Hardware manual

When the Scavenger finishes, the attempt to invoke the Executive may fail because Scavenger was
invoked from another disk. Try booting. If unsuccessful, go on to step 2.
2. Use Ftp to get fresh copies of SysFont.al and Executive.Run. Again, this can be done in two ways:
Place a good disk in the machine and invoke Ftp. After it is initialized, change disks, wait for
the damaged one to become ready, and type the necessary Ftp commands to retrieve the files.
Invoke Ftp via the Network Executive as in step 1.
Now try booting. If unsuccessful, go to step 3.
3. Install the OS. You guessed it; this can be done in two ways:
Place a good disk in the Alto and type "Install." When asked for your name, place the
damaged disk in the machine, wait for the drive to become ready, and proceed.
Invoke the "NewOS" via the Network Executive. You will be asked: "Do you want to
INSTALL this operating system?"
6.3. File Name Conventions
Various conventions have been established for Alto file names. The conventions are intended to be
helpful, not authorative.
1. All files relating to a subsystem "Whiz" should have file names of the form "Whiz.xxx", i.e. typing
"Whiz.*" to the Executive should list them all, delete them all, etc. Example: Bcpl.Run, Bcpl.Syms, etc.
2. File extensions are of preference chosen to be
language extensions, i.e. they specify the language in
which they are written. The present set is:
Bcpl Bcpl source code
Mu Micro-code source
Asm Assembler source code
Mesa Mesa source code
Help A help file for the system given in the name
Cm A command file for the Alto Executive
3. File extensions are otherwise chosen to reflect the
format of the file. The present set is:
Bravo Text file with Bravo format codes
Run Executable file produced by Bldr
Image Executable file produced by Mesa
Al Alto format font file
Boot A file that can be booted
Br Bcpl relocatable binary file
Syms Bldr symbol table output
BCD Mesa object code
Dm File produced by the Dump command,
read by the Load command
Ts Text file containing a transcript
Disk disk image CopyDisk format
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Alto Operating System May 5, 1980 28
For Xerox Internal Use Only -- December 15, 1980