Rename hint.txt and hint.text to README.md
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# Best of show
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Christopher Mills <mrxo@sonic.net>
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Twitter: @MisterXopher
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## Judges' comments:
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### To use:
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make
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./prog
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### Try:
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make
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./prog
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(At the ">boot" prompt, type return)
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(At the ":" prompt, type "rk(0,0)rkunix")
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NOTE: To quit, press Control-E
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### Selected Judges Remarks:
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Do small machines only need small programs? This program weighs in at just
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3636 bytes, which is considerably lighter than the original machine it can replace.
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This program can take you back to the start of everything, it is possible to
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run v0. Just type:
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make
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./v0
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NOTE: To quit v0, press Control-E
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You will be greeted with a familiar prompt of "login". The username and
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password are "dmr" and "dmr". To make things more familiar you'll need to
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create '.' as it hasn't been invented yet on this image!
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@ ln dd dmr .
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An "ls" will reveal that C hasn't been invented yet! IOBCC anyone? The
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compiler is "bc". It producess assembly, which will then need to be assembled
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together in this order "ops.s bl.s hello.s bi.s" to produce a.out!
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But wait, we said this was the start of it all! This program can also run a
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program that replaces an even larger machine that can run BSD 2.9. To start this,
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make
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./prog
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(At the ">boot" prompt, type return)
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(At the ":" prompt, type "rk(0,0)rkunix")
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NOTE: To quit prog, press Control-E
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This should now be very familiar and it is possible to compile and run one of
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the very first IOCCC entires "mullender.c"
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But wait, there is even more! Try:
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make
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./v6
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(At the "@" prompt, type "rkunix")
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NOTE: To quit v6, press Control-E
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## Author's comments:
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> *This IOCCC entry is dedicated to the late Dennis M. Ritchie*
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The Program
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===========
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Since this is the 25th "annual" IOCCC, I thought I should mark the occasion
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with a look back to its earliest roots. At the same time the contest enters
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its 34th year of providing a safe forum for poor C code, the C language
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itself is fast approching its 50th anniversary, along with the UNIX operating
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system whose history is so entwined with.
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The program delivered here is both a full machine emulation of the original
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PDP-7 that Ken Thompson used to write the first version of UNIX and a full
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machine emulation of the PDP-11/40 used by subsequent UNIXes. The `Makefile`
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can build versions that can run each of the following:
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1. UNIX v0 for the PDP-7 (circa 1969)
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2. Research UNIX Version 6 (circa 1975)
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3. BSD 2.9 (circa 1983)
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For reasons to be described in a bit, the last (BSD 2.9) is the default.
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Building and Running BSD 2.9
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----------------------------
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To run BSD 2.9, do `make` to build `prog` and then `./prog` to run it.
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You should see a prompt from the first-stage bootloader that looks like
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>boot
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Type `RETURN` at this point and you will get to the second-stage boot loader
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that looks like
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40Boot
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:
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The 40 in the prompt indicates that the bootloder has correctly determined
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that we are running on a PDP-11/40.
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At this point, type the rather cryptic command `rk(0,0)rkunix` -- this tells
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the system to look at the first partition on the first RK05 fixed disk, find
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the `rkunix` file and load it. You should eventually see the following:
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>boot
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40Boot
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: rk(0,0)rkunix
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Berkeley UNIX (Rev. 2.9.1) Sun Nov 20 14:55:50 PST 1983
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mem = 135872
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CONFIGURE SYSTEM:
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xp ? csr 176700 vector 254 skipped: No CSR
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rk 0 csr 177400 vector 220 attached
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hk ? csr 177440 vector 210 skipped: No CSR
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rl ? csr 174400 vector 160 skipped: No CSR
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rp ? csr 176700 vector 254 skipped: No CSR
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ht 0 csr 172440 vector 224 skipped: No CSR
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tm 0 csr 172520 vector 224 skipped: No CSR
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ts 0 csr 172520 vector 224 skipped: No CSR
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dh ? csr 160020 vector 370 skipped: No CSR
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dm ? csr 170500 vector 360 skipped: No autoconfig routines
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dz ? csr 160110 vector 320 skipped: No CSR
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dz ? csr 160110 vector 320 skipped: No CSR
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dn 0 csr 175200 vector 300 skipped: No autoconfig routines
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vp ? csr 177500 vector 174 skipped: No autoconfig routines
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lp ? csr 177514 vector 200 skipped: No CSR
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Erase=^?, kill=^U, intr=^C
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#
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Congratulations, you are running BSD UNIX 2.9 in single-user mode as root.
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On the other hand, if you did a typo somewhere, the boot loader has probably
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crashed and halted -- if so, type Control-E to quit the simulation and try
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again. If you did really badly, you might have corrupted the virtual disk.
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If so, consider a `make clean` to start from scratch.
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Assuming you managed to type 15 characters correctly, You should be at the
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root prompt. Most of the commands you are familiar with work here (this was
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only a quarter of a century ago -- how much could things have changed?).
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Let's try some:
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# ls
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.cshrc .profile boot hkunix mnt tmp
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.login 2.9stamp dev lib mullender.c unix
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.msgsrc bin etc lost+found rkunix usr
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# df
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Filesystem Mounted on kbytes used free % used
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/dev/rk0 / 1958 1688 270 86%
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# cc mullender.c
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# ./a.out
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The program you've just run was the [winner of the first IOCCC contest from
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1984] [1] (or was it 1894?), a personal favorite of mine. It is rather
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tightly bound to running on either a PDP-11 or a VAX. Now you have one.
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Hitting Control-C will return you to the BSD UNIX prompt. Hitting Control-D
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will log you out of the single-user session and get you back to the `:login:`
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prompt. Here you can log in as `root` and get a full timesharing session.
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Feel free to try things like `vi`. I've taken the liberty of editing the
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`.login` and `.profile` files to set the console to a less traditional setup
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so that you don't have to wait for the Model 33 KSR teletype to move its
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carriage. I've also predefined `TERM` to `vt100`, which will probably work
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well enough with whatever sort of ANSI terminal emulation you are using.
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Note that I have not mounted the `/usr` disk here, so some commands from
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`/usr/bin` will be missing, along with all of the `man` pages. They are
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[available online] [2] if you need them. Adding a second RK05 disk was
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possible, but I didn't get around to it... As the Judges can no doubt attest,
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"Mid 2017" creeps up on you quicker than you expect. :)
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Once you've had enough fun in BSD 2.9, type Control-E to exit the emulation.
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Building and Running Research UNIX v6
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-------------------------------------
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Research UNIX v6 and BSD 2.9 use the same executable, but require a different
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disk image. Type `make v6` to build it, then type `./prog` to run it.
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You should see the boot loader prompt which is a single `@`:
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@
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At this point, you again must type a special incantation: `rkunix`. After that
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you should see:
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@rkunix
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mem = 1035
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RESTRICTED RIGHTS
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Use, duplication or disclosure is subject to
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restrictions stated in Contract with Western
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Electric Company, Inc.
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#
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You are now running a single-user session of v6 UNIX. You might want to start
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with `stty -lcase` because otherwise everything will be IN ALL CAPS.
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Again, if you failed typing seven characters without making a mistake, you
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may need to use Control-E to quit the simulation.
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Assuming you're more careful than that, we can try a few commands:
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@rkunix
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mem = 1035
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RESTRICTED RIGHTS
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Use, duplication or disclosure is subject to
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restrictions stated in Contract with Western
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Electric Company, Inc.
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# STTY -LCASE
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# ls
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bin
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dev
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etc
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hpunix
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lib
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mnt
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rkunix
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rpunix
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tmp
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unix
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usr
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# cat > foo.c
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main()
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{
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printf("Hello, World!\n");
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}
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# cc foo.c
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# ./a.out
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Hello, World!
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Why is Version 6 interesting? Well, it was the oldest version that I could
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find a boot image of that had a C compiler... This C compiler is recognizably
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C, but not quite the same syntax as we have today. It's much closer to the
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[B language] [3] from which it is derrived. In particular, this C compiler
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would not be able to compile `mullender.c` (as simple as it is), because the
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following syntax features don't exist yet:
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* The `short` data type doesn't exist yet. Only `int` (`short` will show
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up when `long` comes, and the port to the Interdata 7/32 starts to make
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the idea of portability become important).
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* Hexidecimal constants don't exist yet. Digital's computers all used
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octal.
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* The array initializer syntax hasn't yet moved to using `=`. It still uses
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the older form taken from B, which looks like `array[] { 1, 2, 3 };`
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It can still compile "Hello World!" (note that you must type a Control-D after
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you finish entering the code, to let `cat` see an end-of-file).
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This version of UNIX doesn't go into multi-user mode if you do a Control-D.
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Single-user mode was entered because the front-panel console switches were
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set to the magic number 0173030 (this can be changed with a re-compile).
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Once you are done with Version 6, Type Control-E to exit the simulation.
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Note that since both BSD 2.9 and UNIX v6 use the same PDP-11/40 emulation
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code, and they use the same name for the disk (`rk05.fs`), if you want to go
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back to the BSD simulation, you should either delete `rk05.fs` or do a
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`make clean` before you do a `make`.
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Building and Running UNIX v0
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----------------------------
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We now set the Wayback Machine to the very start of it all, 1969.
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[The story] [4] here is interesting and well worth a read. Bell Labs was
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pulling out of the Multics project and Ken Thompson and his collegues had
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become accustomed to the relatively nice programming environment. They also
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enjoyed the early computer game [*Space Travel*] [5] and wanted another system
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to run it on. They found a PDP-7 which was already obsolete at the time to
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port *Space Travel* to. The primitive programming environment influenced
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Thompson to recreate parts of the Multics experience in the much more
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hardware-constrained PDP-7 environemnt. In the summer of 1969, with his wife
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out on a month-long vacation, Thompson re-wrote a filesystem emulation he had
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been experementing with to include an assembler, a shell, an editor and an
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operating system kernel and hence created the first version of UNIX (although
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it hadn't been named that yet).
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You can try out this version by typing `make v0`. Since this version is a
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native PDP-7 emulation, it gets its own binary. Type `./v0` to run it. You
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should see the login prompt.
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login:
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There are two user accounts `ken` and `dmr`, with the passwords `ken` and `dmr`
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respectively. Let's try the Dennis Richie's `dmr` account:
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login: dmr
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password: dmr
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@ ls
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. ?
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Even though this is not Ken's doing, I feel this gives me licence to
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include this quote from the BSD `fortune` program:
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> Ken Thompson has an automobile which he helped design. Unlike
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> most automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gauge,
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> nor any of the numerous idiot lights which plague the modern
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> driver. Rather, if the driver makes any mistake, a giant "?"
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> lights up in the center of the dashboard. "The experienced
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> driver", he says, "will usually know what's wrong."
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What's the deal here? Well, that's a slightly long story. The short version
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is we have gone so far back in the history of UNIX that *we don't have
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filesystem paths yet*. In other words, we can't say something like
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`/bin/ls` yet, and the shell can't store that path in `$PATH` to search for it.
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We also haven't invented `.` or `..` yet. In fact, the filesystem isn't even
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the traditional UNIX tree structure, it's a directed graph of hard links...
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`ls` needs to be able to read '`.`', the current directory. `dmr`'s home
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directory doesn't have that yet, but we can make it, because the home
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directory has a hard link to `dd`, which is the directory that holds all
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of the user home directories (this will eventually become ``/``, the root
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path). We can do
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@ ln dd dmr .
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To make the new link (note that `ln` doesn't support paths either, so you have
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to give it three arguments -- a directory in the current dir, a file in that
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directory, and the new name).
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Now `ls` will work, and we can try some other things while we are here:
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login: dmr
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password: dmr
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@ ln dd dmr .
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@ ls
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dd
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system
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as.s
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b_readme
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bi.s
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bl.s
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db.s
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hello.b
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ops.s
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.
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@ cat b_readme
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Here is how to compile and run hello.b:
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@ bc hello.b hello.s
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@ as ops.s bl.s hello.s bi.s
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I
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II
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ops.s
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bl.s
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hello.s
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bi.s
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@ a.out
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Hello, World!
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@ bc hello.b hello.s
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@ as ops.s bl.s hello.s bi.s
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I
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II
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ops.s
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bl.s
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hello.s
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bi.s
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@ a.out
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Hello, World!
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@
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The last command is invoking the compiler for an exteremely early version of
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the [B programming language] [3], the predecessor to C. Thompson missed the
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convinience of writing code in a high-level language -- Multics was written
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a version of PL/1 -- and wanted the same convinience on UNIX. He preferred
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BCPL (a typeless language) to PL/1. As Dennis Ritchie [wrote] [6]:
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> B can be thought of as C without types; more accurately,
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> it is BCPL squeezed into 8K bytes of memory and filtered
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> through Thompson's brain.
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A look at the B reference manual will show the strong correlation with C, and
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shows the source of a lot of C's mysteriousness -- some of which is preserved
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simply so that C could compile the *dozens* of lines of existing B code...
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Thompson's assembler was also extremely simple. It didn't even know about
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opcodes -- these need to be defined in the first assembly file, with the
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assembler OR-ing the opcode fields together (space was the "operator" for
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logical OR). There is no link step -- all files are provided to the assembler
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on the command line, concatenated together and assembled, producing a single
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`a.out` (assembler output) file. Even after UNIX got a linker, `a.out`
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remained the default name of the binary generated by the linker (and hence
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also by `cc`).
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This system is still has the familiarity of UNIX, with all the two- and
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three-letter commands, device files, shell redirection, the same core system
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calls (`read`, `write`, `open`, `close`, `creat`, `fork`, etc.). There are a
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number of differences still:
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||||
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* As noted, there are no file paths
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* `read` and `write` do I/O on (18-bit) words. Character I/O to files needs
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to unpack those to bytes, and of course deal with `NUL` characters.
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* `exec` was performed by the shell directly. Arguments are passed as
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four words (eight bytes), and space padded. This matches the format for
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file names for `open` and `creat`.
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* `wait` does not yet exist. A more complicated mechanism for sending and
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recieving messages (`smes` and `rmes`) are used instead.
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* File permission bits are all different, since groups don't exist yet.
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* User programs are not allowed to run during disk I/O. This is because the
|
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disk controller's "data break" (DMA) accesses were so fast relative to the
|
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CPU that transfers would be dropped if an instruction that used
|
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"deferred" mode (indirection) was executed. This also meant that the
|
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"program break" (interrupt) routine in the kernel had to specifically
|
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avoid deferred accesses by using self-modifying code to do indirection
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through pointers.
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* Although the PDP-7 suppoted a "trap mode" (a primitive supervisor mode),
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the UNIX kernel doesn't use it. This means that user programs could alter
|
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or crash the kernel at will (in fact, there is a system call that returns
|
||||
addresses of useful kernel routines so that user code can call them
|
||||
directly).
|
||||
|
||||
As usual, when you are done exploring UNIX v0, type Control-E to exit the
|
||||
simulator.
|
||||
|
||||
About the Program
|
||||
=================
|
||||
|
||||
The program came about when I was looking for something to honor the pending
|
||||
50th anniversary of the C language (because of the mercurial nature of IOCCC
|
||||
contest scheduling, I chose not to wait for the actual 50th anniversary).
|
||||
I had though of writing self-hosting compilers for a stripped-down version of
|
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C, or maybe even a version of the B language... At the same time, I was
|
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obsessed with the idea of allowing `mullender.c` from 1984 to run. Although
|
||||
that was still a possibility on an interpreted version of B or a stripped-down
|
||||
version of C, it felt cheap, as it would be `mullender.c` only in spirit.
|
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|
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It was during this time that I discovered that in 2016, members of the Unix
|
||||
Heritage Society got access to [printouts of assembly-language source for the
|
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original version of UNIX] [7]. With what was a [huge amount of work] [8],
|
||||
they scanned in the printouts, fixed up the OCR translations, built assembler
|
||||
and file system tools from scratch and made an accurate simulation of
|
||||
Thompson's PDP-7 that allowed them to get the system up and running. Although
|
||||
source for the entire kernel and about half of the user-space commands were
|
||||
present (including the runtime and libraries for the B compiler), the
|
||||
remainder needed to be written from scratch, including the shell. The final
|
||||
results of the project are [available on github] [9].
|
||||
|
||||
None of this was remotely easy (as I was to discover myself). The PDP-7 is
|
||||
long gone, and the documentation for it is less complete than one would like.
|
||||
In addition, the devices attached for it were a bit of a mystery. The disk
|
||||
system is referenced only in an old price list. It was a RB09 fixed disk,
|
||||
probably made by Burroughs. It is close to what was called the RC10 for the
|
||||
PDP-10, but with a different interface. And the system also included a custom
|
||||
display device called Graphics-2, which had been built in-house by AT&T.
|
||||
It can't be completely ignored, because the kernel itself pokes at it (the
|
||||
UNIX crew used it as a second terminal -- a "glass TTY").
|
||||
|
||||
I decided that implementing this PDP-7 would be possible as an IOCCC entry.
|
||||
|
||||
The emulator emulates the full machine:
|
||||
|
||||
* PDP-7 Central Processor
|
||||
* Core Memeory Module Type 147 -- extends the core to 8,192 18-bit words
|
||||
* Extended Arithmetic Element Type 177 -- adds one's-complement
|
||||
multiplication, division and shifting
|
||||
* Real Time Clock
|
||||
* Teletype Model 33 KSR
|
||||
* Perforated Tape Reader Type 444
|
||||
* RB09 Fixed Disk Controller
|
||||
|
||||
The [PDP-7] [10] is an odd duck by modern computer standards:
|
||||
|
||||
* 18 bit words, with no byte addressing.
|
||||
* Both one's and two's complement math (there is `ADD` for one's complement
|
||||
and `TAD` for two's complement). The EAE is entirely one's-complement.
|
||||
* "Microcoded" instructions.
|
||||
* Auto-increment memory locations.
|
||||
* Non-reentrant function calls (the return address is stored at the indicated
|
||||
address and the PC jumps to the location after it).
|
||||
* The `XCT` instruction, that executes the word loaded from memory as an
|
||||
instruction.
|
||||
* An instruction `LAW` that loads the instruction opcode into the
|
||||
accumulator.
|
||||
* Heavy use of "inline" operands. For instance the `MUL` instruction expects
|
||||
the second operand to be stored in memory after the instruction. This
|
||||
pretty much requires the use of self-modifying code.
|
||||
* No immediates. Almost all constants have to live in memory locations and
|
||||
be referenced by address.
|
||||
* Common operations, like "subtract" and "inclusive OR" are not directly
|
||||
supported on the machine and require multiple instructions and some spare
|
||||
memory locations to support. Being clever also helps.
|
||||
* Single accumulator architecture. No direct support for things like stacks.
|
||||
* I/O is done with dedicated I/O instructions (which are also microcoded).
|
||||
* The RB09 disk controller gets a special mention here because of its
|
||||
particularly annoying encoding of track and sector offsets in
|
||||
[packed BCD] [11]. A non-trivial amount of code space in the simulator
|
||||
is needed to convert into and out of BCD, along with an equivalent amount
|
||||
of code in the UNIX kernel itself.
|
||||
|
||||
The simulation handles everything I was able to discover about the PDP-7, even
|
||||
things that the UNIX code itself doesn't use. For instance, it correctly
|
||||
implements the "trap mode" feature (a primitive form of supervisor mode) even
|
||||
though the kernel does not enable it. It also implements the microcoding of
|
||||
the EAE instructions even though the UNIX environment uses only the standard
|
||||
encodings. If you wanted to do a 11-bit multiply instead of an 18-bit one,
|
||||
it will probably work.
|
||||
|
||||
The simulation starts by loading a boot program off of the virtualized paper
|
||||
tape, which is in a modified version of the RIM boot loader format. The
|
||||
RIM format encodes each 18-bit word as three six-bit characters, using one bit
|
||||
to denote the final word (which is executed directly and is usually a `JMP` or
|
||||
`HLT` instruction). The load address comes from the console address switches.
|
||||
Both of these are controlled by compile-time flags.
|
||||
|
||||
The emulator continues emulating instructions until it sees a `HLT` instruction
|
||||
which will cause it to exit. Console I/O is emulated by setting the terminal
|
||||
into raw mode and polling via `read`. Line-clock ticks (at 60 Hz) are done
|
||||
by polling `gettimeofday`. Dynamic frequency code arranges to reduce the
|
||||
polling interval to a few polls per tick, so that simulation remains
|
||||
responsive. Since we use the real wall-clock time, this means that the
|
||||
emulated system will see time advance at the correct rate.
|
||||
|
||||
Licencing Fun
|
||||
-------------
|
||||
|
||||
So now I have a system that can run UNIX v0. One problem remains... I don't
|
||||
have permission to submit UNIX v0 to the IOCCC. It is not my code and the
|
||||
copyright for it remains the property of whoever owns that part of what was
|
||||
once Bell Labs -- I believe it is Nokia at this point. I have worked around
|
||||
this problem in two ways:
|
||||
|
||||
First, I didn't submit the source code or binary image for v0 UNIX as part of
|
||||
my IOCCC entry. I merely submitted a `Makefile` that can issue a `curl`
|
||||
command to fetch a prebuilt v0 disk image from the github repository. I am
|
||||
hoping this is considered part of "Legal abose of the rules" which is supposed
|
||||
to be "somewhat encouraged". As per RULE 12, I am justifying said abuse here,
|
||||
in the remarks file.
|
||||
|
||||
Secondly, the choice to run the UNIX v0 code is optional. If you are worried
|
||||
about Nokia's lawyers running you to ground for running a 50-year old copy
|
||||
of a binary image for a machine that is almost completely nonexistant, you
|
||||
can just not do so. Delete the lines from the `Makefile` and sleep well.
|
||||
You still have two other UNIXes to play with.
|
||||
|
||||
What about the other two UNIX variants? These are both covered by licences
|
||||
that allow me to use them. Back in 2002, Caldera International released
|
||||
Research Unix versions 1-7 and 32V under a [permissive BSD-like license] [12].
|
||||
BSD UNIX is based off of v7 UNIX, and of course has its own permissive
|
||||
BSD licence. And in 2017, Nokia also released versions 8-10 under the
|
||||
condition that it will not assert copyright rights for non-commercial use.
|
||||
|
||||
So the newer UNIXes are in the clear. I doubt anyone actually cares about
|
||||
version 0 either, but technically it's still under copyright.
|
||||
|
||||
PDP-11/40
|
||||
---------
|
||||
|
||||
So if I have a PDP-7 emulator, how do I run operating systems that expect a
|
||||
PDP-11? Simple... *I emulate a PDP-11/40 on the PDP-7*. I have written
|
||||
PDP-7 assembler code to emulate a PDP-11/40 with the following equipment:
|
||||
|
||||
* PDP-11/40 (KD11-A)
|
||||
* EIS instruction set (KE11-E)
|
||||
* Memory management unit (KJ11-A)
|
||||
* Line time clock (KT11-D)
|
||||
* 124 Kwords of memory (244 Kbytes)
|
||||
* RK05 fixed disk drive (RK11)
|
||||
* Console TTY (DL11)
|
||||
|
||||
This required a few tweaks to the emulator. The first problem is that the
|
||||
RK05 disk is about 2.5 MB, but the RB09 is only about 2 MB. That's easily
|
||||
solveable -- just add more tracks to the RB09. UNIX v0 is unlikely to notice
|
||||
(although the number of tracks is a compile time parameter, and the `v0`
|
||||
build commands set it to the correct value).
|
||||
|
||||
The second problem is that we are simulating a system that can have up to
|
||||
124 Kwords of memory on a system with only 8 Kwords total. That meant I needed
|
||||
to virtualize the PDP-11/40's physical memory (and add a few more tracks to
|
||||
the disk to hold the virtualization).
|
||||
|
||||
A large amount of time was spent tuning this code to be efficient. The
|
||||
memory virtualization uses part of the 8 Kword memory as an LRU cache, and
|
||||
uses a number of first-level microcaches to avoid having to do the LRU updates.
|
||||
This also serves to offload the complexity of the PDP-11's segmentation logic
|
||||
from a large number of memory accesses (the PDP-11 does as many as eight
|
||||
accesses per instruction). Despite the super fast emulated disk, the PDP-7
|
||||
code in the emulator is slow, mostly because it has to do a bunch of divides
|
||||
to convert the linear disk offset into a BCD-coded track and sector for the
|
||||
emulated RB09. I/O polling is again used, except this time it uses the
|
||||
PDP-7's "skip on flag set" I/O instructions. As with the PDP-7 emulator
|
||||
itself, the PDP-11 emulator dynamically measures the instruction throughput
|
||||
relative to the line-clock tick, so that it only polls for I/O a few times
|
||||
per tick.
|
||||
|
||||
The one remaining problem is building the disk images themselves. Since the
|
||||
PDP-11's disk is 16-bit, but the PDP-7's is 18-bit (which the emulator stores
|
||||
in 32-bit `int`s), a conversion program is needed to unpack the binary disk
|
||||
images from 16 bits per word to 32. This in turn needs to be done in the
|
||||
`Makefile` using standard POSIX tools, which aren't exactly good with binary.
|
||||
I had a wierdly clever way to do this with `od`, `awk` and `uudecode` that
|
||||
I will leave as an exercise for the curious, but I decided it would be easier
|
||||
to do it with the PDP-7 emulator itself, feeding a simple program in on its
|
||||
boot tape. This required an additional tweak to the emulator, since by default
|
||||
its console TTY is not eight-bit clean (in fact, UNIX v0 expects to see the
|
||||
MSB set on the terminal reads, and sets it on writes, what is called "mark"
|
||||
parity). This is also enabled by a compile-time setting (used only for the
|
||||
`builddisk` program).
|
||||
|
||||
Despite the complexity of the PDP-11 instruction set and its emulated I/O
|
||||
devices and the corresponding primitiveness of the PDP-7's instruction set,
|
||||
the emulation itself is a suprisingly small amount of code, not really taxing
|
||||
the 8 Kword memory, with about 2.25 Kwords of actual code and a similar
|
||||
amount of space for the memory virtualization cache and disk block buffer,
|
||||
leaving nearly half (3.5 Kwords) of the memory unused. The simulator executes
|
||||
somewhere around 250 PDP-7 instructions per PDP-11 instruction. On my laptop,
|
||||
the PDP-7 is running somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 MIPS, which means the
|
||||
PDP-11 is running at about 0.3 MIPS, which is probably not too far off of its
|
||||
actual speed (the cycle time of an 11/40 was around a microsecond for simple
|
||||
instructions, but could be proportionally larger for instructions that did
|
||||
multiple memory accesses, which many did).
|
||||
|
||||
As an aside, although the idea of emulating the PDP-11 on an emulated PDP-7
|
||||
came about from the realization that I needed a response to the late-discovered
|
||||
licence issue, I'm quite pleased with the result -- it enables an interesting
|
||||
window on the dawn of the UNIX era. I feel that someone should complete the
|
||||
circle here by emulating a VAX 780 on the PDP-11 and run 4.2BSD on it, so that
|
||||
we can get the [original runtime environment used for the first IOCCC] [13].
|
||||
|
||||
Compile-time Options
|
||||
--------------------
|
||||
|
||||
The following command flags control the compilation:
|
||||
|
||||
* `-DI="image.fs"`: Name of the disk image file. This must be created
|
||||
offline, and be of the correct size to avoid segmentation violations.
|
||||
* `-DA=4096`: Setting of the console address switches. This tells the RIM
|
||||
bootloader where to load the boot image.
|
||||
* `-DS=0`: Setting of the console data switches. The PDP-7 emulation can
|
||||
read these with the microcoded `OAS` (OR switches into AC) instruction.
|
||||
By proxy, the PDP-11 emulation can read them via the `CSW` device.
|
||||
* `-DW=MAP_PRIVATE`: This sets the memory mapping for `mmap`. Setting to
|
||||
`MAP_PRIVATE` makes the disk image be copy-on-write. Setting it to
|
||||
`MAP_SHARED` makes the disk image be sharable. Do the latter if you want
|
||||
to preserve the disk contents between sessions.
|
||||
* `-DT=`: List of initializers for the `termios` structure. The v0 UNIX
|
||||
expects the terminal to be in half-duplex mode, echoing its input, with
|
||||
swapped CR and NL. The PDP-11 UNIXes don't.
|
||||
* `-DX=5`: The ASCII code of the control character that causes the simulation
|
||||
to abort. If set to 0, there is no abort code.
|
||||
* `-DY=128`: Controls console I/O parity. If set to zero, the console is
|
||||
eight-bit clean. If set to 128, the high bit is set on keyboard reads and
|
||||
masked off on printer output ("mark" parity). UNIX v0 expects the latter.
|
||||
* `-DV=270`: The size of the disk, in tracks. The UNIX v0 disk has 200
|
||||
tracks (each has 80 sectors of 64 18-bit words). The PDP-11 UNIXes
|
||||
increase this to 270, to allow for the larger RK05 disk emulation
|
||||
(406 tracks of twelve 256-word sectors), plus the space for the 124 Kwords
|
||||
of virtualized memory and the 8 Kwords of emulator code.
|
||||
* `-DP="xxx"`: RIM bootstrap program paper tape image. Be careful with the
|
||||
quoting here -- there is at least three levels going on. In particular,
|
||||
you will need to escape `$` as `$$` to protect it from `make`.
|
||||
|
||||
What is the ASCII art supposed to be?
|
||||
-------------------------------------
|
||||
|
||||
The ASCII art represents a torn piece of [paper tape] [14].
|
||||
|
||||
Acknowledgements
|
||||
----------------
|
||||
|
||||
None of this could have been possible without the hard work of
|
||||
|
||||
* Warren Toomey and the other members of the
|
||||
[The Unix Heratage Society] [15]
|
||||
* Robert M. Supnik and the other contributors to [SimH] [16], the simulator
|
||||
for historic computer architectures. The number of times I needed to
|
||||
"Use the Source, Luke" on SimH to unravel some dark corner of these
|
||||
machines was uncountable.
|
||||
* [Bitsavers] [17], which acquired, scanned and preserved all the manuals
|
||||
I spent many hours squinting at.
|
||||
* Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernigan, M\. D\. McIlroy, J\. F\.
|
||||
Osssanna, Rudd Canaday and the other members of the Bell Labs
|
||||
Computing Science Research Center who were responsible for the invention
|
||||
of UNIX, the C programming language, and the innumerable other innovations
|
||||
that we now take for granted as part of the modern software landscape.
|
||||
In particular, the [home page of the late Dennis Ritchie] [18] contained
|
||||
a trove of useful information on the evolution of UNIX and C and is
|
||||
recommended for perusal by others who share my peculiar retrocomputing
|
||||
affectations.
|
||||
|
||||
Finally, thanks to my spouse for putting up with the many hours I spent on this
|
||||
nonsense, and treating "I'm working on my IOCCC entry" as an acceptable answer
|
||||
to queries about how I was spending my free time. Similarly, I apologise to
|
||||
those friends and coworkers who had to listen to me complain about obscure
|
||||
corner-case bugs in my code. The obsession is over, at least until next
|
||||
time...
|
||||
|
||||
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||||
|
||||
[1]: http://ioccc.org/1984/mullender/mullender.c "mullender.c"
|
||||
[2]: http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=2.9BSD "2.9 BSD"
|
||||
[3]: https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/kbman.html "B Language"
|
||||
[4]: https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/hist.html "UNIX history"
|
||||
[5]: https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/spacetravel.html "Space Travel"
|
||||
[6]: https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/chist.html "C History"
|
||||
[7]: http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/McIlroy_v0/ "V0 Scans"
|
||||
[8]: http://minnie.tuhs.org/Y5/wkt_hapop_paper.pdf "UNIX v0"
|
||||
[9]: https://github.com/DoctorWkt/pdp7-unix "PDP-7 UNIX"
|
||||
[10]: http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/pdp7/F-75P_PDP7prelimUM_Dec64.pdf "PDP-7 Manual"
|
||||
[11]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary-coded_decimal "BCD"
|
||||
[12]: http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Caldera-license.pdf "Caldera Licence"
|
||||
[13]: https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!msg/net.lang.c/lx-TAuEyeRI/HdOOnNx6LC0J "First annual IOCCC announcement"
|
||||
[14]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_tape "Paper Tape"
|
||||
[15]: http://www.tuhs.org "The Unix Heritage Society"
|
||||
[16]: http://simh.trailing-edge.com "SimH"
|
||||
[17]: http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com "Bitsavers.org"
|
||||
[18]: https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/ "DMR Homepage"
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||||
<!--
|
||||
(c) Copyright 1984-2018, [Leo Broukhis, Simon Cooper, Landon Curt Noll][judges] - All rights reserved
|
||||
This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License][cc].
|
||||
|
||||
[judges]: http://www.ioccc.org/judges.html
|
||||
[cc]: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
|
||||
-->
|
||||
Reference in new issue
Block a user