Talk:RSX-11

message: "RSX was a separate path at DEC and the progenitor more than anything of VMS that went to NT via Dave Cutler."
I'm having a great deal of trouble parsing this quote.  Does "that" refer to "progenitor" or to "VMS"?  It's difficult to make sense of the statement either way. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tabor (talk • contribs) 21:33, 8 February 2005
:That statement seems pretty tortured, but the simple facts are these: Before Dave Cutler went on to participate in the VAX-A committee, he was the initiator and software lead for RSX-11/M and M+. IIRC, he, Peter Conklin, and Dick Hustvedt were the principal contributors to the design of Starlet, the software that went on to become VAX/VMS. Because of Cutler, VMS ended up looking a lot like a clean, 32-bit re-implementation of /M. Many software structures were brought forward and expanded: The ODS-1 disk structure became ODS-2, the QIO and AST mechanisms were brought forward and expanded, etc. (Thankfully, the taskbuilder eventually went away. :-) )
:So now we just need a simple statement that sums all that up. ;-)
:Atlant 01:08, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: RSX as papa

message: An OS very similar to RSX-11M that ran on the 18-bit PDP-15.  I no longer have access to published sources, or I would add it to the article.  BenBurch 14:16, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Binaries and sources for XVM/RSX V1A and V1B (the last versions of RSX-15) are available at . It will be possible to install them in SIMH  3.7 (the current version at this time is 3.6-2, and XVM/RSX will not run in it due to several bugs) once it is released. There will probably also be a pre-installed disk image of it available as well. 207.153.26.200 08:55, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  RSX-15 

message: First of all, the status is not really "historic" yet. Mentec have continued to develop and sell RSX. This last year the status have become uncertain as the status of Mentec as a company is unknown.
Second, the trivia section talks about the rotating light patter. There is no "reverse rotation" when IND is running. I don't know where that comes from, but it's not true. I have a PDP-11/70 running RSX-11M+ right here next to me to verify this. Also, the source code for the OS is included in the distribution, so it's not exactly difficult to verify the normal idle pattern that way. Since the pattern is the bus data lines, it is very "random" data while the processor is busy, so if IND is running, the pattern will not be something "stable" anyway. /bqt (bqt@softjar.se) --213.65.173.92 (talk) 12:58, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Errors in article 

message: It's not correct that a given operating system "first appeared on the PDP-11/xx" if, in fact, it was available for the PDP-11/xx and the PDP-11/yy when it was first released; saying RSX-11D first appeared on the PDP-11/40 makes it sound as if it was initially ran only on the PDP-11/40.  If it were announced at the same time that the PDP-11/40 was announced, one could say it was "first announced along with the PDP-11/40", but that's it.  I'm fixing it to say "first appeared on the PDP-11/40 and PDP-11/45"; there's nothing at all special bout the 11/40 here. Guy Harris (talk) 18:09, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  What I (and the previous editors) meant is just that PDP 11/40 and RSX-11 were announced at the same time. 11/40 was announced after the /45 (June 1972), so late 1972 or very early 1973 (data varies slightly: DEC officially said "sometime in 1972 after the 11/45", PDP FAQ says January 1973). "Late 1972 or very early 1973" is the same time frame I got for the launch of RSX-11: in March 1973 there's already a nice printed set of manuals for 11A, so it was generally available at that time and no doubt there were customers who got it before that time. Lastly, RSX 11D came out in May 1973. Since the time frames are the same, I find no reason to doubt what previous editors have said: 11/40 and RSX were announced at the same time. Some editors who have written in this talk page seem to have first hand knowledge about the subject. Pity the page was a bit vandalized by someone misreading PDP-11 newsgroups. English is a second language for me, so please go on and correct the page yourself. I'm confident your writing is better than mine could ever be. Alchemist (talk) 23:02, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: In English, "first appeared on the PDP-11/40" would be appropriate if the first machine on which it could run on was the 11/40, which is not the case - 11D could run on the 11/40 and the 11/45 when it was introduced; for "first appeared on", what's appropriate is "first appeared on the PDP-11/40 and PDP-11/45", as it currently states.  "...was first announced along with the 11/40" would be appropriate if they were both announced at the same time, but the set of machine(s) announced in the same time frame is less interesting and relevant than the set machines it supported when it was announced. Guy Harris (talk) 23:33, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  "First appeared on" 

message: This section in the article is more wrong than right.
First of all, RSX was/is distributed with sources, and the sources do not have comments stripped out. I believe this is the case for RT-11, but it has never been the case for RSX-11. There was a separate source kit product available as well, which held additional sources not needed to rebuild the system. Mostly tools and libraries.
Second, Mentec Inc. was not acquired by anyone. It went into bankrupcy. It's important to keep the distinction between Mentec Limited, and Mentec Inc. Mentec Inc was certainly owned by Mentec Limited, but it went to a different fate. The ownership of the PDP-11 software was then sold from the remains of Mentec Inc to a company called XX2247 Ltd. which is still the owner of the software today, and in theory you can still get a licence if you want to. However, in practice it might be hard because of paperwork and legal details that needs to be handled if this is needed. XX2247 is not actively doing anything with this software today, except keeping it around for some future day. /bqt@softjar.se 80.219.208.146 (talk) 13:49, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Legal ownership, development model and availability