lkml.org 
[lkml]   [1998]   [Nov]   [19]   [last100]   RSS Feed
Views: [wrap][no wrap]   [headers]  [forward] 
 
Messages in this thread
/
Date
From
SubjectRe: Linux-asm (was A patch for linux 2.1.127)
On Thu, 19 Nov 1998, Simon Kenyon wrote:

> On 18-Nov-98 Richard B. Johnson wrote:
> > Unix was built on a Digital PDP-11/34, using tools available
> > in the RSX-11 Digital Operation system. Most of the 'hardware stuff'
> > was done in DEC MACRO Assembly under RSX-11.
> > 'C' came later.
>
> that's not right
>
> quote from BSTJ vol 57 no 6 july-august 1978:
>
> "There have been four versions of the UNIX time-sharing system. The earliest
> (circa 1967-70) ran on the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-7 and -9 computers.
> The second ran on the unprotected PDP-11/20 computer. The third incorporated
> multiprogramming and ran on the PDP-11/34, /40, /45. /60, and /70 computers..."
>
> later on Ken and Dennis say:
>
> "The first version was written when one of us (Thompson), dissatisfied with the
> available computer facilities, discovered a little used PDP-7 and set out to
> create a more hospitable environment.

The hospitable evironment was to make a computer game.

This (essentially personal) effort was
> sufficiently successful to gain the interest of the other author and several
> colleagues, and later to justify the aquisition of the PDP-11/20, specifically to
> support and text editing and formatting system. When in turn the PDP-11/20 was
> outgrown, the system had proven useful enought to pursuade management to invest in
> the PDP-11/45, and later in the PDP-11/70 and Interdata 8/32 machines, upon which
> it developed to its present form"
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The "text editing and formatting system" references the first 'C'
compiler. Even now, 'C' code runs in the "text" segment.

> unix and c existed long before rsx-11 ever saw the light of day

Not so. There is no way anybody could make anything run on a raw
piece of hardware. If you want to make a new operating system for
a PDP-11, you either use the tools already available that runs
on that platform or, if none exists, you have to write some tools
on another platform that does have an operating system. The tools
generated, ran under RSX-11. In fact, AT&T release 2, UNIX System V
Programmer Reference manual makes numerous references to the PDP-11
(Eary 'C' was not all that portable), and makes comparisons to
RSX-11.

This book and it's companion "User reference manual" was my first
introduction to Unix. It was published in 1983 in AT&T Bell Laboratories.
There have been revisionist books published later.

Cheers,
Dick Johnson
***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****
Penguin : Linux version 2.1.128 on an i686 machine (400.59 BogoMips).
Warning : It's hard to remain at the trailing edge of technology.


-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/

\
 
 \ /
  Last update: 2005-03-22 13:45    [W:0.138 / U:0.140 seconds]
©2003-2020 Jasper Spaans|hosted at Digital Ocean and TransIP|Read the blog|Advertise on this site