Programming the PDP11, part 3 of 4

[TheQuindecillion]

Was it single-user allocation with main memory and the CPU? anyone know?

[cygil1]

This can't be authentic, there's a girl in this video.

[numba1netsfan]

Is it possible to purchase a pdp11?

[cygil1]

@numba1netsfan TOriginal systems and components show up in the retrocomputing marketplace every now and then. In the nineties they gave them away for free or put them in landfill, but thanks to the collector market, now complete working systems go for thousands of dollars. They require specialist technical expertise to keep working, though, and are better suited to a museum. Newer (mostly) binary-compatible machines from the eighties and nineties from Mentec are also available.

[AvidAngels]

Even BillGates doesn't know how to use this machine..

[cygil1]

@AvidAngels Actually, Bill Gates cut his teeth on a PDP-11, it was his first platform way back in high school. These were minicomputer systems intended for corporate, not personal, use, and their modern equivalents (eg, AS/400) aren't any simpler.

[DouglasHarms]

In the video the macintosh I referred to was the apple I was eating; of course, it also indirectly referenced the computer that was a decade away. Glad you liked the admittedly corny video!

[bamdadkhan]

referencing the macintosh is a bit of a mistake, since apple's 'macintosh' was introduced in 1984, but the pdp-11 came out in 1970, and the computer lab guy refers to it as his 'new' computer.. what's more, even the apple 1 computer came out only in 1976. anyway, awesome video.

[ScioFantasia]

3:09 - Quickest program load ever.

[FuyuAkiWorld]

@vleon1012 yeah. the first mouse wasent made untill the late 60s. and even then they weren't mainstream

[FuyuAkiWorld]

these are some nice videos. it's very interesting to me. and I have to ask this, is that a real PDP11? If it was, that'd be SO awesome!

[DouglasHarms]

@FuyuAkiWorld Yes, it is a real, working PDP-11! I acquired it in the 1980's and keep it running. It's impossible to purchase paper tape now, so I don't punch tapes too often, but it does indeed still work.

[FuyuAkiWorld]

@DouglasHarms wow, that's awesome! You're so lucky!

[info111100001111]

@FuyuAkiWorld This is really nice. Just one correction the printer is an LA36 which I believe was introduced in 1974 a bit later than this system. You might want to use the TTY-33 at a whopping 300cps. Anyway, thankyou.

[porcorosso81]

300 Bytes per second. That's only 100 Bytes/s slower than a standard Commodore 64 1541 Disk drive (without fastloader).

The PDP11 btw has a very neat instruction set. If you look at it, you can easily see that the Motorola 68000 engineers (my favourite CPU) ripped it off almost completely.

[gregtamnel0576]

Man, how did unix even work on such a machine? Blows my mind.

[mspeter97]

what the...Macintosh joke!

[nickeax]

I get the Eagles joke!

[kinglonewolf104]

That's pretty neat, but you didn't show us how to load in papertape when you run out of papertape, or what happens when you run out of tape halfway through punching something!

.

&eB

[MUGENMUNDO]

Girl--> "and one time in band camp...."

[getpagesize]

Yes, yes ... there are many girls at her age who are interested in PDP-11s, or women of any age, for that matter ...

like one woman for every million men, of any age?

It is rather hilarious though, the acting is so bad it is funny, and the idea that this girl would be interested in the PDP-11 is about as hilarious.

[aure232]

Good old times without spam, viruses and windows...

[FuyuAkiWorld]

@aure232 windows rocks!

[FuyuAkiWorld]

@aure232 Windows rocks! Without Windows, Macs woulden't be the same. The OS would be WAY different. it probobly woulden't even be a GUI.

[perplexedmoth]

@FuyuAkiWorld it wasn't Microsoft that invented GUI. google "History of Graphical User Interface"

[acsodalatosmandarin]

@FuyuAkiWorld

Without Windows there wouldn't be any computer viruses! :)

[iFhernd]

Thanks for this info. It's a excellent guide to start Programming on PDP-11 computer.

[cobrachoppergirl]

Wow, I remember paying $40 for my first two pass 6510 assembler. Came on a homemade labeled 5.25 disk.

[nickmctrick]

Had to add the bad macintosh joke!

[Alexsy82]

pretty amazing that in 30-35 years, we've gone from this type of computing to, say, streaming video over wireless internet connections.

[jtel]

This video is great. Pretty cool that you have access to a computer like this. Thanks for sharing it with everyone else through these videos.

[ianchard]

I get frustrated in the time it takes me to type "make"; I think I'd explode if I had to develop code in this way!!

[snownet]

c and c++ were made in the 1970's, why didnt that guy know about it :p

[EmmeJayKay]

c++ got developed in 1979. don't remember hearing about it until sometime in the 80s

[ascheepe]

you must mean fortran which was used back them and around since the mid fifties (and still kicking today!) *haha*

Love these vids!

[inricheetos]

So, it is a complicated typewritter?

[mrynit]

non volital storage!? HA HA

[loosebwep]

Wow, nice (a little campy) videos guys. ;-) You missed the linker section though. The process should be:

Absolute Loader->Ed-11 (Edit) ->Save ASM

Absolute Loader->Pal-11 (Assemble) ->Save OBJ

Absolute Loader->Link-11 (Link) ->Save LDA

Absolute Loader->HELLO.LDA

Wish I still had my 11/45s and 11/70 ;-)

[DouglasHarms]

Actually, in this paper tape system PAL-11 produced a loadable image. The one thing I did simplify in the video was the loader. Technically, one had to toggle in the bootstrap loader, then use it to load the absolute loader which was used to load all other images. In the video I suggested that the bootstrap loader could be used to load all images.

[Vyggy]

"Hey, would you like some apples? I really like these new Macintoshes."

So do I.

[Vyggy]

But I thought Macs came 10 years after that.

[32767]

Nah, McIntoshes have been cultivated since at least 1811.