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The contents of the RSTS-11 page were merged into RSTS/E on January 4 2008. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected page, please see its history; for the discussion at that location, see its talk page. |
Should RSTS-11 be a separate article? I'm not sure. The RSTS/E article basically describes the final version of the OS, while the RSTS-11 article describes V4A. The path from one to the other is really just the usual software product evolution. There was a name change from V4 to V5, and a major added feature (extended memory support). But there were other releases with new features of similar magnitude.
I would suggest merging RSTS-11 back into this article by discussing the history of RSTS.
Some points on history:
and so on...
Paul Koning 14:33, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Should RSTS-11 be a separate article? I'm not sure either. Seems a bit redundant, and I did it.
Call me a bit nit picky but our college went from V4A to V8-06 and the "usual software product evolution" in RSTS/E was MILES ahead of what we had before. I guess I think having an article that "describes the final version of the OS", would be like having an article about US Presidents and just give information about George Bush (there were presidents before, but of no significance).
I agree with Paul, that RSTS-11 and RSTS/E should be one (1) article with a better history line...and maybe a nice page design like Megan's RT-11...and how about we put Spike up in the corner? Paul...can you think of any special RSTS contributor's that could be mentioned (YES, include yourself)? Sorry that I opened a can of worms, but I didn't know that there were STILL RSTS guru's out there.
Additional points of history that could be mentioned:
and so on...and so on...
Bbump 19:07, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
I think the merge is a good idea also. (though my name is anonymous here, you can find my initials in common.mac from v7.0 on -- SJK) Vantelimus 18:13, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Bbump ( talk) 04:42, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I am a little confused by the information in Peter's article concerning the 1975 release of RSTS/E Version 6A-02. It's clear the 11/70 will address 4MB of memory (or more appropriately 2MW). My confusion stems from his comment that "maximum memory on the 11/70 was now 2M bytes." This would lead me to believe that there was an "as yet" unresolved problem with the memory management code (ability to address 21 of 22bits), that Peter actually meant 2M words instead of 2M bytes, or that somewhere along the road (editing), communication was lost. Without having access to any RSTS/E version prior to V7.0 (that I can get working), I can not test this information to resolve this adequately (thus, it remains a debate). I am unsure if the 6A-02 Version section should be posted as 21 bit instead of 22 bit (sorry, there never was a 21 bit PDP-11). Left as 22 bit, obviously someone will come along and correct our 2MB statement. If Peter's article is wrong and 6A-02 (on an 11/70) will actually run 4MB of memory, then the 1978 section becomes redundant (please edit accordingly). Bbump ( talk) 14:45, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
It might be worth mentioning that when installing or upgrading RSTS (i.e. during SYSGEN), during the configuration process it was necessary to edit several configuration files. At that point the half-installed OS was unable to load any normal program; TECO was the only editor that could be run. At the same time, TECO was always officially "unsupported" by DEC, although at various points in the voluminous system documentation one would find little footprints -- a file open mode, say, or a bit in the keyboard status word -- marked "Reserved for TECO". This was also true of RSX. So DEC's premier operating systems in the 1970s could not be installed on DEC hardware without an "unsupported" chunk of code... -- Craig Goodrich 206.39.12.241 ( talk) 17:31, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Because it might be misleading, the text talking about Mentec issuing a no cost hobbyist license should probably be removed because it is still being actively pursued in an official fashion. It was actually DEC who granted this to Bob Supnik and only for use on emulation products, not on a general scale like the article would suggest. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.107.133.124 ( talk) 19:33, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
This is incorrect. There is a license text Mentec released, which basically said that anyone running any of DEC's software that was sold to Mentec, if they were using it for personal, non-commercial use, were allowed to do so. It was not specifically a license to Bob, nor did it even mention the emulator. You were on your own as far as getting copies of any of the software. I know the license was for anyone because I saw it and read it once when looking at some of the PDP-11 stuff. Paul Robinson (Rfc1394) ( talk) 14:06, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
I recall some serious security issues with this; programmers from user accounts in BASIC were able to get superuser privileges. I'd love to see a section here about these early hacks, but don't have any authoritative references. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.234.189.161 ( talk) 20:52, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
If my memory serves me correctly, the original author of BASIC Plus was Mark Bramhall, who, allegedly, wrote the first version during a transatlantic flight... I still have a whole bunch of tapes of this stuff, including, I believe, some source code. I do recall using the DECOMP package that Dave Garrod & I wrote to decompile most of the RSTS utilities. As you might have guessed, the DECOMP package would not decompile itself ;-) We sold a separate utility that would make BAC files undecompilable... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nickds1 ( talk • contribs) 09:36, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
I remember someone figured a way to patch a BAC file to change the running name of a program, a guy was using (what we would now call) a hex editor on a Basic-Plus program (since the PDP-11 was octal, it was probably either an octal editor or decimal byte editor) so that if you did a control-T for the terminal running it, or a SYSTAT elsewhere, instead of the program being "MYPROG" it would show up as "..OHNO". Paul Robinson (Rfc1394) ( talk) 14:28, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
Actually, this is a very easy process to do from within a BASIC program, compiled under BP2. I outlined this procedure in the October 1988 DECUS Newsletter. Once compiled, changing your current running program can be done very easily at any point by loading SYSCOMMON with the name you want, and then making a system EMT call such as:
10 FOO$=SYS(CHR$(6%)+CHR$(-10%)+"FOOBAR") 20 CALL NAME
The NAME call will convert your 6 ASCII character program name into the correct RAD50 format which is loaded into the File Request Block (FIRQB). I'm hoping Paul will correct me if I am wrong, but I seem to recall that CORECOMMON and SYSCOMMON were the same reference, just newer terms (my own memory also being now more dynamic than CORE). Bbump ( talk) 15:27, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
In the article Symbolic Link it is mentioned that symbolic links were already present in 1978 minicomputer OSs from DEC. Since I knew RT-11 quite well I'm shure that RT-11 did not have smbolic links. I guess that it must have referred to RSTS. But also there I found only a kind of command aliases, which are far from symbolic links.
Is there anybody around who used RSTS and can confirm that symbolic links did not exits on a file system level in RSTS? Treutwein ( talk contribs) 08:20, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Hi, I'm reading the autobiography of Kevin Mitnick who, in his teenage years, became an expert of RSTS/E. In the book he states "RSTS/E (spoken as 'RIS-tisEE')". This pronunciation conflicts with the two we have in the lead sentence of the article. I am not familiar enough with the subject to change it. Could someone who knows a bit more about the subject confirm this and change it? -- Oldak Quill 18:26, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
An image used in this article, File:MicroPDP-11 53wRSTSDocs.jpg, has been nominated for speedy deletion for the following reason: Wikipedia files with no non-free use rationale as of 3 December 2011
Don't panic; you should have time to contest the deletion (although please review deletion guidelines before doing so). The best way to contest this form of deletion is by posting on the image talk page.
This notification is provided by a Bot -- CommonsNotificationBot ( talk) 10:05, 3 December 2011 (UTC) |
Sorry for not getting to this sooner. I would not have even noticed it today, had I not received an email from Wikipedia saying someone was trying to change my password (not me). It would appear that the robots are about to take down the photos I created ( File:MicroPDP-11 53wRSTSDocs.jpg and probably Example of a RSTS/E Document shelf). If anyone can come up with an excuse within the next 4 days as to why these should remain on the page (as non-free content), I would encourage them to go ahead and edit them. The photos were taken by me (me, myself and I, nobody else...metadata of the camera included in the files). At the time, I really did not know how to post them (is this free, non-free, pizza-fax?). DEC no longer exists. Three (3) of the four (4) books were created by DEC. The RSTS Professional was done by Professional Press (who no longer exists). Professional Press was sold about 3 different times, and when I contacted the REAL owners, they didn't know what it was. The tile floor and paint on the wall was purchased at Menard's and installed by my brother-in-law (is that a copyright issue?). Sorry if I sound sarcastic, but as I say, I really do not know how these should be categorized (I took photos of my bookshelf, books and a PDP-11/53...does it appear we are advertising soda pop?). As always, I encourage anyone to post something better if they have it. As for me, I have the originals of everything I wrote and files that I posted, so if the bots rule the world and take them down, at least I have my original copies. 00:48, 27 June 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bbump ( talk • contribs)
This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The contents of the RSTS-11 page were merged into RSTS/E on January 4 2008. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected page, please see its history; for the discussion at that location, see its talk page. |
Should RSTS-11 be a separate article? I'm not sure. The RSTS/E article basically describes the final version of the OS, while the RSTS-11 article describes V4A. The path from one to the other is really just the usual software product evolution. There was a name change from V4 to V5, and a major added feature (extended memory support). But there were other releases with new features of similar magnitude.
I would suggest merging RSTS-11 back into this article by discussing the history of RSTS.
Some points on history:
and so on...
Paul Koning 14:33, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Should RSTS-11 be a separate article? I'm not sure either. Seems a bit redundant, and I did it.
Call me a bit nit picky but our college went from V4A to V8-06 and the "usual software product evolution" in RSTS/E was MILES ahead of what we had before. I guess I think having an article that "describes the final version of the OS", would be like having an article about US Presidents and just give information about George Bush (there were presidents before, but of no significance).
I agree with Paul, that RSTS-11 and RSTS/E should be one (1) article with a better history line...and maybe a nice page design like Megan's RT-11...and how about we put Spike up in the corner? Paul...can you think of any special RSTS contributor's that could be mentioned (YES, include yourself)? Sorry that I opened a can of worms, but I didn't know that there were STILL RSTS guru's out there.
Additional points of history that could be mentioned:
and so on...and so on...
Bbump 19:07, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
I think the merge is a good idea also. (though my name is anonymous here, you can find my initials in common.mac from v7.0 on -- SJK) Vantelimus 18:13, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Bbump ( talk) 04:42, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I am a little confused by the information in Peter's article concerning the 1975 release of RSTS/E Version 6A-02. It's clear the 11/70 will address 4MB of memory (or more appropriately 2MW). My confusion stems from his comment that "maximum memory on the 11/70 was now 2M bytes." This would lead me to believe that there was an "as yet" unresolved problem with the memory management code (ability to address 21 of 22bits), that Peter actually meant 2M words instead of 2M bytes, or that somewhere along the road (editing), communication was lost. Without having access to any RSTS/E version prior to V7.0 (that I can get working), I can not test this information to resolve this adequately (thus, it remains a debate). I am unsure if the 6A-02 Version section should be posted as 21 bit instead of 22 bit (sorry, there never was a 21 bit PDP-11). Left as 22 bit, obviously someone will come along and correct our 2MB statement. If Peter's article is wrong and 6A-02 (on an 11/70) will actually run 4MB of memory, then the 1978 section becomes redundant (please edit accordingly). Bbump ( talk) 14:45, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
It might be worth mentioning that when installing or upgrading RSTS (i.e. during SYSGEN), during the configuration process it was necessary to edit several configuration files. At that point the half-installed OS was unable to load any normal program; TECO was the only editor that could be run. At the same time, TECO was always officially "unsupported" by DEC, although at various points in the voluminous system documentation one would find little footprints -- a file open mode, say, or a bit in the keyboard status word -- marked "Reserved for TECO". This was also true of RSX. So DEC's premier operating systems in the 1970s could not be installed on DEC hardware without an "unsupported" chunk of code... -- Craig Goodrich 206.39.12.241 ( talk) 17:31, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Because it might be misleading, the text talking about Mentec issuing a no cost hobbyist license should probably be removed because it is still being actively pursued in an official fashion. It was actually DEC who granted this to Bob Supnik and only for use on emulation products, not on a general scale like the article would suggest. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.107.133.124 ( talk) 19:33, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
This is incorrect. There is a license text Mentec released, which basically said that anyone running any of DEC's software that was sold to Mentec, if they were using it for personal, non-commercial use, were allowed to do so. It was not specifically a license to Bob, nor did it even mention the emulator. You were on your own as far as getting copies of any of the software. I know the license was for anyone because I saw it and read it once when looking at some of the PDP-11 stuff. Paul Robinson (Rfc1394) ( talk) 14:06, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
I recall some serious security issues with this; programmers from user accounts in BASIC were able to get superuser privileges. I'd love to see a section here about these early hacks, but don't have any authoritative references. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.234.189.161 ( talk) 20:52, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
If my memory serves me correctly, the original author of BASIC Plus was Mark Bramhall, who, allegedly, wrote the first version during a transatlantic flight... I still have a whole bunch of tapes of this stuff, including, I believe, some source code. I do recall using the DECOMP package that Dave Garrod & I wrote to decompile most of the RSTS utilities. As you might have guessed, the DECOMP package would not decompile itself ;-) We sold a separate utility that would make BAC files undecompilable... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nickds1 ( talk • contribs) 09:36, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
I remember someone figured a way to patch a BAC file to change the running name of a program, a guy was using (what we would now call) a hex editor on a Basic-Plus program (since the PDP-11 was octal, it was probably either an octal editor or decimal byte editor) so that if you did a control-T for the terminal running it, or a SYSTAT elsewhere, instead of the program being "MYPROG" it would show up as "..OHNO". Paul Robinson (Rfc1394) ( talk) 14:28, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
Actually, this is a very easy process to do from within a BASIC program, compiled under BP2. I outlined this procedure in the October 1988 DECUS Newsletter. Once compiled, changing your current running program can be done very easily at any point by loading SYSCOMMON with the name you want, and then making a system EMT call such as:
10 FOO$=SYS(CHR$(6%)+CHR$(-10%)+"FOOBAR") 20 CALL NAME
The NAME call will convert your 6 ASCII character program name into the correct RAD50 format which is loaded into the File Request Block (FIRQB). I'm hoping Paul will correct me if I am wrong, but I seem to recall that CORECOMMON and SYSCOMMON were the same reference, just newer terms (my own memory also being now more dynamic than CORE). Bbump ( talk) 15:27, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
In the article Symbolic Link it is mentioned that symbolic links were already present in 1978 minicomputer OSs from DEC. Since I knew RT-11 quite well I'm shure that RT-11 did not have smbolic links. I guess that it must have referred to RSTS. But also there I found only a kind of command aliases, which are far from symbolic links.
Is there anybody around who used RSTS and can confirm that symbolic links did not exits on a file system level in RSTS? Treutwein ( talk contribs) 08:20, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Hi, I'm reading the autobiography of Kevin Mitnick who, in his teenage years, became an expert of RSTS/E. In the book he states "RSTS/E (spoken as 'RIS-tisEE')". This pronunciation conflicts with the two we have in the lead sentence of the article. I am not familiar enough with the subject to change it. Could someone who knows a bit more about the subject confirm this and change it? -- Oldak Quill 18:26, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
An image used in this article, File:MicroPDP-11 53wRSTSDocs.jpg, has been nominated for speedy deletion for the following reason: Wikipedia files with no non-free use rationale as of 3 December 2011
Don't panic; you should have time to contest the deletion (although please review deletion guidelines before doing so). The best way to contest this form of deletion is by posting on the image talk page.
This notification is provided by a Bot -- CommonsNotificationBot ( talk) 10:05, 3 December 2011 (UTC) |
Sorry for not getting to this sooner. I would not have even noticed it today, had I not received an email from Wikipedia saying someone was trying to change my password (not me). It would appear that the robots are about to take down the photos I created ( File:MicroPDP-11 53wRSTSDocs.jpg and probably Example of a RSTS/E Document shelf). If anyone can come up with an excuse within the next 4 days as to why these should remain on the page (as non-free content), I would encourage them to go ahead and edit them. The photos were taken by me (me, myself and I, nobody else...metadata of the camera included in the files). At the time, I really did not know how to post them (is this free, non-free, pizza-fax?). DEC no longer exists. Three (3) of the four (4) books were created by DEC. The RSTS Professional was done by Professional Press (who no longer exists). Professional Press was sold about 3 different times, and when I contacted the REAL owners, they didn't know what it was. The tile floor and paint on the wall was purchased at Menard's and installed by my brother-in-law (is that a copyright issue?). Sorry if I sound sarcastic, but as I say, I really do not know how these should be categorized (I took photos of my bookshelf, books and a PDP-11/53...does it appear we are advertising soda pop?). As always, I encourage anyone to post something better if they have it. As for me, I have the originals of everything I wrote and files that I posted, so if the bots rule the world and take them down, at least I have my original copies. 00:48, 27 June 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bbump ( talk • contribs)