XXDP Mini User Guide XXDP is the diagnostics package for PDP-11 systems. Last time I looked (spring 2000) version 2.2 and 2.5 were available from ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/ pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/xxdp/ These are RL02 image files in *.gz format (3.2 and 3.6 Mb), the most recent (Version 2.5) is dated 1989. I have two older versions on RL02 disk packs, one dated 15-SEP-82 the other has a range of dates in 1981. Both seemed pretty cryptic to a first time user, ie myself. Naturally none of this comes with manuals! I've gotten some information together. I am a big fan of John Wilson's E11 program. If you download one of the versions of XXDP from Sunsite, you can run it under E11 on a PC clone. One of the features of this is that you can create customized bootable TU58 images of the test programs you might want for your particular system this way. Then assuming you have a functional SLU on the target system and a spare PC clone, you can boot and run diagnostics with one of the TU58 emulation programs discussed on the parent page, pdp11.htm. First as indicated above, there are a number of versions of the XXDP package, all a bit different. I've seen it on TU58 tapes, RX02 floppies, and a single RL02 disk. Newsgroup references suggest it is often available on magnetic tape. Given a version on one set of media, you should be able to create others. There appear to be two major releases, version 1.x and 2.x. I recently downloaded version 2.5, it has a small monitor and extended monitor (the default). The small monitor of version 2.5 is for systems with less than 28Kb of memory, its very similar to the earlier version 1.x monitor. Version 2.5 has 727 files in the directory listing. My 1982 RL02 distribution has a little more than 800 files. All the verisons I've seen share some common features, the most important is that the directory structure is unique to these disks. They are self booting. Once booted XXDP displays some version information and an RT11 style prompt, '.'. This is the XXDP monitor, the commands are similar, but major version specific. All have a help command, and if a printer is available you can get hard copy. If you have a disk image on a PC, you can use my Dos utility Diagdir.exe to obtain a directory and a copy of the help file. The directory command gives you a list of files on the load media. I get confused when I look at this listing as there are a lot of files with odd seeming extensions. The help file from my 1981 distribution says the naming convention for Monitor and driver files uses the DEC two letter DEVICE MNENONIC in the file name. All have the *.sys extension. A monitor file begins with HM while a driver file begins with HD. IE if XX is the mnenonic and ?? are wild cards the form is as shown below followed by examples for DD,DY, and DL. DEVICE MONITOR DRIVER DEVICES MNEMONIC FILE FILE SUPPORTED ------- ------- ------ ----------- XX HMCT??.SYS HDXX??.SYS the XX devices DD HMDD??.SYS HDDD??.SYS DL11/TU58 DY HMDY??.SYS HDDY??.SYS RX211/RX02 DL HMDL??.SYS HDDL??.SYS RL11/RL01 The ?? wild cards above are apparently version numbers. Note that Version 1.x does not support wild cards in the directory command, D ; however the Version 2.x extended monitor command, DIR, does. I had to ask on the PDP-11 newsgroup to find that the diagnostics are named a little differently. One uses the letters from the type of device to form a mnemonic ie for RX02 disks use RX, for RL02 disks use RL, for the DLV11 SLU use DL. Again using XX as the mnemonic, search the listing for occurances of ?XX???.???, sample output from Version 2.5 with a search for RL is shown below: .DIR ?RL???.??? ENTRY# FILNAM.EXT DATE LENGTH START VERSION 109 NRLGA0.BIC 1-MAR-89 19 006017 211 VRLAC0.BIN 1-MAR-89 24 013033 212 VRLBC0.BIC 1-MAR-89 28 013063 351 XRLAK0.OBJ 1-MAR-89 7 015535 592 ZRLGE0.BIC 1-MAR-89 19 031562 593 ZRLHB1.BIC 1-MAR-89 27 031605 594 ZRLID1.BIN 1-MAR-89 30 031640 595 ZRLJC0.BIC 1-MAR-89 23 031676 596 ZRLKB3.BIC 1-MAR-89 26 031725 597 ZRLLC1.BIN 1-MAR-89 14 031757 598 ZRLMB1.BIN 1-MAR-89 23 031775 599 ZRLNC0.BIC 1-MAR-89 29 032024 FREE BLOCKS: 2929 Note someone was kind enough to send me the listing above as an example, but you should be able to generate it with E11 or a real PDP11 if you have the appropriate media. The full directory listing shows a number of prefix letters as well as different extensions. I believe the 3 letters following the mnemonic are version numbers. The prefix is less clear, I think 'Z' and 'V' are both diagnostics. 'V' may be a non- destructive register test where 'Z' actually excersizes the device? I've also seen 'N' and 'X' prefixes?? Then what are extensions, "BIN" (probably binary), "BIC" (maybe binary/chainable)? You can run both BIN and BIC, but apparently only BIC are chainable. The meaning of an "OBJ" file is clear, but how does one use it? I'd love to have someone explain this. One other minnor aside. I got interested in the directory structure, and wrote a C program which will parse it out if you have a disk image of the distribution on a PC's hard disk. Its DIAGDIR.EXE included in RT11ARC?.ZIP. Its not very useful except possibly to extract the help file for printing. However I found the directory interesting. It is similar to an RT11 directory in that it uses RAD50 packing for the file names, however I found the date format quite strange. Its in a two byte WORD which appears to contain: number of years since 1970 = WORD/1000 day of year above = WORD % 1000 I can recreate the file dates this way, but why would one use modulo 1000 (decimal) for the days of the year?? Strange, is there some clever trick here I'm not getting?? To create a bootable XXDP version on new media, you have to run a version specific program. For Version 1.x use UPDT2 and for Version 2.x use UPDAT as described in the sections below. XXDP Version 2.x responds to the following commands (see help topic for details): BOOT BOOTSM CHAIN CLEAR COPY DATE DEFSM DEFXM DELETE DIRECTORY ENABLE HELP INFONBOOT INITIALIZE LOAD NOTES PRINT RENAME RUN SET START SMALLMON SWITCHES TYPE UPDAT V2.4 VERSION As mentioned above, the UPDAT program is used to create customized versions on new media. This program uses the same commands as the version 1.x UPD2 program. However, commands SAVM and SAVE are no longer supported. The following command has been added to build bootable media. It will work with tapes or disks. CREATE DY0: (will create a bootable DY from your system media) After doing a create, copy the desired diagnostics to the new media. XXDP Version 1.x responds to the following commands: R run a program L load a program S start a program C run a batch job (chain) D list directory of load medium F set the terminal fill count E enable alternate system device H type help information Help is of coarse useful, and you might want to print it. One method is to capture the listing with a terminal emulation program. Alternatively if you have a printer connected to your machine, you may be able to print it directly. Run the UPD2 program and use the print option. The UPD2 program allows one to create new copies of XXDP+ on other media, for instance you can custom taylor the diagnostics you need onto a floppy disk or TU58 tape. The HELP.txt file should tell you how to use it. I gather the UPD1 program is a short version of this to be used if you don't have much memory. I haven't a clue what DEC/X11 (mentioned in help.txt) is.... Note that if you are building a custom media distribution under version 1.x you must have the driver file and the monitor on the new disk. You get the monitor installed with a SAVM command, but for the Directory command to work you also need the driver file, HDxx??.sys, and the directory program, HUDI??.sys. The help file, help.txt, is also recommended. Copy these files and the desired diagnostic programs onto the media with the PIP command.