________________________________________
From: cctalk [cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] on behalf of Noel Chiappa
[j...@mercury.lcs.mit.edu]
Sent: Saturday, February 11, 2017 10:08 AM
To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
Cc: j...@mercury.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: Re: RSTS V7 magtape images on bitsavers
> From: Paul Koning
>> When did V7 come out, BTW?
> The files on the SYSGEN tape have a timestamp of 26-Sep-79, so "Fall
> 1979" sounds right.
Ow. I was looking for something a lot earlier than that. I used RSTS-11 in
the '72-'74 timeframe, so it's a version from that era I'd like to have. Any
idea what version that would be - and if it's still extant?
> I've used the V4A kit (DECtapes) to build that ... (There's a V4A
> sysgen manual on Bitsavers too ...)
When was that one?
>> It would be really nice to have sources - are they gone forever?
> Some still exist. I know someone who has a RSTS source kit, not sure
> which version. I have pieces of source.
OK, better than nothing.
> A complication with all of this is the question of licensing. There's a
> hobbyist license for RSTS to build and run it, but whether that carries
> over to making sources available is an interesting question. I'm not
> sure who to ask these days, either.
Hmm. I guess technically HP owns it now?
Noel
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Not so sure of that. When Mentec went away the word was that some other
party had bought all of the old PDP-11 OSes (except maybe IAS) but I have
heard nothing about it in several years and fear a lot of it may now have
become lost. It certainly isn't being held in secret because of some percieved
commercial value.
RSTS was my favorite PDP-11 OS and I have long wanted to see it Open
Sourced in its demise as I always wanted to try porting it to other machines
just for the fun of it.
bill
