[OT] PDP-11 programmer wanted?

[Bob Eager]

I have no need...! .-)

I say it many times each year in my lectures...

[Bob Minchin]

Back in the day, the campus computing power was an ICL 4130 with a PDP11 bolted on the front running interactive BASIC to 8 (or was it 10) Teletypes scattered across the campus. The system was known as KOS - (Kent Online System) and I think a clone of it was also run at Reading too.

Bob

According to Google, York also ran KOS

[Bob Eager]

They did. And Lancaster, Aberystwyth, and a couple of others.

It was however developed at Kent by Peter Brown, Heather Brown, Steve Binns and Brian Spratt. I started using it in January 1971, but by June I had stolen the source code. I got the hardware specs from ICL over the summer and hacked rather a lot of it the following year...

The first hack was setting a bit in the multiplexer status word for a terminal - which logged it out, allowing someone else to use it!

[Bob Eager]

Strangely, I have a KOS manual within reach of me right now...beside my desk.

[Huge]

I still have fond memories of KOS.

And my bacterial fermenter simulation which;

1) Took 2 x 30 minute back to back runs on the 4130, which I used to get one shot at a night and if it died, well tough shit until the next night. When the railway tunnel collapsed and took the computing lab with it and we had to run our jobs at ULCC, the first time I ran my simulation, it took about 30s - I thought it had died, but that was just the performance difference between the 4130 and the Cyber 7600 at ULCC.

2) I never did get the damn thing to work right - at the time I thought it was because I was a shit FORTRAN programmer. It wasn't until years later when I was reading James Gleick's book on chaos theory on a transatlantic flight that I twigged it was a chaotic system. Had I not been a dumb f*ck, I might have been famous ..... :o)

[Bob Eager]

For some reason this post of Bob M's didn't make it to me.

There were 8 teletypes originally - that was the number of ports on the multiplexer (whose driver I hacked). Plus a control teleptinter in the computer room. I think two of the terminals (ASR-33s) were in Electronics and the Registry, and the rest in the Computing lobby area.

The PDP-11 came later (although there were two other PDP-11s for teaching). They were better multiplexers as we could connect to the second 4130 instead (when we got it). I wrote part of the PDP-11 code for that.

KOS was written as a funded research project, and the code was made available to any university with a 4130 (there were several). I think Bangor was another.

[Huge]

What did the command "ENTER" do? I still recall juvenile hilarity at typing "ENTER {toothsome female teaching assistant name}" and having the system respond;

{toothsome female teaching assistant name} not available now.

And I still have the calluses from those damn KSR-33s.

A number of years ago, I returned to visit Prof Brown on behalf of my then employers (Xerox) and one of people in the computer centre, who'd been an operator when I was there as an undergraduate actually remembered me; quite an achievement, given I was suited, booted & short-haired, in complete contrast to my undergrad days, 20 years previously.

[Bob Eager]

These days, it woukd be RUN; it was just to run a program. I think Elliott (the machine manufacturer, taken over by ICL, well, merged...) used that terminology.

Probably Trevor Potts, if male. He retired a couple of years ago.

[Huge]

It was a lady. The one in your photo loading what appears to be an RM03 disk pack into a drive - or whatever the ICL equivalent was.

[D.M.Chapman]

Yep, was going to say Trev

Rather randomly you've just reminded me I've got his snorkeling gear in the boot of my car :-)

Darren

[D.M.Chapman]

Well, i've heard Trev called a few things, but lady he ain't :-)

Not sure I've seen the photo you mention. You've got me thinking now...

Darren

[D.M.Chapman]

Darren

[D.M.Chapman]

Actually, given mention of the tunnel collapse and old machines I suspect a few people here might be interested in some of the other photos on that site.

Never know, some of you might be in one of them :)

Darren

[Bob Eager]

I have that picture (and some others) on file!

[Bob Eager]

EDS100. The pack, not the lady.

That was Ann Benton. We used to call ger 'Little Ann'. She started in about 1969 straight from school at the age of 16.

[Bob Eager]

I have an annotated sequence of pictures of the tunnel collapse. It's on Facebook though.

[Bob Eager]

This one. Sorry it's so small, I have the original somewhere.

[Bob Eager]

Ah, here's a better one:

[Huge]

Yep, that's her.

[Huge]

Well, she had an awesome memory, given how many students she must have seen over the years.