[Info-vax] [Attn: HP Employees] PDP-11 OS hobbyist licensing

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2013-10-03 17:46, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> In article <l2k19n$88m$1 at iltempo.update.uu.se>,
> 	Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> writes:
>>
>> Maybe I'm confused here. I thought we were talking about when Mentec
>> bought this from DEC, not when XX2247 bought the remains from Mentec.
>
> I was talking about XX2247.  There is no doubt that at the time that
> Mentec came into the picture there was still considerable commercial
> business for the PDP-11.  But this recent purchase is much more curious.
> I doubt there is enough PDP-11 business left to actually make a living
> dealing in them.  When I first heard that someone was buying Mentec for
> the PDP-11 IP I (obviously mistakenly) thought it was someone with an
> in who was looking to make them available to hobbyists and that there
> was no commercial interest.

Ah. Ok. Well, I think that it probably didn't cost much to buy the 
PDP-11 bits out of the Mentec carcass.

And yes, I think it was mostly to try and preserve bits, and possibly 
make it available for people.

>> Since XX2247 is not really doing much business, I guess the question is
>> less relevant here. They probably didn't pay much, and are not making much.
>
> And this is where I meant it.  David Carroll was a former Mentec employee
> thus my comment about nostalgia.  I can not think anyone would believe that
> there is enough business in the PDP-11 to start a company to support them
> today.

There isn't. Although, there might have been possible, if the conditions 
were right. But you'd need to find and talk to all the sites still 
running PDP-11s. I think today it will be hard to even find them.

>> Mentec did the deal when there was still some money left to be made. Why
>> they accepted the restrictive conditions surrounding it all I have no idea.
>
> I think they agreed to a deal that let them do what they wanted, which was
> offer continued support for the PDP-11 installed base and even expand it a
> bit.  They did, afterall, do hardware development as well as software.

Right.

> I am once again looking at disappointment.  I really do want to try porting
> RSTS/E to other machines.  Not because I see any commercial viability in it
> but because I really liked RSTS/E and I think it could be both interesting
> and fun.  OK, and i am a glutton for punishment....  :-)

Porting RSTS/E is going to be hard, I think. We've talked about this in 
the past, and I still think many things will be hard to port to another 
architecture, as so much is designed around how a PDP-11 works.

> Johnny, wouldn't you find it a challenge but interesting to port RSX to
> a more  modern hardware platform just to see what more it could do with
> more horsepower under the hood?  ARM?  :-)

Not really. For more horsepower, I'm happy with just running on a really 
fast simulated PDP-11. I seldom have issues with memory space or other 
things. CPU speed is the one thing I enjoy having more of, and that is 
easily solved.
On the other hand, I really like programming on a PDP-11, and I would 
loose that by moving to some other architecture.

	Johnny