EVERHART@arisia.dnet.ge.com ("Glenn Everhart 215 354 7610 GE Aerospace Technology", 8*747 7610) (06/12/90)
While 5MB is pretty small for a pro 350 disk, it can be used. What you need is a password diskette. This can be made on another pro from the menus. You then boot and insert the password diskette, then use that diskette's password to log in. Then you can reset the password to something you know, or nothing if you prefer not to have a password on the machine (a good idea IMHO). Then if you have POS V2 or later, and have the native toolkit, you've got an os. DEC has released POS and the toolkit and a bunch of other applications to DECUS. This covers all versions of POS (some of us asked the DECies whether the release covered only POS 3.2 or earlier ones. It covers 'em all.) You can obtain quite a lot of free software from the DECUS library for these beasties; some on diskette, more on tape based collections that assume you have a friend with a VAX handy. (It's a lot easier to send out 100 MB on a tape than on hundreds of diskettes! The collections run to this size, each.) DEC has released POS, a windowing system, BASIC, the toolkit (includes assembler, linker, editors, utilities...), pro-sight, pro communications (terminal emulator), pro DECnet, and some others. Also available are free comm programs with more general protocols (kermit etc.), databases, spreadsheets, a C compiler, a Pascal compiler, Forth, disassemblers, focal, tar diskette read/write, TECO editor, graphics packages, calendar packages, calculators, another Basic, LOTS of tools of all sorts, shells, and so on. The variety and power of free software on the pdp11 platform is great, and does not require venix. POS is reasonably well adapted to the pro 350 hardware and while it has its clunky side (due to the fact that it was crippled from RSX and only un-crippled late in its life cycle and still with some bandages), it is useful. The DEC OS gives a good match to the graphics in the box and since the software is free (or may cost a copying fee; depends where you get it) you should investigate this. However you should find someone physically close to you if possible to deal with. Glenn Everhart Everhart@Arisia.dnet.ge.com RSX SIG tape librarian