Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2016-02-27 02:34, Clem Cole wrote:


On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 8:06 PM, Nigel Williams
>
wrote:

For William's benefit, in those times computers were (chronically) few
in number.

​And very valuable - cost big bucks (millions).  Computer time was often
"billed" out to people.​


Oh yes. Remnants of that can still be found in older systems, which keep 
track of how many CPU ticks you used, how much disk you used, how much 
memory, and how many pages you printer on a printer, and so on. And then 
you had accounting programs that ran at the end of each month, to 
generate bills to send out to everyone...
And you sometimes had programs you could run which presented you with 
information on how much money you had consumed in your session.

Scary numbers, even though I never had to pay for any of it myself.

More walks down memory lane. Under RSTS/E the program was called MONEY. :-)
I also remember seeing a similar program under Tops-10, and I know that 
TOPS-20, VMS and RSX also kept track of this with the ability to set the 
price on things, and generate invoices...

(Can anyone tell that I pretty much exclusively used DEC stuff? :-) )

Johnny

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Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Johnny Billquist]

As far as I know/understand, AT didn't have any DEC OS or software for 
the PDP-7. So it was, I guess, pretty natural to take what you did have, 
and adopt it for your needs. They had the GE system, with an assembler 
that could be used, with tweaks, so that's what they used. Getting some 
OS from DEC for the PDP-7, in order to assemble their own OS, probably 
seemed excessive. Also, remember that they didn't really have much of a 
budget to buy stuff at that point.


Exactly where the PDP-7 originally came from, and what it had been used 
for before would be interesting to find out.


Johnny

On 2016-02-27 02:28, Will Senn wrote:

Found this in Ritchie's article, "The Development of the C Language":

Thompson was faced with a hardware environment cramped and spartan
even for the time: the DEC PDP-7 on which he started in 1968 was a
machine with 8K 18-bit words of memory and no software useful to
him. While wanting to use a higher-level language, he wrote the
original Unix system in PDP-7 assembler. At the start, he did not
even program on the PDP-7 itself, but instead used a set of macros
for the GEMAP assembler on a GE-635 machine. A postprocessor
generated a paper tape readable by the PDP-7.

These tapes were carried from the GE machine to the PDP-7 for
testing until a primitive Unix kernel, an editor, an assembler, a
simple shell (command interpreter), and a few utilities (like the
Unix rm, cat, cp commands) were completed. After this point, the
operating system was self-supporting: programs could be written and
tested without resort to paper tape, and development continued on
the PDP-7 itself.

Thompson's PDP-7 assembler outdid even DEC's in simplicity; it
evaluated expressions and emitted the corresponding bits. There were
no libraries, no loader or link editor: the entire source of a
program was presented to the assembler, and the output file—with a
fixed name—that emerged was directly executable. (This name, a.out,
explains a bit of Unix etymology; it is the output of the assembler.
Even after the system gained a linker and a means of specifying
another name explicitly, it was retained as the default executable
result of a compilation.)

So, they didn't use DEC's assembler, but they used GE's?

Interesting stuff.

Will
On 2/26/16 6:26 PM, Clem Cole wrote:

If you were used to building your own tools, you might not.  Also if
you are bootstrapping from something else (like a large timesharing
system from another manufacturer).   You might put your tools on the
other system, until the new system could "self host."

We do the same things today.

Clem

On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 7:23 PM, Will Senn > wrote:



Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 26, 2016, at 5:28 PM, Nigel Williams
<n...@retrocomputingtasmania.com>
wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Feb 27, 2016 at 10:24 AM, Johnny Billquist
> wrote:
>> On 2016-02-26 23:47, Eric Smith wrote:
 On Feb 25, 2016, at 9:26 PM, Gregg Levine

 >> wrote:

 Version Zero was hand coded on a PDP-7
>>>
>>>
>>> I know Gregg is right.  But .. Can you /imagine?/
>> Not sure I understand this comment either. Are you suggesting
that coding an
>> OS is assembler is something exceptional or complicated, or
unusual?
>
> I took "hand-coded" to mean Version Zero was (initially) done
without
> an assembler, they wrote down the instructions in machine code.
>
> Perhaps not unusual for the 1960s but laborious none-the-less.
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I don't understand this. The PDP 7 had an assembler and debugger.
Wouldn't they have used the assembler to generate the bootstrap
system?
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  ||  on a psychedelic trip
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Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Clem Cole]

On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 8:06 PM, Nigel Williams <
n...@retrocomputingtasmania.com> wrote:

> For William's benefit, in those times computers were (chronically) few
> in number.
>
​And very valuable - cost big bucks (millions).  Computer time was often
"billed" out to people.​




> Anyone from that era will remember the endless booking
> problems getting time on a machine of any size. If you were willing to
> do the graveyard shift you gained a small amount of scheduling
> flexibility (if the machine wasn't down for maintenance / resting
> etc).
>

​Or more importantly, you could arrange to have standalone time.

As a system's programmer, I used to do the weekend based mid-night shift at
the computer center.  But we could keep beer cold under the raised floor
too.But we got the system all to ourselves - particularly if you could
get the weekly backups done.  Then the time from after the backups finish
until 8 AM was yours.Some of our best hacks and most useful learning
took place then, but computer time was precious.

Clem
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Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Will Senn]

Found this in Ritchie's article, "The Development of the C Language":

   Thompson was faced with a hardware environment cramped and spartan
   even for the time: the DEC PDP-7 on which he started in 1968 was a
   machine with 8K 18-bit words of memory and no software useful to
   him. While wanting to use a higher-level language, he wrote the
   original Unix system in PDP-7 assembler. At the start, he did not
   even program on the PDP-7 itself, but instead used a set of macros
   for the GEMAP assembler on a GE-635 machine. A postprocessor
   generated a paper tape readable by the PDP-7.

   These tapes were carried from the GE machine to the PDP-7 for
   testing until a primitive Unix kernel, an editor, an assembler, a
   simple shell (command interpreter), and a few utilities (like the
   Unix rm, cat, cp commands) were completed. After this point, the
   operating system was self-supporting: programs could be written and
   tested without resort to paper tape, and development continued on
   the PDP-7 itself.

   Thompson's PDP-7 assembler outdid even DEC's in simplicity; it
   evaluated expressions and emitted the corresponding bits. There were
   no libraries, no loader or link editor: the entire source of a
   program was presented to the assembler, and the output file—with a
   fixed name—that emerged was directly executable. (This name, a.out,
   explains a bit of Unix etymology; it is the output of the assembler.
   Even after the system gained a linker and a means of specifying
   another name explicitly, it was retained as the default executable
   result of a compilation.)

So, they didn't use DEC's assembler, but they used GE's?

Interesting stuff.

Will
On 2/26/16 6:26 PM, Clem Cole wrote:
If you were used to building your own tools, you might not.  Also if 
you are bootstrapping from something else (like a large timesharing 
system from another manufacturer).   You might put your tools on the 
other system, until the new system could "self host."


We do the same things today.

Clem

On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 7:23 PM, Will Senn > wrote:




Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 26, 2016, at 5:28 PM, Nigel Williams
> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Feb 27, 2016 at 10:24 AM, Johnny Billquist
> wrote:
>> On 2016-02-26 23:47, Eric Smith wrote:
 On Feb 25, 2016, at 9:26 PM, Gregg Levine

 >> wrote:

 Version Zero was hand coded on a PDP-7
>>>
>>>
>>> I know Gregg is right.  But .. Can you /imagine?/
>> Not sure I understand this comment either. Are you suggesting
that coding an
>> OS is assembler is something exceptional or complicated, or
unusual?
>
> I took "hand-coded" to mean Version Zero was (initially) done
without
> an assembler, they wrote down the instructions in machine code.
>
> Perhaps not unusual for the 1960s but laborious none-the-less.
> ___
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> Simh@trailing-edge.com 
> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

I don't understand this. The PDP 7 had an assembler and debugger.
Wouldn't they have used the assembler to generate the bootstrap
system?
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[Simh] 18bit service listing

[Bob Supnik]

AFAIK, this is the only surviving fragment of what must have been a 
complete systems listing. I found it in the DEC archive when I was 
cataloging the archive for shipment to the CHM. The archive was 
relatively good on the early machines; for the later ones, the 
assumption was that paper was no longer really needed.


That assumption has led to the loss of all the schematics and most of 
the documentation for DEC's chips, for example, as changing media, 
ruthless space consolidation, frequent layoffs, and shifting ownership 
led to wholesale loss of archival storage.


/Bob
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Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2016-02-27 01:40, Eric Smith wrote:

My goodness, Johnny, you are my hero.  You, sir, lived my dream ..!!


As with all such things, when it was going on, one never reflected much 
on it. Today I sometimes seriously miss those days. It was so much more 
fun and interesting. Computers today are boring, and companies are 
boring as well. And the internet have turned to a really boring thing.


But I try to keep my sanity by insisting on continuing to use my PDP-11 
systems, and try to make everything I can work on them. And, of course, 
by trying to avoid Unix. :-)


I just wish I could find more time to do that fun stuff. But since noone 
(almost) pay for that kind of work anymore, I'll have to do it on a 
hobby basis, and work on the boring stuff for my salary.


Johnny

--
Johnny Billquist  || "I'm on a bus
  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: b...@softjar.se ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive! ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
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Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Bill Cunningham]

I didn't know that B had been around so much. I then was /not/ designed for 
working with UNIX specifically?
  - Original Message - 
  From: Clem Cole 
  To: Eric Smith 
  Cc: simh@trailing-edge.com 
  Sent: Friday, February 26, 2016 7:24 PM
  Subject: Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix




  On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 6:43 PM, Eric Smith  wrote:

It would be interesting to know how they went from B to C .. but once
they had a higher level language (C .. well, higher level compared to
the assembler), things would become much easier.


  ​Dennis described it all in one of his papers.   NB was written in B.  C 
morphed into being so as he said, there was never really a "C" compiler from 
scratch.   At one point, they realized the language had diverged enough to call 
it something else.


  Also, as Doug has pointed out either here or on the TUHS list, there was an 
early parser in TMG - which I believe spit out B at that point.   Yacc and Lex 
do not appear until later in the cycle. 


  The point is that the kernel and the tools "matured" as time went on.   At 
some point Dennis would collect up tools that people had and pick up the 
current state of the kernel and "release" was come out. So it was a ephemeral 
thing, not a big formal process we think of today with release candidates et 
al.The bad news for us trying to pick through the history, is that it means 
in some cases we really do not have an established date of references point.   
Warren has done yeoman's work to try to help establish such a timeline and 
probably has the most definitive track of what was what - but in some cases it 
was hazy and frankly the intermediate codes have been lost.


  Clem




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Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Eric Smith]

My goodness, Johnny, you are my hero.  You, sir, lived my dream ..!!


> On Feb 26, 2016, at 6:33 PM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:
> 
> Oh, don't get me wrong. I don't mind the postings and the comments. I just 
> want to try and understand what you mean by them, and try to put things into 
> perspective, both from your side and mine.
> 
> We're about the same age. But I was actually exposed (through computer clubs) 
> to PDP-11 systems at an early age, for which we had no software, so we had to 
> start from scratch by writing some silly monitor on paper, and put it in on 
> the front panel, and eventually got to a point where it could be saved to 
> tape, so we could boot it, and do some very simple things through that.
> Of course, we also had core, so we had the software around in memory, unless 
> we accidentally corrupted memory as well.
> 
> I pretty much avoided the whole microcomputer revolution, since I already had 
> started playing with minis, and found them so much more interesting and fun 
> than micros... Having PDP-11s to play with both at school and clubs, and 
> eventually having my own PDP-8 systems at home in the mid 80s, not to mention 
> hanging out at University at night, when "normal" students weren't around, to 
> play on the PDP-10 systems there, and connecting across the atlantic using 
> IMPs, and god knows all the weird stuff one was doing...
> 
> And most OSes back then were written in assembler. Unix was more of the 
> exception.
> 
>   Johnny
> 

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Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Johnny Billquist]

Oh, don't get me wrong. I don't mind the postings and the comments. I 
just want to try and understand what you mean by them, and try to put 
things into perspective, both from your side and mine.


We're about the same age. But I was actually exposed (through computer 
clubs) to PDP-11 systems at an early age, for which we had no software, 
so we had to start from scratch by writing some silly monitor on paper, 
and put it in on the front panel, and eventually got to a point where it 
could be saved to tape, so we could boot it, and do some very simple 
things through that.
Of course, we also had core, so we had the software around in memory, 
unless we accidentally corrupted memory as well.


I pretty much avoided the whole microcomputer revolution, since I 
already had started playing with minis, and found them so much more 
interesting and fun than micros... Having PDP-11s to play with both at 
school and clubs, and eventually having my own PDP-8 systems at home in 
the mid 80s, not to mention hanging out at University at night, when 
"normal" students weren't around, to play on the PDP-10 systems there, 
and connecting across the atlantic using IMPs, and god knows all the 
weird stuff one was doing...


And most OSes back then were written in assembler. Unix was more of the 
exception.


Johnny


On 2016-02-27 01:09, Eric Smith wrote:

Actually, on further reflection, I have nothing useful to add.  Only 
observations.  I am probably much younger I am sure than most of you (not my 
fault, and please don’t hate me for that).  At 50 now I was in high school when 
I did the Epson assembler.

I would probably do best to sit idly by and just enjoy threads like this one.  
I truly do, too, since I’m interested in computer history (my first machine had 
4K, and the assembler was my friend).  I am SO impressed with what was done 
with dozens of K core and early languages.

Having written device drivers and the like in assembly, I am impressed with the 
notion of writing an entire OS .. that’s all.  I just had to say something 
about how impressed I was.

Now, I’ll be quiet and enjoy these threads!  You guys are great .. please do go 
on!!





On Feb 26, 2016, at 5:43 PM, Eric Smith  wrote:

Well .. impressive, I suppose, would be what I would call it.

I guess you'd start with hand-keying in an assembler .. then go from
there.I did that once in BASIC on a machine for which I could not
obtain an assembler (Epson HX-20).

It would be interesting to know how they went from B to C .. but once
they had a higher level language (C .. well, higher level compared to
the assembler), things would become much easier.

I was corresponding with DMR a couple of years before his passing.  He
signed his C book for me.  If he were still around it would be cool to
loop him in on this stuff and just ask.


On Feb 26, 2016, at 5:24 PM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:


On 2016-02-26 23:47, Eric Smith wrote:
I love assembly.  I do.   But seriously …


On Feb 25, 2016, at 9:26 PM, Gregg Levine > wrote:

Version Zero was hand coded on a PDP-7


I know Gregg is right.  But .. Can you /imagine?/


Not sure I understand this comment either. Are you suggesting that coding an OS 
is assembler is something exceptional or complicated, or unusual?

   Johnny

--
Johnny Billquist  || "I'm on a bus
 ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: b...@softjar.se ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive! ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
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  ||  on a psychedelic trip
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pdp is alive! ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
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Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Eric Smith]

> On Feb 26, 2016, at 6:24 PM, Clem Cole  wrote:
> 
> … there was never really a "C" compiler from scratch.   At one point, they 
> realized the language had diverged enough to call it something else.

Ok, that totally makes sense.  Just like everything I ever wrote :)  I’ll have 
to find and read the mentioned papers and catch up with the rest of you.___
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Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Clem Cole]

If you were used to building your own tools, you might not.  Also if you
are bootstrapping from something else (like a large timesharing system from
another manufacturer).   You might put your tools on the other system,
until the new system could "self host."

We do the same things today.

Clem

On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 7:23 PM, Will Senn  wrote:

>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On Feb 26, 2016, at 5:28 PM, Nigel Williams <
> n...@retrocomputingtasmania.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On Sat, Feb 27, 2016 at 10:24 AM, Johnny Billquist 
> wrote:
> >> On 2016-02-26 23:47, Eric Smith wrote:
>  On Feb 25, 2016, at 9:26 PM, Gregg Levine   > wrote:
> 
>  Version Zero was hand coded on a PDP-7
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> I know Gregg is right.  But .. Can you /imagine?/
> >> Not sure I understand this comment either. Are you suggesting that
> coding an
> >> OS is assembler is something exceptional or complicated, or unusual?
> >
> > I took "hand-coded" to mean Version Zero was (initially) done without
> > an assembler, they wrote down the instructions in machine code.
> >
> > Perhaps not unusual for the 1960s but laborious none-the-less.
> > ___
> > Simh mailing list
> > Simh@trailing-edge.com
> > http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh
>
> I don't understand this. The PDP 7 had an assembler and debugger. Wouldn't
> they have used the assembler to generate the bootstrap system?
> ___
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> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh
>
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Re: [Simh] Simh Digest, Vol 145, Issue 102

[Larry Baker]

SORRY, it's called the Bell System TECHNICAL Journal.

Eric,

I assume you know about The Bell System Journal, July–August 1978, Part 2, 
special edition on The Unix Time-Sharing System.  There are many papers which 
cover the evolution and symbiosis of Unix and C.

Larry Baker
US Geological Survey
650-329-5608
ba...@usgs.gov



On 26 Feb 2016, at 3:43 PM,  
 wrote:

> Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2016 17:43:00 -0600
> From: Eric Smith 
> To: Johnny Billquist 
> Cc: "simh@trailing-edge.com" 
> Subject: Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix
> Message-ID: <-8605820161489367194@unknownmsgid>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
> 
> Well .. impressive, I suppose, would be what I would call it.
> 
> I guess you'd start with hand-keying in an assembler .. then go from
> there.I did that once in BASIC on a machine for which I could not
> obtain an assembler (Epson HX-20).
> 
> It would be interesting to know how they went from B to C .. but once
> they had a higher level language (C .. well, higher level compared to
> the assembler), things would become much easier.
> 
> I was corresponding with DMR a couple of years before his passing.  He
> signed his C book for me.  If he were still around it would be cool to
> loop him in on this stuff and just ask.
> 
>> On Feb 26, 2016, at 5:24 PM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:
>> 
>>> On 2016-02-26 23:47, Eric Smith wrote:
>>> I love assembly.  I do.   But seriously …
>>> 
 On Feb 25, 2016, at 9:26 PM, Gregg Levine > wrote:
 
 Version Zero was hand coded on a PDP-7
>>> 
>>> I know Gregg is right.  But .. Can you /imagine?/
>> 
>> Not sure I understand this comment either. Are you suggesting that coding an 
>> OS is assembler is something exceptional or complicated, or unusual?
>> 
>>   Johnny
>> 
>> --
>> Johnny Billquist  || "I'm on a bus
>> ||  on a psychedelic trip
>> email: b...@softjar.se ||  Reading murder books
>> pdp is alive! ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
>> ___
>> Simh mailing list
>> Simh@trailing-edge.com
>> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh
> 

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Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Clem Cole]

On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 6:28 PM, Nigel Williams <
n...@retrocomputingtasmania.com> wrote:

> Perhaps not unusual for the 1960s but laborious none-the-less.


​Depends who you are.   For grins look for the original Cray-1 "assembler"
box.   You'll discover there are no mnemonics like "add", "branch" - just
octal codes.   Seymor didn't need them. ​
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Re: [Simh] Simh Digest, Vol 145, Issue 102

[Eric Smith]

No, I will absolutely check that out.  Thank you!
Unix and C fed me, the wife and kids for many years, as I told Dennis.  These 
turned in to much more than I’m sure he, Ken, and Brian ever could have 
foreseen.



> On Feb 26, 2016, at 6:06 PM, Larry Baker  wrote:
> 
> Eric,
> 
> I assume you know about The Bell System Journal, July–August 1978, Part 2, 
> special edition on The Unix Time-Sharing System.  There are many papers which 
> cover the evolution and symbiosis of Unix and C.
> 
> Larry Baker
> US Geological Survey
> 650-329-5608
> ba...@usgs.gov 
> 

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Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Eric Smith]

Actually, on further reflection, I have nothing useful to add.  Only 
observations.  I am probably much younger I am sure than most of you (not my 
fault, and please don’t hate me for that).  At 50 now I was in high school when 
I did the Epson assembler.

I would probably do best to sit idly by and just enjoy threads like this one.  
I truly do, too, since I’m interested in computer history (my first machine had 
4K, and the assembler was my friend).  I am SO impressed with what was done 
with dozens of K core and early languages.

Having written device drivers and the like in assembly, I am impressed with the 
notion of writing an entire OS .. that’s all.  I just had to say something 
about how impressed I was.

Now, I’ll be quiet and enjoy these threads!  You guys are great .. please do go 
on!!




> On Feb 26, 2016, at 5:43 PM, Eric Smith  wrote:
> 
> Well .. impressive, I suppose, would be what I would call it.
> 
> I guess you'd start with hand-keying in an assembler .. then go from
> there.I did that once in BASIC on a machine for which I could not
> obtain an assembler (Epson HX-20).
> 
> It would be interesting to know how they went from B to C .. but once
> they had a higher level language (C .. well, higher level compared to
> the assembler), things would become much easier.
> 
> I was corresponding with DMR a couple of years before his passing.  He
> signed his C book for me.  If he were still around it would be cool to
> loop him in on this stuff and just ask.
> 
>> On Feb 26, 2016, at 5:24 PM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:
>> 
>>> On 2016-02-26 23:47, Eric Smith wrote:
>>> I love assembly.  I do.   But seriously …
>>> 
 On Feb 25, 2016, at 9:26 PM, Gregg Levine > wrote:
 
 Version Zero was hand coded on a PDP-7
>>> 
>>> I know Gregg is right.  But .. Can you /imagine?/
>> 
>> Not sure I understand this comment either. Are you suggesting that coding an 
>> OS is assembler is something exceptional or complicated, or unusual?
>> 
>>   Johnny
>> 
>> --
>> Johnny Billquist  || "I'm on a bus
>> ||  on a psychedelic trip
>> email: b...@softjar.se ||  Reading murder books
>> pdp is alive! ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
>> ___
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>> Simh@trailing-edge.com
>> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

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Re: [Simh] Simh Digest, Vol 145, Issue 102

[Larry Baker]

Eric,

I assume you know about The Bell System Journal, July–August 1978, Part 2, 
special edition on The Unix Time-Sharing System.  There are many papers which 
cover the evolution and symbiosis of Unix and C.

Larry Baker
US Geological Survey
650-329-5608
ba...@usgs.gov



On 26 Feb 2016, at 3:43 PM,  
 wrote:

> Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2016 17:43:00 -0600
> From: Eric Smith 
> To: Johnny Billquist 
> Cc: "simh@trailing-edge.com" 
> Subject: Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix
> Message-ID: <-8605820161489367194@unknownmsgid>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
> 
> Well .. impressive, I suppose, would be what I would call it.
> 
> I guess you'd start with hand-keying in an assembler .. then go from
> there.I did that once in BASIC on a machine for which I could not
> obtain an assembler (Epson HX-20).
> 
> It would be interesting to know how they went from B to C .. but once
> they had a higher level language (C .. well, higher level compared to
> the assembler), things would become much easier.
> 
> I was corresponding with DMR a couple of years before his passing.  He
> signed his C book for me.  If he were still around it would be cool to
> loop him in on this stuff and just ask.
> 
>> On Feb 26, 2016, at 5:24 PM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:
>> 
>>> On 2016-02-26 23:47, Eric Smith wrote:
>>> I love assembly.  I do.   But seriously …
>>> 
 On Feb 25, 2016, at 9:26 PM, Gregg Levine > wrote:
 
 Version Zero was hand coded on a PDP-7
>>> 
>>> I know Gregg is right.  But .. Can you /imagine?/
>> 
>> Not sure I understand this comment either. Are you suggesting that coding an 
>> OS is assembler is something exceptional or complicated, or unusual?
>> 
>>   Johnny
>> 
>> --
>> Johnny Billquist  || "I'm on a bus
>> ||  on a psychedelic trip
>> email: b...@softjar.se ||  Reading murder books
>> pdp is alive! ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
>> ___
>> Simh mailing list
>> Simh@trailing-edge.com
>> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh
> 

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Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Eric Smith]

Well .. impressive, I suppose, would be what I would call it.

I guess you'd start with hand-keying in an assembler .. then go from
there.I did that once in BASIC on a machine for which I could not
obtain an assembler (Epson HX-20).

It would be interesting to know how they went from B to C .. but once
they had a higher level language (C .. well, higher level compared to
the assembler), things would become much easier.

I was corresponding with DMR a couple of years before his passing.  He
signed his C book for me.  If he were still around it would be cool to
loop him in on this stuff and just ask.

> On Feb 26, 2016, at 5:24 PM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:
>
>> On 2016-02-26 23:47, Eric Smith wrote:
>> I love assembly.  I do.   But seriously …
>>
>>> On Feb 25, 2016, at 9:26 PM, Gregg Levine >> > wrote:
>>>
>>> Version Zero was hand coded on a PDP-7
>>
>> I know Gregg is right.  But .. Can you /imagine?/
>
> Not sure I understand this comment either. Are you suggesting that coding an 
> OS is assembler is something exceptional or complicated, or unusual?
>
>Johnny
>
> --
> Johnny Billquist  || "I'm on a bus
>  ||  on a psychedelic trip
> email: b...@softjar.se ||  Reading murder books
> pdp is alive! ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
> ___
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> Simh@trailing-edge.com
> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh
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Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Nigel Williams]

On Sat, Feb 27, 2016 at 10:24 AM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:
> On 2016-02-26 23:47, Eric Smith wrote:
>>> On Feb 25, 2016, at 9:26 PM, Gregg Levine >> > wrote:
>>>
>>> Version Zero was hand coded on a PDP-7
>>
>>
>> I know Gregg is right.  But .. Can you /imagine?/
> Not sure I understand this comment either. Are you suggesting that coding an
> OS is assembler is something exceptional or complicated, or unusual?

I took "hand-coded" to mean Version Zero was (initially) done without
an assembler, they wrote down the instructions in machine code.

Perhaps not unusual for the 1960s but laborious none-the-less.
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Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2016-02-26 23:47, Eric Smith wrote:

I love assembly.  I do.   But seriously …


On Feb 25, 2016, at 9:26 PM, Gregg Levine > wrote:

Version Zero was hand coded on a PDP-7


I know Gregg is right.  But .. Can you /imagine?/


Not sure I understand this comment either. Are you suggesting that 
coding an OS is assembler is something exceptional or complicated, or 
unusual?


Johnny

--
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  ||  on a psychedelic trip
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pdp is alive! ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
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Re: [Simh] Simh Digest, Vol 145, Issue 101

[William Peer]

On 2/26/2016 3:57 PM, Mattis Lind wrote:

Bob,

You refer to the "1972 field service listing" and "service listing for
1972". Is it this one:
http://www.soemtron.org/downloads/decinfo/18bitservicelist1972.pdf ?
It only includes information on PDP-7 and PDP-7/A systems. Where can I
find information about PDP-9 systems? You refer to serial number #168.
I am curios what it says about  PDP-9 #183 and PDP-9  #203.

/Mattis






Does a similar list exist anywhere for 12 bit systems.  I'd kill to see 
the config for PDP8 number
209 at Fort Monmouth.  It was installed back around 1965 to control 
Radar (IIRC) or some other

microwave reception gear.

When I was the site rep for the boxes back in my PDP11 and VAX days 
(81-86) I was told by
Field Service Managment  don't touch the thing as long as it was still 
running.


I guess a 20 year old PDP8 with racks and racks of custom military 
contractor supplied gear was something they didn't want us young guys 
screwing up.


It finally blew a console tty baud rate crystal when I was leaving DEC 
around '86 --  and DEC logistics
was going to have one cut.  District support had an old ex-PDP8 tech 
scheduled to work the problem.


One of the design engineers on the old beast saw the logistics telex 
message (or whatever they used to put out world wide queries)... He had 
two of the suckers in his desk from when he designed the board. Problem 
Solved.


Wonder whether it was all scrapped in June 2010 when they killed the 
base in the BRAC closings.


Bill

--
Digital had it then.  Don't you wish you could buy it now!
pechter-at-gmail.com  http://xkcd.com/705/

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Re: [Simh] Unix v0 - gleanings from the sources

[Timothe Litt]

On 26-Feb-16 16:22, Bob Supnik wrote:
> I thought the full listing was on Bitsavers, but apparently not -
> maybe because it's huge (110MB). I've put a copy up temporarily here:
>
> https://mega.nz/#!DB5nTRZI!aMQ_0UN7LfyJvep1_e9dP1RZsZyd5fASOivgPSaqZyk
>
> The listing does raise a lot of questions, like, why are there PDP-9s
> with RD10s on them (the RD10 was the KA10's fixed head disk)? I can't
> find documentation on the RD10 either.
>
> It would be nice if someone could OCR this, which would make it both
> searchable and usable for analysis.
>
> /Bob
I believe RD10 doc is on the (LCG) field service microfiche set. 
My copy is at CHM.

I took a stab at OCR & failed.  Google can't deal with it at all. 
Neither can several of the free on-line services.  (Google is usually
the quickest way to OCR - anything you upload to a google drive is
OCRd.  Well, it tries.

Will take someone with time to train, tweak and correct - and commercial
software.  I know some on this list have ABBYY...

I noticed that there are actually two files in the PDF, from two
different dates, printed on two different KA10 systems.
The first from 3-oct-72 on system 246.  The second from 15-apr-73 on
system 169.  Both running a 504Amonitor and LPTSPL V4 - long before
GALAXY came to pass.   (And if I can get those sources off 'my' tapes at
CHM, that's before the batch sources were converted to lowercase
comments.  What a joy that was for SOUPing in local patches...)

(Yes, DEC ran the company on PDP-10s for many years.)





smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature
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Re: [Simh] Unix v0 - gleanings from the sources

[Tom Morris]

On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 4:22 PM, Bob Supnik  wrote:

> I thought the full listing was on Bitsavers, but apparently not - maybe
> because it's huge (110MB).


Huge? Yesterday I downloaded a 6 GB file for another project which I
consider large, but not huge. 110MB seems positively tiny.


> It would be nice if someone could OCR this, which would make it both
> searchable and usable for analysis.
>

I've grabbed a copy and will take a crack at it, but it's unlikely to
produce useful results without a fair amount of pre- and post-processing.

Tom
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Re: [Simh] Unix v0 - gleanings from the sources

[Al Kossow]

On 2/26/16 2:41 PM, Nigel Williams wrote:
I was a bit surprised by the comment about Bitsavers, is there a size 
limit on files hosted there?

there was at one time, before the mirrors
I'll see about ul the version bob sent


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Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Eric Smith]

I love assembly.  I do.   But seriously …

> On Feb 25, 2016, at 9:26 PM, Gregg Levine  > wrote:
> 
> Version Zero was hand coded on a PDP-7


I know Gregg is right.  But .. Can you imagine?


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Re: [Simh] Unix v0 - gleanings from the sources

[Nigel Williams]

On Sat, Feb 27, 2016 at 8:22 AM, Bob Supnik  wrote:
> I thought the full listing was on Bitsavers, but apparently not - maybe
> because it's huge (110MB). I've put a copy up temporarily here:
>
> https://mega.nz/#!DB5nTRZI!aMQ_0UN7LfyJvep1_e9dP1RZsZyd5fASOivgPSaqZyk

At the risk of topic drift, have any similar printouts been recovered
for other DEC families, like the 12-bit range?


I was a bit surprised by the comment about Bitsavers, is there a size
limit on files hosted there?
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Re: [Simh] Unix v0 - gleanings from the sources

[Bob Supnik]

I thought the full listing was on Bitsavers, but apparently not - maybe 
because it's huge (110MB). I've put a copy up temporarily here:


https://mega.nz/#!DB5nTRZI!aMQ_0UN7LfyJvep1_e9dP1RZsZyd5fASOivgPSaqZyk

The listing does raise a lot of questions, like, why are there PDP-9s 
with RD10s on them (the RD10 was the KA10's fixed head disk)? I can't 
find documentation on the RD10 either.


It would be nice if someone could OCR this, which would make it both 
searchable and usable for analysis.


/Bob

On 2/26/2016 3:57 PM, Mattis Lind wrote:

Bob,

You refer to the "1972 field service listing" and "service listing for 
1972". Is it this one: 
http://www.soemtron.org/downloads/decinfo/18bitservicelist1972.pdf ? 
It only includes information on PDP-7 and PDP-7/A systems. Where can I 
find information about PDP-9 systems? You refer to serial number #168. 
I am curios what it says about  PDP-9 #183 and PDP-9  #203.


/Mattis



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Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2016-02-26 19:01, Bill Cunningham wrote:

I was not aware they started on a PDP7. What about inline assembly.
That's kinda C, isn't it?


I guess you learn something new every day...
Inline assembly in a way of injecting assembly code into your code code. 
It's assembly, but it still requires a C framework around it, so it 
cannot be used when you do not have the C framework around.


Johnny

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Re: [Simh] Klh10 vs Simh

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2016-02-26 19:14, Andreas Davour wrote:

On Thu, 25 Feb 2016, Johnny Billquist wrote:


On 2016-02-25 22:46, Zachary Kline wrote:



On Feb 25, 2016, at 10:44 AM, Timothe Litt  wrote:

I suppose this is as good an excuse as any to provide a bit of history.


Thanks. :) That?s definitely interesting history.
I have KLH10 running on my Linux virtual machine. Tops-20 seems much
more

newbie-friendly than ITS, though I?d love to eventually figure the
latter out if only for Zork/MDL. ;)

Just as FYI - You can run ZORK/MDL under TOPS-20.


AFAIK, No Zork for ITS has survived, at least not in the dumps I have
found publicly available.

On UP we have the stub saying

FMZC, GUE 745

Beneath this message a passerby has scrawled:

No MIT supports DM any longer.
Save your breath.

FMGC, GUE 799


i

I see no Zork here.

e

I see no Zork here.

w

I see no Zork here.
Your lamp is growing dim.

s

I see no Zork here.
Your lamp has run out of light. A hungry grue attacks you
and rips you to pieces. (Next time try Zork on a friendlier system.)

:KILL  HACTRN$J#
UP*


I wonder how difficuly it would be to move the image that we have for 
TOPS-20 back to ITS?


Johnny

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[Simh] More 18b bits and bobs

[Bob Supnik]

The RM09 has the same size options and programming model as the Type 24 
serial drum on the PDP4 and PDP9. Perhaps the "UD" option referenced in 
the services list was a later, larger capacity model, but there's no 
documentation one way or another.


It's very easy to add the drum to the PDP-9, and I'll do that along with 
the other updates I mentioned in previous messages.


/Bob

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[Simh] Unix v0 - gleanings from the sources

[Bob Supnik]

Just passing along what Warren and I are discussing.

1. How command parsing worked.

It appears that the command parser generated an argument list and stored 
a pointer to it in the last word in addressable memory (01 - another 
indicator that Unix v0 used just 8KW). The format was:


c(01) = m
m+0/word count (not argument count) - should be a multiple of 4
m+1..m+4/first file name
m+5..m+8/second file name
etc

File names are in "Unix v0" ASCII (right justified in 9b bytes), with 
nulls for fill, indicating a maximum file name of 8 characters.


cat seems to skip the first argument - don't know why yet - but as and 
other utilities starts with the first. In general, the code is not 
bulletproof - a bad argument count (ie, not a multiple of 4) will cause 
cat to loop forever.


2. The card reader was probably a CR01B, the el cheapo model. The code 
to read cards times out the actual completion of a card read after 
column 80, because the CR01B, unlike the more expensive model 40, did 
not provide any status flags for hopper empty or card complete or end of 
file.


(We had a CR01B at ADR as well, and what a piece of junk it was. 
Unfortunately, the card-to-DECtape utility I wrote was only partially 
recovered, and the actual card IO is missing.)


3. Whether this was deliberate or not, Unix v0 lives within the 
constraints of PDP7-PDP9 compatibility. There is no DECtape support; the 
controllers on the 7 and 9 are incompatible. There is no use of extended 
memory; again, there are incompatibilities. The card reader uses only 
binary mode. The same software would work with the CR02B on the PDP9, 
although not the CR01E. And the RB09 would work like the half-sized 
version of the -7.


4. Based on the evidence of the sources, I would tentatively identify 
"computer 0" as PDP-7 serial number 34, as documented in the 1972 field 
service listings. It's an 8KW machine with an EAE, a CR01B card reader, 
a 340 display subsystem, no DECtapes, and, most interestingly, an "RC09" 
- about which I can find nothing else. (There are tantalizing references 
to an "RC09 Maintenance Manual," publication DEC-09-I5BA-D, but the 
document itself has not surfaced; and early printings of the Advanced 
Monitor System software also refer to an RC09.) Was this the cousin of 
the RB09 that I think was used as a disk? Interestingly, there's one 
PDP-9 with a very similar configuration in the service listings - also 
at Bell Lab.


/Bob

For those who are interested in these things... It's possible that the 
RB09 and RC09 are the same device. While the software drivers that are 
available (like the DOS15 disk handler) refer to an RB09, the 1972 Index 
of Publications only shows an RC09. On the other hand, the DEC services 
listing for 1972 shows that PDP-9 serial #168, at St. Paul's Hospital, 
had both an RB  an RC, which would imply they were distinct. The 
same services listing shows about a dozen RM09 drums, which are not 
presently simulated. The PDP-9 User Handbook lists 3 drum sizes - 32K, 
64K, 128K - but the ADSS driver has sizes up to 512K. Go figure.


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Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Bill Cunningham]

  - Original Message - 
  From: Johnny Billquist 
  To: simh@trailing-edge.com 
  Sent: Friday, February 26, 2016 8:48 AM
  Subject: Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix


  On 2016-02-26 01:50, Bill Cunningham wrote:
  >  When Ken Thompson coded UNIX it was in assembly. The first versions
  > anyway before B/NB/C. Is there in existance pdp11 (45 or 70 ?) intterupt
  > (vector) lists or IRQs and so, registers that shows how to code in
  > assembly on a pdp11? I am sure simh does it. Isn't what the "dep"
  > command is for?

  I'm not sure what you ask for. The first version of Unix was for a 
  PDP-7, so any PDP-11 information is irrelevant.
  UNix was then ported to the PDP-11, and was still written in assembler. 
  It was then rewritten in C, however, there are still parts that are 
  written in assembler. Not everything can be done in C...

  I was not aware they started on a PDP7. What about inline assembly. That's 
kinda C, isn't it?

  Bill
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Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2016-02-26 15:58, Gregg Levine wrote:

Hello!
Now that I think about the scene, it might have been a frustrated
PDP-8 at work. I do recall that the exhibit spent more time being
fixed, then being running

It is certainly possible you're right.


A PDP-8 would make much more sense in this context. :-)
Very different from a PDP-11...


But not confused.


Depends on what you were looking at then, perhaps? :-)

Johnny



Then I was beginning to suffer from information overload.
-
Gregg C Levine gregg.drw...@gmail.com
"This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."


On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 9:54 AM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:

On 2016-02-26 15:23, Gregg Levine wrote:


Hello!
Interesting.

I was only reporting what I remember as to the history of the whole
example we call UNIX.

And last year at the Vintage Computer Festival East, (Yes Dave W, the
same one where we crossed paths.), I saw a PDP-11 system having
finished dumping his program output to a TTY setup. I commented then
that the instructions shown resembled an 6502 one, I was also thinking
of the original 6800, but did not say that, and then it wasn't until I
walked away that I thought of a 68000, but only because I was inspired
by something I had read regarding the history of what was used in the
first Mac or its ancestor. And then continuously until much later when
reason caused Apple to switch to the PowerPC. Let's not discuss the
decision to switch to Intel.



But then you must have looked at some code that was not PDP-11, or else you
are very confused about the 6502, or else you are very confused about
assembler in general.

You are comparing a processor with generic registers, with lots of
addressing modes, and a fully orthogonal instruction set, to a processor
that is accumulator based, have rather limited addressing modes, and limited
combinations of arguments to instructions.

The 6502 have more in common with the PDP-8, I'd say.

 Johnny


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Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2016-02-26 15:23, Gregg Levine wrote:

Hello!
Interesting.

I was only reporting what I remember as to the history of the whole
example we call UNIX.

And last year at the Vintage Computer Festival East, (Yes Dave W, the
same one where we crossed paths.), I saw a PDP-11 system having
finished dumping his program output to a TTY setup. I commented then
that the instructions shown resembled an 6502 one, I was also thinking
of the original 6800, but did not say that, and then it wasn't until I
walked away that I thought of a 68000, but only because I was inspired
by something I had read regarding the history of what was used in the
first Mac or its ancestor. And then continuously until much later when
reason caused Apple to switch to the PowerPC. Let's not discuss the
decision to switch to Intel.


But then you must have looked at some code that was not PDP-11, or else 
you are very confused about the 6502, or else you are very confused 
about assembler in general.


You are comparing a processor with generic registers, with lots of 
addressing modes, and a fully orthogonal instruction set, to a processor 
that is accumulator based, have rather limited addressing modes, and 
limited combinations of arguments to instructions.


The 6502 have more in common with the PDP-8, I'd say.

Johnny

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Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2016-02-26 14:49, Clem Cole wrote:


On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 10:26 PM, Gregg Levine > wrote:

I've seen Assembler output from a PDP-11 someplace. It's always
reminded me of a frustrated 6502 microprocessor or a 6800 series one.
But only just.


Interesting- the 68000 should remind you of the PDP-11.   What would
become the 68K (remember it was a skunk works project and not an
official one), was a definite reaction to the 6800/6809 not being good
enough (single accumulator system; not general registers).   As someone
that cut his teeth with the 6502 (and 6800) at the same time as I
learned the 11, I never considered them similar.


Yeah. I don't understand that comment either. Nothing could be further 
from the PDP-11 than the 6502 or a 6800. (Well, maybe some things are 
further, but there pretty much no similarity between the PDP-11 and 6502 
or 6800. The 68000 on the other hand is clearly inspired by the PDP-11.)


Johnny

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Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Clem Cole]

On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 10:26 PM, Gregg Levine 
wrote:

> I've seen Assembler output from a PDP-11 someplace. It's always
> reminded me of a frustrated 6502 microprocessor or a 6800 series one.
> But only just.
>

Interesting- the 68000 should remind you of the PDP-11.   What would become
the 68K (remember it was a skunk works project and not an official one),
was a definite reaction to the 6800/6809 not being good enough (single
accumulator system; not general registers).   As someone that cut his teeth
with the 6502 (and 6800) at the same time as I learned the 11, I never
considered them similar.

That said, the 68K guys were all PDP-11 programmers (in fact the CAD system
as it were, was an 11/70 running a V6 flavor).Les Crudele (Lead
designer of the 68000) once told me th​at they wanted to use the PDP-11
instructions set, but KO had just put Cal Data out business for using the
same instruction set on a the same (Uni)bus.   So you can definitely see
the Unibus influence in their "experiment" but part of why it has A and D
registers was to make sure it was different enough from the 11 that no one
could claim a rip off.

I asked Les why they did not try to license it from DEC, and he said they
were afraid the project was going to shut down, so they kept a low profile.
  They just wanted to prove that they could make a chip with a 16 bit
barrel shifter (which is the major real estate issue when you look at the
68K - is the big array in the center of the chip), and a real bus.BTW:
one of the other really good things that the 68K inherited from DEC that
it's brethren at Moto and MOS Tech lacked was the idea of an unimplemented
op code generating an exception.   Before that time, none of the micros
bothered (good story about how Apple polluted the instruction set because
it - but that's a different email).
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Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2016-02-26 01:50, Bill Cunningham wrote:

 When Ken Thompson coded UNIX it was in assembly. The first versions
anyway before B/NB/C. Is there in existance pdp11 (45 or 70 ?) intterupt
(vector) lists or IRQs and so, registers that shows how to code in
assembly on a pdp11? I am sure simh does it. Isn't what the "dep"
command is for?


I'm not sure what you ask for. The first version of Unix was for a 
PDP-7, so any PDP-11 information is irrelevant.
UNix was then ported to the PDP-11, and was still written in assembler. 
It was then rewritten in C, however, there are still parts that are 
written in assembler. Not everything can be done in C...


Johnny

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Re: [Simh] Klh10 vs Simh

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2016-02-25 20:07, Timothe Litt wrote:

my employer's views, if any, on the matters discussed.
On 25-Feb-16 13:48, Michael Kerpan wrote:

I've been hoping for a KL simulation in SIMH for a while. KLH10 lacks
support for things like serial over Telnet which means that multiuser
is essentially impossible on KLH10 without all kinds of networking
mojo. Sadly, I don't have the skill to actually write such a beast,
I'm of no use except as a data point regarding interest in such a
development.

Mike


If the recently promised release of Linux code for DECnet/LAT
materializes, you'll be able to
connect to KLH10-based machines with as many connections as you can keep
track of.

Both TOPS-10 and TOP-20 on the KL supported LAT, and of course DECnet
NRT and CTERM.


...and telnet. So, (as also Rich pointed out), what is the problem 
actually? Are people so limited in their mind that they only think that 
they can use telnet if the simulator have a telnet to serial port 
connection, and do not think that the OS itself actually can do 
networking... (with many different protocols)


Johnny

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Re: [Simh] Klh10 vs Simh

[Rhialto]

On Thu 25 Feb 2016 at 15:18:59 -0500, Rich Alderson wrote:
> Most of the work on klh10 v2 after Ken's initial release was done by the late
> Mark Crispin, who also created a packaged release of TOPS-20 v7.1 (the Panda
> distribution).  I was supposed to help his family break into the Linux box
> running klh10 (lingling.panda.com), but allowed other commitments to get in 
> the
> way, so there has been no further development since 2011.

Note that I have been overhauling mostly the networking part of klh,
and also the auto-configuration stuff. It ought to be much more portable
now (should work on MacOS X, I expect, for instance). At a request, I
added VDE networking (even though there is no VDE for NetBSD which is my
usual OS).

Available from https://github.com/Rhialto/klh10.git .

-Olaf.
-- 
___ Olaf 'Rhialto' Seibert  -- The Doctor: No, 'eureka' is Greek for
\X/ rhialto/at/xs4all.nl-- 'this bath is too hot.'


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Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Dave Wade]

Whilst “B” only had the “word” as a type it did have, at last in the version I 
used, on the Honeywell L66/GCOS machines, a set of functions to manipulate 
character strings. 
 
Dave
G4UGM
 
From: Simh [mailto:simh-boun...@trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Clem Cole
Sent: 26 February 2016 02:22
To: Bill Cunningham 
Cc: SIMH 
Subject: Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix
 
 
On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 7:50 PM, Bill Cunningham  > wrote:
When Ken Thompson coded UNIX it was in assembly.
​Correct...​
 
 
 
The first versions anyway before B/NB/C
​I do not think that is 100% correct.  B and early UNIX sort of come about at 
the same time.   B (and its pseudo model - BCPL) has only one data type (a 
word) and that works because UNIX was originally implemented on a word 
addressed machine.
 
NB/C comes out when the Ken starts moving to the 11 which was byte addressed, 
as opposed to word addresses of it's predecessors. 
 
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