[net.decus] Various RSTS questions

herbert@grok.DEC (Kevin Paul Herbert) (03/18/86)

>We desperately need help on the following topics, related to a Systime 1000
>running RSTS 4.0A ( for those outside the UK unfamiliar with Systime they
>are an English company, who among other things, have for some years OEM'd DEC
>products - the 1000 is a PDP11 box).
 
Well, if you really are running RSTS-11 V04A (which is how it was numbered
way back then) you are running circa 1972 software.
 
What kind of PDP-11 is the Systime system?
 
RSTS Version 4 pre-dated memory management support (it was added in
version 5). If your PDP-11 has memory management, you'll need to
update to a more recent version (the current version of RSTS is
V9.1, by the way).
 
I don't know about your serial I/O card; for RSTS to support it, it
will have to emulate some kind of DEC interface. Perhaps it is one
of these things like 4 DL-11 interfaces on a single board.
 
The same thing is true of your disk drive situation; I'd need to
know what they looked like. Generally, third party disk drives
emulate DEC drives with changes in disk geometry. These geometry
changes are made by patching standard disk drivers.
 
Assuming that you have memory management (if not, you're stuck at
Version 4), you could update to RSTS/E V9.1 and get MACRO and the
LINKer. Versions of RSTS prior to Version 6 didn't have any way to
use MACRO on-line.
 
Kevin Herbert
Digital Equipment Corp.