8794a3e050
Note: SHRDLU only works with the visual block rendering on pdp10-ka with the
Type 340 display enabled. Even then, there is some issue that causes the
SLAVE interface to the Type 340 display to fail, with an error indicating that
the 340 is not available. This is still to be tracked down.
Without the Type 340 display, SHRDLU should work reasonably well. It fails at
some things that the DEMO apparently succeeded in doing. It is not clear why,
but likely the demo was created at one point, and the SHRDLU sources were updated
after that point, breaking some things.
SHRDLU can be invoked with :SHRDLU;SHRDLU.
Once you invoke SHRDLU, you'll see output similar to this:
SHRDLU VERSION 1000 LOADED 2024-07-21 IN BLISP 2156
REFER
COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS TO DDM
VERSION
RECONSTRUCTED BY EJS
-IF YOU ARE NEAR A DEC-340
DO YOU WANT THE DISPLAY (TYPE " Y " OR " N " )
If you are running the pdp10-ka emulator, have enabled the DPY device, and want
to see the display, answer "Y". Otherwise, answer "N".
Then, after some more output you will see:
YOU ARE NOW IN A READ-EVAL-PRINT LOOP
TYPE " GO " TO ENTER READY STATE
>>>
You are now in command mode and can type various commands, such as "SHOW".
You can also type "GO" to enter ready mode. It is in ready mode that you can
issue commands like "pick up a big red block.", to which SHRDLU should
respond "OK.". Note that commands should be ended with a period (".").
Questions should be ended with an exclamation mark ("?"). An example question
might be: "what is in the box?".
MicroPlanner can be invoked with :SHRDLU;PLNR. As a simple test of MicroPlanner,
you can enter these expressions (marked with "==>" -- don't type that). If the
(THVAL ...) form results in printing "(FALLIBLE TURING)" then you know that basic
goal reaching works.
>>> TOPLEVEL
LISTENING THVAL
==> (THASSERT (HUMAN TURING))
((HUMAN TURING))
==> (DEFPROP THEO1 (THCONSE (X) (FALLIBLE $?X) (THGOAL (HUMAN $?X))) THEOREM)
THEO1
==> (THASSERT THEO1)
THEO1
==> (THVAL (THGOAL (FALLIBLE TURING) (THTBF THTRUE)) NIL)
(FALLIBLE TURING)
Incompatible Timesharing System
About ITS
ITS, the Incompatible Timesharing System, is an operating system for the PDP-10 computer family. It was created by hackers at MIT in the 1960s. The MIT site was shut down in 1990, but enthusiasts continue to operate ITS systems to this day.
Some notable ITS features:
- Hosted the first versions of Emacs, Zork, Macsyma, Maclisp, Scheme, and multi-player Maze War
- Virtual memory
- User-space device drivers
- Networking: TCP/IP, ARPAnet, Chaosnet
- Transparent network file system
- Terminal-independent text output
- Graphical workstations
There is a mailing list for discussion about ITS. Go to http://its.victor.se/mailman/listinfo/its-hackers_its.victor.se for more information.
About this project
This repository contains source code, tools, and scripts to build an ITS system from scratch.
The goals are:
-
To provide an automated build from start to end. No user intervention is necessary.
-
To check which programs have source code, and which programs are missing source code.
-
To ensure that we know how to build all programs.
-
To update programs with the latest bug fixes and enhancements.
-
To be able to set configurable options across the whole system, such as host name, IP address, hardware devices.
The build currently runs on the SIMH and KLH10 emulators. Of course, we'd be delighted to test this on a real KS10.
Building
To build ITS with this repository, you need some tools installed; see
the table below. Ensure all submodules are checked out, and then type
make EMULATOR=simh, make EMULATOR=pdp10-ka, make EMULATOR=pdp10-kl, make EMULATOR=pdp10-ks, or make EMULATOR=klh10. This will leave built files in the out directory,
some of which are disk images with ITS installed.
| Emulator | Dependencies |
|---|---|
| klh10 | git, c compiler, make, expect, curses, autoconf |
| simh | git, c compiler, make, expect, curses, autoconf, sdl2 |
| pdp10-ka | git, c compiler, make, expect, curses, autoconf, sdl2, sdl2-image, sdl2-net, gtk3 |
| pdp10-kl | git, c compiler, make, expect, curses, autoconf, sdl2, sdl2-image, gtk3 |
| pdp10-ks | git, c compiler, make, expect, curses, autoconf, sdl2 |
Usage
To start ITS, type ./start. If you see KLH10#, type go and
Enter. If you see the DSKDMP prompt, type its, press Enter, and
then ESCG. If you use the pdp10-kl emulator there is no prompt
and you need to type ESCL ITS, press Enter, and then ESCG.
Eventually, you will see SYSTEM JOB USING THIS CONSOLE. You are now
ready to log in, so type CTRLZ. See doc/DDT.md for
a list of useful commands.
Alternatively to logging in directly in the system console window,
which will always be displaying daemon messages, you may prefer to
use a seperate terminal session for logging in. To do this just
run telnet localhost <port> from another shell window and press
CTRLZ to log in there. The port should be determined as per this list:
| Port | Type | Emulator |
|---|---|---|
| 10000 | TK10 | pdp10-ka |
| 10002 | Datapoint kludge | pdp10-ka |
| 10003 | Morton box | pdp10-ka |
| 10004 | DZ11 | simh, pdp10-ks |
| 10007 | DTE2 | pdp10-kl |
| 10008 | DL10 | (pdp10-kl in the future?) |
To shut down ITS, type :lock and then 5down. Log yourself out to
avoid the 5 minute grace period: type :logout. When ITS writes
SHUTDOWN COMPLETE, it's safe to stop the emulator. Press CTRL\
to escape to the simulator command prompt and quit to close it. If
you had a separate telnet user session running you can similary
press CTRL[ and then exit telnet.
ITS can optionally use some additional peripheral devices. To attach
a simulated GT40 graphics terminal, type ./start gt40. If you run
the KA10 emulator, you can use the Knight TV raster display by typing
./start tv11 tvcon. On a TV, type F1 instead of CTRLZ.
Here is an overview of the repository:
- bin - PDP-10 binary files necessary to bootstrap the system.
- build - build scripts.
- conf - configuration for building ITS.
- doc - documentation, most of which appear in the INFO system.
- src - source code for ITS and all programs.
- tools - build tools.
- out - build output.
- user - optional user files installed in ITS.
Terminal Emulators
Several emulators for terminals and peripheral processors are built
along with ITS. They can be started conveniently with the start
script, or separately. Not all terminal emulators are set up to work
with all PDP-10 emulators by default.
| Name | Description | Type | klh10 | pdp10-ka | pdp10-kl | pdp10-ks | simh |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| type340 | Type 340 | vector | no | yes | no | no | no |
| gt40 | GT40 PDP-11 | vector | no | yes | no | yes | yes |
| imlac | Imlac PDS-1 | vector | no | yes | no | no | no |
| simh_imlac | Imlac PDS-1 | vector | no | yes | no | no | no |
| tv11 | Knight TV PDP-11 | cpu | no | yes | no | no | no |
| tvcon | Knight TV console | raster | no | yes | no | no | no |
| datapoint | Datapoint 3300 | text | no | yes | no | no | no |
| vt52 | VT52 | text | no | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| tek | Tektronix 4010 | vector | no | yes | yes | no | no |
Documentation
See the doc subdirectory for documentation.
There are some short introductions for beginners:
- How to create a new user
- DDT cheat sheet for Unix users
- Basic editing with EMACS
- TECO survival guide
- DDT debugging newbie guide
- Hello MIDAS
- Hello Maclisp
- Introduction to Muddle
- DUMP and itstar
- Games
- Printing
- Assembling ITS
- Com link mode
- Logo
- PDP-6
- Networking
A list of known ITS machines.
How ITS is built.
Applications
Some major applications:
- Adventure, game
- C10, C compiler
- CLU, progamming language.
- DDT, debugger
- Emacs, editor
- Logo, interpreter
- Mac Hack VI and Tech II, chess programs
- Maclisp, interpreter and compiler
- Muddle, interpreter
- Macsyma, symbolic math
- Maze War, game
- Midas, assembler
- Muscom and musrun, for playing music
- PDP-11 simulator
- Scheme, interpreter
- Spacewar!, game
- Stanford University Drawing System
- TECO, editor
- TOPS-10 and WAITS emulator
There is a detailed list of all installed programs.