UNIX V7

[Rich Alderson]

> From: Zane H. Healy
> Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 11:44 AM

> On Wed, 10 Jun 2009, Ian King wrote:

>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-
>>> bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of John Floren
>>> Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 10:46 AM

>>> At this point, Multics does not run anywhere in the world and, to my
>>> knowledge, nobody even has the hardware to run it... well, CHM has
>>> DOCKMASTER, but can that still run?

>> No.  It is missing the swapping disk.  Replacing it could be done, but it
>> would be a non-trivial (and non-cheap) enterprise.  -- Ian

Ian is not quite correct in this statement.  The HDAs from the Winchester-
technology disk drives were removed before the machine was moved out of its
computer room.  It's not *just* the swapping disks, it's *all* the disks.

> What kind of hardware are you talking here?  Looking at
> http://www.multicians.org/site-dockmaster.html I assume you're talking about
> the "4 MW paging device (bulk store)", though the same page mentions that
> CHM didn't recieve the disks.  Are the drives all the removable diskpack
> type?  We used mainly fixed disks, but had a few removable packs.

These appear to be CDC drives (9670?) similar to the DEC RP07.  A search
throughout the Honeywell universe turned up no surviving examples of these
drives, nor HDAs for same.

> Does anyone know what it takes to connect IBM DASD to a DPS-8, and if
> Multic's would support it?  I know that it is possible with GCOS-8, but I do
> not know what model, or how it would be connected.  As *INSANE* as it
> sounds, someone dropped one of the two DASD units for the site I worked at
> off the back of the truck, and it wasn't replaced (not sure why), as a
> result we were unable to bring the IBM DASD online.

IBM DASD can connect to a Multics system using an interface created by one of
the long time Multicians for one of his customers.  The first issue is that you
have to replace the bus-and-tag connectors with FIPS standard connectors.

> As of this last weekend my Honeywell manuals are out of storage, and at
> home.  I'm just not sure where they are in the garage, though I've a pretty
> good idea.  It will be interesting to see just what I have manuals for as it
> has been years since I've seen them.  I'm sure I don't have anything on
> Mulitics, as I worked at a GCOS-8 site.  I'm not sure what I might have on
> hardware.  I do know that when I can find the time, I want to go through and
> refresh my memory on GCOS-8.  I haven't touched it in nearly 16 years.

We have been told (by eminent Multicians) that there are differences in the
electronics between a DPS-8 (GCOS) and a DPS-8M (Multics) CPU.


Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Server Engineer
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104

mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
(206) 342-2239
(206) 465-2916 cell

http://www.pdpplanet.org/