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Programming the PDP 6

Lars Brinkhoff edited this page Dec 25, 2022 · 1 revision

The AI lab PDP-10 shared its memory and I/O bus with a PDP-6. The PDP-6 has 16K of core memory which the PDP-10 can also read and write. The PDP-6 can not see the PDP-10 memory. Both processors can send an interrupt to the other.

For ITS to talk to the PDP-6, the system location PDP6UP must first be set to -1. To access the PDP-6 core memory from ITS, create a job named "PDP6" or "PDP10". (Historical side note. At first the roles were reversed: the PDP-6 was running ITS and the PDP-10 was the subordinate processor.) This job will have a 16K core image and reads and writes will go directly to the PDP-6 memory. DDT can load a program with $L. It's not possible to start, stop, or set breakpoints. These things will have to be done from the PDP-6 console.