RSX SIG
UNSUPPORTED VERSIONS OF RSX-11
WORKING-GROUP WORKSHOP
RX003
Wednesday 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.
Jeff Hamilton
E-Systems Greenville Div.
This session is intended to benefit those users of RSX-11 who, due to small system size, lack of funds, etc. decide not to upgrade to current, supported versions of RSX-11. The working group is designed to provide a user-to-user support mechanism for patches and adding features of newer versions, as well as support for new devices on older systems. Experience with the use of DECUS programs on older systems is also included.
ORIENTATION: Intermediate, Advanced, Technical
RSX MENU GENERAL MEETING
RX004
Tuesday 3:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Allen Jay Bennett
Clerk Equipment Company
The RSX SIG maintains a "menu" of issues and product enhancements which are submitted by the RSX SIG membership. An annual poll is taken of the RSX SIG members to determine which of these items are most important to the user community. The results of this poll have been an important factor in determining how DIGITAL allocates its resources in the product development cycle. New items for submission to the menu are always welcome. The current menu will be discussed and presented to the RSX SIG membership. Representatives from DIGITAL will present DIGITAL'S response to the menu items. New items will be solicited.
ORIENTATION: General
RSX SIG PLANNING SESSION
RX005
Friday 9:00 a.m. - 10:30 a.m.
R.J. Hopp
Carleton Financial Computation
Terry Medlin
Survey Sampling, Inc.
This session is an open-floor discussion by the attendees on what the SIG is doing right, what activities are outdated, and what new adventures we should explore. This session will also be a roundtable discussion and planning session for the New Orleans symposium. The content and format of traditional symposia sessions will be discussed and ideas for sessions to be presented at the New Orleans symposium will be solicited. This will be your opportunity to get that session or pre-symposium seminar you have always wanted scheduled. Please come and bring your ideas.
ORIENTATION: General
THE LORE OF RSX
RX006
Thursday 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Ed Cetron
Center for Biomedical Design
The 'M' in RSX-11M does not stand for Mature or Moldy; it stands for Mellow. Great civilizations of the past shared their knowledge by passing on its legends and wisdom by word of mouth. Although RSX-11M is by no means an ancient and forgotten art, an amazingly large body of knowledge exists among its users, often passed on in the form of War Stories and other less than formal means. The purpose of this session is to provide a forum for all those who wish to tell their story, pass on their discovery of some system quirk, or crow about their new and unique solution to a problem. Wizards, apprentices, and minions are all invited.
ORIENTATION: General
RSX SIG CLOSING SESSION
RX007
Friday 10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Terry Medlin
Survey Sampling, Inc.
Elizabeth Bailey
Tennessee Valley Authority
All SIG members are urged to attend this session and let the SIG leadership and DIGITAL representatives know your opinion of the week's activities. Any significant activities by the SIG working groups or committees will be reported. Your comments will be used for future symposia and SIG business planning. Any remaining time will be used for a final question and answer session with the SIG leadership and DIGITAL representatives.
ORIENTATION: General
RSX PRODUCT PANEL
RX008
Monday 10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Gary Oden
Digital Equipment Corporation
RSX Product directions and future directions discussed by
Digital. Q & A will follow.
ORIENTATION: Managerial, General
RSX SIG OPEN SESSION
RX009
Monday 9:00 a.m. - 10:30 a.m.
Terry Medlin
Survey Sampling, Inc.
Elizabeth Bailey
Tennessee Valley Authority
- SIG Roadmap -- Sessions sponsored by the RSX SIG will be highlighted. Last-minute changes will be announced and special note will be made of various places to get your questions answered: Campground, Q & A Sessions, Product Panels and SIG Business Meetings.
- Introduction of SIG Leadership and DIGITAL Representatives -- The SIG Executive Board, SIG Steering Committee, and the DIGITAL representatives will be introduced. This is the group that makes it all happen. Learn their names and faces so that you can take your suggestions, complaints, or at-a-boys to them during the remainder of the week.
- SIG Activities Reports -- Each of the SIG's working groups and committees will present a brief report on their activities. This is when you can find out what the SIG is doing and who to contact if you would like to become involved in a specific activity.
- SIG Business -- Any reports or announcements concerning other SIG activities will be given at this time. Any suggestions for new SIG activities should be brought up at this time.
- Questions and Answers -- The floor will be open for questions and answers or general discussion. The discussion will be limited to policy or informational questions about the SIG or DIGITAL. Technical discussions will be referred to the appropriate technical session.
ORIENTATION: General
RSX SIG WORKING GROUPS MEETING
RX011
Monday 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Jeff Hamilton
E-Systems
Each working group chairman will be introduced and will present a description of that group's activities, goals and current status. Following these introductions, all working groups will conduct meetings, allowing new users to circulate among the groups and decide which are of most interest to them.
ORIENTATION: General
TASK OVERLAY STRUCTURES
RX014
Monday 1:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Jim Scheuer
Dynalectron Corporation
Overlays can serve in two major ways: 1) to reduce the address limits of a task to less than 32K and 2) to reduce the amount of memory a task utilizes. The Overlay Description Language allows the user to describe to the task builder how a task is to be structured to obtain the desired results. By understanding how disk and memory resident overlays work and the common errors made by most novice users, a programmer can learn to easily create efficient overlays with a minimum of effort.
ORIENTATION: Novice, Intermediate
UNUSUAL RSX DEVICE DRIVERS AND THEIR USES
RX015
Monday 7:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Bruce R. Mitchell
Machine Intelligence and Industrial Magic
RSX device drivers are the software interface between the system and the "real world". Most users of the RSX operating system are familiar with such everyday, pedestrian drivers as the terminal driver, disk drivers, and perhaps even digital or analog I/O drivers. The world of drivers is large, however, and there is plenty of room in it for more esoteric things. There are, for example, such unusual creatures as:
- Disks that are memory (or vice versa?)
- Little disks that are big disks
- Disks that are network links (tape drives too)
- Drivers that don't
- Terminals that aren't
and some other quite unusual things.
This session will present some of these "eldritch" beasts and discuss where they can be useful.
ORIENTATION: Intermediate, Technical
A HAMSTER THEORY OF THE RSX-11
OPERATING SYSTEM
RX016
Tuesday 12:30 p.m. - 1:00 P.M.
Bruce R. Mitchell
Machine Intelligence and Industrial Magic
RSX-11 has been described as a "finite state machine driven by external and internal events". This explanation is technically accurate, but is not particularly useful unless the recipient of the explanation is a Computer Science major. This session (long in the planning) will present RSX in a novel way which will hopefully make all the jargon surrounding the internals of the RSX operating system clear, even to persons with little or no technical background. The RSX guinea pig (or, as it is more commonly known, the "kernel"), its associated white mice, hamsters, rats of various colors, and the other rodents associated with RSX will be discussed and their interactions explained in an understandable way.
ORIENTATION: General
DISASTER RECOVERY: AN UNUSUAL DISASTER
AND A CINDERELLA RECOVERY
RX017
Wednesday 3:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Emily G. Johnston
Carroll Computer Consultants
The disaster: Our client has a small system with considerable third-party hardware, third-party software, and an overload of users. The data processing manager and the only programmer quit simultaneously, leaving only an untrained operations person. There are bugs in the software, the system crashes twice a day, the maintenance is unreliable, and they have no knowledgeable management. The Recovery: With the help of outside consulting, the hardware is diagnosed and repaired, the vendors correct the software, a second system is added, and the operations person comes up to speed on RSX. Everybody lives happily ever after.
ORIENTATION: General, Managerial
JUST A RSX MODEST PROPOSAL
RX018
Thursday 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
James G. Downward
KMS Fusion, Inc.
Let's face it, at one time or other each of us has thought (privately, to be sure!) that DEC did it all wrong, or really doesn't understand the needs of our particular interest group, or is missing the opportunity for a great product (hardware/software). Well, here is your chance to present to DEC and the RSX community Your Very Own Modest Proposal. Proposals should be limited to about five to ten minutes in length. Viewgraphs, slides, movies, or any other presentation aid are encouraged. The entries may be serious, or not so serious. A distinguished panel of DEC Developers, Product managers, and the attendees will judge the proposals in three categories:
(1) "Noted" i.e., DEC likes it,
(2) "UPG" i.e., DEC deserves it, and
(3) "Potential for Cult Following" i.e., the RSX community likes it.
ORIENTATION: Advanced, Technical
MEET THE RSX DEVELOPERS & SIG LEADERSHIP
RX019
Monday 6:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
Terry Medlin
Survey Sampling Inc.
This session is an informal opportunity to meet the RSX development team and SIG leadership. This is a "sit and chat" session. No presentation will be made.
ORIENTATION: General
NIFTY THINGS TO DO WITH RSX INDIRECT
COMMAND FILES
RX020
Thursday 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon
Allen A. Watson
The Record
Advanced features of the RSX Indirect command processor. How to use Indirect as a programming language; generating screen forms without FMS, and in general, how to make Indirect do things you wouldn't expect it to.
ORIENTATION: Intermediate, General
RSX NOVICE Q/A
RX021
Monday 8:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.
RSX Development Team
This session is a user driven question and answer session. The RSX development team and users will interactively develop answers to your questions.
ORIENTATION: Novice, Intermediate, General
RSX ADVANCED Q/A
RX022
Monday 9:30 p.m. - 11:00 p.m.
RSX Development Team
This is the normal RSX advanced question and answer session. Users are given the opportunity to present questions to the RSX development team.
ORIENTATION: Intermediate, Advanced, Technical
RSX SOFTWARE CLINIC
RX023
Wednesday 2:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.
Roy S. Maull
U.S. Air Force
The RSX Software Clinic is the place for a programmer to bring his/her specific problem. As you walk in a 'triage' team will assess your problem and assign you to the 'doctor' best able to answer your question. The clinic's 'doctors' are experienced programmers, system programmers, and Digital developers. The clinic is for all users; and for those volunteers to act as doctors are always welcome. No problem is too big or too small. This is the time to ask those very detailed questions that are always inappropriate in other sessions. For very specific or unusual problems, please bring sufficient documentation (i.e., program listing, error messages, CDA output, etc.)
ORIENTATION: Technical, General
WHAT DEC ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT
RSX BUT WAS AFRAID TO ASK
RX024
Thursday 4:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.
RSX Development Team
The RSX Development Group often is faced with difficult choices: with limited resources, what should it do to serve the needs of the RSX community best? This session attempts to provide the RSX Development Group with a forum in which the RSX developers can get direct feedback from the RSX community as to directions which they should take. Time will be provided both for Digital to pose questions and options for users to comment on, and for users to suggest areas which Digital should address.
ORIENTATION: Technical
SRD WORKING GROUP MEETING (RSX SIG)
RX025
Tuesday 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.
Bob Turkelson
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
SRD is a widely used utility on RSX-11M/M-PLUS and IAS systems for providing full or partial listings of directories. File names may be listed in sorted order, either ascending or descending, with a choice of file name, type, version, or date as the primary sort key. A combination of various file selection criteria may be specified. These include selection by file name (with wild-card specifications allowed); by file date and time (before, on, or after); by version (obsolete or highest); by file attributes (locked, contiguous, multi-header, zero length, file owner); and by other criteria. The SRD Working Group is improving the SRD package by merging in features from other versions of SRD, by adding new features, by correcting program bugs, by making the code more readable and efficient, and by enhancing the documentation, the help files, and the command files. We will meet to discuss the current status of our projects and to plan for future changes. Please attend if you would like to learn about our activities, make suggestions, or help with coding, testing, or documentation.
ORIENTATION: General
CONTRASTING FLAVORS OF RSX
RX026
Tuesday 10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
DEC Developers
The focus of this session is the delineation between the similarities and differences of the RSX family of operating systems: RSX-11M, RSX-11M, RSX-11M-PLUS, MICRO/RSX, and P/OS. The key features that separate these products will be discussed.
RSX/16 BIT LANGUAGES PRODUCT PANEL
RX027
Monday 12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Marilyn Finch
Digital Equipment Corp.
Joe Mulvey
Digital Equipment Corp.
Product overview of the 16 bit languages and technical layered products. Product directions will be discussed. Q & A will follow.
ORIENTATION: General, Managerial
BEST OF THE SIG TAPES
RX029
Thursday 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.
Glenn Everhart
RCA GSD Eng 206-1
The RSX SIG tapes contain over 300 megabytes of free software which runs an RSX (and mostly on VMS too) which is available for use. This session will preview the 1984 (fall) tape and get audience inputs on what programs on the tapes people use, which work well and are useful. Come and let us know what works in your RSX environment (from P/OS, thru RSX11M/M+, thru the VMS AME).
ORIENTATION: Technical
A SIMPLE DATA ACQUISITION AND
COMMUNICATION TASK USING RSX-11M
RX030
Wednesday 4:00 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Harvey Irby
Westinghouse Electric Corp.
Westinghouse Waste Technology Services Division operates a highly sophisticated radioactive waste handling facility of the U.S. Dept. of Energy at the Nevada Test Site. One of the safety activities at this facility involve the continuous monitoring of the effluent from the facility, ventilation stacks to detect any escape of radioactive particulates or gases from the facility. This paper discusses the development of a real-time data acquisition and communications task to perform this activity, operating under RSX-11M and using FORTRAN-77 as the development language. The discussion is from the point of view of the new RSX user exploring the use of the terminal drive, system directives, etc.
ORIENTATION: Novice, Technical
MIGRATION FROM RSX-11M TO 11M+
(PANEL DISCUSSION)
RX031
Tuesday 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Harry Atherton
University of Cincinnati
Anthony Scandora
Science Applications Inc.
A panel of users will discuss the migration from RSX-11M to 11M+. The discussion will cover SYSGEN concerns, migrating application programs, the availability of I and D space, and the usage of supervisor mode libraries. A good deal of time will be devoted to converting user written device drivers to 11M +. The members of the audience will be invited to share tips and observations after the formal presentations of the panel members.
ORIENTATION: General
UTILITIES WALK-THROUGH FOR NOVICE RSX USERS
RX032
Tuesday 2:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Roy S. Maull
U.S. Air Force
A brief look at the RSX utilities and how to use them.
APPLICATIONS ON RSX-PANEL
RX033
Wednesday 2:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.
John Clement
Hans Jung
Associated Press
A panel of RSX users will discuss how they designed and implemented applications on RSX. Discussion will include user's applications and also how to modify SIG tape programs to run on different RSX systems.
ORIENTATION: Intermediate, Technical
WHAT THE PDP-11 LOOKS LIKE TO RSX
RX034
Wednesday 1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Hans Jung
Associated Press
Advanced use of RSX requires some knowledge of the PDP-11 architecture. The RSX executive's view of the hardware is the topic of this session. Topics covered will include:
- Memory mapping
- Interrupts
- I and D space
- Executive memory mapping
The executive modules and data structures used to manage the hardware will also be described.
ORIENTATION: Intermediate
AN INTRODUCTION TO WRITING AN
RSX DEVICE DRIVER
RX035
Wednesday 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
James Neeland
Hughes Research Labs M/S RL 63
This session is intended for those who are contemplating writing a device driver for the first time, are not sure what is involved, or what alternatives are available. We will discuss these issues, present an overview of device drivers, and look at a sample driver. And finally we will review some common pitfalls and mention some useful tricks.
ORIENTATION: Intermediate, Technical
RSX-11M-PLUS MULTI-PROCESSING INTERNALS
RX036
Tuesday 1: 30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Brian S. McCarthy
Digital Equipment Corp.
Several years ago, Digital's RSX-11M-PLUS operating system was modified to support a four processor symmetric multiprocessor system. This session will discuss the architecture of the multi-processor hardware and the internal changes made to the operating system to support a multi-processor environment.
ORIENTATION: Advanced, Technical
SYSTEM MANAGER ACTIVITIES FOR 11M/M+
RX037
Tuesday 4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Ed Cetron
Center for Biomedical Design
Jeff Hamilton
E-Systems