Manlug meeting February 2007

17^th February 2007

A Peek at History: MCC Interim Linux under QEMU and the SIMH PDP11 Simulator

Robin Joinson

Summary

Summary text Here's Robin's preview of the talk: Many old UNIX systems, for example the first four editions of UNIX, have been 'lost' to the point where it is no longer possible to experience a running system. The vast amounts of CPU power and memory on modern PCs, combined with emulation tools, make it possible to bring these systems back to life, use and study them. This short talk looks at a couple of practical examples:

• the Manchester Computing Centre Interim Release of Linux, the first Linux distribution, which first came out in February 1992. MCC Interim will be shown running under the QEMU PC emulator.
• the much older UNIX Edition 5, c.1974/5. This will be shown running under the SIMH PDP11 package from the Computer History Simulation Project.

Audience participation is encouraged to help me fill in the gaps. I have heard that the author of the MCC Interim Release and the owner of a real PDP11 might be present at the meeting!