ITS, the Incompatible Timesharing System, is an operating system for the PDP-10 computer family. It was created by hackers at MIT in the 1960s. The MIT site was shut down in 1990, but enthusiasts continue to operate ITS systems to this day.
Some notable ITS features:
- Hosted the first versions of Emacs, Zork, Macsyma, Maclisp, Scheme, and multi-player Maze War
- Virtual memory
- User-space device drivers
- Networking: TCP/IP, ARPAnet, Chaosnet
- Transparent network file system
- Terminal-independent text output
- Graphical workstations
There is a mailing list for discussion about ITS. Go to http://its.victor.se/mailman/listinfo/its-hackers_its.victor.se for more information.
This repository contains source code, tools, and scripts to build an ITS system from scratch.
The goals are:
-
To provide an automated build from start to end. No user intervention is necessary.
-
To check which programs have source code, and which programs are missing source code.
-
To ensure that we know how to build all programs.
-
To update programs with the latest bug fixes and enhancements.
-
To be able to set configurable options across the whole system, such as host name, IP address, hardware devices.
The build currently runs on the SIMH and KLH10 emulators. Of course, we'd be delighted to test this on a real KS10.
To build ITS with this repository, you need some tools installed; see
the table below. Ensure all submodules are checked out, and then type
make EMULATOR=simh, make EMULATOR=pdp10-ka, make EMULATOR=pdp10-kl, make EMULATOR=pdp10-ks, or make EMULATOR=klh10. This will leave built files in the out directory,
some of which are disk images with ITS installed.
| Emulator | Dependencies |
|---|---|
| klh10 | git, c compiler, make, expect, curses, autoconf |
| simh | git, c compiler, make, expect, curses, autoconf, sdl2 |
| pdp10-ka | git, c compiler, make, expect, curses, autoconf, sdl2, sdl2-image, sdl2-net, gtk3 |
| pdp10-kl | git, c compiler, make, expect, curses, autoconf, sdl2, sdl2-image, gtk3 |
| pdp10-ks | git, c compiler, make, expect, curses, autoconf, sdl2 |
To start ITS, type ./start. If you see KLH10#, type go and
Enter. If you see the DSKDMP prompt, type its, press Enter, and
then ESCG. If you use the pdp10-kl emulator there is no prompt
and you need to type ESCL ITS, press Enter, and then ESCG.
Eventually, you will see SYSTEM JOB USING THIS CONSOLE. You are now
ready to log in, so type CTRLZ. See doc/DDT.md for
a list of useful commands.
Alternatively to logging in directly in the system console window,
which will always be displaying daemon messages, you may prefer to
use a seperate terminal session for logging in. To do this just
run telnet localhost 10003 from another shell window and press
CTRLZ to log in there.
To shut down ITS, type :lock and then 5down. Log yourself out to
avoid the 5 minute grace period: type :logout. When ITS writes
SHUTDOWN COMPLETE, it's safe to stop the emulator. Press CTRL\
to escape to the simulator command prompt and quit to close it. If
you had a separate telnet user session running you can similary
press CTRL[ and then exit telnet.
ITS can optionally use some additional peripheral devices. To attach
a simulated GT40 graphics terminal, type ./start gt40. If you run
the KA10 emulator, you can use the Knight TV raster display by typing
./start tv11 tvcon. On a TV, type F1 instead of CTRLZ.
Here is an overview of the repository:
- bin - PDP-10 binary files necessary to bootstrap the system.
- build - build scripts.
- conf - configuration for building ITS.
- doc - documentation, most of which appear in the INFO system.
- src - source code for ITS and all programs.
- tools - build tools.
- out - build output.
- user - optional user files installed in ITS.
Several emulators for terminals and peripheral processors are built
along with ITS. They can be started conveniently with the start
script, or separately. Not all terminal emulators are set up to work
with all PDP-10 emulators by default.
| Name | Description | Type | klh10 | pdp10-ka | pdp10-kl | pdp10-ks | simh |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| type340 | Type 340 | vector | no | yes | no | no | no |
| gt40 | GT40 PDP-11 | vector | no | yes | no | yes | yes |
| imlac | Imlac PDS-1 | vector | no | yes | no | no | no |
| simh_imlac | Imlac PDS-1 | vector | no | yes | no | no | no |
| tv11 | Knight TV PDP-11 | cpu | no | yes | no | no | no |
| tvcon | Knight TV console | raster | no | yes | no | no | no |
| datapoint | Datapoint 3300 | text | no | yes | no | no | no |
| vt52 | VT52 | text | no | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| tek | Tektronix 4010 | vector | no | yes | yes | no | no |
See the doc subdirectory for documentation.
There are some short introductions for beginners:
- How to create a new user
- DDT cheat sheet for Unix users
- Basic editing with EMACS
- TECO survival guide
- DDT debugging newbie guide
- Hello MIDAS
- Hello Maclisp
- Introduction to Muddle
- DUMP and itstar
- Games
- Printing
- Assembling ITS
- Com link mode
- Logo
- PDP-6
- Networking
A list of known ITS machines.
How ITS is built.
Some major applications:
- Adventure, game
- C10, C compiler
- CLU, progamming language.
- DDT, debugger
- Emacs, editor
- Logo, interpreter
- Mac Hack VI and Tech II, chess programs
- Maclisp, interpreter and compiler
- Muddle, interpreter
- Macsyma, symbolic math
- Maze War, game
- Midas, assembler
- Muscom and musrun, for playing music
- PDP-11 simulator
- Scheme, interpreter
- Spacewar!, game
- Stanford University Drawing System
- TECO, editor
- TOPS-10 and WAITS emulator
There is a detailed list of all installed programs.