Forth for PDP-11

From: Zane H. Healy <healyzh_at_aracnet.com>
Date: Thu Jun 27 20:04:03 2002

SUCCESS!!!!

> > I just realized that there is documentation included, it's in the 'sol.sd',
> > so I'm going to have to pour through it. I get the distinct impression that
> > it's not working the way it should, so I need to see if I've installed it
> > incorrectly (the first look through makes it look like it's installed
> > correctly).
>
> The system is getting far enough to make me think it is installed
> correctly (the interpretter loop is running, for example, it's reading a
> command line, and at least handling some of it). Either there are a lot
> of standard words not implemented in this system (In Forth you can have
> whatever words you like...), or they've got non-standard names (if that's
> the case, the author needs to get a clue!), or you've not assembled one
> of the source files that would include them (if they're in the manual but
> not in the dictionary, this is possible), but I would have thought
> there'd be undefined symbols (if only for the dictionary linkage
> pointers) if that was the case.

I was right it wasn't up completely. I'd booted the minimal system, but I
needed to compile the rest of it. See the following.

sim> b rl0
RL BOOT - OK
SOL-11 0.4 COPYRIGHT (C) 2001 NILS M HOLM
10 list LIST?
10 load 8072 BYTES
YOU MAY NOW TYPE SAVE-SYSTEM TO SAVE THE
NEWLY CREATED KERNEL. OK
save-system OK
save-buffers halt
>
HALT instruction, PC: 010516 (JMP _at_(R4)+)
sim> b rl
RL BOOT - OK
SOL-11 0.4 COPYRIGHT (C) 2001 NILS M HOLM

WELCOME TO SOL

KERNEL SIZE IS 8072 BYTES
MEMORY SIZE IS 57344 BYTES

THESE MESSAGES ARE LOADED FROM BLOCK #9.
TYPE 9 LIST TO VIEW OR EDIT THIS BLOCK.

THIS DISK CONTAINS THE HLL PART OF THE
SOL KERNEL. TYPE 9 51 INDEX FOR A TABLE
OF CONTENTS.

REMEMBER TO TYPE SAVE-BUFFERS BEFORE
TURNING OFF YOUR MACHINE.

SOL IS READY TO TAKE COMMANDS NOW.

5 3 + . 8 OK

So, as you can see, I've now got it working under SIMH.

One interesting thing I've found in the sol.sd document, is that the author
(Nils M Holm) views the fact that it requires EIS as a bug. Unfortunatly
all the drives that this supports are up in storage, as I don't really have
room for any of them in the apartment, so for the time being I'll have to
play around with this under SIMH. However, it's safe to say I do want to
play with it, and eventually I'd like to get it up and running on real
hardware. Hmmm, I wonder if I can convince my folks to let me temporarily
clean out enough of thier garage to get /44 that's buried in there fired
up.... :^)

                        Zane
Received on Thu Jun 27 2002 - 20:04:03 BST