Kermit Software for the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-10
File Transfer for DECsystem-10 TOPS-10 and
DECSYSTEM-20 TOPS-20
Goto: [ DECsystem-10 Kermit ]
[ DECSYSTEM-20 Kermit ]
[ Links ]
[ Kermit Home ]
Digital Equipment Corporation's 36-bit PDP-10 was, arguably, the birthplace
of both the Internet and the Open Source movement, and without argument, the
source of many of the most influential software applications, including
EMACS, TEX, ISPELL, MACSYMA, SCRIBE, numerous LISP dialects, MM
and other pioneering email clients, and Kermit. The first Kermit program
was written for the DECSYSTEM-20 at Columbia University, and transferred its
first file from one DEC-20 serial port to another on 29 April 1981.
The PDP-10 was the successor to the PDP-6, which appeared in 1964. PDP-10s
came in four models: KA10, KI10, KL10, KS10. The best-known operating
systems were TOPS-10, TENEX, and TOPS-20. TENEX was done at Bolt Barenek
and Newman (BBN) and required modified hardware; TOPS-20 was DEC's
commercial adaptation of TENEX, and the DECSYSTEM-20 was a PDP-10 (KL10)
with BBN's hardware
pager, orange (rather
than blue)
cabinets, and far fewer visible lights, switches, knobs, buttons, and dials
(a jumbo version of today's featureless box). The typical PDP-10
installation included multiple full-size cabinets for CPU, memory,
controllers, networking front ends, and magnetic tape, plus washing-machine
sized disk drives, line printers, and so on, requiring a large machine room
with serious air conditioning and a great deal of 3-phase power; the
electrical bill alone ran into the thousands of dollars per month, ditto for
hardware maintenance. This was typical of any mainframe of the era. Later,
a single-cabinet minicomputer version was released, called the 2020, based
on the KS10 processor. If I'm not mistaken, it could run on ordinary
household current in regular ambient temperature. It was not noted for its
speed.
Other PDP-10 operating systems included MIT's ITS, Stanford's WAITS,
Tymshare's TYMCOM-X and (for the 2020, TYMCOM-XX), the version of TENEX that
Xerox PARC ran on their MAXC PDP-10 clone (more or less equivalent to a
KA-10 with BBN pager, and maybe some others. The PDP-10 line was canceled
by DEC in 1983 and gradually faded from view in the ensuing years.
Manufacturing ceased in 1988. Some machines or clones remained operational
through the 1990s (and a handful even to this day as museum pieces), and
then in 2001 a renaissance of PDP-10 culture began with the release of
several Unix- and/or Windows-based PDP-10 emulators (see Links section).
The distinguishing feature of PDP-10 is its rich instruction set and,
especially in TOPS-20, its powerful repertoire of system services. This
combination made the PDP-10 more fun to program than any other computer
before or since, and spawned a generation of prolific programmers ranging
from Bill Gates to Richard Stallman.
Kermit software is available for TOPS-10 and TOPS-20.
Photo: A portion of a DECsystem-10 showing the KL10 operator control
panel.
[ DECsystem-10 ] [ DECSYSTEM-20 ]
DECsystem-10 Kermit 3(136) April 2006
DECSYSTEM-10 Kermit, or Kermit-10, was written in 1983-86 by Bob McQueen and
Nick Bush at Stevens Institute of
Technology, Hoboken NJ, in Common Bliss. The latest release, from
Nick Bush, consolidates the patches that have accumulated over the years and
fixes a few bugs. Kermit-10 shares common source with Kermit-32 (the
VAX/VMS version that was retired in 1987 in favor of VMS C-Kermit) and Kermit for the long-forgotten DEC
Professional (PDP-11 based) workstation with P/OS. Recognizing that most
sites never did and never will have a Common Bliss compiler, MACRO-10
versions of the source files are also available, output by Bliss-36,
suitable for input to MACRO-10. As of version 3(136) the Bliss and Macro
files are once again synchronized and the binaries produced from either
set of sources are identical.
Back in the old days I could give you a wildcard specification to pick up
all these files, but today's super-friendly Web browsers don't allow that,
so we must list the files separately. Transfer them in text (ASCII) mode if
your browser will let you (some of these file types, such as .mac,
are nowadays associated with applications that might try to play them as
music or show them as movies, so you'll need to right-click on the link
and then choose "Save as" or whatever):
k10.ann Announcements
k10133.mem Update notes
k10133.rno Runoff source for update notes
k10com.req Common Bliss header file
k10err.r36 Bliss-36 error number definitions
k10glb.bli Bliss source file
k10glb.mac Macro source file
k10mit.bwr Kermit-10 "beware" file
k10mit.ccl Kermit-10 link file
k10mit.ctl Batch control file to build Kermit-10
k10mit.hlp Kermit-10 help file
k10mit.mac Macro source file
k10mit.rnh Runoff source for help file
k10msg.bli Bliss source file
k10msg.mac Macro source file
k10sys.mac Macro source file
k10tt.bli Bliss source file
k10tt.mac Macro source file
k10unv.mac Macro source file
k10v3.mem Kermit-10 V3 release notes Runoff source
k10v3.rno Kermit-10 V3 release notes
k10wld.mac Macro source file
Of course you can still FTP these files the
old-fashioned way (i.e. all at once):
ftp kermit.columbia.edu
User: anonymous
Password: (your-email-address)
cd kermit/d
type ascii
mget k10*.*
As of version 3(136), we also have the Kermit-10 files available in two
"tarballs":
-
k10mit-136.tar.gz
- The files listed above as a Unix tar archive of text files in Unix
format. Transfer in binary mode to Unix, uncompress with gunzip, and then
de-archive with "tar xvf".
-
k10mit-136.tap.gz
- The files listed above, plus the binaries, as a tape image file in
PDP-10 BACKUP format. Uncompress with gunzip.
DECSYSTEM-20 Kermit 5.1.186 January 2006
DEC-20 Kermit, or Kermit-20, was written at Columbia University by Bill
Catchings and Frank da Cruz in MACRO-20 assembly language. It was the first
operational Kermit program and was actively developed and maintained from 1981
until 1988, and then revived in 2001 by the addition of long packets to enable
faster file transfer into and out of emulated DEC-20s, which might not include
ARPANET support (in the sense that they have a TCP/IP stack and FTP clients
and servers), but might still be accessible to incoming Telnet connections.
Long packets were never done for Kermit-20 before because the PDP-11/40 RSX20F
front end could not tolerate them. Emulated DEC-20s (and DEC-20 Telnet
servers), however, have no such limitation. The current version is 5.1(186),
dated 6 January 2006 -- The 25th Anniversary Edition.
Since all DEC-20s come with the MACRO-20 assembler, Kermit-20 is distributed
in source-code form. Here are the files you need:
- k20mit.mac
- The DEC-20 Kermit MACRO-20 source file. Transfer this to the DEC-20 in
text mode and rename to KERMIT.MAC, LOAD KERMIT,
SAVE (see
k20mit.txt
for details). NOTE: Your Web browser might not know what to do with a
.mac file; tell it to "Save as...", otherwise it might try to
play it or something.
- k20mit.doc
- The Kermit-20 chapter of the 1988 Kermit User Guide in
plain-text form. Your Web browser will think this
is a Microsoft Word document because its name ends in .DOC. Transfer
in text mode, rename to KERMIT.DOC. (Plain-text files were
.DOC files for decades before MS Word came along.)
- k20mit.ps
- The Kermit-20 chapter of the 1988 Kermit User Guide in
PostScript format. This one can be transferred in either binary or text mode.
Rename to KERMIT.PS.
-
k20mit.pdf
(NEW Jan 2006)
- The Kermit-20 chapter of the 1988 Kermit User Guide in
PDF format. Clicking on this link in any graphical Web browser should
produce the expected results if you have
Adobe Acrobat
Reader installed. Or transfer in binary mode.
- k20mit.txt
- Update notes for Kermit-20 5.1.
Or use FTP the old-fashioned
way:
ftp kermit.columbia.edu
User: anonymous
Password: (your-email-address)
cd kermit/d
type ascii
mget k20*.*
Photo: One of Columbia University's DECSYSTEM-20s, circa 1981.
Kermit for Other PDP-10 Operating Systems
To my knowledge, no Kermit programs were ever written explicitly for TENEX,
ITS, WAITS, or TYMCOM-X, but since Kermit programs were written in various
LISP dialects, including Common Lisp, which presumably would have worked
anywhere that Common Lisp was available. (The ELISP version wouldn't have
helped because PDP-10 EMACS was based on TECO, not LISP, and I don't think
there was ever a TECO Kermit either!)
Links
PDP-10 Kermit / Columbia University /
kermit@columbia.edu / April 2006
