[Simh] Some beginner questions about RSX11 and/or RSTS on simh...

[Johnny Billquist]

Hi.

On 2019-12-24 18:06, Dave Shevett wrote:
> Hi everyone - happily getting into simh now, reliving my happy
> upbringing on DEC hardware :) . I used to run RSTS on my own 11/34a,
> and did a bunch of other work on RSX-11m on DEC Pro/350's, so very
> much looking forward to reliving some of those times.

Fond memories, I can tell. :-)

> A couple basic questions....
> 
> 1) I'm assuming RSX-11m is where I should be focusing my work - even
> though my personal systems were RSTS based, (with an occasional boot
> of RT11 to test stuff)  i feel RSX-11m is the more 'complete' and
> modern OS (contextually speaking).  Does this make sense?

Not sure I fully agree, although in some sense I do.
However, if you were to look at the last (latest) RSTS/E release, I'm 
sure you would find it rather nice and modern.

But there are certainly a thing or three you can't do in RSTS/E. There 
still isn't any complete TCP/IP for it, for example.

> 2) I very much want to be able to telnet into the Pi and log into
> RSX11.  My goal is to be able to log in, run EDT sessions, and maybe
> get back into my old BASIC programming chops (okay, and I also miss
> Macro-11).  I've found a few references in archives to various TCP
> stacks, and a SHOW NETWORK is showing me an ethernet address.  Do I
> have to hand-wace magic to get a stack up on that interface?

This question is a bit more complex.

You have two basic options:
1) Use an emulated terminal controller in simh, and have simh handle the 
mapping to a telnet server. This means that from the PDP-11 side, it 
just looks like you're connected to a normal serial port. telnet 
obviously works here, but you don't have any other TCP/IP services 
available. You'll essentially be running the telnet service on the host 
machine, so the address and port will be something on that machine. This 
obviously works for any PDP-11 OS which supports serial lines.

2) Use an emulated ethernet controller, and then run a TCP/IP inside the 
PDP-11 OS. This is pretty much only possible with RSX or Unix.
That means you need to allocate a separate IP address for the PDP-11, 
and you need to make sure the MAC address makes sense, which might be an 
important question if you also have DECnet around.
You also need to setup and start all services on the PDP-11, so this is 
a bit more work, but it will result in a system with more functions, 
features and capabilities.

> If this isn't the right place for this, please let me know (I actually
> rummaged around Reddit looking for a good forum there, but doesn't
> look like /r/pdp11 is particularly active.
> 
> Looking forward to workoing with folks!

This place is as good as any. So keep firing off questions, and I'll answer.

   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