Some historic unix releases

I am glad I can run them on the SIMH PDP-11/VAX emulator, or Qemu emulator, or Bochs emulator, or the Stromasys Personal Alpha emulator.

2017-12-06 (see recent changes)

Bell Labs

• 1st edition kernel with 2nd edition userland (V1/V2) (1972) on PDP-11/20

  32K, RF-11 + RK03 disks, KE11A module [extended arithmetic element for multiply/divide], DC-11 8 TTYs, TC-11 DECTape

  Yes, it's not a mistake: people organized on TUHS (start reading here) managed to get such an early system running again.
  This software dates from 1972 (printout from 06/72, one example in the code is "Date 3/17/72").
  The kernel was modified to recognize the 0407 executables from V2, because the V1 userland seems still to be lost.

  • The project page for the result of all the work.
  • Dennis Ritchie (R.I.P.!) had provided the 1st edition manual on his pages. They are also available via TUHS and mirrors.
    The 2nd edition manual [pdf] is archived at TUHS (mirrors).
  • Warren Toomey from TUHS presented the work at the '09 Usenix and made the presentation material available (video, paper).

  In the directory listing, "s" and "l" mean small and large files (less or more than 4096 bytes, respectively).

• 6th Edition Unix (V6) (1975) on PDP-11/45

  A software kit is available on the SIMH pages. Wolfgang Helbig ist hosting the 6th Edition Manuals.

• 7th Edition Unix (V7) (1979) on PDP-11/45

  A software kit is available on the SIMH pages. The Plan9 Project is hosting the 7th Edition Manuals.
  The Bourne shell was introduced with this release. Some consider this Unix release as the "last true Unix".

• System III Unix (1982) on PDP-11/70,

  Reconstructed from tapes on a 7th edition system according to the instructions of José R. Valverde.
  I could compile Bourne shells from SVR1, SVR2 and 8th edition (aka V8) on this system.
  This was the first commercial Unix from AT&T.

• System V Release 4.0 v2.1 (1989) on i386(bochs),

  I don't know much about the origin of this image.

• 4.3BSD (1986) on VAX-780

  Reconstructed from the TUHS tapes according to this tutorial by Kirk J. Russell.

• 4.3BSD Quasijarus (2004) on MicroVAX 3900

  Reconstructed from the TUHS tapes according to this tutorial by Neozeed.

• 386BSD 0.1 patchkit 2.4 (1993) on i386

  Reconstructed by Jason Stevens aka Neozeed.

• NetBSD 0.9 on i386

  Reconstructed by Jason Stevens aka Neozeed.

• Ultrix-11 v2.16 (~1984-85?) on PDP-11/24

  A minimal installation without manuals. The RetroComputinGeek pages show how to set it up with a tape from Bitsavers.org.

  Ultrix development by DEC started on the PDP-11 and resulted in "V7m", a modified V7.
  Later, the development moved to the VAX architecture, was rather based on 4.2BSD and became "Ultrix-32", while V7m was renamed to "Ultrix-11".

• Ultrix-11 v3.1 (1986) on PDP-11/73 3M

  An installation with manuals.

• Ultrix-32 v4.0 (~1987?) on MicroVAX 3900

  A later, yet early Ultrix, now on VAX.
  Jason Steven's pages show how to set it up.

• Ultrix v4.5 (1995) on MicroVAX 3900

  A later Ultrix on VAX.
  Seth Morabito explains on TUHS how to install it.
  I succeeded with ra60 devices - thanks to Rodolfo Martín for the helpful hint!

• OSF1/V4.0B (1996) on Personal Alpha Emulator 2.0.16

  I just installed myself from CD on the Personal Alpha emulator (running on Windows XP).

Other resources

• Angelo Papenhoff's pages on a.papnet.eu/UNIX/ with detailed installation instructions for various old Unix variants
• gunkies.org, "Computer History Wiki" (Ultrix32v4.0 above, 4.2/4.3BSD, V6),
• Noel's great page about getting 6th edition running on the ersatz-11 emulator
• retrocomputingeek.com, (e.g. Ultrix11 v2.16 above, 4.3BSDQuasijuarus, NetBSD 3.0, OpenBSD 3.8),
• virtuallyfun.superglobalmegacorp.com, by Jason Steven aka Neozeed, e.g. about NetBSD 0.9, his project page
• zazie.tom-yam.or.jp/starunix/, Nao's pages (32V, 3BSD, 4.0BSD at the time of this writing).

PS: Contact me, if you're interested in images.