simh and rt11 primer.

From: Jerome H. Fine <jhfinexgs2_at_compsys.to>
Date: Thu Jul 15 16:33:39 2004

>Eric Moody wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I have wanted a PDP11 for years but currently do not have the space for
> one so I have decided to do the next best thing use simh. I have
> downloaded simh and the rt11 disk image but I am kind of stuck on where
> to go. Does anyone know of any sites or documents available online that
> cover configuration of simh and the installation and use of rt11. I
> have done some messing around and have managed to boot the rt11 image by
> using the commands
>
> at rl0 rtv53_rl.dsk
>
> at rl1 eric_pdp11_rt11.dsk <- This is a file that I intend to do my
> install to. Is that wrong?
>
> Boot rl1.
>
> I choose the automatic option but then it wants me to mount a disk in
> dl1 so that it can backup the media. I try to attach dl1 but I get an
> error non existent device. If try to create the disk during the install
> the install just errors out and dies.
>
> Any help with this will be most appreciated.

Jerome Fine replies:

What does "eric_pdp11_rt11.dsk" contain? If it is a zero length
file, then the install will probably not work.

Also, I presume that you actually typed: "Boot rl0" since that
is where the RT-11 distribution is located.

Also, although RT-11 uses "dl" as the device name, SIMH uses
""rl" as the device name. That is the reason for the confusion!

And if you want to go through the installation, then I suggest you
use PUTR to produce an empty "working" dsk (container) file
via the command:
FORMAT eric_pdp11_rt11.dsk/RL02
before you "Boot rl0"

PUTR with the "/RL02" switch automatically produces a
container file with the extra blocks required by a PDP-11
for the system area on an RL02 media.

BUT, before you boot rl0, you should probably:
SET RL0 LOCK

Then, the install will abort because rl0 is WRITE PROTECTED.
At that point, you can:
COPY/DEVICE DL0: DL1:
If you want to avoid the install, just:

COPY/BOOT DL1:RT11XM.SYS DL1:
BOOT DL1:

In your situation, the install is NOT needed. However,
"rtv53_rl.dsk" does not have the required system area
which is required under RT-11 to:
INIT DL0:
So if that is ever required, you MUST start with PUTR to
set up that empty file and then COPY from DL0: to DL1:
which can be done after you Boot rl0: (DL0: as far as
RT-11 is concerned) even though no system area is
present on rl0:

After you exit from SIMH, you might want to make a backup
copy (under the Windows OS) of rl1:

Once that is done, if you have more RT-11 questions, please ask.

Sincerely yours,

Jerome Fine
--
If you attempted to send a reply and the original e-mail
address has been discontinued due a high volume of junk
e-mail, then the semi-permanent e-mail address can be
obtained by replacing the four characters preceding the
'at' with the four digits of the current year.
Received on Thu Jul 15 2004 - 16:33:39 BST

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Fri Oct 10 2014 - 23:36:51 BST