larsbrinkhoff
commented
6 years ago Mentioned in passing in these documents:
ftp://www.cs.indiana.edu/pub/techreports/TR173.pdf
https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/41180/AI_WP_235.pdf
Open larsbrinkhoff opened 6 years ago
larsbrinkhoff
commented
6 years ago Mentioned in passing in these documents:
ftp://www.cs.indiana.edu/pub/techreports/TR173.pdf
https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/41180/AI_WP_235.pdf
larsbrinkhoff
commented
6 years ago By Mike Patton, posted to vmsnet.pdp-11:
This was a from-scratch operating system (of sorts) written for the PDP-11 using the same design schemes and basic paradigms that ITS used. It wasn't really a Time-Sharing system in that you couldn't run separate programs (AFAIK), it was used for embedded processors (mostly I/O) attached to the ITS achines at MIT, and a few others. It filled a niche very similar to the one that Fuzzball filled, and superficially, they operated about the same.
The primary router for the CHAOSnet protocols (that slightly pre-date IP) ran under MINITS, as well as the terminal front-ends on the later ITS machines. All of this was developed at MIT (at the AI lab mostly, some at LCS, it was used by other MIT labs as well) while I was there in the late 70's and early 80's. I magine the MINITS source is still around, but I'd be hard pressed to find a copy.
larsbrinkhoff
commented
6 years ago By David C Plummer:
There were two terminals that supported SUPDUP graphics: the (John) Kulp terminals in the Plasma Fusion Group in Building 38, and later terminals designed by Chuck Linton down at the Plasma Fusion Center down Vassar Street. Those terminals were driven by a little OS I wrote called MINITS (Mini-ITS was the intent). So if you can find a MINITS directory, you’ll find a whole bunch of PDP-11 PALX code, and in there someplace are the display drivers that are the receiving/display end of the protocol. (I’m told the network bridge and terminal concentrator features of MINITS were popular enough they ported the PALX compiler to some kind of VAX system. So there may have been further development over there, but probably not for display terminals.)
larsbrinkhoff
commented
6 years ago https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/41480/AI_WP_272.pdf
Section 5:
Minits provides a handy facility for very simply configuring a PDP-11 system with various hardware components. Of interest to the Puma system is the Chaosnet support, and Minits' multiprocessing capabilities.
Minits has a rather simple scheduler, which selects a process to run based (roughly) on a priority using a round-robin selection between processes with the same priority.
larsbrinkhoff
commented
6 years ago AI WP 235:
the Chaosnet TIPs are PDP-11 based terminal concentrators connected to the Chaosnet. we currently have installed two Chaos TIPs named NE439A and NE433A, on the ninth and third floors, respectively. Chaos TIPs run an operating system called MINITS which understands a few simple commands.
Chaos TIP commands begin with a control-backslash. (To send a control-backslash cnaracter to the host you are using, you must type the character twice.) Alfer the ↑\ you might type a numeric argument, and then a single letter command. The numeric argument should be either the octal Chaosnet address or a host number to connect to. Here is a summary of the single letter commands:
↑Z Connect using the SUPDUP protocol. T Connect using the TELNET prococol. F Connect using the Finger prococol. K Disconnect from the currently selected host. ? List available hosts and their nuimbers, and these commands. Some popular host numbers include:
0 MIT-MC 1 MIT-AI10 2 MIT-XX 14 MIT-OZ
Collecting notes here.