OS/8 Media

Bootable Systems

v3d.rk05 — Bootable OS/8 system made from the binary DECtapes of OS/8 V3D in the Willem van der Mark Archives described below plus other tapes in the subsys subdirectory during the PiDP-8/I software build process. This is the disk image used by boot options IF=0 and IF=7. See the top-level README.md file for instructions on controlling what goes into this image.

v3d-dist.rk05 — Pristine baseline for the above. Technically you can boot and use this, but we prefer that this remains untouched, so it can be reused by the build process to save time during repeated rebuilds.

v3[df]-*.tu56 — Bootable OS/8 DECtape image used by boot option IF=3. Primarily intended to demonstrate the uncommon "boot and run from tape" experience offered by early DEC systems. There will usually be only one of these files, with its name indicating whether it contains an OS/8 V3D or V3F operating system image, and whether it is built to expect a TC08 or TD8E tape drive interface. For example, it may be called v3f-tc08.tu56, meaning OS/8 V3F built for a system with a TC08 tape interface.

Data Disks

v3d-src.rk05 — OS/8 Source RK05 pack made from the source DECtapes of OS/8 V3D in the Willem van der Mark Archives, described below. This is not a bootable OS/8 system. It is merely a convenience for use with a bootable OS/8 system, so you can avoid mounting the seven "Source" distribution tapes in succession.

If you give the following command to SIMH:

att rk1 media/os8/v3d-src.rk05

...this disk will appear as RKA1: and RKB1: under OS/8.

Distribution DECtape images

Taken from the Willem van der Mark Archives.

Willem van der Mark wrote a really cool PDP-8 emulator in Java. He has a well organized archive of DEC media. The following DECtapes were copied from his OS8-V3D software archive.

The OS/8 Binary DECtapes were compared against those in Dave Gesswein's Archive and found to be nearly identical. Of the three tapes reviewed, a total of 2 words differed. Further comparison is possible as a project for an interested person.

DECtape Image File Name	Content Description
al-4711c-ba-os8-v3d-1.1978.tu56	DEC OS/8 V3D Binary Distribution 1/2
al-4712c-ba-os8-v3d-2.1978.tu56	DEC OS/8 V3D Binary Distribution 2/2
al-4761c-ba-os8-v3d-ext.1978.tu56	DEC OS/8 V3D Extensions Binary Distribution 1/1
al-4549d-ba-fr4-v3d-1.1978.tu56	DEC OS/8 V3D FORTRAN IV Binary Distribution 1/2
al-5596d-ba-fr4-v3d-2.1978.tu56	DEC OS/8 V3D FORTRAN IV Binary Distribution 2/2
al-5642a-ba-macrel-linker.1978.tu56	DEC OS/8 V3D MACREL/LINKER Binary Distribution
al-4691c-sa-os8-v3d-1.1978.tu56	DEC OS/8 V3D Source Distribution 1/7
al-4692c-sa-os8-v3d-2.1978.tu56	DEC OS/8 V3D Source Distribution 2/7
al-4693d-sa-os8-v3d-3.1978.tu56	DEC OS/8 V3D Source Distribution 3/7
al-4694c-sa-os8-v3d-4.1978.tu56	DEC OS/8 V3D Source Distribution 4/7
al-4695c-sa-os8-v3d-5.1978.tu56	DEC OS/8 V3D Source Distribution 5/7
al-4696c-sa-os8-v3d-6.1978.tu56	DEC OS/8 V3D Source Distribution 6/7
al-4697c-sa-os8-v3d-7.1978.tu56	DEC OS/8 V3D Source Distribution 7/7
al-4759c-sa-os8-ext-1.1978.tu56	DEC OS/8 V3D Extensions Source Distribution 1/3
al-4760c-sa-os8-ext-2.1978.tu56	DEC OS/8 V3D Extensions Source Distribution 1/3
al-5586c-sa-os8-ext-3.1978.tu56	DEC OS/8 V3D Extensions Source Distribution 1/3

Other Master DECtape images

DECtape Image File Name	Content Description
al-5642a-ba-macrel-linker.1978.tu56	Version 1 MACREL distribution. No longer used.
al-5642c-ba-macrel-v2-futil-v8b-by-hand.tu56	Hand patched distribution of MACREL version 2. Contains critical, mandatory patch to FUTIL.

Subdirectories

Directory Name	Content Description
patches	Contains the OS/8 patch files
scripts	Contains scripts fed to os8-run to automate various actions.
subsys	Images containing OS/8 subsystems such as U/W Focal, Fortran IV, etc.

Other Files

File Name	Content Description
LICENSE.md	License provided by DEC that makes our use of OS/8 legal
init.cm	Command to type out the contents of INIT.TX. Used at startup by
	various boot images.
init.tx.in	Baseline text typed out by init.cm. Configuration in auto.def
	establishes parameters that are substituted to create init.tx.