Lee Courtney <[log in to unmask]> writes:
> Recently read in newsletter of Computer History Association of California
> (www.chac.org) that DEC was placing source and binaries for OS8 for the PDP
> 8 and (I'm not sure about this) PDP11 OS's in the public domain. There was
> some legal mumbo-jumbo that DEC wanted that basically said what Don stated.
> From other research I belive you are also correct re. TOPS10 and 20. (As an
> aside there is even a company making a DECSYSTEM 20 plug compatible hardware
> box - maybe that TOPS20 User Manual I kept will still come in handy!)

Hmm.  My understanding is that DEC^H^Higital sold its PDP-11 business
to Mentec who is now selling and supporting that line.

So if you rescue a PDP-11, which is well within the bounds of
possibility, what do you do for an OS?  If it is one of the ones that
will run Unix, SCO has allowed non-commercial distribution and use of
Unix V5, V6, and V7.  If you track down Bob Supnik's PDP-11 simulator
(see below) you will find these nearby as well.  Other than that I
think you may be on your own, unless you get OS, distribution media,
and license along with the -11.

How about a PDP-8, or should you be so lucky a PDP-10?  Digital have
allowed non-commercial distribution and use of OS/8 and TOPS-10 at
least.  (I'm not sure about TOPS-20.)  Both of these date from the
days when having source to your OS (and even applying patches to the
source) was fairly common.

How about a VAX?  Digital are giving out free hobbyist licenses for
OpenVMS!  All you need to be is a member of DECUS U.S. Chapter, which
is free (and unfortunately restricted to US residents).  If you need
the OS, you can get a CD-ROM (including OpenVMS, DECwindows, and
BLISS) from the Dallas Fort Worth Local User Group for $30.  See
http://www.montagar.com/hobbyist/index.html for information about
this.

> Will HP do the same? No! DEC has always, and will probably
> always will have, a more sophisticated and accurate understanding of its
> installed base. For example, HP will object to placing MPE V in the
> public domain because (publically) they are worried about the support
> implications of such a move, and (privately) some HP folks will think that
> such a move will cannilbalize new systems sales. But of course they'll
> be wrong on both counts, but still use it as a shield to do something
> that could generate customer good will etc.

Take a closer look at the words I used above.  What was done was not
the release of the copyrighted work to the public domain, it was the
copyright holder permitting the distribution and use of the
copyrighted work for non-commercial purposes and with warnings
about the lack of support.  These are very different things.

Folks getting excited at this point should take a good hard look at
those words "non-commercial purposes."  Digital's hobbyist license
agreement for OpenVMS includes the words "... you may not use the
Licensed Computer for any business purposes whatsoever, e.g., to
develop applications for resale, to do business accounting, etc."
It's not at all clear to me that this is what Wirt is asking for w/r/t
BASIC/V, but on the other hand I don't think this precludes Digital
selling OpenVMS to customers wanting to use it for business purposes.

...

Here is something to think about.  What is going to happen to the
remaining classic 3000s over the next year, two years, five years?
How might free or low-cost no-support licenses for FOS, and possibly
other software products, affect that?  I can see it encouraging
collectors and other interested folks to keep and run and do stuff
with and learn about and *understand* classic 3000s, and I think that
is better for the 3000, for preservation of the history of computing,
and possibly for HP, than the alternatives.

...

Oh yeah, Bob Supnik's Computer History Simulators.  See
ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/DEC/sim for the simulator source and various
OS software.  I am not sure how well the simulators will work on HP
hardware because they are targeted for little-endian CPUs, unlike
PA-RISC (or Motorola 68000s, or classic 3000s).  I have successfully
built the PDP-11 simulator under FreeBSD on a PC, though, and run V6
Unix under the simulator.

-Frank McConnell