4 ms·

Some PDP-7 source code

83 points by rswier 11y ago

rswier 11y ago
Warren Toomey from The Unix Heritage Society (TUHS) posts: http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2016-February/006622.html http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2016-February/006622.h... With the link: http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/PDP-11/Distributions/research/McIlroy_v0/ http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/PDP-11/Distributions/research/Mc... From the Readme: The structure of the kernel source code is very similar to that of the 1st Edition Unix scan at http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/PDP-11/Distributions/research/Dennis_v1/PreliminaryUnixImplementationDocument_Jun72.pdf Here is what I can glean from the files: 01-s1.pdf contains the kernel source divided into sections S1 to S9 02-hw.pdf has hardware details of the PDP-7 03-scope.pdf has information about the PDP-7 scope 04-cas.pdf seems to be a user-mode program that uses the PDP-7 scope 05-1-4.pdf user-mode programs: adm, ald, apr, as 06-5-12.pdf user-mode programs: bl, bc, bi, cat, check, chown, chmod, cp, chrm 07-13-19.pdf user-mode programs: db, dmabs, ds, dsksav, dskres, dskio, dsw, init 08-rest.pdf user-mode programs: ed. Also at the beginning some B code (?)
deleted 11y ago
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blt 11y ago
Looking at big pages of uncommented assembly like this really makes you understand why flowcharts and waterfall design were a thing.
- rswier 11y ago
  The code appears to be some of the most ancient Unix Kernel Source Code yet found. This is previous to the PDP-11 1st Edition. Still, many of the familiar bits are there (ed, cat, etc..) A pretty historically significant chunk of code!
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- notalaser 11y ago
  It's not untrue, but it's worth remembering that programming computers in assembly language was quite popular at that time, especially for systems software. Assembly has idioms that can be many lines long, and you tend to recognize them after you've programmed a system for long enough. 10 pages of uncommented, but idiomatic assembly code are more or less the equivalent of 2-3 pages of uncommented (but often idiomatic) C code, which can be fairly manageable.
maljx 11y ago
in 01-s1.pdf: jms halt " will not happen
rocky1138 11y ago
Will this make its way to archive.org? I can't think of a better place for it.
- whitten 11y ago
  I agree with you. Unfortunately, I'm not sure archive.org has a clearly delineating way to make it easy to find source code. Many web pages embody some source code as well, but this isn't easy to find and decode. And of course, there isn't really anything like git to manage the code.
heywire 11y ago
I love seeing the handwritten notes...

83 points by rswier 11y ago

Warren Toomey from The Unix Heritage Society (TUHS) posts: http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2016-February/006622.html http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2016-February/006622.h... With the link: http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/PDP-11/Distributions/research/McIlroy_v0/ http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/PDP-11/Distributions/research/Mc... From the Readme: The structure of the kernel source code is very similar to that of the 1st Edition Unix scan at http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/PDP-11/Distributions/research/Dennis_v1/PreliminaryUnixImplementationDocument_Jun72.pdf Here is what I can glean from the files: 01-s1.pdf contains the kernel source divided into sections S1 to S9 02-hw.pdf has hardware details of the PDP-7 03-scope.pdf has information about the PDP-7 scope 04-cas.pdf seems to be a user-mode program that uses the PDP-7 scope 05-1-4.pdf user-mode programs: adm, ald, apr, as 06-5-12.pdf user-mode programs: bl, bc, bi, cat, check, chown, chmod, cp, chrm 07-13-19.pdf user-mode programs: db, dmabs, ds, dsksav, dskres, dskio, dsw, init 08-rest.pdf user-mode programs: ed. Also at the beginning some B code (?)

deleted 11y ago

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blt 11y ago

Looking at big pages of uncommented assembly like this really makes you understand why flowcharts and waterfall design were a thing.

rswier 11y ago
The code appears to be some of the most ancient Unix Kernel Source Code yet found. This is previous to the PDP-11 1st Edition. Still, many of the familiar bits are there (ed, cat, etc..) A pretty historically significant chunk of code!
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
notalaser 11y ago
It's not untrue, but it's worth remembering that programming computers in assembly language was quite popular at that time, especially for systems software. Assembly has idioms that can be many lines long, and you tend to recognize them after you've programmed a system for long enough. 10 pages of uncommented, but idiomatic assembly code are more or less the equivalent of 2-3 pages of uncommented (but often idiomatic) C code, which can be fairly manageable.

maljx 11y ago

in 01-s1.pdf: jms halt " will not happen

rocky1138 11y ago

Will this make its way to archive.org? I can't think of a better place for it.

whitten 11y ago
I agree with you. Unfortunately, I'm not sure archive.org has a clearly delineating way to make it easy to find source code. Many web pages embody some source code as well, but this isn't easy to find and decode. And of course, there isn't really anything like git to manage the code.

heywire 11y ago

I love seeing the handwritten notes...