TOPS-20 Monitor Field Service Training 1979

This document is a "TOPS-20 Monitor Field Service Training" manual, Course Number J1183-A, published by the Educational Services of Digital Equipment Corporation in 1979. It is marked "For Internal Use Only" and is not to be duplicated or distributed to customers.

The manual is designed for regional and district support personnel to help them determine and isolate system faults in the TOPS-20 operating system. The training focuses on troubleshooting, fault-finding, and error analysis.

The course outline covers:

• Software Introduction: Operating system principles, virtual memory, file system, interrupt handling, and accounting.
• TOPS-20 Hardware/Software Interface: Virtual address translation, page mapping, storage addresses, and paging.
• Monitor Overview: Monitor calls, storage management (including concepts like the Balance Set, Swapper, Drum Manager, Core Manager, and Pager), scheduler, file system structure, job/fork structure, and disk/magtape and front-end services.
• Coding Conventions: Use of MACSYM, field masks, instructions using field masks, and TOPS-20 coding standards.
• SYSERR: The SYSERR program for error reporting, its internal data base structure, and how to create SYSERR entries.
• Troubleshooting: CTY output, getting a DUMP, SYSERR functions, BUGHLT features, push-down lists, machine states, and the use of debugging tools like FILDDT, MDDT, and EDDT.
• PHYSIO - Disk/Tape: Data structures, IORB queueing, scheduling, I/O, interrupt handling, disk allocation, and magtape I/O.
• Front End/Terminals: Device-dependent code for TTY/PTY and DTE, TTY data base, and DTE interrupts.
• Storage Management: Data structures (CST, SPT tables), working set management, page faulting, and balance set adjustment.

The manual includes lab exercises and solutions throughout the modules to help students understand the monitor's data base structure and apply debugging techniques. Appendices list monitor modules by category and provide an alphabetical list of BUGHLTs, BUGCHKs, and BUGINFs.

In essence, this document is a comprehensive internal training guide from Digital Equipment Corporation for service personnel to understand, troubleshoot, and debug the TOPS-20 operating system.