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ULTRIX-11

INTRODUCTION

Ultrix was DEC's official UNIX operating system for VAX, PDP-11 and DECStation/DECsystem (RISC) systems. DEC's first native UNIX product was V7m (V7m11 for the PDP-11) and was based on version of UNIX 7th Edition from Bell Labs. The "m" in V7m denoted that this was V7 modified.

V7m was developed by DEC's original Unix Engineering Group (UEG); Fred Canter, Jerry Brenner, Armando Stettner, Bill Burns, Mary Anne Cacciola and Bill Munson, but was the work of primarily Fred and Jerry.

The V7m kernel supported separate instruction and data spaces, significant work was done for for hardware error recovery, and development of many device drivers. Much work was put into producing a release that would reliably bootstrap from many tape drives or disk drives. V7m was well respected in the Unix community. UEG evolved into the group that later developed Ultrix. V7m11 was eventually renamed Ultrix-11.

Early Ultrix Minimum Hardware Required

Ultrix-11 can be used on just about any memory managed PDP-11 system (with some minor eceptions) configured with the following:

  • KW11-L line clock or a KW11-P progrmmable clock.
  • at least 256 Kbytes of memory. A memory size of 192 KBytes is the absolute minimum and can only support a few users with this small memory size. Ultrix-11 is not guaranteed to work with less than 192 KBytes.
  • all FP11 floating point processors are supported by Ultrix-11. However, the PDP-11/40 Float Instruction Set is not supported by Unix. A floating point simulator library is available for processors with no floating point hardware. However, this code is very slow for any serious floating point computations.
  • The RK05 disk is not large enough to be the system device. Four RL01 disk packs are required to contain Ultrix-11, however, Ultrix can be operated on as few as two RL01 disk drives. With the RL02 and RK06 disks, two drives are required.
Hardware Limitations
  • the RM03 disk can only be used with the PDP-11/70.
  • RX02 floppy disk drive can be used either in single or double density more. The RX01 is unsupported.
  • there are some anomalies with the PDP-11/23. There are certain unexplained error conditions which prevent the processor from being rebooted; power had to be recycled in these cases where it could not reboot.
  • Early Ultrix versions expect the disk media on which it resides to be perfect; no bad blocks. The Unix file system places certain structures in fixed positions on disk. There is no strategy for mapping around bad blocks. Later versions of Ultrix (V2.0) remediates this issue with bad block replacement strategies.

Please refer to the Ultrix-11 Operating System 2.0 (formerly V7m-11) Software Product Description SPD 16.51.02 for further information.

Ultrix-11 can also be installed and run on SIMH PDP-11 and VAX emulators. The Gunkies.org website contains the information on performing these functions. The site can be accessed here *click here*.

Although this section is for Ultrix-11, the guides below, for the sake of completeness, encompass the PDP-11, VAX and DECstation Ultrix documents.

Guides

Document Name Order Part No. Publication Date Domain
Unix/V7m Release 2.1 Software Description N/A September 1981 OS
Ultrix-11 Installation Guide AA-X341B-TC 1984 OS
BASIC/Ultrix-11 Software Technical Description AA-X342B-TC 1984 OS
BASIC/Ultrix-11 System Management AA-X343B-TC 1984 OS
BASIC/Ultrix-11 Programmar's Manual Volume I AA-X344B-TC 1984 OS
BASIC/Ultrix-11 Operating System, Version 2.0 Software Product Description AE-X370C-TC September 1984 OS
VAX LISP Ultrix User Guide AA-EV08A-TE May 1986 LANG
VAX LISP Ultrix System Access Programming Guide M-EV40A-TE May 1986 LANG
VAX LISP Ultrix Installation Guide AA-EV09A-TE May 1986 LANG
Ultrix Performance Management Guide AA-PKDVA-TE December 1991 OS
Ultrix MH User's Guide AA-PFTEA-TE May 1991 OS
Ultrix Guide to Print Server Clients AA-PC31B-TE December 1991 OS
Ultrix Reference Pages Section 1, Commands A-L AA-PC0WA-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Reference Pages Section 1, Commands M-Z AA-PC0WA-T1 June 1990 OS
Ultrix Security Guide for Administrators AA-PBKTA-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Guide to the Location Broker AA-PBKSA-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Guide to Software Licensing AA-PBKRA-TE May 1990 OS
Ultrix Security Guide for Users AA-PBKQA-TE June 1990 OS
The Big Gray Book: the Next Step with ULTRIX AA-PBKNA-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Technical Summary AA-MG63B-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix 4.2 Guide to System and Network Setup AA-ME88C-TE December 1991 OS
Ultrix 4.2 Guide to System and Network Setup AA-ME82B-TE December 1991 OS
Ultrix 4.2 Guide to System and Network Setup AA-ME85H-TE August 1992 OS
Guide to Installing Ultrix AA-PBL0E-TE August 1992 OS
Ultrix Security Guide for Users AA-PBKQA-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Security Guide for Users AA-PBKQA-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Security Guide for Users AA-NE12A-TE 1989 OS
Ultrix 4.1 Release Notes AA-ME85D-TE 1990 OS
Guide to Installing Ultrix AA-PBL0E-TE August 1992 OS
Ultrix and UWS 4.3 Release Notes AA-ME85H-TE August 1992 OS
Ultrix-32 UUCP Installation and Adminitration Guide A-BG62A-TE May 1984 OS
Ultrix-32 Programmer's Manual - Building Ultrix-32 Systems with Config AA-BG60A-TE May 1984 OS
Ultrix-32 Programmer's Manual - Guidelines for System Management AA-BG59A-TE May 1984 OS
Ultrix-32 Programmer's Manual - Installation Manual AA-BG58A-TE May 1984 OS
Ultrix-32 Programmer's Manual - Sections 4 and 8 AA-BG56A-TE May 1984 OS
Ultrix-32 Programmer's Manual - Sections 2, 3, 5 and 7 AA-BG54A-TE May 1984 OS
Ultrix-32 Programmer's Manual - Sections 1 and 6 AA-BG53A-TE May 1984 OS
Ultrix-32 1.2 Installation Guide AA-BG58C-TE May 1986 OS
Ultrix-32 1.2 Release Notes AA-BG57C-TE May 1986 OS
Ultrix-32 Guide to Diskless Management Services AA-MF01A-TE 1987 OS
Ultrix-32 Guide to System Shutdown and Startup AA-ME91A-TE 1987 OS
Ultrix-32 Guide to Error Logger System AA-ME95A-TE 1987 OS
Ultrix-32 Guide to IBM Terminal Emulation AA-MF04A-TE 1987 OS
Ultrix-32 Guide to Remote Installation Service for RISC and VAX Processors AA-MF02B-TE 1987 OS
Ultrix-32 Advanced Installation Guide AA-ME86A-TE 1987 OS
Ultrix-32 Guide to System Backup and Restore AA-ME92A-TE 1987 OS
Ultrix-32 Basic Installation Guide for the MicroVAX 3300 and MicroVAX 3400 AA-LY24A-TE 1987 OS
Ultrix-32 Release Notes for MicroVAX 3800 and 3900 and VAXServer 3800 and 3900 AA-NG53A-TE 1987 OS
Ultrix-32 Guide to the Yellow Pages Service AA-ME00A-TE 1987 OS
Ultrix-32 Guide to System Configuration and File Maintenance AA-ME90A-TE 1987 OS
Ultrix-32 Guide to System Environment Setup AA-ME89A-TE 1987 OS
Ultrix-32 Guide to Networking AA-ME97A-TE 1987 OS
Ultrix-32 Introduction to System and Network Management AA-ME88A-TE 1987 OS
Ultrix-32 Guide to the UUCP Utility AA-MF03A-TE 1987 OS
Ultrix-32 Guide to Ethernet Communications Servers AA-ME98A-TE 1987 OS
Ultrix-32 Guide to the BIND Service AA-LY21A-TE 1987 OS
Ultrix-32 Capacity Upgrade Installation Instructons AA-ME87B-TE N/A OS
Ultrix-32 Guide to System Crash Recovery AA-ME94A-TE 1987 OS
Ultrix-32 Guide to Network File System AA-ME99A-TE 1987 OS
Ultrix-32 Guide to System Disk Maintenance AA-ME93A-TE 1987 OS
Ultrix-32 Guide to System Exercisers AA-ME96A-TE 1987 OS
Ultrix-32 Supplementary Documents - System Manager AA-MF08A-TE 1988 OS
Ultrix-32 Supplementary Documents - Programmer AA-MF07A-TE 1988 OS
Ultrix-32 Supplementary Documents - General User AA-MF06A-TE 1988 OS
Ultrix-32 Programmer's Manual - Sendmail Installation and Operation Guide AA-BG63A-TE May 1984 OS
Ultrix-32 Programmer's Manual - 4.2 BSD Line Printer Spooler Manual AA-BG61A-TE May 1984 OS
Ultrix-32 Programmer's Manual - 4.2 BSD System Manual AA-BG55A-TE May 1984 OS
Ultrix - Guide to the nawk Utility AA-PBKPA-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix - Reference Pages for Unsupported Software AA-MF05B-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix - Reference Pages Section 7: Macro Packages and Conventions AA-LY19B-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix/SQL Error Message Dictionary AA-PCAXA-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Guide to Sharing Software on a Local Area Network AA-PKDUA-TE December 1991 OS
Ultrix Guide to Sharing Software on a Local Area Network AA-PKDUA-TE December 1991 OS
Ultrix Worksystem Software - Guide to the User Account Manager AA-PGL4A-TE May 1991 OS
ULTRIX SCSI/CAM Architecture - Guide to Writing Device Drivers for the Ultrix SCSI/CAM Architecture Interfaces AA-PN5HA-TE January 1992 OS
Ultrix SCSI/CAM Architecture - Release Notes and Installation Instructions AA-PP85A-TE May 1992 OS
Ultrix Performance Management Guide AA-PKDVA-TE December 1991 OS
Ultrix Reference Pages: Commands M-Z AA-PC0WA-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix/SQL Reference Manual AA-PBZ6A-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Guide to the Data Link Interface AA-PBKZA-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix The Packet Filter: An Efficient Mechanism for User-Level Code AA-PBM2A-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix DECrpc Programming Guide AA-PBKYA-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Kernel Messages Reference Manual AA-PBKUB-TE May 1991 OS
Ultrix Guide to Kerberos AA-PBKVA-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Guide to Network Programming AA-PBKWA-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Guide to the X-Open Transport Interface AA-PBKXA-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Worksystem Software - Guide to the X Toolkit Widgets: C Language Binding AA-MF09A-TE 1988 OS
Ultrix Guide to Preparing Software for Distribution on Ultrix Systems AA-MG62B-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Guide to Languages and Programming AA-ML94B-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Guide to Server Setup AA-ML74D-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Guide to IBM Terminal Emulation for VAX Processors AA-MF04B-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Guide to the uucp Utility AA-MF03B-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Guide to Remote Installation Services AA-MF02C-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Guide to Diskless Management Services AA-MF01B-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Introduction to Networking and Distributed System Services AA-ME97B-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Guide to Ethernet Communications Servers AA-ME98B-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Guide to the Network File System AA-ME99B-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Guide to System Exercisers AA-ME96B-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Guide to System Crash Recovery AA-ME94B-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Guide to Backup and Restore AA-ME92B-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Guide to Disk Maintenance AA-ME93C-TE December 1991 OS
Ultrix Guide to the Error Logger AA-ME95B-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Guide to System Shutdown and Startup AA-ME91C-TE December 1991 OS
Ultrix Guide to Configuration File Maintenance AA-ME90D-TE December 1991 OS
Ultrix Guide to System and Network Setup AA-ME88C-TE December 1991 OS
Ultrix Guide to Source Code Control System AA-ME84B-TE December 1991 OS
Ultrix Guide to the Yellow Pages Servive AA-ME84B-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Introduction to the Ultrix Workstation Software Environment AA-ME86D-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Workstation Software Readers Guide AA-PB0GB-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Workstation Software Reference Pages Sections 1X and 8X AA-MA85C-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Reference Pages Section 5 File Formats AA-LY18B-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Reference Pages Section 8 Maintenance AA-LY20B-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Worksystem Software - Release Notes AA-HF07E-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Reference Pages Section 4 Special Files AA-LY17B-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix SQL Operations Guide AA-PBZ9A-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix SQL Database Administrators Guide Guide AA-PBZ8A-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix SQL Database Net Users Guide AA-PBZ7A-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Reference Pages Section 2 System Calls AA-LY15B-TE June 1990 OS
Ultrix Reference Pages Section 3 Library Routines AA-LY16B-TE June 1990 OS
Guide to VAX C for Ultrix AA-ME83B-TE June 1990 OS
Software Product Description - DECnet Ultrix 4.0 SPD268308 May 1990 OS
DECnet Ultrix 4.0 NCP Command Reference AA-PB62A-TE May 1990 OS
DECnet Ultrix Use AA-PB61A-TE May 1990 OS
DECnet Ultrix 4.0 DECnet-Internet Gateway Use and Management AA-JQ71C-TE May 1990 OS
Ultrix 4.0 Network Management AA-EE38D-TE May 1990 OS
DECnet Ultrix 4.0 Installation AA-EA87E-TE May 1990 OS
DECnet Ultrix 4.0 Programming AA-EA88D-TE May 1990 OS
VAX LISP Ultrix Users Guide AA-EV08A-TE May 1986 OS
VAX LISP Ultrix System Access Programming Guide AA-EV40A-TE May 1986 OS
VAX LISP Ultrix Installation Guide AA-EV09A-TE May 1986 OS
Ultrix Performance Management Guide AA-PKDVA-TE December 1991 OS

Sources

Compiled on 01-24-2026 20:40:59