Talk:RT-11

message: A lot of this should be in the main article -- it's just the sort of stuff I like to see in articles on operating systems that I don't know anything about. 
I do, however, know a lot about RT-11; it was and is my favorite operating system to program into. So easy!  And so remarkably fast. I particularly liked the way disk I/O was kept efficient: all files were contiguous blocks on the disk. This meant you could get the OS to position you at the right place in the file, and from then on read or write with virtually no OS overhead. The kinda thing you want for a real-time system. 
It was also fun programming in C under RT-11, even if it was that remarkably peculiar Whitesmith dialect of the libraries. Debugging C was a breeze (as on any PDP-11 system). 
Wish I still had a reason to use it! Jpgordon 00:18, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  All this 
trivia
 interesting information 

message: This page has been quiet for a long time, but I wanted to point out (and will eventually tweak the page) that a C compiler was never a part of RT-11, there were several after-market ones available, including (my aged brain cannot remember whose) an interpreted (!) one.  I still have the 8" floppy disks in my basement somewhere.  I will have to dig them out and see. -- Gnetwerker 06:23, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That was it!  I think the first compiler I remember was from Whitesmith's. -- Gnetwerker 18:41, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There was a fairly good free C compiler from DECUS. I wrote a few software tools in it, and adapted ratfor to RT-11 and DECUS C. I learned a lot by reading the source that came with it (IIRC, the library came as MACRO-11 and C). I wish I could remember the names of the main authors. CWC(talk) 13:37, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Dave Conroy. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 14:07, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! Google shows a lot of Dave Conroys out there, but he's got to be the one at http://homepage.mac.com/dgcx/. Cheers, CWC(talk) 15:15, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I believe one of the authors of DecusC was Martin Minow (rip) Meganbg 22:49, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  C Compiler 

message: Are we sure that the foreground task is the non-interactive one and the background task is the interactive one in the RT:11FB.  That seems backwards to me, though I don't know anything about RT:11 besides what I've read on this page.
207.172.129.146 04:53, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question: 

message: As a former member of the RT-11 development team and one who ran RT-11 on
everything we supported (and the person who generally tested RT on several
new -11s while they were still in the prototype stage), I have to say that
I don't ever remember seeing a "PDP-11/08" which is mentioned on the main
page.  There were PDP-11s and PDP-8s, but until the 11/{83,84,93,94}, there
were no -11s which even had an '8' or '9' in their name.
If someone can provide proof of one, I will stand corrected... until then,
I'd like to remove that reference.
Any comments?
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Meganbg (talk • contribs) 22:15, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re some recent edits 

message: In earlier versions of RT-11, the single-job version of the monitor
was called SJ.  In later versions (I think around 5.5 or so), we renamed
it to SB.
It was more than a cosmetic change.  Prior to that point, the
SJ monitor was built from a different RMON (resident monitor) source and
actually did things differently than the RMON of the FB
monitor.  For example, when a program was exiting, the monitor knew there
was only one job and that a RESET was safe to do.  Following the RESET,
the interrupts were turned back on and control passed to the KMON.
With the advent of the single source for the resident monitor, we created
the SB variant to indicate that it was a single-job variant of FB and acted the
same way as the background job of the FB variant.  This provided predictability
in program operation for customers.
We also used to have (around the V4 timeframe) a variant called the AI
monitor for use in automatic installs.
So, the total list of RT monitor variants (V4 and later) is: AI, FB, SB, SJ, XB, XM, ZB, ZM
(prior to V4, the typical names for monitors was of the form xxRMyy where xx was the
two-character device name, and yy was the monitor variant.  So RKMNSJ was the SJ monitor
for the RK05)
I also remember an attempt at a memory-resident version of RT, called
MRRT, and a stripped-down distribution called RT^2 (RT-Squared)
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Meganbg (talk • contribs) 22:46, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Monitor variants 

message: TSX+ was not really an extension to RT-11 with which one could develop
a time-sharing system.  TSX+, when running, was in full control of the
machine as a replacement for RT-11.  The only thing TSX+ needed from
RT-11 was the boot function to get to a point where it, as a program,
could be loaded and run.  Once it had control, it basically kicked
RT-11 out of memory and took over complete control, offering an
environment which was similar to RT-11.  All the utilties provided
with RT-11 simply ran, as did user-developed programs.
--Meganbg 19:27, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  TSX clarification 

message: User  recently added
:RT-11 is now supported and distributed by Mentec company.
So I eagerly went to www.mentec.com ... and couldn't find anything. A little Googling shows that they used to sell processor boards and software (including not just RT-11 but also RSTS/E and several RSXs, plus DECNET, several compilers, DATATRIEVE, etc). However, they seem to have stopped in 2000, after doing a lot of Y2K fixes (eg., RT-11 v5.7) and today Google finds no occurrence of "PDP" in www.mentec.com. Sigh. So I've removed that sentence from our article. Disappointedly yours, CWC 09:20, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably they sold the business to somebdy?--Dojarca 09:20, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think to XX2249 LLC. Paul Koning (talk) 17:37, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mentec 

message: --Dojarca 09:19, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is there any operating system template? 

message: The difference between squeezing as RT-11 does it, and defragmentation as Windows does it
is that with RT-11, the files are always contiguous.  They are moved 'down' (towards lower
block numbers) as the empty space is moved 'up' (towards higher block numbers) and consolidated.
With Windows, the defragmentation consolidates the scattered files back into contiguous
ones (for the most part) while consolidating the free space.
--Meganbg 17:54, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Squeezing versus defragmenting 

message: The "minimal system configurations" discussion rambles a bit and is quite inconsistent.  It starts out by talking about a floppy based system with gigantic memory :-) and then goes on to configurations with small memory but large disks (5 MB).
The smallest memory supported, to the best of my knowledge, was 8 kW (16 kB).  The smallest supported system device was the DECtape (289 kB); the smallest real disk would be the RF11 (512 kB).  Then again, RT-11 also worked on an RC-11 disk (128 kB); that was not supported by DEC because DEC no longer had any of those by the time RT-11 was developed.  But Lawrence University did, and I wrote the support for it (in RT-11SJ V2A).
So I think the correct statement for minimal config, for older versions, would be 16 kB of memory and 128 kB of disk, minimum supported by DEC would be 16 kB of memory and 289 kB of disk-like storage.
Paul Koning 14:54, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Minimal config inconsistencies 

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BetacommandBot 10:32, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I posted a question on the discussion page of that image: is the assertion that the image is copyrighted actually valid?  Who would own the copyright?  DEC, perhaps, but that seems odd since they didn't create that software.  The creators of the bootleg copy?  But that seems odd because they had no legal right to create it.  Can a thief hold copyright in what he steals? Paul Koning 16:58, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Replied there.--Dojarca 08:18, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Osbk11.png

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thread_title: Image copyright problem with Image:DEC,VT52.jpg

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thread_title: File:Osbk11.png Nominated for speedy Deletion

message: My experience with RT11 is mostly with V2, which gives me a somewhat different perspective.  For example:
# V2 didn't have the DCL user interface.  So, for example, no "rename" command.  Instead, you'd say "r pip" then in response to the pip prompt: "new=old/re".
# V2 didn't have SYSGEN.  I don't remember if the (stripped) sources were included so you could rebuild the OS or if that didn't happen until later.  In any case, it's not clear why you would, since I don't think there were any build options apart from a choice of disk type for your system disk.
# The article claims that in early versions the device drivers were built into the kernel.  I don't think so, with the exception of the system disk.  All the other device drivers, as far as I remember, were loaded from dev.SYS files as needed.  But yes, a specific kernel build was for a specific kernel device, which is why you'd see file names like "RKMNSJ.SYS" on old RT kits.  (That translates to: monitor (kernel) for RK05 system disk, Single Job kernel).  Update: I just found an RT V1 manual, and it's clear the article is incorrect.  
Paul Koning (talk) 17:54, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: SYSGEN was useful for many applications; for one thing it was how support for several options was enabled.  For example, in at least some of the RT-11 distribution kits, a SYSGEN was required to allow RT-11 (and TECO/EDIT) to use the VT11 or VS60 graphics options.  Of all the available ways to edit text files on RT-11, by far the nicest was TECO+VS60. — DAGwyn (talk) 10:22, 8 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some comments about early versions 

message: This was added and I deleted it: It had an interactive help facility... This highlights a couple of things. First of all, we shouldn't use things sourced to anonymous readers even if they are in a reliable source like Computerworld. Also, it's just wrong; there was no "interactive help facility", nor does the article assert there was; instead, there were a few jokes littered around the OS, as usual with DEC. My favorite was always "MAKE LOVE"; TECO would respond "NOT WAR?". Or maybe it was vice versa. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇  21:09, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  That "interactive help facility" and jokes