Scientific Micro Systems SMS 1000 model 40

[klapperp]

Hi there!

Maybe one of you also has a PDP-11 which was not made by DEC, like my SMS 1000 and maybe someone would like to run Unix on this PDP-11. In any case, I have put together a 2.9BSD system for my SMS-1000 Model 40, which works with the SMS MSCP Controller as well as it supports the SMS QIC02 tape controller.

Why? - Because I recently acquired such a system and it is claimed on the Internet that the MSCP controller of SMS only works with RT-11 - I wanted to find out if this is true.

Conclusion: Myth busted!




SMS 1000 BOOTSTRAP
512 KW MEMORY 11/23 CPU

BOOTABLE DEVICES:
DEVICE DEVICE UNIT
NAME TYPE NUMBERS

DU DSA 0-3
MS TS 0

ENTER DEVICE NAME AND UNIT NUMBER: DU

40Boot
:
: ra(0,0)unix

Berkeley UNIX (Rev. 2.9.1) Fri Nov 5 19:46:04 GMT+1:00 1993
mem = 950912

CONFIGURE SYSTEM:
ra 0 csr 172150 vector 154 attached
ts 0 csr 172520 vector 224 attached
dz 0 csr 160100 vector 400 attached
kl 1 csr 176500 vector 300 attached
kl 2 csr 176510 vector 310 attached
kl 3 csr 176520 vector 320 attached
kl 4 csr 176530 vector 330 attached
kl 5 csr 176540 vector 340 attached
# date 9311061011
Sat Nov 6 10:11:00 GMT+1:00 1993
# Sat Nov 6 10:11:07 GMT+1:00 1993
Mounted /usr on /dev/ra0c

Berkeley Unix 2.9BSD

;login:

The 2.9BSD system is not Y2K compatible, therefor I operate the system in the year 1993. With this, at least the days of the week are right ;-)

Why 2.9BSD? Because this is the most modern Unix system which still runs on a PDP-11/23. Further my SMS1000 was built in 1986 and the operating system is also from this time.

If anyone would like to run a 2.9BSD system on a PDP-11 with an MSCP controller that does not come from DEC - please ... if there is a download area here, I will be happy to make the material available for you here. It includes also a kernel for the PDP-11/73.

Greetings from Austria,

Peter

 

[klapperp]

Continued ...

One reason why probably many have failed to get something other than RT-11 up and running on their Scientific Micro computers is, because there seem to be no copies of original SMS installation media available any more. With the available tools, such as PDP11 GUI and vtserver there are problems, because they are primary made for original DEC hardware. RT-11 is the only OS which works, because it is relatively easy to create a boot floppy and then start the computer with it.

The known tools do not work as expected because they are made for DEC hardware and sometimes not even tested with real harware, just with emulators like SIMH. Scientific Micro Systems have developed own hardware. The main problem today seems to be the MSCP controller from Scientific Micro, beause it speaks MSCP, but it does not emulate DEC hardware.

For example the RQDX3 controller from DEC in the MicroPDP11 formats the hard disks with 17 sectors, the MSCP controller from SMS works with 18 sectors. Therefor the same hard disks on the SMS controller have a little more capacity than on an RQDX3, but are also not compatible. This is the reasen why you can not use a hard disk image from a PDP11 emulator on the SMS computer, because for example SIMH emulates an RQDX3 controller.

Conclusion: In order to get such a system up and running, installation media must be created, to install an Operating System from scratch.

Greetings from Austria,

Peter

 

[klapperp]

Continued ...

After the system was checked and cleaned, it turned out that nothing is missing:




And it also turnd out to be a very interesting QBUS system which which was not made by DEC:




An 8" floppy drive on an MSCP controller and a tape controller with a QIC02 interface which emulates a TSV05 drive?

An interesting environment and you ask yourself, how to get now an operating system on the disk. Especially with the background that the disk with 18 sectors is not RQDX3 compatible and the method with a SIMH hard disk image is not going to work.

Greetings from Austria,

Peter

 

[klapperp]

Continued ...

A study of the manual has shown that the SMS MSCP controller supports either an 8" floppy drive or up to two 5.25" floppy drives, namely RX50 in DEC-PC format.

www.bitsavers.org/pdf/sms/qbus/3001076A_SMS1000oem_Feb87.pdf

Now the next step was to borrow a DEC RX50-AA drive from my DEC Professional PC and temporarily connect it to the SMS computer:




Now I had at least one compatible format in which I could create floppy disk images with the help of SIMH. Now, I I also created first RT-11 installation media and tested the SMS computer with RT-11 in order to find out more about it:

pk@dell-e7250-pk:~/simh-rt11$ pdp11 cpu1123.ini
PDP-11 simulator V4.0-0 Current git commit id: 9331d14e
Disabling RK
Disabling HK
Disabling TM
/home/pk/simh-rt11/cpu1123.ini-27> attach rl0 innonet/rt11rl0.rl
RL0: 'innonet/rt11rl0.rl' Contains RT11 partitions
1 valid partition, Type: V05, Sectors On Disk: 20450
/home/pk/simh-rt11/cpu1123.ini-37> attach rq0 innonet/rt11rd53.rd
RQ0: 'innonet/rt11rd53.rd' Contains RT11 partitions
1 valid partition, Type: V05, Sectors On Disk: 65535
/home/pk/simh-rt11/cpu1123.ini-39> attach rq1 innonet/rt11rx51.lbn
RQ1: 'innonet/rt11rx51.lbn' Contains RT11 partitions
1 valid partition, Type: V05, Sectors On Disk: 801
/home/pk/simh-rt11/cpu1123.ini-41> attach rq2 innonet/rt11rx52.lbn
RQ2: 'innonet/rt11rx52.lbn' Contains RT11 partitions
1 valid partition, Type: V05, Sectors On Disk: 801
/home/pk/simh-rt11/cpu1123.ini-53> attach dz 4000
Listening on port 4000
/home/pk/simh-rt11/cpu1123.ini-59> attach dli 4023
Listening on port 4023
/home/pk/simh-rt11/cpu1123.ini-66> set remote telnet=4040
Listening on port 4040
CPU 11/23, FPP, NOCIS, BEVENT enabled, autoconfiguration enabled, idle disabled
1MB

Type this command to boot MSCP hard disk:

boot rq0

to boot from TS tape deive:

boot ts0

to boot from RL cartridge disk deive:

boot rl0

sim> boot rq

RT-11FB V05.07

.TYPE V5USER.TXT

RT-11 V5.7

Installation of RT-11 Version 5.7 is complete and you are now running
RT-11 from your system volume.

Your system volume is your working volume if you have used the Automatic
Installation (AI) procedure. If you have installed RT-11 using that
procedure, Mentec recommends you verify the correct operation of your
system's software using the VERIFY verification procedure. You can only
perform VERIFY on the valid target (output) media you used for the AI
procedure. Run VERIFY before you run CONFIG. To run VERIFY, enter the
command:
IND VERIFY

You should read the file V5NOTE.TXT, which you can TYPE or PRINT. Also,
read the Introduction to RT-11, and the Installation Guide which
contain much of the information you need to use RT-11 Version 5.7.


.R MSCPCK
?MSCPCK-I-MU0-TK50 FW Rev Level is 005/HW Rev Level is 001
?MSCPCK-W-TQK50 controller below FW Rev 4/HW Rev 6

.

With the help of SIMH I created 11 RX50 floppy images with a complete RT-11 V5.7 system:

pk@dell-e7250-pk:~/simh-rt11/dsk$ ls -l
insgesamt 4400
-rw-r--r-- 1 pk pk 409600 Sep 27 19:58 rv57boot.dsk
-rw-r--r-- 1 pk pk 409600 Okt 2 10:11 rv57in01.dsk
-rw-r--r-- 1 pk pk 409600 Okt 2 10:11 rv57in02.dsk
-rw-r--r-- 1 pk pk 409600 Okt 2 10:11 rv57in03.dsk
-rw-r--r-- 1 pk pk 409600 Okt 2 10:11 rv57in04.dsk
-rw-r--r-- 1 pk pk 409600 Okt 2 10:11 rv57in05.dsk
-rw-r--r-- 1 pk pk 409600 Okt 2 10:11 rv57in06.dsk
-rw-r--r-- 1 pk pk 409600 Okt 2 10:11 rv57in07.dsk
-rw-r--r-- 1 pk pk 409600 Okt 2 10:11 rv57in08.dsk
-rw-r--r-- 1 pk pk 409600 Okt 2 10:11 rv57in09.dsk
-rw-r--r-- 1 pk pk 409600 Okt 2 10:11 rv57in10.dsk
pk@dell-e7250-pk:~/simh-rt11/dsk$

These images can be written, for example, with IMD on 5.25" floppy disks. With their help, RT-11 can then be installed on the hard disk of the SMS computer. From there you can create both an 8" RT-11 boot floppy disk and a bootable RT-11 installation tape.



Now I had a first set of boot- and installation media to install an operating system on my SMS 1000 computer.

Now it was also confirmed, that the 8" floppy drive is the MSCP device DU1 and not an emulated RX02 device DY0. The QIC02 tape drive is addressed under RT-11 as an MS device. This fits with an emulated TSV05 drive.

Now RT-11 was running and everything worked as it should:



Now there was no more reason why Unix could not also run on this SMS 1000 computer. The manufacturer itself originally listed Ultrix-11 as a supported operating system for this device. And there were also no components in this computer for which not already Unix device drivers existed.

Greetings from Austria,

Peter

 

[klapperp]

Continued ...

Now, since the SMS 1000 computer runs under RT-11 and all components seem to be OK, it was the time to evaluate which Unix would be the best for this hardware. The following components are installed in my SMS 1000 computer:

1 x SMS foundation module (the main PCB with MSCP controller, console, etc.)
1 x DEC KDF11-A PDP11/23 CPU module (the one which came, together with this computer)
*1 x DEC KDJ11-A PDP11/73 CPU module (one from my collection, which also works with this computer)
1 x Camintonn CMV-254 1 MB memory module
1 x GTSC 304 DLV11-J compatible 4-way serial I/O module
1 x DEC DZQ11 4-way serial I/O module
1 x DEC M9047 QBUS grant continuity module
1 x SMS 1000 file tape option (QIC02 tape controller)

The tape drive is an external archive 5945L with QIC02 formatter in a Trimm Industries enclosure (the one on which the phone stands):




Originally, the SMS 1000 manual refers to a Tandberg TDC-3309 drive with TDC-3350 QIC02 controller. This is technically the same as my Archive drive, just from Tandberg.

Primarily, of course, the original hardware configuration was interesting for me, which means Unix on a PDP11/23 system with an MSCP controller. To find out what is possible, first I configured a SIMH test environment.

The SIMH is configured that it comes as close as possible to the SMS1000 system:

; simh config to get close to the SMS1000
; set model to PDP-11/23 with 1M memory
set cpu 11/23 1M

; set CPU time for the pdp11 emulator
SET THROTTLE 25%

; disable unneeded devices
set lpt disabled
set rl disabled
set rx disabled
set rp disabled

; set system clock to 50Hz for europe
set clk 50hz

; use 7b ascii terminal
set tto 7b

; enable MSCP devices
set rq enabled
set rq0 rd53
attach rq0 innonet/29bsd-sms-rd53.rd
set rq1 rx33
attach rq1 innonet/29bsd-sms-rx33.lbn
set rq2 disabled
set rq3 disabled

; enable a TS tape drive
;set ts disabled
set ts enabled
attach ts0 innonet/29bsd-mscp.tap

; set one DZQ11 4 line async mux
set dz enabled
attach dz 4100
set dz0 7b

; set one DLV11-J card with 4 async lines
set dli enabled
attach dli 4123
set dlo0 7b
set dlo1 7b
set dlo2 7b
set dlo3 7b

; enable remote console via telnet
set remote telnet=4140

set pclk enabled
set pclk 50hz

show cpu

; boot it
echo
echo Type this command to boot from hard disk:
echo
echo boot rq0
echo
echo to boot from tape deive:
echo
echo boot ts0
echo

Due to the PDP11/23 CPU, 2.11BSD was not an option because it requires a processor with separate I & D (Instruction and Data) area and the PDP11/23 CPU simply does not support this.

This means that one option could be Ultrix-11, which according to the data sheet, should run on a PDP11/23 CPU:

https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/DEC/Fred-Ultrix3/ult11-3.1-kit.tar.gz

and an other option is a variant of 2.9BSD with MSCP support:

https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/UCB/2.9-derivatives/2.9BSD-MSCP/2.9BSD-MSCP-full.zip

After creating virtual tape installation media (TAP) for both systems, the test with SIMH showed that Ultrix-11 requires at least a PDP11/23+ CPU, while 2.9BSD ran on a pure PDP11/23 CPU. Of course, you can also run the SMS 1000 computer with a PDP11/73 CPU, but in my case I first wanted the original hardware configuration to run under Unix.

Conclusion: This SMS 1000 system will be running 2.9BSD Unix, because it also runs on a PDP11/23 CPU!

Greetings from Austria,

Peter

 

[klapperp]

Continued ...

Since 2.9BSD itself never really contained an MSCP driver, I took the 2.9BSD-MSCP version from Jonathan Enhthal from 2001.

I installed the system first, according to the instructions under SIMH and there it worked.

Next, I tried to install the system according to the instructions with the help of "vtserver" on the disk of my SMS 1000 computer ... and that went immediately wrong!

Now I started to take a closer look at the MSCP driver. After I did not find any technical documents about the SMS hardware itself, with which I could debug the MSCP driver, I started to compare my driver with other MSCP drivers. First, I looked at the driver, from 2.11BSD and than at the one from Ultrix-11. The driver from 2.11BSD already significantly differs from the one from 2.9BSD because 2.11BSD has already a partition table (bsdlabel). Ultrix-11 is much closer to 2.9BSD in terms of disk partitions. But I first needed the "standalone" driver for the installation, and the installation mechanism under Ultrix-11 is completely different (much more sophisticated).

Then I discovered 2.10BSD:

https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/UCB/2.10.1bsd.tar

https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/UCB/2.10bsd.tar.gz

This forgotten version is exactly the link between 2.9BSD and 2.11BSD which is still maintained until today. And BINGO! There is a very complete looking MSCP driver in 2.10BSD and the file system of 2.10BSD is still compatible with 2.9BSD.

So I took the "standalone" driver "ra.c" from 2.10BSD and adapted it for 2.9BSD. Now I could build the 2.9BSD "standalone" programs, together with the "vtserver" driver "vt.c". Now I was able to install the system on my SMS 1000 computer with the help of "vtserver".

Then it also turned out that the original MSCP kernel driver was not running stable, so also the kernel driver from 2.10BSD moved into my 2.9BSD kernel. In the end, the kernel driver "ts.c" for the tape drive from 2.10BSD and the primary boot loader "rauboot.s" of Ultrix-11 were also added to my 2.9BSD Unix system.

It was a good piece of work, but it was it worth and as a result I have now working 2.9BSD installation media for the SMS 1000 computer:



It was a good piece of work, but it was it worth! As a result I have now working 2.9BSD installation media for my SMS 1000 computer:

I am sure that this version of 2.9BSD also runs on other MSCP controllers and that this is a relatively modern operating system for the PDP11/23. I also adapted the memory management from 2.9BSD for 22Bit, so that in the case of a PDP11/23 or PDP11/73 CPU, the system recognizes up to 4MB of RAM. This was done analogoue to the port for DEC Professional computers. In addition, the kernel configuration has been adapted so that you can create a working build directory with: ./config <KERNEL> Within this, the kernels from the installation media can be reproduced. As a goodie, a working Kermit version is included, which can transfer data at least over the DZQ11 interfaces. Binary files must be treated first with "uuencode" to transmit them under 2.9BSD over the 7Bit line.

Since I have not found a download area here, where I can provide you with the version, please let me know where I can leave a copy for you.

Further, thank you for this wonderful forum and your interest.

Greetings from Austria,

Peter

 

[gslick]

Hi there!

Maybe one of you also has a PDP-11 which was not made by DEC, like my SMS 1000 and maybe someone would like to run Unix on this PDP-11. In any case, I have put together a 2.9BSD system for my SMS-1000 Model 40, which works with the SMS MSCP Controller as well as it supports the SMS QIC02 tape controller.

Why? - Because I recently acquired such a system and it is claimed on the Internet that the MSCP controller of SMS only works with RT-11 - I wanted to find out if this is true.

Conclusion: Myth busted!

It is not a myth, at least in some cases. I had no issue getting RT-11 installed and running on my SMS-1000 Model 40, but both RSTS/E 10.1 and 2.11BSD failed to install successfully on an MFM hard drive controlled by the built-in MSCP controller on the "Foundation Module". I'd either have to try it again now to see the details of how it failed, or see if I have any notes available from the last time I tried.

I don't think it is really an issue of the MSCP controller not emulating exactly in every detail a particular DEC MSCP controller, for an example an RQDX3, but maybe an issue where the there might be something different about the MSCP software interface. For example 2.11BSD can be installed without issue on CMD CQD SCSI controller hard drives, but won't boot from them directly unless a patch is applied. Turns out there is slight difference in behavior between the DEC MSCP implementation and the CMD CQD MSCP implementation that was not expected, and had to be worked around. I don't have the details of that issue handy at the moment.

Can you successfully install and run RSTS/E 10.1 on your SMS-1000 Model 40? Or 2.11BSD if you swap in an M8192 KDJ11-A CPU?

And a request: Can you take photos of the labels on all of the EPROMs on the "Foundation Module" of your Model 40? And if you have an EPROM programmer, dump the contents of the EPROMs? The firmware for the MSCP controller must be in some of those EPROMs. Perhaps you have different and maybe newer versions of the EPROMs than the ones I have. The last time I looked around I couldn't find anyone else with an SMS-1000 Model 40 that could dump the EPROMs to compare with the ones I have on mine. I would be happy if it turns out there is newer firmware available than what I have that could possibly change something in the MSCP behavior which resolves the issues I have seen with mine.

 

[gslick]

Hmm, turns out that Al dumped some SMS-1000 firmware way back in 2013 when I asked about this. I can't recall ever trying to update the EPROMs on my SMS-1000 to that version. I'll have to give that a try when I get a chance.

http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/sms/firmware/SMS_1000/

The board photo there shows these EPROM labels:
27256 - 21251000U
27512 - 21251001U
2817 - 21251002U (2KB EEPROM, probably holds configuration parameters)
2716 - 2123001

Those were supposed to be V2.0 while mine is only V0.6, and someone else reported having V1.6

Sample output from my system:

 * HIT ANY KEY WITHIN TIME LIMIT *
    SMS 1000

**    SMS 1000    **

1 STATUS           <--
2 OPERATION
3 EVALUATION
4 CONFIGURATION

ENTER NUMBER - 1

**STATUS**

1 IDENTIFY
2 ENVIRONMENT      <--

ENTER NUMBER - 1

    SMS 1000
Firmware  V0.6
Sfm S/N
Ship    ??/??/??

 

[gslick]

Conclusion: In order to get such a system up and running, installation media must be created, to install an Operating System from scratch.

When I was attempting to install RSTS/E 10.1 or 2.11BSD on my SMS-1000 Model 40 it was from bootable installation media on tape. Almost certainly I tried using a CMD CQD-220 as a TMSCP controller with an Exabyte EXB-8200 8mm SCSI tape drive for the installation media, and maybe something like a Dilog DQ132 as a TS-11 controller with a Pertec interface 1/2-inch 9-track tape drive. That has always worked fine when installing on any other MSCP controller hard drive I have tried, from DEC or various 3rd party controllers.

Booting the RSTS/E 10.1 or 2.11BSD installation media from tape to clean install on an MSCP controller hard drive should not really care about the physical geometry of the drive. That is all hidden behind the MSCP interface, and the OS should only care about logical blocks, not sectors/cylinders/heads.

 

[gslick]

OK, so it turns out my memory from 8 years ago is not correct. I pulled out my SMS-1000 Model 40 and for a quick look. I forgot how heavy it is. The last time I used it I had it configured with an M8192 KDJ11-A and two M7551-BV MSV11-QB 2MB boards to max out the memory at 4MB. The original MFM hard drive was dead when I acquired the system years ago. The currently installed drive is an NEC D5452 with 10 heads and 823 cylinders. That works out to a formatted capacity of around 72MB.

As much as I was sure that I was unable to successfully install RSTS/E 10.1 on the system, my notes taped to the system indicated that RSTS/E 10.1 was currently installed. Sure enough, I powered it on for the first time in years and was able to boot into a working RSTS/E 10.1 installation.

I still believe I was unable to get 2.11BSD installed, but it is possible that I am mistaken about that too. I'm not sure if it would really be worth the try now without a larger drive. A 72MB drive is on the small side for 2.11BSD, especially if you want to install the source code too.

**    SMS 1000    **

1 STATUS
2 OPERATION        <--
3 EVALUATION
4 CONFIGURATION

ENTER NUMBER - 2


**OPERATION**

1 BACKUP WINCHESTR <--
2 RESTOR WINCHESTR
3 COPY
4 IDENTIFY
5 FORMAT FLOPPY
6 WINCHESTR MGT
7 BOOT HOST CPU

ENTER NUMBER - 7
Are you sure?y
Booting host.


    SMS 1000           BOOTSTRAP
2044KW MEMORY          11/73 CPU

BOOTABLE DEVICES:
DEVICE         DEVICE          UNIT
NAME           TYPE            NUMBERS

DU             DSA             0-3
MS             TS              0

ENTER DEVICE NAME AND UNIT NUMBER:  du0

RSTS V10.1-L RSTS   (DU0) INIT V10.1-0L


Today's date? 29-DEC-91

Current time? 16:12

Start timesharing? <Yes> NO


Option: <Start> HARDWR

  HARDWR suboption? LIST

  Name  Address Vector  Comments
  TT0:   177560   060   Type: MXV11
  RU0:   172150  P310   RQDX    Units: 0(RD51) 1(RX50)
  KL0:   176500   300   Type: MXV11

  KW11L  177546   100   (Write-only)

  Hertz = 60.

  Other: FPU, 22-Bit, Data space, Cache, J11-A CPU

  HARDWR suboption? ECO

Name    Address   SW Rev  HW Rev
RU0:    172150       7       4

  HARDWR suboption?


Option: <Start>

Size of monitor has changed from 82K to 81K.
Adjusting memory table.

  Memory allocation table:

     0K: 00000000 - 00503777 (  81K) : EXEC
    81K: 00504000 - 15527777 (1669K) : USER
  1750K: 15530000 - 17757777 ( 294K) : XBUF

Memory available to RSTS/E is 2044K words.

29-Dec-91 04:13 PM

1 device disabled

Proceed with system startup? <YES>

 Beginning RSTS/E system startup...
29-Dec-91 04:13 PM   Installing monitor overlays
29-Dec-91 04:13 PM   Mounting disks
29-Dec-91 04:13 PM   Assigning logical names
29-Dec-91 04:13 PM   Starting error logging
29-Dec-91 04:13 PM   Setting system characteristics
29-Dec-91 04:13 PM   Installing run-time systems and libraries
29-Dec-91 04:13 PM   Starting Operator/Message Services

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>  OMS V10.1-A  29-Dec-91 04:13 PM  <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Message 1 from OMS, user [1,2], Detached, job 3
Starting Operator/Message Services
29-Dec-91 04:14 PM   Setting terminal characteristics
29-Dec-91 04:14 PM   Defining system commands
29-Dec-91 04:14 PM   Setting printer characteristics
29-Dec-91 04:14 PM   Starting spoolers

*** From [1,2] "[ 1, 2]" on KB0: at 04:14 PM 29-Dec-91
** RSTS/E is on the air...

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>  OMS V10.1-A  29-Dec-91 04:14 PM  <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Message 2 from user [1,2] on _KB0:, job 2
The system startup is complete


RSTS V10.1-L 29-Dec-91 04:15 PM
User: 1,2
Password:

Jobs detached under this account:
   Job  What  Size  State   Run-time   RTS
    1  ERRCPY 5K    SR          17.1  ...RSX
    3  OMS    9K    SL           2.1  ...RSX
    4  PBS... 19K   SL           2.6  ...RSX
Job number to attach to?
Last interactive login on 29-Dec-91, 04:13 PM at KB0:
Last non-interactive login on 29-Dec-91, 04:14 PM
3 other users are logged in under this account

$ SHOW SYSTEM
System name:                     RSTS V10.1-L RSTS/E V10.1
Currently installed Monitor:     RSTS
Swap Maximum:                    66K
Date format:                     Alphabetic
Time format:                     AM_PM
Magtape label default:           DOS
Magtape density default:         1600 BPI
Power fail restart delay:        300 seconds
Dynamic Region Limit:            0K words
Hangup:                          Delayed
Monitor Statistics:              Disabled
Job limit:                       63
Current jobs:                    4
Password Prompting:              Network and Dialup users
LAT Software:                    Not Installed  Upon reboot: installed
FMS Software:                    Not Installed
Current Pseudo keyboards:        4
Answerback message:              None

 

[Dare]

Further, thank you for this wonderful forum and your interest.

Thank you for sharing the story. Very interesting!

I'm surprised your MSCP controller didn't work. It doesn't seem like there's much in the MSCP driver that could go wrong.

I know that the MSCP-enabled 2.9BSD booted fine on my pieced together 11/23 with an Emulex UC07 controller.

--Jay

 

[klapperp]

@gslick

I am using the smart term configuration, therefor my sense monitor output looks different than yours:

Terminal ready


* HIT ANY KEY WITHIN TIME LIMIT *

SMS 1000
STATUS OPERATION EVALUATION CONFIGURATION

FLOPPY FORMATS BOOTSTRAP POWER ON/RESTART SERIAL PORTS
DEVICE PARAMETRS ADDRESSES SPECIAL

SERIAL PORT A0 SERIAL PORT A1 CONSOLE SETTING TERMINAL TYPE
TERMINAL ONLINE

TERM= DUMB? TERM= SMART?




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------




SMS 1000
STATUS OPERATION EVALUATION CONFIGURATION

IDENTIFY ENVIRONMENT










--------------------------------------------------------------------------------





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SMS 1000 Firmware V1.1 Sfm S/N 104-1293 Ship 03/01/86

As you see, my firmware version is V1.1

Peter

 

[klapperp]

The reason, why BSD has problems to install proper with the SMS MSCP controller, you can already see in gslick's post:

RU0: 172150 P310 RQDX Units: 0(RD51) 1(RX50)

The SMS MSCP controller reports always RD51 for the connected hard drive and in my case RX03 for the connected floppy drive. Further he writes:

The currently installed drive is an NEC D5452 with 10 heads and 823 cylinders.

This is definitely not an RD51, not even a DEC compatible hard disk.

Further the SMS MSCP controller always reports: "Version 0 / Model 0" while for example the emulated RQDX3 under SIMH reports: "Version 3 / Model 3"

The Version and Model was not an issue for 2.9BSD but RD51 was a problem, due to the way, how filesystems and partitions are treated in old Unix kernels. I am sure that this is also the problem with 2.11BSD, because the bsdlabel (partition table) contains also information about the hard disk, which are used by the operating system to acces data.

I will later attach my 2.9BSD port for the SMS1000 here as files!

Peter

 

[klapperp]

What is the maximum file size which I can add here?

 

[gslick]

I'm not sure if the reported "RD51" name from the MSCP interface really matters. It didn't really seem to matter to the RSTS/E 10.1 installation. The OS should really only care about the capacity in logical blocks reported by the MSCP interface.

I'd have to try booting the 2.11BSD installation tape to run the standalone disklabel program to see what it reports. After seeing that RSTS/E 10.1 appears to run fine on my SMS-1000 Model 40, at this point my guess is that the 2.11BSD standalone disklabel program would be able to create partitions on the hard drive, and then the standalone mkfs program could create filesystems on the partitions. I could at least try running the standalone disklabel program without committing any changes to the currently installed NEC D5452, but I'd be somewhat hesitant to commit changes and go further with the installation and wipe out the current RSTS/E 10.1 installation. Maybe I have another MFM drive that still works that I could try.

After thinking about this more, it is possible that I confused issues with different systems. It has been a few years. Maybe I was thinking about the issues trying to install and run RSTS/E 10.1 or 2.11BSD on a QED-993 CPU board. Those are cursed. I bought a couple of them a few years and then discovered that I can't get either RSTS/E 10.1 or 2.11BSD to install and run correctly on them. I am not aware of anyone else who has had any luck with them. There seems to be something about their floating point instruction implementation, or complete lack thereof, which is not compatible with any DEC PDP-11 CPU implementation. Some people have tried rebuilding 2.11BSD with patches which should not use any floating point instructions, but that doesn't solve the issues. Anyway, that is a story for a separate thread.

 

[klapperp]

@gslick: I can create a partition table with 2.11BSD on the SMS-1000 with my KDJ11-A CPU card, but afterwards "restor" fails to write the root filesystem ...

Let's discuss it in a new thread but just a few words about the 2.11BSD partition table.

The partition table consists a lot of information about the hard disk:
# disklabel -r ra0
# /dev/rra0a:
type: MSCP
disk: RD54
label: DEFAULT
flags:
bytes/sector: 512
sectors/track: 17
tracks/cylinder: 15
sectors/cylinder: 255
cylinders: 1220
rpm: 3600
interleave: 1
trackskew: 0
cylinderskew: 0
headswitch: 0 # milliseconds
track-to-track seek: 0 # milliseconds
drivedata: 0

2 partitions:
# size offset fstype [fsize bsize]
a: 306000 0 2.11BSD 1024 1024 # (Cyl. 0 - 1199)
b: 4845 306000 swap # (Cyl. 1200 - 1218)

And there is a 2nd file wich 2.11BSD uses to access the disks: /etc/disktab

The entries there look like this:

rd54|RD54|DEC RD54:\
        :dt=MSCP:ty=fixed:ns#17:nt#15:nc#1221:so:\
        :b0=/mdec/rauboot:\
        :pa#15884:oa#0:ba#1024:fa#1024:ta=2.11BSD:\
        :pb#16720:ob#15884:bb#1024:fb#1024:tb=swap:\
        :pc#311200:oc#0:bc#1024:fc#1024:tc=unused:\
        :pg#278596:og#32604:bg#1024:fg#1024:tg=2.11BSD

and of course there exists an entry for RD51:

rd51|RD51|DEC RD51:\
        :dt=MSCP:ty=fixed:ns#18:nt#4:nc#300:so:\
        :b0=/mdec/rauboot:\
        :pa#15884:oa#0:ba#1024:fa#1024:ta=2.11BSD:\
        :pb#5716:ob#15884:bb#1024:fb#1024:tb=swap:\
        :pc#21600:oc#0:bc#1024:fc#1024:tc=2.11BSD

The strandalone programs for the installation use only a minimum of these parameters, but enough to let restor fail ...

When I have time I can look into it and check, if I can patch also 2.11BSD to run on the SMS. I am sure that is is possible!

 

[klapperp]

I uploaded my 2.9BSD MSCP port now here:

Spoiler: 2.9BSD for SMS-1000 Model 40 and probably others ...

29bsd-simh - Download - 4shared - Peter Klapper

Download 29bsd-simh at 4shared free online storage service

www.4shared.com

29bsd-smstape - Download - 4shared - Peter Klapper

Download 29bsd-smstape at 4shared free online storage service

www.4shared.com

29bsd-tapefiles - Download - 4shared - Peter Klapper

Download 29bsd-tapefiles at 4shared free online storage service

www.4shared.com

29bsd-vtserver - Download - 4shared - Peter Klapper

Download 29bsd-vtserver at 4shared free online storage service

www.4shared.com

There is NO root password in this distribution. For installation on real hardware, at least a Maxtor XT-1085 (RD53) or larger is recommended.
My SMS1000 system currently has a Maxtor XT-1140 installed. Original was an XT-1085 in the system.

The disk layout for these two disks during installation is as follows:

Maxtor XT-1085 / DEC RD53
=========================
1024/8/18
interleave 1,4
--- layout ---
root = ra(0,0), size 3200
swap = ra(0,6400), size 1920
usr = ra(0,10240), size 64180

Maxtor XT-1140
==============
918/15/18
interleave 1,4
--- layout ----
root = ra(0,0), size 3200
swap = ra(0,6400), size 1920
usr = ra(0,10240), size 114880

I've split the data into 4 parts in order to not get too much when downloading:

1.) 29bsd-simh.tgz: A SIMH image including configuration file. "pdp11 sms1123.ini"

2.) 29bsd-smstape.tgz: A Linux dump of the QIC24 installation tape which was generated with my SMS1000 system. You can write this under Linux to a 60MB QIC tape with: "dd if=29bsd-sms-tape.dd of=/dev/st0" The SMS1000 generated format is not compatible with Linux, but the Linux dd'ed tape can be read by the SMS1000 system.

3.) 29bsd-tapefiles.tgz: The files to create a SIMH tape image, or real tape for another system.

4.) 29bsd-vtserver.tgz: The version of the vtserver and the corresponding configuration file with which I performed the successful initial installation. I worked with 19200bps, which is the maximum my SMS1000 supports on the console, under 2.9BSD only 9600bps works anyway.

Have fun with it, if you find bugs, they may of course be mine.

Of course, I am also looking forward to your improvements and wish you a happy new year!

 

[Dare]

I uploaded my 2.9BSD MSCP port now here:

I would be interested in looking at the source for the MSCP driver, but after a quick review, I'm not comfortable downloading anything from that site. Maybe you can summarize the differences between your version and the one published by Jonathan Engdahl?

 

[klapperp]

I simply integrated / backported the MSCP driver from 2.10BSD and slightly adapted it to work also with my 8" floppy drive. The filesystem offsets are the same as the ones from Jonathan Engdahl. I attached the the kernel source as well as the header files now aslo here.

In the source tree you also find the old sources in order to compare. There are also some predefined kernel configurations with which I bulit my distribution kernels for the SMS-1000 Model 40:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root sys 965 Oct 26 17:58 FLOP23
-rw-r--r-- 1 root sys 965 Oct 27 09:03 FLOP73
-rw-r--r-- 1 root sys 965 Nov 5 19:20 MSCP23
-rw-r--r-- 1 root sys 966 Oct 27 08:58 MSCP73

You can reproduce i.e. my PDP11/23 kernel by typing ./config MSCP23. Than it just builds with "make".

I enhanced the kernel kofiguration files in the way, that I am able to select a correct time offset (GMT+1 for me here) as well as the frequency (50Hz for me here) You can adjust this according to your needs.

 

[gslick]

Yesterday I dug out an RD54 / XT-2190 and swapped that into my SMS-1000 Model 40. After spending several hours, I had that drive low level formatted by the SMS-1000 Model 40, and then a fresh install of RSTS/E 10.1 from an installation tape booted from a SCSI Exabyte EXB-8200 8mm tape drive attached to a CMD CQD-220/TM. That all worked fine without any issues.

**IDENTIFY**

1 IDENTIFY F0      <--
2 IDENTIFY W0

ENTER NUMBER - 2
W0 ready?Y
#Cyls=   1224
#Heads=  15
CylOff=  1
HeadOff= 4
Cyl#=    1223
Head#=   0
Format=  MFM
Byt/sct= 512
 
 
  HARDWR suboption? LIST

  Name  Address Vector  Comments
  TT0:   177560   060   Type: MXV11
  RU0:   172150  P310   RQDX    Units: 0(RD51) 1(RX50)
  MU0:   174500  P314   TU81    Units: 0(TU81)
  KL0:   176500   300   Type: MXV11

  KW11L  177546   100   (Write-only)

  Hertz = 60.

  Other: FPU, 22-Bit, Data space, Cache, J11-A CPU


$ SHOW DISKS

Disk Structure:
Dsk  Open    Size      Free    Clu   Err Name      Level  Comments
DU0    22  325472  266104  81%   8     0 RSTS10     1.2   Pub, DLW

Next I tried to install 2.11BSD with the exact same hardware configure, except booting from the 2.11BSD installation tape. Unfortunately there is some incompatibility with the RA driver used by the standalone disklabel. It fails to complete the 4-step MSCP initialization after writing the RINGBASE HI ADDRESS to the SA register. I'll have to see if I can figure out a way to debug that and get more information about why it might be failing.

I don't remember if this is the same issue I saw a few years ago when I first tried to get 2.11BSD installed on this system before I gave up.

73Boot from tms(0,0,0) at 0174500
: tms(0,1)
Boot: bootdev=06001 bootcsr=0174500
disklabel
Disk? ra(0,0)
ra(172150) fail step 4. retrying
ra(172150) fail step 4. retrying
ra(172150) fail step 4. retrying
ra(172150) fail step 4. retrying
ra(172150) fail step 4. retrying