OS/8

From Computer History Wiki
Jump to: navigation, search


OS/8
Type: Time-sharing
Creator: DEC
Multitasking: limited with multiuser
Architecture: PDP-8
Date Released: 1970?


OS/8 was the primary operating system for the PDP-8. OS/8 is a single-user OS, used for support of application software.

All peripheral operations are handled without using interrupts. The file system uses contiguous files. Batch processing operation was supported by an extension.

It is different from modern OS's as you don't change paths/drives you assign the DSK: volume to whatever disk it is you want to work from (basically, defining the default disk).

Example of usage

delete basic.*
deassign dsk:
assign rxa1: dsk:
squish sys:

copy rxa0:<rxa1:*.sv

R FRTS
ADVENT
(ESCAPE)

Some commands

BASIC

COPY

copy copys a file, but the syntax is different from most OS's...

copy Destination:<source:FILES

So that the follwing:

copy rxa0:<rxa1:*.sv

copys all the .sv files from rxa1 to rxa0

DELETE

deletes a file. You can use wildcards.

HELP

ODT

ODT is the Octal Debugging Technique: Or the debugger.

RUN

SQUISH

Squish is like defrag, in that it'll actually delete files, and move stuff around so you can get the maximum free space..

Interesting notes

OS/8 could run under another OS, RTS/8, as a virtualized guest. This made OS/8 be a background task in the RTS/8 context, but for the user, it appeared as a normal OS/8 system.

External links

Running OS/8