OS/8 Questions (with a couple of SerialDisk questions thrown in.

[BitWiz]

Now that I am up and running I have the following questions:

1. Where can I get a copy of the OS/8 TTY driver that supports lower case?
2. When using my terminal emulator how can I get OS/8 to recognize backspace instead of rubout?
3. The HELP command output screen control codes but when using VT-100 emulation it clears the screen and displays the help and clears the screen again before I can read the help. What terminal emulation should I use?
4. Is there a patch for OS/8 to support dates from 2020 to 2027?
5. I built my boot diskette without using SET SYS NO INIT. Since I told BUILD to zero out the destination directory would this be a problem or should I rebuild it with SET SYS NO INIT first?
6. In the SerialDisk disk images there are a handful of extensions I don't recognize. Any help here would be greatly appreciated. They are:
BH
BX
DA
DC
FF
FT
HN
IN
JR
LC
LD
MU
OV
SF
SY
TE
TM
TS
TX
UF
WS
X8.
7. In addition to the aforementioned extensions, there are some files that start with a period, (.boot, .cclo, .chain, etc). What are these?
My goal here is to clean up these disk images and remove any duplication so that more interesting and possibly useful stuff can all me mounted at the same time.
8. After I clean up the disk images, what additional programs, games, languages would you recommend I add? Please provide a link to them if you can.
9. So that I can create a bootable image with the latest of all of the major programs, do we have a list of what the versions are and where to find them?

I'm sorry for the length of this message and the large number of questions. I'm hoping that I can do some organization and give back to the community.

For example: I have compiled RX02SY.PA and I have am running a bootable RX02 system with SerialDisk drivers also installed so I have access for all four SerialDisk RK05 "mounted" images.

 

[vrs42]

7. In addition to the aforementioned extensions, there are some files that start with a period, (.boot, .cclo, .chain, etc). What are these?

Those are created by os8xplode to store various "reserved" sections when a disk image is exploded. You should be able to see in the created .xml file that these exist outside the OS/8 file system. The .xml also documents which system blocks went in which file, for use when reconstructing the volume with mkdsk.

So, .boot gets the boot block, .cclo gets the CCL overlays, etc. The file .kmon is also used as the sentinel by mkdsk, to determine whether a system volume is being created, and triggers the expectation that the rest of the OS/8 system blocks will be available. (A non-system volume needs .boot, but not the others.)

 

[vrs42]

6. In the SerialDisk disk images there are a handful of extensions I don't recognize. Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

Many of those have to do with diagnostic pack conventions. You should be able to find text file write-ups that are meant to orient the users of diagnostic packs.

From diag.txt:
Extensions:

.SV - system programs
.BN - binary files
.BH - binary handlers for BUILD
.DG - diagnostic programs
.SY - system heads
.HN - compiled device handlers for .SET HANDLER
.BI - batch control files
.HL - "help" files
.TX - text files
.BX - DECX8 builder modules
.X8 - customized DECX8 system exercisers
.BA - Basic source files

 

[vrs42]

2. When using my terminal emulator how can I get OS/8 to recognize backspace instead of rubout?

You can SET TTY SCOPE if your terminal supports output of backspace.

Having to type rubout instead of backspace to erase a character seems to be a part of the retro experience. I'm not aware of any user setting for that, though one could presumably modify the driver. (Assuming whatever you are typing into actually used the TTY: driver.)

 

[vrs42]

1. Where can I get a copy of the OS/8 TTY driver that supports lower case?

Lower what-now?

I think you are looking for KL8E.PA. It seems to have a CNVLC option which can convert input to uppercase. Which is a value for "supports", but maybe not the one you were thinking of. (It also has an option whether to uppercase output.)

 

[DougIngraham]

Now that I am up and running I have the following questions:

1. Where can I get a copy of the OS/8 TTY driver that supports lower case?

I never looked at the TTY handlers with lower case support in mind so I am not sure such a thing exists. However I can tell you that a TTY handler that supports lower case will not make OS/8 universally work with lower case. This is because there is no OS/8 call to read or write individual characters. OS/8 handlers give device independence but at the block read and write level where a block is 256 words. 8 bit character device handlers are expected to pack and unpack 3 bytes into 2 words in a specified format which I don't remember off the top of my head. Character I/O to the console is done directly by every program. Some of them automatically upshift case on input, some of them automatically or in the 8th bit. I expect some of them convert to the DEC 6 bit ASCII to maximize memory usage and convert back to 8 bit when the data goes to a block device.

2. When using my terminal emulator how can I get OS/8 to recognize backspace instead of rubout?

I wasn't aware of Vince's answer and I still don't know exactly what it does but for the same reason as 1 above it cannot be a universal solution. You can make it work in the TTY handler but not in code that handles its own console I/O. I tried modifying the behavior so I could make backspace work on a teletype. The model 33 and 35 teletypes don't support backspace. I kept track of the column position and when a ^H was seen a Return was sent and then the correct number of spaces to get you out to the right place. A novelty that worked but was ultimately not useful.

3. The HELP command output screen control codes but when using VT-100 emulation it clears the screen and displays the help and clears the screen again before I can read the help. What terminal emulation should I use?

I wasn't aware that HELP sent control codes. If anything I would have guessed it might send a form feed so the help text would appear on its own piece of paper. One before to get to the top of the page, and one at the end so the output would be on its own piece of paper. But that is just a guess.

4. Is there a patch for OS/8 to support dates from 2020 to 2027?

Probably, but the year is a 3 bit field so this will display the old stuff as 2020 through 2027 as well which was not something I ever wanted. Was the date problem ever addressed even a little in later versions of OS/8?

5. I built my boot diskette without using SET SYS NO INIT. Since I told BUILD to zero out the destination directory would this be a problem or should I rebuild it with SET SYS NO INIT first?

Unless I am misunderstanding your question this only has to do with saving BUILD after you have generated the new image. RUN (not R) keeps track of where in memory a program was loaded so that when it exits you can do a corresponding SAVE of that memory. If anything runs between the program and the SAVE command the size and position in memory will be lost and SAVE will not do what you want. SET SYS NO INIT turns off the automatic running of a script when a program returns to OS/8. If there was no script configured to be run then this command does not change anything. I stress using it because if a script does run then the modified copy of build you saved is useless. It shouldn't have any bearing on zeroing out the directory on the new image.

6. In the SerialDisk disk images there are a handful of extensions I don't recognize. Any help here would be greatly appreciated. They are:
7. In addition to the aforementioned extensions, there are some files that start with a period, (.boot, .cclo, .chain, etc). What are these?

Vince got those far better than I could have.

8. After I clean up the disk images, what additional programs, games, languages would you recommend I add? Please provide a link to them if you can.

Wow! There is so much work I could try to pawn off on you here! Maybe in a quiet minute or two at VCFMW we can talk about it. My area of interest back in the day was computer architecture followed by languages. Collecting all the different languages in one place is on my list.

9. So that I can create a bootable image with the latest of all of the major programs, do we have a list of what the versions are and where to find them?

My holy grail is to find unmolested (never been written to by anyone but DEC) images of distribution media. The problem with this is that there is no good way to tell if it has been molested. But if it isn't original media or a bit by bit image of an original then it is not what I want. But I am well aware that my goals are not the same as anyone else.

 

[BitWiz]

My holy grail is to find unmolested (never been written to by anyone but DEC) images of distribution media. The problem with this is that there is no good way to tell if it has been molested. But if it isn't original media or a bit by bit image of an original then it is not what I want. But I am well aware that my goals are not the same as anyone else.

Doug,

I have a greaseweazle with two SA-800 single sided 8" floppy drives in them. I have made a bootable RX02 disk from a 512,512 byte image. I can create byte for byte copies and or images on disk if you need. I can bring it to VCFMW if you would like.

I also have the follwing original WPS/DECMATE diskettes:

BA-M470A-BA WPS/DECMATE V2 BIN COMM RX2 - 1982
BA-M469A-BA WPS/DECMATE V2 BIN LIST RX2 - 1982
BA-M386A-BA WPS/DECMATE V2 BIN MATH RX2 - 1982
BA-M387B-BA WPS/DECMATE V2 BIN BASE RX2 - 1983
BA-M471A-BA WPS/DECMATE V2 BIN SORT RX2 - 1982

The box is game in is a Digial Software box labeled in hand written WPS/8 V2.1

The disks have a sticker on them Software Manufacturing Galeway, Ireland and were all made in the last week of May, 1984.

I bought these on eBay (from the UK if i remember correctly) as new old stock.

I can image these for you if you would like and bring them to the show if you would like to borrow them.

Mike

 

[BitWiz]

My holy grail is to find unmolested (never been written to by anyone but DEC) images of distribution media. The problem with this is that there is no good way to tell if it has been molested. But if it isn't original media or a bit by bit image of an original then it is not what I want. But I am well aware that my goals are not the same as anyone else.

Doug,

I envision one or two RK05 images for each of these categories:

• OS/8 & OS/8 Utilities
• Languages (Basic, Fortran, Focal, C, etc.) - We should include text editors here as well.
• Games (And their run time packages if necessary)
• MAINDECS
• DECUS
• Word Processors

That's all that I can think of right now. Most PDP-8 programs are short and a lot will fit on an RK05 image.

As for the DECUS stuff. I think we should include DECUS programs, where applicable, in the images and in addition have separate images just to have all of the DECUS stuff in one place.

I would love to sit down and talk to you during VCFMW.

Will you be attending the get together, at my house, Saturday night?

 

[BitWiz]

Probably, but the year is a 3 bit field so this will display the old stuff as 2020 through 2027 as well which was not something I ever wanted. Was the date problem ever addressed even a little in later versions of OS/8?

There was some mention I saw somewhere of problems with this on the DECMATES but I don't personally know if OS/78 or some other version of OS/8 did anything about it.

 

[BitWiz]

I think you are looking for KL8E.PA. It seems to have a CNVLC option which can convert input to uppercase. Which is a value for "supports", but maybe not the one you were thinking of. (It also has an option whether to uppercase output.)

I found a copy in my copy of your repository. I will play with it and let you know.

Thank you.

 

[DougIngraham]

Doug,

Will you be attending the get together, at my house, Saturday night?

I look forward to it.

 

[BitWiz]

He is the most complete listing of OS/8 Extensions that I was able to build: Empty lines means I haven't found a definition for yet.

BA Basic source files
BH
BI Batch Control (Input) files
BK Backup ASCII file
BN Absolute Binary files
BX DECX8 builder modules*
CM CCL Indirect
DA Data file
DC Documentation file
DI Directory listing
DG Diagnostic Programs*
FT Fortran source files
HL Help files
HN Compiled Device Handlers for .SET HANDLER
IN
LC (same as dg I think)
LD Fortran 4 load fle
LS Assembly listing output file
MA Macro source file
MP Loading map file for the Linking Loader
OV
PA PAL Assembly source files
RA RALF Assembly source files
RB Relocatable binary source file
RL Relocatable binary file
SB 8K SABR source file
SV System programs (Core Image)
SY System head
TE Teco macro file
TM Temporary file used by Fortran and SABR
TX Text files
UF
X8 Customized DECX8 system exercisers*

*Unofficial standard imposed by the New England District PDP-8 Diagnostic System

Some .DG files are identical to the same name .SV files.

 

[BitWiz]

I have done a file compare on the Serial Disk RK05 directories and found that there were only a handful of files in installer/diagpack2.0 and installer/diagpack2.1 as well as disks/diagpack2_new_2.0 and disks/diagpack2_new_2.1.

After moving those files to disks/diagpack2.0 and disks/diagpack2.1 the only files left in the other directories are the files that start with period which are overhead files of the OS/8 RK05 image conversion process.

One thing I found is that disks/disgpack2_new2.0\.3247 is the exact same file as dsknsy.bn which is the binary file for the serial-based disk system non-system handler.

I have eliminated the disks/diagpack2_new and install/diagpack2 directories.

This leaves the following drive directories for SerialDisk mounting:

diag-games-kermit.0
diag-games-kermit.1
diagpack2.0
diagpack2.1

This leaves us 4 more possible images to mount.

I will be looking more closely at all of these and moving things around to be more like this (some of this may change depending upon how much disk space a single category takes):

SDA0: OS/8 Boot, drivers and utilities (possibly editors and documentation also if there is room)
SDA1: Diagnostics (Maindecs, DECX8, etc).
SDA2: Languages
SDA3: Word Processing
SDB0: Documentation
SDB1: Other Applications
SDB2: Useful Source Code
SDB3: Available for online storage

I will also be doing my best to document as much of the contents as possible.

Please feel free to point me towards any content you think should be in any of these images.

Thanks,

Mike

 

[BitWiz]

I found the KL8E.PA file and I turned off VT78 and I enabled CNVLC.

When I tried to compile it on my 8 I got the following errors:



Source file attached

Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,

Mike

 

[tradde]

PE in my experience means phase error. It got a different value for something in one pass and a different value in another pass. As to why it's hard to say. I'd have to look at the code.

 

[BitWiz]

PE in my experience means phase error. It got a different value for something in one pass and a different value in another pass. As to why it's hard to say. I'd have to look at the code.

PE is Page Exception. Variable is not on the current page. The II is an illegal indirect error. I believe that this is stock source code of the 2 page OS/8 2 page device driver. I just enabled one option and turned off another.

Thank you for the help.

 

[tradde]

Oh well, for the times I have seen an assembler give a PE error it meant phase error.

 

[BitWiz]

No worries. I thought so too until I looked it up.

 

[vrs42]

I ran your kl8e.pa through the cross-assembler. It reports that a few locations into TTYTST you flov over the page boundary, triggering "overrun" since there are several literals. Relatedly, the JMP I TTYTST is flagged as an "offpage ind" because it isn't in the same page as TTYTST as it should have been.

PAL8 has flagged the illegal indirect twice presumably in different passes.

It also reports a PE for each word that doesn't fit. It has started as soon as there is a conflict with literals, so it flags TCHAR and everything after it on that page.

Bottom line seems to be that you've selected too many cool options to fit in the available space on that page.

Vince

 

[BitWiz]

Thank you. I thought I only enabled one option but I will check.