[Simh] A tutorial introduction to programming PDP-11 Macro-11 Assembly in RT-11 v5.3

[Paul Koning]

> On Jan 21, 2016, at 10:58 AM, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 8:37 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
>> ODT actually stands for On-line Debugging Tool, not Online Debugging
>> Technique.
> 
> I recall Octal Debugging Technique.  Anyone else remember that definition?

Things get interesting...

The name ODT was derived from the TOPS-10 debugger DDT -- an obvious name in that era for something that gets rid of bugs, but officially it stood for "Dynamic Debugging Technique".

ODT was much simpler, not offering symbolic debugging for one thing.  So it got a different name, and since its I/O was pretty much just octal numbers, replacing "dynamic" by "octal" made sense.

Then again, the DOS V9 manual says it's "On-line debugging technique".  So do several RT11 manuals.  Hm.  Now I'm puzzled.  I clearly remember "octal" and don't remember ever seeing "on-line".  And sure enough, the header of the source code for RSTS "monitor ODT" (the kernel debugger) says "Octal debugging tool".

So it looks like DEC wasn't consistent.  On-line in some places, octal in others, and "technique" in the official documents I remember but "tool" at least internally (a more obvious word to use, certainly).

	paul