[Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Eric Smith]

Actually, on further reflection, I have nothing useful to add.  Only observations.  I am probably much younger I am sure than most of you (not my fault, and please don’t hate me for that).  At 50 now I was in high school when I did the Epson assembler.

I would probably do best to sit idly by and just enjoy threads like this one.  I truly do, too, since I’m interested in computer history (my first machine had 4K, and the assembler was my friend).  I am SO impressed with what was done with dozens of K core and early languages.

Having written device drivers and the like in assembly, I am impressed with the notion of writing an entire OS .. that’s all.  I just had to say something about how impressed I was.

Now, I’ll be quiet and enjoy these threads!  You guys are great .. please do go on!!




> On Feb 26, 2016, at 5:43 PM, Eric Smith <esmithmail at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Well .. impressive, I suppose, would be what I would call it.
> 
> I guess you'd start with hand-keying in an assembler .. then go from
> there.    I did that once in BASIC on a machine for which I could not
> obtain an assembler (Epson HX-20).
> 
> It would be interesting to know how they went from B to C .. but once
> they had a higher level language (C .. well, higher level compared to
> the assembler), things would become much easier.
> 
> I was corresponding with DMR a couple of years before his passing.  He
> signed his C book for me.  If he were still around it would be cool to
> loop him in on this stuff and just ask.
> 
>> On Feb 26, 2016, at 5:24 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
>> 
>>> On 2016-02-26 23:47, Eric Smith wrote:
>>> I love assembly.  I do.   But seriously …
>>> 
>>>> On Feb 25, 2016, at 9:26 PM, Gregg Levine <gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com
>>>> <mailto:gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Version Zero was hand coded on a PDP-7
>>> 
>>> I know Gregg is right.  But .. Can you /imagine?/
>> 
>> Not sure I understand this comment either. Are you suggesting that coding an OS is assembler is something exceptional or complicated, or unusual?
>> 
>>   Johnny
>> 
>> --
>> Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
>>                                 ||  on a psychedelic trip
>> email: bqt at softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
>> pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
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