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<p>[ Thank you for the great meeting! -- Jeff ]<br>
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<p style="margin:0in;font-family:"Calibri
Light";font-size:20.0pt">SemiBUG -
Historic Systems - Simulation Resources</p>
<p
style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:10.0pt;color:#767676">Tuesday,
August 22, 2017</p>
<p
style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:10.0pt;color:#767676">15:56</p>
<p style="margin:0in"> </p>
<h2
style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:14.0pt;color:#2E75B5">Introduction:</h2>
<p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
<p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">Even for
people that
were born after these systems, revisiting them shows why our
current computing
models are so rich and varied.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Earlier
systems will feel crude to us, and even claustrophobic, due to the
lack of easy
and robust networking.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It
is now quite
rare to be totally cut off for all forms of communications, and
honestly, the
early systems helped lead the way there, too.<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>The early Internet ran on DEC PDP systems, among others!<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>For those of us that actually
used these
systems day to day, it can be a sharp reminder of how far we have
come when
storage was really measured in kilobytes and megabytes, and even
an
under-configured mainframe like the Oakland University Multics
system felt like
a "Cadillac" system!</p>
<p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
<h2
style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:14.0pt;color:#2E75B5">Need
an idea for a winter project when you are snowed in?<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></h2>
<p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
<p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">Using a
sufficiently
powerful computer running BSD, Linux, macOS, or Windows, it is
possible to run
several simulated environments and network them together virtually
on the host,
allowing a basic recreation of what the early Internet looked like
(ARPANET),
with DEC PDP, DEC VAX, IBM mainframe, Multics (MIT Multics, OU's
Multics never
joined The Internet directly and had to be reached via terminal
emulation), and
others.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>For some fun, load
a few
different 4.3 BSD systems and set up shared authentication and
host files, and
go back to the days of rsh & rcp!</p>
<p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
<p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">Internet
sites like
wikidot, wikipedia, bitsavers, archive.org, and others have rich
materials
including scans of original documentation. </p>
<p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
<h2
style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:14.0pt;color:#2E75B5">Multics
on SIMH: </h2>
<p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">Often
teased about, Multics is indeed a very rich classic computing
environment that
lead to the development of Unix, virtual memory, and most
recently, is being
rediscovered due to its unique (even to this day) manner of
mapping memory
resources to files (segments in Multics parlance) that is coming
to be relevant
again with the rise of non-volatile direct access memory.</p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">Check
out <a href="http://www.multicians.org/">http://www.multicians.org/</a>
for a
huge library of materials about this operating system, including
simulator
resources that work on BSD, Linux, macOS, and Windows.</p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">Eric
Swenson has a well-organized Multics FAQ at <a
href="http://ringzero.wikidot.org/">http://ringzero.wikidot.org/</a></p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">Oakland
University had a Multics, and Jeff has pieces of it in his office.<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Not long back, an OU Multics
CPU panel was
brought back to life at The Computer History Museum, being driven
by the
SIMH-hosted Multics simulation environment lead by Harry Reed,
Charles Anthony,
and many other people.<br>
</p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">Efforts
are underway now to get Internet protocols working again, as
unfortunately,
most of the source code for the early Internet software for
Multics has been
lost.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>However, several
people already
have Multics systems reachable on The Internet using similar
techniques that
Oakland University used back in the day:<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>virtually wire up the FNP to a telnet-based terminal server
:-)</p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
<h2
style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:14.0pt;color:#2E75B5">Michigan
Terminal System:</h2>
<p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">[
Jeff's Hercules environment will not run on his work computer due
to
restrictions here, my apologies, but there are youtube demos that
show the
environment.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>]</p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">MTS
was an IBM mainframe-based environment that was used by many
thousands of
students, faculty, and staff at The University of Michigan for
many years.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>MTS was used
to help develop software that
lead to the rapid expansion of The Internet, and for a while, many
sites ran
MTS.</p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">It
is now possible to simulate MTS on the Hercules IBM mainframe
simulator, among
other IBM mainframe operating systems.<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>It is a direct restore of code formerly running at UofM.</p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">Resources:<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><a
href="http://archive.michigan-terminal-system.org/mts-d60A">http://archive.michigan-terminal-system.org/mts-d60A</a><br>
and:<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><a
href="https://try-mts.com/up-and-running-1-installation/">https://try-mts.com/up-and-running-1-installation/</a></p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
<h2
style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:14.0pt;color:#2E75B5">4.3
BSD on VAX via SIMH:</h2>
<p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">[
Jeff may have to cheat and run Ultrix today as I appear to have
corrupted the
copy of 4.3 BSD on this computer.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>It
comes up very similarly, though ]</p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">I
(Jeff) spent a lot of time dealing with the 4.x BSD systems as
Oakland
University ran them for Computer Science, Engineering, Chemistry,
and Physics
installations over the years.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We
had a
few small and mid-sized systems running 4.3 BSD networked together
using early
Ethernet networks, including a VAX 750, the most lovingly-used
system since it
was basically wide open to all School of Engineering and Computer
Science
students and faculty.</p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">Back
in the day, you had to have both AT&T and Berkeley Unix
licenses to get
source and binary tapes to run BSD, but in our modern era, they
are more easily
come by, and running 4.3 BSD can be very instructional!<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I always quickly realize what
I am missing,
mainly the rich shells we are used to today, but all the basics
are there even
on an initial installation, but it is a hard adjustment to switch
back to a
telnet, rsh, and rcp lifestyle from our more
encryption-is-mandatory Internet
:-)</p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">Easy
to set up in the simulator by virtually reading the install tapes,
4.3 BSD was
a very rich environment for its time, and lead to development of a
lot of
commonly-used tools today.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>On
a fast
host, it still takes quite a bit of time to rebuild 4.3 BSD from
its source
tapes!</p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">Resources:<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><a
href="https://www.geeklan.co.uk/?p=1311">https://www.geeklan.co.uk/?p=1311</a></p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">and:
<a
href="https://web.archive.org/web/20071210200206/http:/www.retrocomputinggeek.com/retrowiki/Install4.3BSDQuasijarus/">https://web.archive.org/web/20071210200206/http://www.retrocomputinggeek.com/retrowiki/Install4.3BSDQuasijarus/</a></p>
<p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
<h2
style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:14.0pt;color:#2E75B5">Apple
Lisa on LisaEm:</h2>
<p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">The
Lisa was a short-lived computer that represented Apple's view of
future
computing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Supplanted by
Macintosh, it
did bring a lot of XEROX Palo Alto Research Center technologies
into wider view
but was always hamstrung by very slow storage of the day.<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The 5MB Profile hard drive
that was required
to run the original Lisa was attached using a "high speed" serial
port and was only barely faster than floppy discs.<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The Lisa OS also had some
architectural
issues that resulted in slow performance opening and closing
files.</p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">Later
on, Lisa's hardware was used to run a port of Unix, and still
later, the
oft-dreaded Microsoft/SCO Xenix :-)<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>SCO
got its start with this port back in 1984.</p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">LisaEm
has limited porting targets at present and likely will not work on
your
existing BSD system.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Best
success is
currently had by running Windows natively or on emulation using a
powerful
system.</p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">Resources:<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><a
href="http://www.macmothership.com/lisacontent/info_lisa.html">http://www.macmothership.com/lisacontent/info_lisa.html</a></p>
<p
style="margin:0in;margin-left:.375in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
<p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p>
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