Allison J Parent wrote:
> So what else is there that is free (or very low cost) and can be run on
> most of the LSI-11, PDP-11/23 or 11/73 series? IE: can be run on a
> 11/03 with RX01 floppy or a 11/73 with RQDX3 MSCP disks (hard disks).
This is a critical question. If there were only a small OS that ran
on a minimal -11 with floppies, there could be many more usable systems
out there.
There are several other possibilities. The last two of these have
fairly liberal licensing restrictions (maybe none):
- HT-11, the Heathkit version of RT-11 (circa Version 2?), which, if
you can find a copy, might have less restrictive licensing than the
"real" RT-11.
- Xinu, which runs on an 11/03, but probably requires a VAX running
BSD4.3 networked to it to persist. It may be possible to run a
networked Intel machine running FreeBSD (or even Linux). This is
a long term project I'd like to tackle, but it's way down the list.
- FORTH, which is available in several different versions for a
minimal -11. From personal experience, however, I wouldn't want
to wish this on anybody but the most dedicated hackers. Perhaps
that describes well someone who is trying to use a small -11 now?
For FORTH resources see:
http://www.taygeta.com/forth.html
http://theforthsource.com
You could run FORTH using one RX01, and there were (are?) several
versions around, including FIG and DECUS (RT-11 based) one.
It's not clear that the latest (last?) implementations for the -11
are still widely available. Maybe someone can dig them out?
Dave
Received on Fri Oct 09 1998 - 12:00:04 BST