Original Soviet Tetris on BIG IRON Howto

WORK IN PROGRESS

This howto documents our efforts to reproduce as close as possible the original Tetris experience in a real-hardware setup.

Emulation approach on a common PC is described in OriginalTetrisHowto.

So, here we will explain how to install TETRIS on a real DEC PDP-11/34 running RT-11 and also cover some useful tricks.

Recipe

We will use:

USB - RS232 Serial converter
A pc with Linux Mint
CKermit from columbia.edu

We assume that you have a running PDP-11 with RT-11 installed. Our is a PDP-11/34

CKermit

We need to use KERMIT protocol to transfer files between a PC and a PDP-11.

CKermit PC side

You can just install it:

sudo apt-get install ckermit

CKermit PDP-11 side

This is somehow complicated. How can you transfer KERMIT on the PDP11... without kermit itself?

Source of information is http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/pdp11.html

"Bootstrapping" section is what you need to put KERMIT in your PDP11

TETRIS

You need TETRIS.SAV, the program for RT-11. You can found it here: http://pdp-11.ru/mybk/hobot/ukdwk_archive/dwkwebcomplekt/rt11_symbol_games/

Connecting to our PDP-11 with Kermit

On PDP11, you launch KERMIT.SAV

RUN KERMIT

and write at his prompt:

set file bin
set line tt:
set attributes off
server

On PC side:

check what TTY is related to your USB/Serial converter! Normally is /dev/ttyUSB0 but can also be /dev/ttyUSB1 or whatever. Assuming /dev/ttyUSB0 is coorect, you just have to launch kermit, and write at his prompt:

set port /dev/ttyUSB0
set line /dev/ttyUSB0
set speed 9600
set flow xon/xoff
set carrier-watch off
set attributes off
robust
connect

After that, you can use GET and SEND commands on the PC to transfer files.

Other stuff

TODO:

Using ftape? to put kermit on PDP11
KSERVE usage?
???

References

CategoryMuseo