[Info-vax] [OT] Mentec, was: Re: OT: For MAC Lovers Only :-)

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2012-10-14 16:33, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> In article <k5e32j$too$1 at dont-email.me>,
> 	Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> writes:
>> On 2012-10-13, Bill Gunshannon <billg999 at cs.uofs.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>> Mentec maintained all of them but since there demise, no one is.
>>>
>>
>> Yes and no.
>>
>> Read the latest thread in alt.sys.pdp11 as this is currently been
>> discussed.
>
> Not only reading it, but I started it!!
>
> What I said pretty much stands, unless oyu have data you are not
> providing.  Since the demise of Mentec there has been no news on
> the PDP-11 OSes at all.  If they are developing them it is in a
> locked closet with nothing seeing the light of day.  And there is
> no published way of acquiring any of them.
>
> As I have said in the past, I fear this is yet another piece of our
> history that is about to be lost.  I have a two volume set of books
> containing hundreds of PDP-11 programs.  While none of these are
> likely to have any commercial value they are all of historical
> interest. And they all appear to have been lost.
>
> If HP still controls the distribution (espcially of the sources) and
> someone here has an in at HP, it would really be great to drop a bug
> in the right ear to get this stuff released if for no other reason
> than to preserve it.  My interest goes further than that, though. I
> realize it has no particular real commercial value, but I have always
> been very fond of RSTS.  I would love to port it to the x86just for
> the fun of it.  And then see how far it could be expanded.  X11. TCP.
> Who knows what.....  :-)

While I can't comment on RT-11 much, I'm doing a lot of that stuff for 
RSX... But still on a PDP-11. I don't think porting to some other 
hardware would be very easy, and I can't see the point. At this time you 
might as well run a PDP-11 emulator, and you're set.

If I ever manage to help get a new release of RSX out, expect lots of 
new fun stuff, though...

	Johnny