build-tenex → getting to a login? (DLUSER CRDIR + MINI-DUMPER)

[Kurt Hamm]

Hi Lars — first, thank you for build-tenex; I've gotten it booting SUMEX-AIM TENEX 1.31.82 / EXEC 1.51 reliably on Cornwell's pdp10-ki (SYSLOD init → mini-exec → EXEC.SAV installed and running). I'm trying to take it the last step to an actual interactive login, and I've hit the two issues your README lists as unsolved. Hoping you can point me the right way.

  1. DLUSER can't create directories. With your install/boot/users.txt, every account fails:
  ? CAN'T CREATE USER PMFDIR0 AS DIRECTORY NUMBER 2, CONTINUING... (same for SUBSYS/3, OPERATOR/4).

  Things I've tried/found:
  - Fails identically for higher dir numbers (e.g. #6=20/21/22), so it doesn't look like a simple number collision.
  - Fails the same whether DLUSER is RUN from the enabled full EXEC (after ENABLE) or from the mini-exec.
  - Tracing the monitor (jsys.mac): CRDIR → MAKNFD; with #6 set it takes the explicit-number path (FNN01); there's also the WHEEL/OPR-enabled gate at CRDIRA. My guess is the DLUSER fork isn't running with WHEEL enabled — but I can't confirm which gate it dies at.

  Did you ever get DLUSER to create accounts? Is there a known-good users.txt or a particular way to run it? And do the committed media/tenex*.rp03 images boot to a usable EXEC with working login accounts, or are they pre-install?

  2. MINI-DUMPER won't LOAD real tapes. Using the on-disk DUMPER.SAV (identifies as "MINI-DUMPER 13 APRIL 71") to LOAD a real Stanford IMSSS DUMPER tape (PDP-10/imsss), CHECK lists every file fine, but LOAD restores nothing — blank saveset name, immediate "MOUNT NEXT TAPE… N", DONE, no directories created. Is there a working path to restore real DUMPER savesets into TENEX, or is host-side extraction the only route?

  What's the intended path from build-tenex to a logged-in TENEX? Happy to share full transcripts. Thanks!

[Lars Brinkhoff]

Hi Lars — first, thank you for build-tenex; I've gotten it booting SUMEX-AIM TENEX 1.31.82 / EXEC 1.51 reliably on Cornwell's pdp10-ki (SYSLOD init → mini-exec → EXEC.SAV installed and running). I'm trying to take it the last step to an actual interactive login, and I've hit the two issues your README lists as unsolved. Hoping you can point me the right way.

Sorry, I can't.  This is were I hit a road block, and it was never resolved.  It was a while back now, and I no longer remember the details.  But there seemed to be a problem writing to disk.  As far as I could see, some data never made it to the disk.  You are asking the right questions, but they have no answers.  There still is no path to a working TENEX system.