Installing UNIX Sixth Edition

There is a Setting up UNIX - Sixth Edition document, but it is mostly a checklist of what to do to install Unix on a PDP-11 (one of the models supporting memory management); it does not provide any technical detail on what is actually happening.

UNIX Sixth Edition (often called UNIX V6) was normally installed from a tape; it was possible to install UNIX on a machine without a tape drive, by copying disk packs with UNIX on them, but this was not Bell Laboratories' usual distribution method. Thus UNIX V6 required a machine with a tape drive, and one or more disk drives.

The supported tape drives were the TU10, on a TM11 UNIBUS controller, and the TU16, on a TM02 MASSBUS controller. The supported disk drives were the RK05, on an RK11 UNIBUS controller, the RP03 on an RP11 UNIBUS controller, and the RP04, with an internal controller which connected to a MASSBUS.