[Simh] 101 Basic Games for RSTS/E (was Re: PDP11 on Simh for public access)

[Brett Bump]

On Wed, 23 Jan 2019, Paul Koning wrote:

>
>
>> On Jan 23, 2019, at 1:54 AM, Mattis Lind <mattislind at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> onsdag 23 januari 2019 skrev Brett Bump <bbump at rsts.org>:
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 22 Jan 2019, Paul Koning wrote:
>>
>> On Jan 22, 2019, at 6:00 PM, Richard <legalize at xmission.com> wrote:
>>
>> In article <CABr82SJodd8HHSGZjY8O_L5Uqc3j1ORJb7hT90VizYkjdQ0aiA at mail.gmail.com>,
>>    Mattis Lind <mattislind at gmail.com> writes:
>>
>> I have some DEC EDU material which I can scan if there are interest (and if
>> it isn't scanned already by someone else):
>>
>> https://i.imgur.com/tqmcieK.jpg
>>
>> I'd like to see this one about MINI-RSTS!
>>
>> I remember seeing that before, quite possibly the same data sheet.  I never heard of it while at DEC (in RSTS development).  Perhaps it was a short lived early (V4 vintage) RSTS marketing exercise.
>>
>>
>>         paul
>>
>>
>> Yes. I forgot that I already scanned that one. Here is the mini RSTS flyer in full pdf.
>>
>> http://storage.datormuseum.se/u/96935524/Datormusuem/mini-rsts.pdf
>>
>> Since the other documents are printed around 1972/1973 I guess that this one is the same vintage.
>>
>> /Mattis
>>
>>
>> Paul and I had this discussion before about 12 years ago on Wikipedia:
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=RSTS-11&action=history
>>
>> I believe RSTS-11 V4A-12 was probably given the name Mini-Rsts-11
>> by the marketing department (somewhat the same as MicroRSTS later).
>> MicroRSTS was a pregenned distribution with exactly the same code
>> that came on the distribution tapes, starting with RSTS/E V8.0-06.
>> There are many references to MicroRSTS, but I have only seen 2 for
>> Mini-Rsts (below is a link for our colleges RSTS-11 receipt).
>>
>> http://www.rsts.org/images/minirsts.jpg
>>
>> I know that this original distribution was V4A-12 so the name was
>> probably dropped by the time RSTS/E V5A-21 was released eight (8)
>> months later.
>>
>> Brett
>
> Interesting that there is no date on that document.  The term "RSTS-11" makes it clear we're talking about RSTS V4 or earlier.  For that matter, so does the hardware configuration: a boatload of DL11s for the user terminals rather than a DH11 or DZ11 mux, because V4 only supported single line interfaces.
>
> It's not clear if this is V4 or an older version. 24kW memory is a minimal V4 configuration, pretty marginal actually but possibly ok for 8 users max.  (In college I used V4A on a 28kW machine, 16 terminal lines, 16 users max though it tended to crash at around 12.)  The feature list doesn't mention some V4 (optional) features like "record I/O" so it's possible this was actually V3.
>
> I also found the term "PDP-11/21" interesting.  Has that been used anywhere else?  It's pretty clearly an 11/20 configuration.
>
> 	paul
>
>
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No, I never saw the 11/21 reference before either.  The machine was
an 11/20 with 28k of memory when I was working with it.  There was a
copy of DOS-11 V08-02 (which was the distro medium for RSTS V4A), a
couple of data disks and a copy of RT-11 V2 (all RK05 packs).  When
I got a hold of the machine the RK03 Diablo drives barely ran and I
replaced them with RK05's.  Some genius in the math department had
RT-11 running one day and /ZE'ed the pack.  I told him he just blew
away the distribution pack (not the DK1 pack).  He denied this and
showed me how PIP was still running (till he hit control-c).

I remember getting a number of DL11's and pulling the caps out so we
could make them run (woohoo) all the way up to 2400 baud.  I wrote a
program that spit the alphabet out to that device until we could get
the pot dialed in (away went the ASR33's and in with the VT-52s).

It was so much fun at the time considering the rest of the college
had 1 TRS-80 and 1 or 2 Apple II's.  But Paul was pretty accurate in
that I think we had a max of 3 VT52s and the LA36 console.

Brett