RT-11 - An Open letter to Mentec?

From: Daniel T. Burrows <dburrows_at_netpath.net>
Date: Tue Apr 17 20:58:17 2001

>I am sad to hear about this, especially for you personally as well as for
the
>business loss. Is there any hardware that you need but now can't get?
>Are there any RT-11 problems that I could help with? Sorry - I would
>not be of any help with RSX/RSTS/VMS.

At the moment things are basically under control. I had a system in my van
that was to heavy to unload by myself and I had 5 pallets of equipment
waiting to be picked up at a local friends place that has a nice loading
dock. Thankfully the kids are all grown and moved out of the house so I
have taken over half the house while the mess gets cleaned up and a steel
building put up.

>
>Can you at least describe the overall probable contents of the CD and
>also tell us if the contents are based on availability or because Mentec
>did not want the omitted distributions on the CD? Namely, if the omitted
>items became "available", could they be included? While the actual
>distribution versions would be the best indication, a simple statement
>that there will be RT-11 distributions would help as well. And are
>the layered products being considered like FORTRAN and BASIC?

There are many different distributions and IIRC some layered products. I
have not looked closely at the RT11 stuff for a while. ( My background is
RSX11M+)

>
>Also, will the CD be set up as Tim Shoppa set up the RT-11 Freeware CD
>with DOS/W95/W98 files at the beginning and RT-11 partitions with
>duplicates at the end? Or all DOS or all RT-11. Note that for DOS,
>the first 64 blocks of partition zero in RT-11 are not available with the
>raw SCSI media. With the RT-11 Freeware CD from Tim Shoppa,
>this is not a problem, but could be if ONLY RT-11 partitions are
>on the CD. For example, PUTR from John Wilson probably can't
>read the first 64 blocks of partition zero under DOS if it had been
>an RT-11 partition. Note that there are a number of ways around
>this problem under DOS, but they are unnecessary if RT-11 partition
>zero is devoted to DOS files.

I have had several thoughts on that and it will depend on time. It will be
DOS, etc. readable.

>Hopefully, this was not the trickle situation and these posts on classiccmp
>are the best way and do not involve Mentec in any manner.

I only jumped in because I did not want a bunch of people calling Mentec
about it now. I am waiting for something and hope it will be here before I
get tied up on service calls for the next 2 weeks.

>
>Can you use any help? Have you a new target date at this point? Any
>information would be helpful since probably most of us were not aware
>it was even being considered. In fact, can you take a few minutes and
>describe what is being considered?

It is basically finalized but I don't want to have people rock the boat and
be calling wanting this and that added. It has been enough trouble to get
it to this point and everyone agreeable on its current contents. I have
wanted to include things but it will not be another DECUS type distribution.
The goodies like Al Baldwin's TCP package will not be on it. ( I tried but
things were to cast in stone when I got involved)

>
>I would certainly be willing to help with anything that I could do at my
end.
>I have both real PDP-11 Qbus hardware available with a SCSI host adapter
>with both SCSI hard drives and Sony SMO S501 magneto optical drives
>and a number of 5 1/4" disks which hold about 295 MBytes per side
>(about 8.75 RT-11 partitions). I also have available a PC which can
>run RT-11 under the Supnik emulator along with PUTR from John Wilson.

Thanks but I have already gotten up 2)11/73's, an 11/84, M11, all with SCSI
disk and tape. I have a couple 11/84's, 11/44's that will be up when time
permits. These are all also on the network with the PC's and a 4100.
Remember I make a large part of my living supporting customers that are
running this hardware.

Dan
Received on Tue Apr 17 2001 - 20:58:17 BST