> On Feb 21, 2022, at 10:11 PM, Zane Healy via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
> wrote:
>
> On Feb 21, 2022, at 4:32 PM, Rod Smallwood via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
> wrote:
>>
>> Hi
>>
>> I have built an 11/83 in a BA23 box.
>>
>> It has a KDJ-11B, 2mB PMI memory, an RQDX3 with an RX50 attached,
>>
>> Plus a CMD CQD 220A Disk controller with a digital RH18A 2Gig SCSI drive
>> attached.
>>
>> Diag sees drive as RA82.
>>
>> It boots and runs the diag disk and XXDP+ just fine.
>>
>> I do not have install distributions for any of the 11/83 operating systems.
>>
>> Daily driver system is a Windows 10 PC.
>>
>> So how do I install an operating system?
>>
>> Suggestions please.
>
> You can install RT-11, RSX-11M, and RSX-11M+ from CD-R, I couldn’t figure out
> how to install RSTS/E from CD-R.
>
> Zane
How did you get a CD-R image of kits for those OS?
I'm not sure if it has been done for RSTS but it should be possible. I once
did some work for Fred Knight when he was looking into creating a CD image of
the OS and all its layered products; the question was whether a bootable CD
could be created that would nevertheless look like it had a valid ISO file
system on it. The answer is yes and my RSTSFLX program (the V2 version) had a
feature intended to produce such an image. But the project faded away before
it completed, and I don't know that such a CD was ever produced.
Still, a RSTS disk kit is a simple thing: a bootable disk with a RSTS file
system on it, containing a few files needed to get the new system disk set up
and all the remaining bits in the form of a collection of backup sets. Boot
the distribution device, use the "dskint" and "copy" options to copy the basic
files to the destination disk, boot that disk, and run the installation script.
More precisely, those steps will all run automatically, triggered by the fact
that the kit is a read-only file system.
A RSTS floppy kit is tricky only because the basic files don't fit on one
floppy, so you have to split them across several and include marker files that
trigger media swaps. I've looked for the MicroRSTS kit building scripts but
don't think I've seen them. Reverse engineering them is certainly possible.
Not trivial; all that machinery assumes it's running on the RSTS team's main
development machine, which isn't what I have.
As for the question why there aren't RX50 kits for many of the choices: that's
because RX50 isn't a convenient distribution device, and DEC didn't sell
configs such as the one we're talking about here, at least not for RSTS
systems. With RSTS, you got a choice of a handful of kit media, which
typically were things you'd want anyway (like a magtape, good for backups). So
you'd get a system with that kind of configuration, and everything works
painlessly.
BTW, Rod, do you have any kind of network interface? An Ethernet device would
be ideal. With that, you could install just a core setup from floppies or
other hairy procedures, then copy the remaining kits across the network and
install from the local copies of the kits.
paul
