RE: Got DSM-11 running, any manuals online?

[Martin Reilly via cctalk]

I have DSM-11 V4.0 (or it may be 4.1?) on a TK50 cartridge somewhere. When I 
manage to get my MFM emulator board playing nicely in my 11/83 I could try 
building a base system for people to play with.

I looked after eight DSM-11 systems for ten years (3x 11/70, 1x 11/44, 2x 11/84 
and an 11/83 - the one I have at home now). I've probably forgotten most of 
what I knew back then but I can still find my way around a system. I loved 
Mumps as a language - breaks just about every rule of well behaved languages 
but so powerful with the integrated database handling.

Martin

-Original Message-
From: cctalk  On Behalf Of John Forecast via 
cctalk
Sent: 08 January 2021 20:48
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts 
Subject: Re: Got DSM-11 running, any manuals online?

A slightly newer version (3.3) is available from 
bitsaver.org/bits/DEC/pdp11/dsm-11 <http://bitsaver.org/bits/DEC/pdp11/dsm-11>

  John.


> On Jan 8, 2021, at 1:16 PM, Sergio Pedraja via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> Any copy of this software available to play with?
> 
> Sergio 

Re: Got DSM-11 running, any manuals online?

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Jan 9, 2021, at 4:55 PM, David Gesswein via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> On Sat, Jan 09, 2021 at 01:06:19PM -0700, Warner Losh wrote:
>> 
>> DEC standard 144 of any help?
>> http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/standards/EL-00144_B_DEC_STD_144_Disk_Standard_for_Recording_and_Handling_Bad_Sectors_Nov76.pdf
>> 
>> Warner
>> 
> 
> Thanks for looking.
> 
> That standard is only capable of marking bad sectors. It doesn't have the
> information on where the bad sectors were remapped to. I took a quick look
> at the DSM image. It looks like cylinder 511 is where the controller
> tables are. This cylinder does have a different format. The data didn't
> match this standard.

DEC Std 144 is for older disks, not MSCP.  It is the format for telling the OS 
where the bad sectors are, so the file system creation tool can mark those 
sectors as unavailable.  That doesn't involve remapping (at least not on the OS 
I know).  The bad sectors still exist in the address space, they are just not 
free so they won't be used.

The MSCP revectoring is a more complex mechanism where the controller tweaks 
the logical block numbering address space so it appears to be error-free.  I 
assume it's a generalization of the spare-sector feature of the RM80, but as 
others have pointed out, with MSCP this was an internal matter of the 
controller and I don't know of any DEC standard for it.  In fact, the details 
are likely to depend on the properties of individual drives.

paul

Re: Got DSM-11 running, any manuals online?

[Warner Losh via cctalk]

On Sat, Jan 9, 2021, 2:55 PM David Gesswein  wrote:

> On Sat, Jan 09, 2021 at 01:06:19PM -0700, Warner Losh wrote:
> >
> > DEC standard 144 of any help?
> >
> http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/standards/EL-00144_B_DEC_STD_144_Disk_Standard_for_Recording_and_Handling_Bad_Sectors_Nov76.pdf
> >
> > Warner
> >
>
> Thanks for looking.
>
> That standard is only capable of marking bad sectors. It doesn't have the
> information on where the bad sectors were remapped to. I took a quick look
> at the DSM image. It looks like cylinder 511 is where the controller
> tables are. This cylinder does have a different format. The data didn't
> match this standard.
>

The rainbow has a different way to mark this stuff. Maybe there is some
reuse in it? See "on disk format" in
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/rainbow/ms-dos/QV068-GZ_Rainbow_MS-DOS_V2.05_Technical_Documentation_Nov84.pdf
which seemed oddly complex for such an early standard. It talks about N
spare tracks that remapped sectors land in...  I've never had a disk image
that uses them though... worth a shot in the absence of other data...

Warner

>

Re: Got DSM-11 running, any manuals online?

[David Gesswein via cctalk]

On Sat, Jan 09, 2021 at 01:06:19PM -0700, Warner Losh wrote:
> 
> DEC standard 144 of any help?
> http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/standards/EL-00144_B_DEC_STD_144_Disk_Standard_for_Recording_and_Handling_Bad_Sectors_Nov76.pdf
> 
> Warner
> 

Thanks for looking.

That standard is only capable of marking bad sectors. It doesn't have the
information on where the bad sectors were remapped to. I took a quick look
at the DSM image. It looks like cylinder 511 is where the controller
tables are. This cylinder does have a different format. The data didn't
match this standard.

Re: Re: Got DSM-11 running, any manuals online?

[Richard Curtis via cctalk]

 ftp://ftp.intersystems.com/pub/msm/docs/msm43/users.pdf

is another source for a manual.  It's the version which Micronetics sold, of 
which I heard "Micronetics shamelessly  copied DSM-11 practically line for line 
to the PC."  So the manual is probably close enough to work.
HTH,Dick
   
  

Re: Got DSM-11 running, any manuals online?

[Warner Losh via cctalk]

On Sat, Jan 9, 2021 at 12:08 PM David Gesswein via cctech <
cct...@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> To possibly be clearer the image of the disk was a raw dump of the disk
> taken with the mfm emulator/reader board so it sees all the extra data the
> controller puts on the disk and the bad sectors etc. As far as I know no
> documentation exists of the low level format and revector table etc. For
> RQDX3 the controller has extra information at the beginning of the disk so
> mounting the raw image under SIMH doesn't work. The RQDX2 apperently puts
> its
> information at the end.  Might be possible to reverse engineer the format
> if we get sector dump from the host to compare to the raw disk dump.
> Nobody
> has decided to tackle that.
>
> For the dump of my RD53 on Vaxstation RQDX3 head 0 sectors 0-2 are normal,
> 3-16 are funny format. Head 1 and 2 are all funny format. Head 3 sectors
> 0-2 are funny format. Removing those didn't work for me if I got my
> dd commands correct.
>

DEC standard 144 of any help?
http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/standards/EL-00144_B_DEC_STD_144_Disk_Standard_for_Recording_and_Handling_Bad_Sectors_Nov76.pdf

Warner

On Fri, Jan 08, 2021 at 09:29:19PM -0500, Chris Zach wrote:
> > If so, then that's probably what the RQDX1/2 format *was*: Just a big
> bunch
> > of 512 byte blocks, starting at zero and going up to the top.
> >
> > The controller had to know the geometry of the drive in order to move the
> > heads, know how many cylinders there were, etc. One thing I did notice is
> > the last cylinder of the disk is not formatted like the others and
> throws a
> > bunch of errors on the MFM_READ command on all tracks. It's possible that
> > the controller checks there first, then consults the ROM based lookup
> tables
> > to get the proper disk geometry. Which explains why some controllers
> > supported RD51,52 and later ones supported the 53 but none supported the
> 54.
> >
> > On the RQDX3 formatted disks, the first few tracks are also in a weird
> > format, it's possible that is where the controller stores the
> > head/cyl/sector format information. Note that a RQDX3 disk image does not
> > seem to be able to connect up to the RQ driver like the RQDX2 one.
> >
> > Interesting stuff. I'm guessing if you remove the first couple of tracks
> > from the file one could then read the rest of the disk on SIMH (as the
> rest
> > is probably just a big pile of blocks and that's all that matters to
> SIMH)
> > unless there are remapped sectors in which case I have no idea how those
> > would work.
> >
> > Fun stuff.
> > C
> >
> > On 1/8/2021 8:54 PM, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote:
> > > On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 6:16 PM Chris Zach 
> wrote:
> > >
> > > > True, however SIMH has to write things to a "real" file that emulates
> > > > something of a disk.
> > > >
> > >
> > > I thought the SIMH representation of an MSCP disk was just a linear
> array
> > > of 512-byte blocks, from block 0 to block n-1, in which case, it's
> still
> > > not at all surprising that any RQDXn, or any other MSCP disk with the
> > > standard Unibus/Qbus MSCP port interface would "just work".
> > >
> > > If I'm wrong about how the disk is represented by SIMH, then maybe it
> could
> > > be more surprising.
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
>

Re: Got DSM-11 running, any manuals online?

[David Gesswein via cctalk]

To possibly be clearer the image of the disk was a raw dump of the disk
taken with the mfm emulator/reader board so it sees all the extra data the
controller puts on the disk and the bad sectors etc. As far as I know no
documentation exists of the low level format and revector table etc. For 
RQDX3 the controller has extra information at the beginning of the disk so 
mounting the raw image under SIMH doesn't work. The RQDX2 apperently puts its 
information at the end.  Might be possible to reverse engineer the format 
if we get sector dump from the host to compare to the raw disk dump. Nobody 
has decided to tackle that.

For the dump of my RD53 on Vaxstation RQDX3 head 0 sectors 0-2 are normal,
3-16 are funny format. Head 1 and 2 are all funny format. Head 3 sectors
0-2 are funny format. Removing those didn't work for me if I got my
dd commands correct.

On Fri, Jan 08, 2021 at 09:29:19PM -0500, Chris Zach wrote:
> If so, then that's probably what the RQDX1/2 format *was*: Just a big bunch
> of 512 byte blocks, starting at zero and going up to the top.
> 
> The controller had to know the geometry of the drive in order to move the
> heads, know how many cylinders there were, etc. One thing I did notice is
> the last cylinder of the disk is not formatted like the others and throws a
> bunch of errors on the MFM_READ command on all tracks. It's possible that
> the controller checks there first, then consults the ROM based lookup tables
> to get the proper disk geometry. Which explains why some controllers
> supported RD51,52 and later ones supported the 53 but none supported the 54.
> 
> On the RQDX3 formatted disks, the first few tracks are also in a weird
> format, it's possible that is where the controller stores the
> head/cyl/sector format information. Note that a RQDX3 disk image does not
> seem to be able to connect up to the RQ driver like the RQDX2 one.
> 
> Interesting stuff. I'm guessing if you remove the first couple of tracks
> from the file one could then read the rest of the disk on SIMH (as the rest
> is probably just a big pile of blocks and that's all that matters to SIMH)
> unless there are remapped sectors in which case I have no idea how those
> would work.
> 
> Fun stuff.
> C
> 
> On 1/8/2021 8:54 PM, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote:
> > On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 6:16 PM Chris Zach  wrote:
> > 
> > > True, however SIMH has to write things to a "real" file that emulates
> > > something of a disk.
> > > 
> > 
> > I thought the SIMH representation of an MSCP disk was just a linear array
> > of 512-byte blocks, from block 0 to block n-1, in which case, it's still
> > not at all surprising that any RQDXn, or any other MSCP disk with the
> > standard Unibus/Qbus MSCP port interface would "just work".
> > 
> > If I'm wrong about how the disk is represented by SIMH, then maybe it could
> > be more surprising.
> > 
> 
> 
> --

Re: Got DSM-11 running, any manuals online?

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Jan 8, 2021, at 8:57 PM, Eric Smith via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 6:17 PM Paul Koning  wrote:
> 
>> Yes, but also to hide bad blocks.  So the difference between a raw sector
>> dump and a SIMH container file is, minimally, the spare sectors.  What that
>> looks like depends on the format; I have no idea what MSCP controllers did.
>> 
> 
> MSCP controllers do the bad block mapping, so AFAIK the disk _always_ looks
> to the host like a linear array 0..n-1 of 512-byte blocks.

Yes.  But perhaps I misunderstood; I thought the note to which I was replying 
described taking a raw dump of the disk itself, not a logical copy via the MSCP 
controller.

paul

Re: Got DSM-11 running, any manuals online?

[Chris Zach via cctalk]

If so, then that's probably what the RQDX1/2 format *was*: Just a big 
bunch of 512 byte blocks, starting at zero and going up to the top.


The controller had to know the geometry of the drive in order to move 
the heads, know how many cylinders there were, etc. One thing I did 
notice is the last cylinder of the disk is not formatted like the others 
and throws a bunch of errors on the MFM_READ command on all tracks. It's 
possible that the controller checks there first, then consults the ROM 
based lookup tables to get the proper disk geometry. Which explains why 
some controllers supported RD51,52 and later ones supported the 53 but 
none supported the 54.


On the RQDX3 formatted disks, the first few tracks are also in a weird 
format, it's possible that is where the controller stores the 
head/cyl/sector format information. Note that a RQDX3 disk image does 
not seem to be able to connect up to the RQ driver like the RQDX2 one.


Interesting stuff. I'm guessing if you remove the first couple of tracks 
from the file one could then read the rest of the disk on SIMH (as the 
rest is probably just a big pile of blocks and that's all that matters 
to SIMH) unless there are remapped sectors in which case I have no idea 
how those would work.


Fun stuff.
C

On 1/8/2021 8:54 PM, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote:

On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 6:16 PM Chris Zach  wrote:


True, however SIMH has to write things to a "real" file that emulates
something of a disk.



I thought the SIMH representation of an MSCP disk was just a linear array
of 512-byte blocks, from block 0 to block n-1, in which case, it's still
not at all surprising that any RQDXn, or any other MSCP disk with the
standard Unibus/Qbus MSCP port interface would "just work".

If I'm wrong about how the disk is represented by SIMH, then maybe it could
be more surprising.

Re: Got DSM-11 running, any manuals online?

[Eric Smith via cctalk]

On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 6:17 PM Paul Koning  wrote:

> Yes, but also to hide bad blocks.  So the difference between a raw sector
> dump and a SIMH container file is, minimally, the spare sectors.  What that
> looks like depends on the format; I have no idea what MSCP controllers did.
>

MSCP controllers do the bad block mapping, so AFAIK the disk _always_ looks
to the host like a linear array 0..n-1 of 512-byte blocks.

When accessing an MSCP disk, the host should not, unless running special
diagnostics, be able to distinguish what kind of disk is in use, aside from
that it has a particular block count.

Re: Got DSM-11 running, any manuals online?

[Eric Smith via cctalk]

On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 6:16 PM Chris Zach  wrote:

> True, however SIMH has to write things to a "real" file that emulates
> something of a disk.
>

I thought the SIMH representation of an MSCP disk was just a linear array
of 512-byte blocks, from block 0 to block n-1, in which case, it's still
not at all surprising that any RQDXn, or any other MSCP disk with the
standard Unibus/Qbus MSCP port interface would "just work".

If I'm wrong about how the disk is represented by SIMH, then maybe it could
be more surprising.

Re: Got DSM-11 running, any manuals online?

[Chris Zach via cctalk]

A copy of the disk image is at

https://www.crystel.com/pdp/dsm-11.30.dsk

Feel free to put it on more stable archives. It appears to be a freshly 
genned system.


CZ

On 1/8/2021 1:16 PM, Sergio Pedraja wrote:

Any copy of this software available to play with?

Sergio

El vie., 8 ene. 2021 3:38, Chris Zach via cctalk > escribió:


Well, with Dave's help we got the DSM-11 disk to boot on SIMH. Oddly
enough SIMH seems to read a raw RQDX1/2 disk pretty well.

sim> attach rq0 dsm.dsk
sim> set cpu 11/73,1m
Disabling RK
Disabling HK
Disabling TM
sim> boot rq0

Booting DSM-11...

DSM-11 Version 3.0A
Now running the baseline system.

:1 G ^STU
Exit

DSM-11 Version 3.0A Device #1 UCI:
Exit

DSM-11 Version 3.0A Device #1 UCI: ?
:0
Exit

The problem is I don't remember how to use it anymore. Is there a
PDF of
the DSM-11 manual anywhere? I think this was a clean install, but I'd
like to check it for data before putting it into archives.

Also which archive would be best for it?

CZ

Re: Got DSM-11 running, any manuals online?

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Jan 8, 2021, at 2:57 PM, Eric Smith via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Jan 7, 2021 at 7:38 PM Chris Zach via cctalk 
> wrote:
> 
>> Oddly enough SIMH seems to read a raw RQDX1/2 disk pretty well.
>> 
> 
> That's good to know, but not really all that odd. Arguably the main purpose
> of MSCP was to abstract away drive and controller differences.

Yes, but also to hide bad blocks.  So the difference between a raw sector dump 
and a SIMH container file is, minimally, the spare sectors.  What that looks 
like depends on the format; I have no idea what MSCP controllers did.

paul

Re: Got DSM-11 running, any manuals online?

[Chris Zach via cctalk]

True, however SIMH has to write things to a "real" file that emulates 
something of a disk. In this case I'm guessing it writes more as a super 
powered RQDX2 in that the first cylinders do not have the disk 
parameters and other odd stuff.


Which makes sense as the RQDX1 and 2 are simpler devices than the 3.

But as Dave pointed out, the last track on the disk is probably the bad 
block revector table. So no clue as to how the disk remaps bad blocks, 
but I don't think any of them were bad.


I'll put the image up on iguana tonight. If it's a blank system then 
someone can fiddle around with it a bit.


CZ


On 1/8/2021 2:57 PM, Eric Smith wrote:
On Thu, Jan 7, 2021 at 7:38 PM Chris Zach via cctalk 
mailto:cctalk@classiccmp.org>> wrote:


Oddly enough SIMH seems to read a raw RQDX1/2 disk pretty well.


That's good to know, but not really all that odd. Arguably the main 
purpose of MSCP was to abstract away drive and controller differences.

Re: Got DSM-11 running, any manuals online?

[John Forecast via cctalk]

A slightly newer version (3.3) is available from 
bitsaver.org/bits/DEC/pdp11/dsm-11 

  John.


> On Jan 8, 2021, at 1:16 PM, Sergio Pedraja via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> Any copy of this software available to play with?
> 
> Sergio
> 
> El vie., 8 ene. 2021 3:38, Chris Zach via cctalk 
> escribió:
> 
>> Well, with Dave's help we got the DSM-11 disk to boot on SIMH. Oddly
>> enough SIMH seems to read a raw RQDX1/2 disk pretty well.
>> 
>> sim> attach rq0 dsm.dsk
>> sim> set cpu 11/73,1m
>> Disabling RK
>> Disabling HK
>> Disabling TM
>> sim> boot rq0
>> 
>> Booting DSM-11...
>> 
>> DSM-11 Version 3.0A
>> Now running the baseline system.
>> 
>> :1 G ^STU
>> Exit
>> 
>> DSM-11 Version 3.0A Device #1 UCI:
>> Exit
>> 
>> DSM-11 Version 3.0A Device #1 UCI: ?
>> :0
>> Exit
>> 
>> The problem is I don't remember how to use it anymore. Is there a PDF of
>> the DSM-11 manual anywhere? I think this was a clean install, but I'd
>> like to check it for data before putting it into archives.
>> 
>> Also which archive would be best for it?
>> 
>> CZ
>> 

Re: Got DSM-11 running, any manuals online?

[Eric Smith via cctalk]

On Thu, Jan 7, 2021 at 7:38 PM Chris Zach via cctalk 
wrote:

> Oddly enough SIMH seems to read a raw RQDX1/2 disk pretty well.
>

That's good to know, but not really all that odd. Arguably the main purpose
of MSCP was to abstract away drive and controller differences.

Re: Got DSM-11 running, any manuals online?

[Sergio Pedraja via cctalk]

Any copy of this software available to play with?

Sergio

El vie., 8 ene. 2021 3:38, Chris Zach via cctalk 
escribió:

> Well, with Dave's help we got the DSM-11 disk to boot on SIMH. Oddly
> enough SIMH seems to read a raw RQDX1/2 disk pretty well.
>
> sim> attach rq0 dsm.dsk
> sim> set cpu 11/73,1m
> Disabling RK
> Disabling HK
> Disabling TM
> sim> boot rq0
>
> Booting DSM-11...
>
> DSM-11 Version 3.0A
> Now running the baseline system.
>
> :1 G ^STU
> Exit
>
> DSM-11 Version 3.0A Device #1 UCI:
> Exit
>
> DSM-11 Version 3.0A Device #1 UCI: ?
> :0
> Exit
>
> The problem is I don't remember how to use it anymore. Is there a PDF of
> the DSM-11 manual anywhere? I think this was a clean install, but I'd
> like to check it for data before putting it into archives.
>
> Also which archive would be best for it?
>
> CZ
>

Re: Got DSM-11 running, any manuals online?

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Jan 7, 2021, at 9:38 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> Well, with Dave's help we got the DSM-11 disk to boot on SIMH. Oddly enough 
> SIMH seems to read a raw RQDX1/2 disk pretty well.
> 
> ...
> 
> The problem is I don't remember how to use it anymore. Is there a PDF of the 
> DSM-11 manual anywhere? I think this was a clean install, but I'd like to 
> check it for data before putting it into archives.

Neat.

I know nothing about DSM-11 other than the name, and the fact it was the OS on 
top of which ASSIST-11 was implemented.

Some googling turns up this http://www.ps8computing.co.uk/dsm-11.html which is 
modestly helpful.  
And this: https://kevinmurrell.tripod.com/dsm-11.htm
And this: 
http://h30266.www3.hpe.com/MasterIndex/installation_guide/installation_guide_0095de04.txt
 which suggests that semi-useful manuals might be found in the VMS 
documentation set, possibly under the name "Digital Standard M" rather than 
"...MUMPS".

paul

Got DSM-11 running, any manuals online?

[Chris Zach via cctalk]

Well, with Dave's help we got the DSM-11 disk to boot on SIMH. Oddly 
enough SIMH seems to read a raw RQDX1/2 disk pretty well.


sim> attach rq0 dsm.dsk
sim> set cpu 11/73,1m
Disabling RK
Disabling HK
Disabling TM
sim> boot rq0

Booting DSM-11...

DSM-11 Version 3.0A
Now running the baseline system.

:1 G ^STU
Exit

DSM-11 Version 3.0A Device #1 UCI:
Exit

DSM-11 Version 3.0A Device #1 UCI: ?
:0
Exit

The problem is I don't remember how to use it anymore. Is there a PDF of 
the DSM-11 manual anywhere? I think this was a clean install, but I'd 
like to check it for data before putting it into archives.


Also which archive would be best for it?

CZ