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Chicken and egg problem. Bulding RSX-11m image from scratch.

A

acollins22

Experienced Member
Joined
Mar 12, 2007
Messages
257
Location
Leicester, UK
Hello Folks,

As i've posted here, I'm making progress getting my PDP-11/53 running and I've now got it booting off its SCSI hard drive and I have generated a system that is pretty closely reflects its hardware.

My problem is how to get more things onto it. I know it sounds easy but I'm struggling a bit here and would welcome some advice.

So far all of the MSCP/RSX images have been from various websites. I haven't had to build one from stratch but in order to get new stuff on, I'm trying to build images using put, simh and/or E11.

My plan was to format a disk image, initialise it and use putr to copy the files I want across to it. I was then going to burn it to CD and mount if on my real PDP.

However... I can format a new MSCP image using putr but I can't init, it won't do it, or get my files across.


Can anyone suggest a way around this please? I don't have networking going yet or an RX50, just a CD-ROM and HD



Thanks,

Andy.





SYSGEN
 
The TU58 emulator is a great solution, you can boot them too if you need. You should also be able to get Kermit for RSX-11M.
 
Thank you folks.

I do have a second port on my mother board but I don't think I can use it for TU58 when the OS is running because when I did the SYSGEN it only spoke of TU58s on their one controllers and I don't have one of them so I don't know if I can have one on a different port.

Also, I think that Kermit is too big to fit on a TU58. Kermit is first on my list though of things to get on there. From that point on, I'm up and running.


Any other thoughts?


Thanks,

Andy.
 
TU58s don't have their own controllers, they simply plug into a SLU port. I believe most PDP-11 software assumes SLU 0 will be a TU58.

Kermit should fit on a TU58 -- even a standard TU58 image, at 256 KB, should hold it.
 
Hi, I also would like to put RSX-11m on my pdp-11/23+, and I also have only DU SCSI and spare slu on board. So far I have successfully put rt-11 and tsx-11 using approach described here http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcf...1-23-have-some-questions!&p=340331#post340331

There should be the way of transferring files from rt-11 partition into rsx-11 filesystem. There is plugin for total commander for easy transfer files into rt-11 and dos-11 volumes.
 
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I've not got very far with TU-58 sadly.

I have been able to boot the machine into XXDP from the TU-58 emulator but when I try to use it from RSX-11 that's booted from the HD, I just get errors. The emu shows that the PDP is trying but the PDP complains that things aren't right. When I read the docs for the TU-58 it mentions RT disk format but not RSX.

If I could get Kermit or Xmodem onto an MSCP image and from there onto a CD, I'd be good to go.

So close and yet so far.



Cheers,

Andy.
 
What version of RSX11-M are you trying to get installed and running? Have you tried doing an installation on a simulator using installation tape images? If you can install to a simulated MSCP drive image then when you get it all configured the way you want then you should be able to just copy that image over to a physical SCSI hard drive and then boot that on your real PDP-11 hardware.

-Glen
 
Roe said:
Has anyone suggested vtserver? It's pretty good at copying disk images over the console port.
Click to expand...

I guess you just did! ;-)

I never got vtserver to work for me. Of course, I was having all sorts of other problems trying to learn everything at the same time, so that may have been the issue for me. I never did go back to try it again. Maybe I should.

smp
 
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smp said:
I guess you just did! ;-)

I never got vtserver to work for me. Of course, I was having all sorts of other problems trying to learn everything at the same time, so that may have been the issue for me. I never did go back to try it again. Maybe I should.

smp
Click to expand...
I've used VTServer to load up an image of BSD. The only issue I know of is the size restriction (32MB). There is supposed
to be a patched version. But I was never successful in getting that to work. Other than that it works quite well. If you
can run at higher speeds it's even better. I was limited to 38Kb.
 
While vtserver might be the best and/or only way to transfer an image to/from most types of storage devices, if the device is a SCSI hard drive surely the easiest and quickest way to transfer just about any image is by hooking the SCSI hard drive up to SCSI controller in a PC and using dd or an equivalent tool. I usually use something I hacked up myself on a Windows system to write and read raw SCSI drives.
 
Thank to everyone. Certainly plenty to try.

Let me take a moment to recap where I am now and what I've tried so that someone in the same boat can short cut some of my experiments.

In this thread I was able to get a SCSI CD-ROM and hard drive working in my 11/53 and booting to XXDP from the HD. I then used SIMH to build a system which I then copied onto a CD from that onto the hard disk as shown here.

My problems now revolve around getting new files onto the RSX-11/M system I'm booting from. So far you see I have only had to move files between tape and MSCP disk images that I found on the web and SIMH has been fine for that but I have a directory of files on my Linux machine that I want to get across to my PDP (or SIMH).

So this issue is that I can't create an MSCP/RSX image and copy files into it such that I can burn it onto a CD, mount it on my PDP and copy the files off it and onto the main HD.

I have tried using putr but that can't write/init as files11 disk so that's out. The TU-58 emu is that same. I don't know if RSX can mount or access other files systems such as RT-11 but if it can that's a possibility. Both TU-58 and putr can write those but I don't know how to read them.

If I could get xmodem for RSX on there in some form, I could get kermit across. From there... Everything :)


Cheers,

Andy.
 
I'm not familiar with RSX. If it supports networking, perhaps you can use simh, boot RSX with net, ftp the desired files in from the linux box, and create your CD from that?
 
acollins22 said:
So this issue is that I can't create an MSCP/RSX image and copy files into it such that I can burn it onto a CD, mount it on my PDP and copy the files off it and onto the main HD.

I have tried using putr but that can't write/init as files11 disk so that's out. The TU-58 emu is that same. I don't know if RSX can mount or access other files systems such as RT-11 but if it can that's a possibility. Both TU-58 and putr can write those but I don't know how to read them.
Click to expand...

How about using the File Transfer Utility Program (FLX) on the RSX-11M system which allows you to transfer files between Files-11 and RT-11 volumes?

For example if you had the Kermit-11 files on an RT-11 format RX01 disk you could install them on an RSX-11M system with the following commands from the installation and release notes for Kermit-11:

> MOU DX0:/FOR
> MOU DX1:/FOR
> FLX SY:/RS=DX0:K11RSX.TSK/RT
> FLX SY:/RS=DX1:K11HLP.HLP/RT
> FLX SY:/RS=DX1:K11USR.DOC/RT
> PIP [1,54]/CO=K11RSX.TSK
> PIP [1,2]/CO=K11HLP.HLP
> PIP [1,54]K11RSX.TSK/PR/WO:R
> PIP [1,2]K11HLP.HLP/PR/WO:R
> INS $K11RSX/TASK=...KER
 
Thanks for that gslick. I wasn't aware of FLX. I'm a complete PDP newbie here, picking it up as I go.

My first stabs with FLX under SIMH aren't going too well as I get memory protection violation...
21:11:27 Task "FLXT0 " terminated
Memory protect violation
R0=037454
R1=035302
R2=002000
R3=000001
R4=105100
R5=035302
SP=000614
PC=013340
PS=170010

but on the real hardware I think I'm onto something... It definitely copying most files but I think I may have an ASCII/binary issue as it's complaining about one of them.

I'll keep trying.


Cheers,

Andy.
 
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