Loading the Operating System

There are two methods of loading MCP onto simulated disks. If you do not wish to rebuild the system you only need to download the SYSTEM tape. Otherwise you will want to download all the distribution file and all the files from my site. At the bare minimum you will require the cold.deck and the SYSTEM tape to reload the system.

The .ini files set up the configuration of the system. You can start the simulator and give the correct files to the system to cause it to load or run.

The basic method of reloading the system is to use the cold start deck (cold.deck) to build the file system and load the operating system kernel onto the disks. Once this is done the rest of the system is reloaded under MCP itself. The file is ASCII text and can be edited with any text editor. The first card is the bootstrap loader, this must be constructed by hand since while the B5500 card readers could load binary images, the punch could not do this. In the build section I will explain how to rebuild this deck. The COLD start loader begins at card 2, and continues through the lines starting with 000000, do not modify these lines.

The first configuration line starts with DRCTRYTP this is the first block that MCP can use to store files. MCP uses this space to store overlays and other information, it can be set lower then 2000, however I would not recommend this. The next entry DIRECT tells how many segments to use to store files. If you add more ESU units you may wish to increase this. Currently the configuration is set at 2 ESU's which allows about 200 million characters, which is about twice the size of the system I have configured.

If you change DIRECT (either larger or smaller), you will have to adjust the FILE entries. The logic here is that you have:

FILE <name>/<type>, <segments>|<size>, 999
                                                <end>

The <end> of each FILE should be at <size>+<end previous>+1 of previous file. The first starts at DRCTRYTP.+4.

Following the files are a series of flags that can be set or not set. Check out the B5500 B5700 OperMan Sep 68 Chapter 3 starting at page 3-20 to understand in more detail how to set these up.

Some options to add or remove, TYPE DATE will force the system to ask for the date, TYPE TIME causes the system to ask for the current time. Many of these options can be controlled in the currently running MCP with the SO and RO commands.

After the last option the basic MCP loader deck should be inserted, followed by a STOP card. Next the TAPEDSK program is included to copy MCP/DISK from the SYSTEM tape to the MCP/DISK file. After COLD runs it will reboot system which will load the TAPEDSK program, following this the system will boot into MCP and run the following commands on the card reader.

To reload the system without recompiling it you can use the xiii_load.ini file or run it manually if not on a simH simulator. To run this manually attach the SYSTEM tape to mt0, and two or more disk units to esu0,esu1, and the cold.deck to the card reader. Next boot the card reader. At the #TR prompt enter the time with the TR command. Wait until the LIBMAIN/DISK= 1 EOJ and then enter a CI INT/DISK command to set the intrinsic file. Next to load in the extras enter CC USER RON; LOAD FROM EXTRAS =/=; END. Then attach the extras.bin tape to tape drive mt0. After the next LIBMAIN/DISK= 1 EOJ message the system is loaded and you can continue to use it. Booting dk will restart the system.

To rebuild the system from source you will need to run the xiii_build.ini with the simulator. This consists of 3 jobs that are submitted to the card reader. To do this manually is a bit harder, boot the cold.deck, after the SYSTEM is loaded, set the Intrinsics as above, also enable 1 pseudo-reader with RN1, then attach the build1.job to the card reader. Replay to the various MC x/NEW messages as they appear. When you see the REBOOT NOW message, change to the alternate MCP with CM MCPA/DISK and reboot. Set intrinsics to CI NEW/INT and one Reader, then run build2.job. This job rebuilds the base MCP. After the REBOOT NOW message switch MCP with CM MCP/DISK and reboot. When the system reboots you can now set the intrinsics with CI INT/DISK and readers to 1. Attach extra.job to the card reader if you wish to load in the optional CUBE software. Mount the tapes as the system asks for them with #NO FILE xxx FILE000.

To set up for timesharing (CANDE), you can attach the job tss_setup.job to the card reader. This job can be edited to add in more accounts as needed. Currently there are a few (B5500, USER1, USER2 and GUEST).

To use remote access under DC/MCP you need to run the UPDATE/USERS program and update the users file.

After starting the system with xiii_tss.ini or running tss_setup.job you will need to switch to TSS/MCP in order to run timesharing. Do this by first issuing a CM TSS/MCP command. After the NEXT MCP WILL BE ... message you can reboot the machine. After entering the time you will need to do CI TSS/INI which will reply with NEW INTRINSICS, then the CE message can be given to start Cande. Note this first two commands only need to be given once to switch to TSS/MCP once switched all reboots will start TSS/MCP instead of MCP/DISK. Just the CE command need be given after each reboot to start up timesharing.

Time-sharing setup.

To setup for timesharing a couple of jobs need to be run. One needs to run SYSDISK/MAKER this defines the lines available. The first file should be LINE,0,0,<buffer>,0,0,<lines>,0, then for each line there should be two lines:

LINE,1,<#>,<buffer>,0,0,0,0
STA,0, 0, 0, 0, 0,0, 0, 0,

The second line is optional if this is a teletype type of interface. <buffer> can be 28, 56 or 112. And should match the value set on the DTC device.

Users are created with the USER/CANDE program. The first card is the option card.

After the $USER card is given the options for that user can be set: