53 lines
3.0 KiB
Plaintext
53 lines
3.0 KiB
Plaintext
This directory contains the source code to the TSS/8.24 timesharing system
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for the PDP-8. This copy comes from a source listing that I borrowed from
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the Melrose (Mass.) High School in 1984, typed in to my PDP-8/E (which came
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from the Belmont High School but ran Melrose H.S.'s monitor), and proofread.
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Then I cleverly dumped it to TSS/8 PUTR DECtapes for "safekeeping", and it
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took me over a decade to get around to extracting the data (on a PDP-11),
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and three more years to get around to finishing reverse-engineering PUTR.SAV's
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DECtape format! But here the files are, finally.
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This should be an almost 100% vanilla DEC source set, unless some typos
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crept in. The only change I made was to fix comments that refer to the user
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as "HIM" to say "HIM/HER". What can I say, I was going through a P.C. phase.
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Also, I inadvertantly had EDIT.SAV set in the mode where it expands any two
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spaces to a tab on input from a file, so some things look funny, like the
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DEC copyright notice. The source for each 4 K component is broken into
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pieces small enough to fit into the free space on my system's RF08/RS08
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disk when I was typing it in, they should be concatenated before actual use.
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This version is set up for an 8/E with 32 KW of core, one RF08/RS08 256 KW
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disk unit, a PC8E/PC04 high speed paper tape reader/punch, an RK05, line
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printer, card reader, and a bazillion KL8E terminals (I used an LC8E for K00,
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which worked fine). It seems to be a good sport about running with missing
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hardware (my machine had no RK05, LP, or card reader, and ran this monitor
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fine), except the RF08 of course.
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There are lots of conditionals to tweak if you want to change the
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configuration. Normally this was done by DEC, they'd rebuild it using
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the PAL-10 cross-assembler on a TOPS-10 system and ship the binaries (and
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maybe a hardcopy listing) to the customer. I'm not sure what needs to be
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changed to make it build under PAL-8 on OS/8 but I've heard it's been done.
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PAL-D (the TSS/8 assembler) doesn't support conditionals at all, so it
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certainly couldn't be used...
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CPU=4 seems to be a valid setting for the CPU model, although its meaning
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is not documented. Maybe it's for the PDP-8/A?
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The sources to SI (the System Interpreter, i.e. command line interface) were
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typed in separately a few years later, I ran out of steam typing in the
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original listing so I photocopied the SI part so I could return the listing.
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SI was typed into an IBM PC so it doesn't have the problem with two blanks
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being translated into a tab. Also, I split off the "parameters" and "linking"
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sections into PARAM.PAL and LINK.PAL since it looks like they were constant
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prefix files for assembling all five components, those parts should probably
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be hacked off of the other sources so that one centralized file can adjust
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each.
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Thank you very much to Bob McCann, who if I'm not mistaken was the person at
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Melrose HS who loaned me the listing (in 1983 or 1984). And thank you to
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Ron Diamond (who went to M.H.S.) for brainstorming about M.H.S. faculty to
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remind me of Bob's name (sorry, it was a long time ago!).
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John Wilson <wilson@dbit.com>, 18-May-2000.
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