really speak for RT-11 (as usual).

The TK70 is not supported by any of the PDP-11 operating systems.

Of course, they do work VERY well with the PDP-11/73, at least
from my experience using RT-11.

BUT, on the PDP-11/23, always missing the streaming window
results in such an excessive number of rewinds that the tape
starts to wrap around itself and I found I very quickly trashed
any that were used beyond initialization.

Jerome Fine

[Jerome H. Fine]

>Rob Brown wrote:

> I don't know about this. I just checked my collection of SPDs:
>
> RT-11 versions 5.4D and 5.6
> RSTS/E versions 9.5 and 10.1
> Micro/RSX versions 4.0 and 4.5
> RSX-11M versions 3.2, 4.1, 4.3, 4.7, and 4.8
> RSX-11M-Plus versions 4.0 through 4.6
>
> TK70 is not mentioned in any of them.
>
> Of course as we all know, "not supported" <> "won't work". And I too
> have spoken with people who were using TK70s on DEC PDP-11 OSes.

Just don't use the TK70 with a PDP-11/23 system. I have found
the TK70 to work VERY well on a PDP-11/73 using RT-11.

Se my next reply for more details.

Jerome Fine

[Jerome H. Fine]

>Rob Brown wrote:

> >On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 at 15:40 +0200, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>
>> >On 2011-10-25 16.28, Jerome H. Fine wrote:
>>
>>> I attempted to use the TK70 in a PDP-11/23 system. DO
>>> NOT attempt that exercise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You will probably
>>> end up trashing your TK70 media.
>>
>> Hmm. I fail to see why a TK70 wouldn't work in an 11/23.
>
> Maybe an 11/23 is so slow that it cannot keep the device streaming and
> it just has to keep running the tape back and forth. That might be a
> definition of "trashing" your tape.

That is what I found by sad experience. The tape quickly ended up
wrapped around itself on the take up reel so that it was just not worth
the effort to recover it. I might have been able to, but not in less than
a couple of hours - and even then, I would have suspected the tape
of having faults. This happened not once, but several times after
I made a few more attempts.

Back on the PDP-11/73, the same TK70 worked again without a
problem.

So I suspect that DEC figured it was not worth the difficulty to
explain why the TK70 was supported on a PDP-11/73, but not
on a PDP-11/23.

Jerome Fine

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <4ea75929$0$294$1472...@news.sunsite.dk>,

"Jerome H. Fine" <ever...@nospam.com> writes:

Got boxes of them. :-)

[Jerome H. Fine]

If you do attempt to use the TK70 on a PDP-11/23 and you have a
result to share with us, please let us know. I just suggest that if it
does not work the first time that you should be prepared to trash
as many tapes as you are prepared to test.

The TK70 always worked with my PDP-11/73 and PDP-11/83
systems without any problems. The streaming function was especially
useful even when verifying a device (required a compare of the memory
while the next buffer was being read). That allowed the verify process
to be as fast as the original writing of the device. I think that I found
that it took about 7 minutes each to write or verify a 32 MB RT-11
device.

The TK70 tape media holds about 256 MB or 8 RT-11 devices. In
addition, I always found that a degauss followed by TK70 initialization
worked on all of my (originally) TK50 tape media. Since I make it
a practice to always VERIFY every tape I write, my level of confidence
was always very high. Out of every 500 tapes I wrote on a TK70 drive,
perhaps one might have been bad in a block or two.

Jerome Fine

[Wolfgang]

There was indeed a basic version for caps-11. Even some laboratory software should exist - as far as the 1979 DEC software-catalog is listing. I have no clue if DEC sold many of these systems.

[paramucho]

On Wed, 26 Oct 2011 23:19:52 -0700 (PDT), Wolfgang <oe5...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>There was indeed a basic version for caps-11. Even some laboratory software should exist - as far as the 1979 DEC software-catalog is listing. I have no clue if DEC sold many of these systems.

There was a CAPS-11 site just up the road from the physics department
where I did some of my earliest programming. The person concerned came
over to ask me if I could port some system software to CAPS, or
something like that (this is 40 years ago!). I have the feeling that
they were using BASIC.

That was the only CAPS-11 installation I ever heard of, but they
seemed to get getting their work done.


Ian

[Lee K. Gleason]

"paramucho" <para...@hotmail.com> wrote in message > >And all this time I

thought that was IAS!! Anybody know where to find
> >a copy of that capable of being run on PDP-11 hardware? :-)
>
> I didn't know it was missing! I've had this V3.0 magtape distribution
> sitting a directory for a while now:
>
> http://pdp-11.org.ru/files/rsx-11/ias30sys.zip
>

Anyone stumbled across any later versions of IAS, or any copies of
Decnet-IAS? IAS really improved a lot with version 3.2.


--
Lee K. Gleason N5ZMR
Contrpl-G Consultants
lee.g...@comcast.net

[paramucho]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 08:46:50 -0500, "Lee K. Gleason"
<lee.g...@comcast.net> wrote:

>
>"paramucho" <para...@hotmail.com> wrote in message > >And all this time I
>thought that was IAS!! Anybody know where to find
>> >a copy of that capable of being run on PDP-11 hardware? :-)
>>
>> I didn't know it was missing! I've had this V3.0 magtape distribution
>> sitting a directory for a while now:
>>
>> http://pdp-11.org.ru/files/rsx-11/ias30sys.zip
>>
>
> Anyone stumbled across any later versions of IAS, or any copies of
>Decnet-IAS? IAS really improved a lot with version 3.2.

I think that's all we have so far. Britain used to be full of IAS
systems (well, that was my impression). I'm sure there are still some
kits languishing in sheds and garages.

Talking about missing systems, what about MicroPowerPascal?

Having written that, something stirred in my memory and I went out and
located my own boxes of floppies and found a half dozen or so 8"
floppies labeled "MPP", some number 1-5 through to 5-5. Customers
would sometimes send me kits of this or that for debug purposes, and
Micropower Pascal was one such (they were in a floppy box which also
had "Parallel Pascal" stuff).

Knowing how complete the MPP system is and whether the floppies are
still readable will have wait for a few weeks though.





Ian

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <4eabac2b...@news.optusnet.com.au>,

Well, if it comes down to needing hardware to read 8" disks, I have
a number of systems that can do it. I have RX02 on a real PDP-11
and Terak 8" drives on a Terak. I haven't tried it lately, but I
also have a few of D-Bit's 8" floppy adapters so I might be able
to read them using a PC as well.

[John Wallace]

On Oct 28, 2:02 pm, paramu...@hotmail.com (paramucho) wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 08:46:50 -0500, "Lee K. Gleason"
>

> <lee.glea...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> >"paramucho" <paramu...@hotmail.com> wrote in message > >And all this time I

Britain may well have been one of the territories where IAS got closer
to the visibility it deserved, but there were still a *lot* more
systems with RSX11M, with their techies seemingly always rumbling on
at DECUS events about the nightmare called SYSGEN.

Thirty or so years ago when my then employer (in south Birmingham) was
looking to upgrade from an 11/40 (with 11D not 11M) to an 11/70 with
IAS 3(.1?), they had to go all the way to Derby (fifty whole miles) to
find another IAS user willing to be visited. And it wasn't the well
known Derby company, iirc it was a print+publishing (calendars etc)
outfit whose name I cannot recall.

Afaik the relevant media are long gone from there.

Presumably everyone's seen http://www.john-a-harper.com/ias.html

[paramucho]

On 28 Oct 2011 14:21:35 GMT, bill...@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon)
wrote:

Many thanks, but I have some 8" drives courtesy of Andy Stewart. I
just need to be in the right location to do the job.


Ian

[paramucho]

On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 14:02:17 GMT, para...@hotmail.com (paramucho)
wrote:

Three weeks turned into three months, but tonight I recovered the five
Micropower Pascal RX02 floppies with only one transfer error in a
relatively non-essential file. There's a lot of files there including
command files to build a kernel etc. I've also located some of the
documentation on the web.

If anyone is interested in a copy then let me know here or at
paramucho @ hotmail dot com.

Ian

[Joseph Ambrose]

Lou,

Thank you very much for bringing back a host of many memories.(pun intended)
I did an independant study for my BA in CS waaaay back in 1979 on a PDP11/10 with CAPS-11.

I think i still have the faded TTY listings somewhere......

Joe Ambrose


On Sunday, October 23, 2011 12:16:25 PM UTC-4, Lou wrote:
> Folks,
>
> Last night we finally got CAPS-11 running on our 11/04 with TA11/
> TU60. Jack R. was given a set of original DEC CAPS-11 cassettes during
> one of his recent expeditions. These included bootable cassettes,
> object files, and all the sources. He mailed them to me, and I was
> able to recover the contents of these original 37 year old tapes on my
> TU60.
>
> To actually run CAPS-11, the SPD (on bitsavers) says that one
> needs a programmer's console. Since my 11/04 only has the operator's
> console (that I wirewrapped for it), I had to also build a switch
> register, which I finished yesterday, basically the logic from M105
> plus four bus drivers). Indeed the secondary loader examines the
> switch register.
>
> CAPS-11 is quite small. It has PIP, PAL, ODT, and a text editor.
> There must be a way to comple basic-11 to also run under CAPS-11, but
> I haven't worked on that yet.
>
> Since I have the CT: handler working properly under RT-11V4, I
> was able to copy off the tape contents to RL02, and then copy them out
> to the PC. I am also able to create new bootable cassettes.
>
> Today I intend to clean up and organize the files, by cassette,
> and send copies to Jack, Al, Bob S. and Wolfgang, who would all
> usually be intersted in such things.
>
> We also have TADP.
>
> The manuals for CAPS-11 are still to be found. If anyone has them
> on their shelves, please let me know.
>
> Lou
>
> PS. Before I actually had the tapes and knew they were readable, I did
> some work trying to recover TU60 cassettes on an audiocassette deck
> (with CAPS-8 tapes). Indeed this can be done. I digitized the playback
> audio from a good quality home stereo cassette deck with a PC.
> Converting the digitized audio into a raw file, I was able to make
> excel spreadsheets (from information in the TU60 and CAPS-8 manuals)
> to digest header blocks and data blocks, recover the data, and
> calculate and verifying the TU60 checksum (the checksum calculated,
> written, and verified by the TU60's own formatter). These spreadsheets
> only analyze one block at a time, since I did not bother to automate
> the process further once I could read Jack's tapes on my TU60. It
> should be noted that CAPS-8 and CAPS-11 block formats are the same.
>
> PPS. It's almost five years ago that I posted on alt.sys.pdp8 that I
> had gotten CAPS-8 running (on this very same TU60).