[Simh] TOPS-10 question

[Quentin North]

Hi all

Im trying to get the BCPL compiler on TOPS-10 going and I have the install CTL file which sets out the following pre-requisites:

THE FOLLOWING MODS TO THE SYSTEM/CUSPS ARE ESSENTIAL TO THE SMOOTH ;
; RUNNING OF BCPL PROGRAMS: ;
; ;
; 1. CHECK THE CODE IN LINK RECOGNISES COMPILER CODE #13 AS REQUIRING ;
; SYS:BCPLIB.REL AS THE DEFAULT LIBRARY. CODE IS IN LINK V2 ONWARD.;
; 2. CHECK COMPIL RECOGNISES THE EXTENSION .BCL AND .BCP AS REQUIRING ;
; THE BCPL COMPILER. COM22C.SCM IS A FILCOM FILE OF NECESSARY MODS.;
; 3. GET A BCPL LIBRARY AREA BCL: ALLOCATED AND KNOWN TO THE MONITOR.


Items 1 & 2 are relatively straight forward, but Im a complete novice on tops-10 and cannot seem to find out how to set up a new library as BCL: and known to the monitor. Can anyone familiar with the o/s give me any pointers?

Thanks

Quentin

[Timothe Litt]

Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2018 22:15:05 +0000
Im trying to get the BCPL compiler on TOPS-10 going and I have the install CTL
; THE FOLLOWING MODS TO THE SYSTEM/CUSPS ARE ESSENTIAL TO THE SMOOTH ;
; RUNNING OF BCPL PROGRAMS: ;
; ;
; 1. CHECK THE CODE IN LINK RECOGNISES COMPILER CODE #13 AS REQUIRING ;
; SYS:BCPLIB.REL AS THE DEFAULT LIBRARY. CODE IS IN LINK V2 ONWARD.;
; 2. CHECK COMPIL RECOGNISES THE EXTENSION .BCL AND .BCP AS REQUIRING ;
; THE BCPL COMPILER. COM22C.SCM IS A FILCOM FILE OF NECESSARY MODS.;
; 3. GET A BCPL LIBRARY AREA BCL: ALLOCATED AND KNOWN TO THE MONITOR.
Items 1 & 2 are relatively straight forward, but Im a complete novice on
tops-10 and cannot seem to find out how to set up a new library as BCL: and
known to the monitor. Can anyone familiar with the o/s give me any pointers?

You have to add an entry to the "Level D GETTAB Table" in COMMOD.MAC and build
a new monitor. However, there is a place to do this in the MONGEN dialog, so
it's not too onerous.
Rich

Or, on a reasonably recent monitor, create a pathological name.

.path bcl:=dskf:[66,667]

This is per-job, but may be easier as it avoids learning to do a
mongen/monitor build.  You would have to put it in any batch job that
runs bcpl.

[Timothe Litt]

Post by Timothe Litt
Or, on a reasonably recent monitor, create a pathological name.
.path bcl:=dskf:[66,667]
This is per-job, but may be easier as it avoids learning to do a mongen/monitor build. You would have to put it in any batch job that runs bcpl.

Is that (‘pathological’) the “official” name?
Curiously enough, IBM refers to a similar thing in MVS/zOS as “esoteric”.
Jordi Guillaumes i Pons
HECnet: BITXOW::JGUILLAUMES

Yes.  Simple logical names existed for a very long time.  They provide
an alias for a device, and are associated with that device with .ASSIGN
or .MOUNT commands.  They live in the DDB; a device can have no more
than one.  They don't allow associating a filename or any filesystem
attributes with the name.

Pathological names, stored in funny space, are more recent and much more
powerful.  They provide a search list of one or more device/directories,
can provide filenames and/or filename defaults, and can be specified as
an extension to the "default working directory".  Any number of
pathological names can refer to a single device.

See the PATH. UUO, where the term is used in the documentation.

The PATH. UUO functions are documented, but the path command that
accesses them is not.  This was a budget/political issue with
documentation resources.  The path utility may have been shipped as
"customer supported", but was heavily used internally.

Before you ask: Yes, "funny space" is also a technical term for per-job
(process) executive virtual memory.  Originating with the KI10 hardware,
it's an area of the monitor's address space (32 pages) mapped through
the USER page table.  This means that it is automagically context
switched; the monitor can reference job-specific data at the same exec
virtual address.  Funny space is used to map frequently accessed
context, such as the running program's job data area (a user space page)
and per-job monitor pages (such as the pool from which pathological
names are allocated).   In the KL10, the same effect is achieved with
indirect page pointers.

"Funny" is used in the sense of "unusual", not "humorous".  The effect
is that a monitor virtual address doesn't always refer to the same
memory; the target is context sensitive. 

[Lars Brinkhoff]

Post by Quentin North
Im trying to get the BCPL compiler on TOPS-10 going

Which one? It would be interesting to have Essex BCPL and see if it's
possible to build the Trubshaw & Bartle MUD.

[Quentin North]

Yes, I am building Essex BCPL and I have the MUD source. Unfortunately I never used tops-10 except to play MUD in the early 80s, so completely have no sense of common understanding of utilities etc which is probably a bit of a disadvantage. Still, I seem to be making progress.

Post by Lars Brinkhoff

Post by Quentin North
Im trying to get the BCPL compiler on TOPS-10 going

Which one? It would be interesting to have Essex BCPL and see if it's
possible to build the Trubshaw & Bartle MUD.

[Bob Eager]

I'll keep an eye on this! The last time I built Essex BCPL was in
summer 1974. I was peripherally involved with the compiler as part of
my Master's dissertation, and remember finding a fairly major error in
the register allocation algorithm!

I later implemented the same compiler on an ICL 4130. I had to overlay
it to make it fit.

On Wed, 21 Feb 2018 09:44:23 +0000

Post by Quentin North
Yes, I am building Essex BCPL and I have the MUD source.
Unfortunately I never used tops-10 except to play MUD in the early
80s, so completely have no sense of common understanding of utilities
etc which is probably a bit of a disadvantage. Still, I seem to be
making progress.

Post by Lars Brinkhoff

Post by Quentin North
Im trying to get the BCPL compiler on TOPS-10 going

Which one? It would be interesting to have Essex BCPL and see if
it's possible to build the Trubshaw & Bartle MUD.

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