On Friday, November 13, 2020 at 6:48:24 PM UTC-5, kgx...@yahoo.com wrote:
> On Thursday, November 12, 2020 at 9:26:52 PM UTC-5, Stephen Fuld wrote:
> > On 11/12/2020 5:51 PM, kgx...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> > If the latter, then PS/2200 is certainly sufficient and is available for
> > free (with registration) from Unisys. It includes a full current
> > release, including Exec, compilers, utilities, etc. (note, no source code)
> >
> > If you want an Exec from back in the day that 1108 hardware was
> > supported, so your program could emulate the Exec instructions and boot
> > the Exec, I expect the odds are pretty slim. Exec went proprietary with
> > IIRC level 33, about the mid 1970s, so to be legal, you want a level
> > before that. In addition, Exec dropped support for the 1108 hardware
> > effective, again IIRC, level 36 (1980s?).
> >
> > Also, note that you would probably need the source, unless you plan to
> > support the exact peripheral configuration of some boot tape you find.
> > And then you need the Asembler, MAP, SSG, etc. to be able to do a sysgen.
> >
> > All in all,I would rate your chances of finding the source for a
> > pre-level 33 Exec, and all the supporting software as almost nil.
> I myself am more interested in early timesharing and batch systems. PS/2200 is nice, but it is not the same as Exec 8 or the like. In terms of writing an emulator without an operating system, it is very hard to get it correct. I have considered re-writing Exec-8 too, however there is no way with this method to verify that the emulator is correct. It also seems like a huge amount of work just to recreate an experience (not the doing an emulator is easy :-). I have done some stand alone assemblers for a couple older machines, where software was not available.
>
> Rich
I attended the University of Maryland - College Park from 1967 - 1971. I lived in the Cambridge-A dorm for 25 years which was across the street from the Computer Science Center. Spent a lot of time on TTY-35s. Worked for High Energy Physics during the school year which provided an unfettered user account. UOM lore is documented elsewhere.. I later spent 2 years at ITTR-ECAC (Annapolis) and Sperry Univac (Washington DC). There was a lot of swapping around of Exec8 Code at the UOM CS Center among UOM, U.S. Navy, Univac, ITTRI, etc. For example, the UOM distribution tape was used at ECAC. While at Univac I used shared code (Core-to-Core ERs) to migrate the U1557/U1558 at the U.S. Army's Concept Analysis Center. One of the big reasons this swap fest went on was these people were charged with doing secure operating system or other similar work. There was no pathway with IBM HW/SW - but Univac...

Now the meat. Half the of the Cambridge A dorm were Physics majors and many of them worked for the Physics Department thus obtaining unfettered accounts. Many were seduced by big iron and neglected their studies. I was one of those - but I managed to graduate. One very bright Cambridge-A fellow was Jeffrey Jewett - you can find him on Linked-In as Jeffrey Jewett
Systems Analyst at University of Maryland. Jeff really went down the Univac rabbit hole - and the University "kicked" him out. (I think Jeff and Brian K. Reid were Cambridge-A roommates or at least lived on the same floor. Brian was a CS superstar- check Wikipedia.) Anyway, from what I remember UOM's Administration picked up an U1106 and Jeff found a long, long term home. I would not be surprised if Jeff might not have a slant on certain interesting magnetic media. If you contact him and need to contextualize me - I lived on the Cambridge-A 4th floor and my roommate was Russ Reid - Brian Reid's brother.

Good luck in your navigating.

William (aka Marc) Lyerly