Univac 1108 software

[Paul Kimpel]

I have a friend who is interested in writing an emulator for the Univac
1108. The question, of course, is what to use for software. Does anyone
know of an archive of source or object for that machine (other than Les
Leist's collection, which is for the 2200)? I suppose it's too much to
expect a copy of Exec 8. Thanks.
--
Paul

[inter...@gmx.net]

I seem to remember that your background is more from the Burroughs side than the Sperry Univac side so bear with me if this is something you know:
The 2200 series was the successor of 1100 series. Differences were:
- The 1108 had one Ibank and one Dbank while later machines allowed two of each to be addressed (special rules for overlapping banks). This mostly affected @map.
- Some ERs were dropped, a large number of new ones were introduced / expanded.
- Extended Mode was introduced long after the 1108 expired.

Most of this stuff affected system programs, user programs which could run on an 1108 would probably run on any 2200 unchanged.

What is the point of adding an emulator for the 1108 when the emulator for the 2200 can handle most 1108 programs?

[Paul Kimpel]

Thanks for the information -- I'll pass this along to my friend. Indeed
I am a Burroughs guy, and am just a messenger in this case.

As to why write an emulator for the 1108, well, why restore a '57 Chevy
when you can drive anywhere you need in a Malibu? Same reasons. Having
done three emulators now, I can say that such projects are their own reward.

Paul

[kgx...@yahoo.com]

I am also looking for Univac 1108 software. I want to add an emulator for it to SimH. I do have a lead on some, however I don't have any clue what versions it might be or when (if ever) I will see it.

Rich

[kgx...@yahoo.com]

On Monday, February 11, 2019 at 3:14:32 PM UTC-5, Paul Kimpel wrote:

Having written close to 10 emulators I can attest to the fact that it is very rewarding to see a old OS boot up on your emulator. It is also a very good way of verifying you have a complete set of software.

Rich

[Stephen Fuld]

Pretty much. As long as the program didn't use the relatively obscure
ERs that were dropped (IIRC, the block buffering stuff and the reentrant
processor stuff). If you only have the absolute, there is some program
that updates the format of very old absolutes to the current format.
But the vast majority of user programs will run just fine - and a lot
faster! :-)

> What is the point of adding an emulator for the 1108 when the emulator for the 2200 can handle most 1108 programs?

Yes. I'm not sure why Paul would want to do this. If he just wants to
run 1100/2200 software, or learn the system, there is already the free
for the download (though free registration is required), OS2200 Express
from Unisys. This includes a bootable OS of a quite recent version (no
symbolics though.)

If he wants to do this just for the programming challenge, it is a non
trivial project, but he would learn a lot. It will be hard to get an
OS. The last freely available, i.e. non copyrighted version was IIRV
level 33. Good luck finding that. :-( The current versions don't
support the 1108 anymore, and haven't since IIRC level 36 or so.


--
- Stephen Fuld
(e-mail address disguised to prevent spam)

[Steve J. Martin]

FWIW, I applaud anyone who wants to write an emulator for an old (or current) machine. It provides a programming challenge, an opportunity for personal or professional growth, and the successful result is a living historical example of pioneering technology.

Paul's analogy to rebuilding a '57 Chevy is apt. The mountaineers' "because it's there" also applies. Meeting a difficult challenge can be its own reward.

Cheers,
Steve J. Martin

[sboy...@gmail.com]

Paul;

Did you and/or your friend ever get anywhere with this project. I have a collection of emulators for old Univac hardware (https://sites.google.com/view/univacemulators/home) some that I have written and some not. It would be nice to be able to add an 1108 to the list.

Steve

[Andrew]

You bcc'd me on that posting, I ain't Paul.
I note that you have "dont-email.me" as part of your ID, maybe ...

[Andrew]

My bad - that was Google Groups mailing me, sorry. There are reasons I
no longer use GG.

[Paul Kimpel]

No, as far as I know that project hasn't gone anywhere.

Paul

[sboy...@gmail.com]

On Thursday, November 12, 2020 at 9:29:17 AM UTC-5, Paul Kimpel wrote:
> No, as far as I know that project hasn't gone anywhere.
>
> Paul

Too bad. I was hoping that someone had found a copy of Exec 8 at least.

[kgx...@yahoo.com]

I am also looking for Exec 8 software. My potential source seems to have dried up. If something is found I will add a 1108 emulator to SimH.

Rich

[Stephen Fuld]

I think a lot depends upon exactly what you want. Specifically, do you
want HW compatibility with the Exec Mode instructions, or is it
sufficient that the emulator provides a current level Exec with the
ability to run essentially all applications software from the 1108 days,
i.e. user mode instructions?

If the latter, then PS/2200 is certainly sufficient and is available for
free (with registration) from Unisys. It includes a full current
release, including Exec, compilers, utilities, etc. (note, no source code)

If you want an Exec from back in the day that 1108 hardware was
supported, so your program could emulate the Exec instructions and boot
the Exec, I expect the odds are pretty slim. Exec went proprietary with
IIRC level 33, about the mid 1970s, so to be legal, you want a level
before that. In addition, Exec dropped support for the 1108 hardware
effective, again IIRC, level 36 (1980s?).

Also, note that you would probably need the source, unless you plan to
support the exact peripheral configuration of some boot tape you find.
And then you need the Asembler, MAP, SSG, etc. to be able to do a sysgen.

All in all,I would rate your chances of finding the source for a
pre-level 33 Exec, and all the supporting software as almost nil.

[sboy...@gmail.com]

On Thursday, November 12, 2020 at 9:26:52 PM UTC-5, Stephen Fuld wrote:
> I think a lot depends upon exactly what you want. Specifically, do you
> want HW compatibility with the Exec Mode instructions, or is it
> sufficient that the emulator provides a current level Exec with the
> ability to run essentially all applications software from the 1108 days,
> i.e. user mode instructions?
>
> If the latter, then PS/2200 is certainly sufficient and is available for
> free (with registration) from Unisys. It includes a full current
> release, including Exec, compilers, utilities, etc. (note, no source code)
>

The point is not to have a modern 2200 on a desktop but to recreate an historical processor. Besides just being historically interesting, they were simple enough that any decent programmer could write code directly on the iron. So if we were to emulate an 1108 (or 1107 or 1110) it would be possible for people to either run OLD Exec-8 or write their own programs to run directly on the iron. Something you can't do with PS/2200. Which I have on my desktop right now BTW. Having to renew the license for that annually is a bit of a PITA.

PS/2200 would be good for running some of the old NASA software that is kicking around. But unless you are a rocket scientist that stuff is of limited usefulness. Or interest (at least to me personally).

I realize that the odds of finding an old Exec-8 boot tape or install tape lying around is not good but stranger things have happened. Even if we find one, getting it off of old 7-track tapes is going to be problematical.

I remember doing 1100 sysgens back in the day. They were a long tedious process.

Steve Boyd

[Bill Gunshannon]

I would love to see an 1110 emulator in SIMH. I have PS/2200
at home and enjoy it, but working with EXEC/8 on an 1100 again
would be more fun.

Has anyone ever approached UNISYS to see if there was a chance
they might release software to run on such an emulator? I can't
see where there would be any risk of lost business in doing it
and they could always accompany it with a hobbyist or historical
license to limit uses just to keep the lawyers happy.

bill

[sboy...@gmail.com]

I contacted Unisys several years ago when I was writing the 9200/9300 emulator to see if they had any documents or software for that system. They were quite good about answering my emails but ultimately unhelpful. They don't seem to have much in the way of archives. Or at least the person I was corresponding with didn't know much about them.

The easiest way of recreating an 1108 or similar might be to just write an emulator and reverse engineer a minimalist Exec-8 to run on it. The old Exec-8 manuals are available.

This is essentially what I did for the 494 emulator that I wrote. It turns out that writing a minimalist multi-tasking, multi-job operating system is not all that difficult. At least no more difficult than writing the emulator.

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 11/13/20 2:12 PM, sboy...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Friday, November 13, 2020 at 12:36:45 PM UTC-5, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> I would love to see an 1110 emulator in SIMH. I have PS/2200
>> at home and enjoy it, but working with EXEC/8 on an 1100 again
>> would be more fun.
>>
>> Has anyone ever approached UNISYS to see if there was a chance
>> they might release software to run on such an emulator? I can't
>> see where there would be any risk of lost business in doing it
>> and they could always accompany it with a hobbyist or historical
>> license to limit uses just to keep the lawyers happy.
>>
>> bill
>
> I contacted Unisys several years ago when I was writing the 9200/9300 emulator to see if they had any documents or software for that system. They were quite good about answering my emails but ultimately unhelpful. They don't seem to have much in the way of archives. Or at least the person I was corresponding with didn't know much about them.

Would still be worth trying to get some form of license from them
because even if you found a tape using it without permission would
be problematic. Anybody ever talked to U Wisconsin about possibly
having something hanging around? They used to be a big UNIVAC site.
USMA at West Point was, too, but while it is very likely they do
have stuff stored (or archived somewhere) it is probably impossible
to get them to release it, especially without UNIVAC permission.

>
> The easiest way of recreating an 1108 or similar might be to just write an emulator and reverse engineer a minimalist Exec-8 to run on it. The old Exec-8 manuals are available.

That is always possible.

>
> This is essentially what I did for the 494 emulator that I wrote. It turns out that writing a minimalist multi-tasking, multi-job operating system is not all that difficult. At least no more difficult than writing the emulator.
>

bill

[kgx...@yahoo.com]

On Thursday, November 12, 2020 at 9:26:52 PM UTC-5, Stephen Fuld wrote:

I myself am more interested in early timesharing and batch systems. PS/2200 is nice, but it is not the same as Exec 8 or the like. In terms of writing an emulator without an operating system, it is very hard to get it correct. I have considered re-writing Exec-8 too, however there is no way with this method to verify that the emulator is correct. It also seems like a huge amount of work just to recreate an experience (not the doing an emulator is easy :-). I have done some stand alone assemblers for a couple older machines, where software was not available.

Rich

[William Lyerly]

I attended the University of Maryland - College Park from 1967 - 1971. I lived in the Cambridge-A dorm for 25 years which was across the street from the Computer Science Center. Spent a lot of time on TTY-35s. Worked for High Energy Physics during the school year which provided an unfettered user account. UOM lore is documented elsewhere.. I later spent 2 years at ITTR-ECAC (Annapolis) and Sperry Univac (Washington DC). There was a lot of swapping around of Exec8 Code at the UOM CS Center among UOM, U.S. Navy, Univac, ITTRI, etc. For example, the UOM distribution tape was used at ECAC. While at Univac I used shared code (Core-to-Core ERs) to migrate the U1557/U1558 at the U.S. Army's Concept Analysis Center. One of the big reasons this swap fest went on was these people were charged with doing secure operating system or other similar work. There was no pathway with IBM HW/SW - but Univac...

Now the meat. Half the of the Cambridge A dorm were Physics majors and many of them worked for the Physics Department thus obtaining unfettered accounts. Many were seduced by big iron and neglected their studies. I was one of those - but I managed to graduate. One very bright Cambridge-A fellow was Jeffrey Jewett - you can find him on Linked-In as Jeffrey Jewett
Systems Analyst at University of Maryland. Jeff really went down the Univac rabbit hole - and the University "kicked" him out. (I think Jeff and Brian K. Reid were Cambridge-A roommates or at least lived on the same floor. Brian was a CS superstar- check Wikipedia.) Anyway, from what I remember UOM's Administration picked up an U1106 and Jeff found a long, long term home. I would not be surprised if Jeff might not have a slant on certain interesting magnetic media. If you contact him and need to contextualize me - I lived on the Cambridge-A 4th floor and my roommate was Russ Reid - Brian Reid's brother.

Good luck in your navigating.

William (aka Marc) Lyerly