[Simh] So far unnamed project

[Nelson H. F. Beebe]

Ray Jewhurst <raywjewhurst at gmail.com> writes on Tue, 31 May 2016 13:09:30 -0400:

>> I've never tried either TOPS10 or 20 because I don't know where to begin.

Perhaps I can help.

The KLH10 software implementation of the PDP-10 is excellent, and
gives ready access to the user-friendly TOPS-20 operating system with
command completion and in-line help.

We ran TOPS-20 on DECsystem 20/40 and 20/60 models from March 1978 to
31-Oct-1990 in the College of Science Computer facility, but it was
clear that we had to migrate our user base to a future of Unix.  We
had been running 4.x BSD Unix from the Wollongong distribution from
the early 1980s on DEC VAX 750 systems, and based on that experience,
and a lot of reading of all that I could find written about Unix at
the time, I wrote a migration guide for our user community.

I've just resurrected the LaTeX source of that document from my file
archives, successfully retypeset it without any changes whatsoever
(ahh, the joys of long-term-stable documentation production ...), and
posted it here:

	Unix for TOPS-20 Users
	http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/reports/1987/t20unix.pdf
	http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/reports/1987/t20unix.ps

You just have to reverse your view to see from the Unix(-like) world
back into the TOPS-20 world.

There are additional documents on the history of TeX and METAFONT
on TOPS-20 and other systems in papers and talk slides here:

	25 Years of {{\TeX}} and {{\MF}}: Looking Back and Looking
	Forward: {\acro{TUG\,2003}} Keynote Address
	http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/talks/2003/tug2003/

	Keynote Address: The design of {{\TeX}} and {{\MF}}: {A}
	retrospective
	http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/talks/2005/pt2005/

There is considerable mention in them of the PDP-10, TOPS-20, and
other operating systems that run on the PDP-10, including examples of
PDP-10 assembly code in the second paper.

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