PDP-6 Software Update

Abstract

Conventions of this memo- Most numbers written in Arabic numerals are octal while all those written out in English are decimal. Underlying a character and immediately preceding it with a vertical bar indicates the character produced by holding down the control key while striking that character except in the case of 1$ which represents an ALT MODE. Characters not indictable with the character set used in this memo or control of such a character are described between angle bracket. The string from the open to the close angle bracket should be considered as one character which may be controlled by underlining and preceding with a vertical bar. Lower case letters in a command string usually indicate a possibly optional variable while capital letters or special characters are constant. Note the special conventions involving [cents] in the MACDMP section. Organization of PDP-6 Software: MACDMP is normally used to load system and user machine language programs. If when one approaches the PDP-6 it is not in MACDMP (which is usually displaying a file directory) one should first try starting at location 177400 which is MACDMPs starting address. If this fails be sure a system tape is mounted of drive number one and try reading in at location 0 (see appendix). If that loses try locations 1 and 2. If still unsuccessful try placing a paper tape of MACDMP in the paper tape reader, turning it on, and starting at location 20 (appendix). If all else fails you can conclude that most of memory is clobbered and load a paper tape of MACDMP according to the instructions on the inside of the left door of the first bay of the PDP-6 to the left of the console.