29 Dec
1998
29 Dec
'98
8:24 p.m.
(writer bites his tongue to keep from ranting about paying $100 for an
operating system for a computer that cost $12 at a second-hand store...
8^)
So I went back to the junk store yesterday and found a TK25 tape drive,
which appears to work fine with my PDP-11/73. It also uses the same
cartriges as my SCSI tape backup drive... Is there a DOS, Linux, or
windows NT program that I can use to save files to tape so I can load them
on the PDP-11? When I initialize a tape, is the format standard among
other computers, or is it specific to PDP's running RSTS?
Is there any way to make Unix 7 use RD hard drives?
...and most importantly...
Everything for PDP's seems to be distributed on disk images for drives I
don't have. I think I saw something somewhere about being able to mount a
.dsk file as a virtual drive under RT11... Anyone know if this is true?
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From "Steven M. Schultz"
<sms(a)moe.2bsd.com> Wed Dec 30 07:07:32 1998
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From: "Steven M. Schultz" <sms(a)moe.2bsd.com>
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Subject: Re: rt11 and disk images
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Hi -
From: "Erin W. Corliss"
<erin(a)coffee.corliss.net>
(writer bites his tongue to keep from ranting about paying $100 for an
operating system for a computer that cost $12 at a second-hand store... 8^)
If you think $100 for software is worthy of ranting I'd hate to see
what $100k (what it used to cost for UNIX sources) worth of ranting
would sound like :) :) :)
So I went back to the junk store yesterday and found a
TK25 tape drive,
which appears to work fine with my PDP-11/73. It also uses the same
cartriges as my SCSI tape backup drive... Is there a DOS, Linux, or
The TK25 (I have one also - worked the last time I checked some time
ago) uses DC600A (the "A" is important) 60mb tapes.
But there the similarity ends.
windows NT program that I can use to save files to
tape so I can load them
on the PDP-11? When I initialize a tape, is the format standard among
other computers, or is it specific to PDP's running RSTS?
The TQK25 formats the tape in a 'variable' record mode format that
is (as far as I know) peculiar to DEC (or who ever built the TK25
for them). This makes the TK25 look and feel like a 9-track drive
(record boundaries are preserved) which is nice.
Unfortunately most (all?) QIC drives in the "PC" world end up in a
'fixed record' mode (which loses the concept of record size). So
while you might have a DC600A drive on a Linux system it will, odds are,
only write in fixed record mode which the TQK25 probably won't like.
Have to try it and see what happens.
Is there any way to make Unix 7 use RD hard drives?
Not easily. MSCP devices weren't around or weren't supported at
the time V7 came out. You'd need a development system running
supported disks first (perhaps the work could be done via an
emulator). Then you could create "boot kits" (and adding RD/RA
support would also entail writing bootblocks, standalone drivers,
updating /boot, in additi0on to the mainline kernel 'ra.c' driver).
2.11BSD supports the RD drives quite nicely - if you've an 11/73
then perhaps using 2.11 instead of V7 might be worth considering.
...and most importantly...
Everything for PDP's seems to be distributed on disk images for drives I
don't have. I think I saw something somewhere about being able to mount a
That's why I (even 6 years ago the older drive types were either
too old or too bulky/powerhungry) bought an Emulex UC08 (MSCP->SCSI)
and started using SCSI peripherals. You should have heard the
ranting - but it was worth in the long haul.
Steven Schultz
sms(a)moe.2bsd.com
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From Robin Birch <robin(a)falstaf.demon.co.uk> Wed
Dec 30 08:32:24 1998
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Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1998 22:32:24 +0000
To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au
From: Robin Birch <robin(a)falstaf.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Bob Supnik's Emulator.
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Dear All,
I've been struggling with Bob's emulator (version 2.3d). The main
problem appears to be around the TM device driver. I've been creating
boot programs and data on my 11/73 under 2.11 BSD.
To do this I've been using the makesimtape program. This hasn't worked
very well. I've had to make individual files for each of the standalone
utilities as I havn't been able to get the emulator to find files beyond
the first one. For instance if I make a standalone file consisting of
the bootstrap, boot, disklabel, mkfs, restor and inode then I can boot
the processor and load and run disklabel but nothing beyond this.
Using separate bootstraps, boot and <program>, I have labeled and mkfs
an RP04. I then tried restor. Well, I can get restor to load and run
but it doesn't want to understand the dump file written with dd that is
created as part of the generation of a distribution set on the 11/73.
I suspect that there is some form of data conversion that I have to go
through before I can read the files on the emulator.
Has anybody installed 2.11 on the emulator from scratch. If so, can
they offer any advice.
Regards
Robin
PS, the emulator is compiled with gcc on Solaris 2.6 running on a
sparc2. It runs the rt11 and v7 disks available with the simulator with
no worries.
____________________________________________________________________
Robin Birch robin(a)falstaf.demon.co.uk
M1ASU/2E0ARJ Old computers and radios always welcome
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From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au> Wed
Dec 30 08:51:34 1998
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From: Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au>
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Subject: Re: Bob Supnik's Emulator.
To: robin(a)falstaf.demon.co.uk (Robin Birch)
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 09:51:34 +1100 (EST)
Cc: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (Unix Heritage Society)
In-Reply-To: <7OIFxAA4hVi2EwHy(a)falstaf.demon.co.uk> from Robin Birch at "Dec
29, 98 10:32:24 pm"
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In article by Robin Birch:
Dear All,
I've been struggling with Bob's emulator (version 2.3d). The main
problem appears to be around the TM device driver. I've been creating
boot programs and data on my 11/73 under 2.11 BSD.
To do this I've been using the makesimtape program. This hasn't worked
very well. I've had to make individual files for each of the standalone
utilities as I havn't been able to get the emulator to find files beyond
the first one. For instance if I make a standalone file consisting of
the bootstrap, boot, disklabel, mkfs, restor and inode then I can boot
the processor and load and run disklabel but nothing beyond this.
The format of a tape image is described in simh_doc.txt in Appendix 1.3,
at roughly line 2,473 of the file. Perhaps the makesimtape program isn't
making the tape correctly. What arguments are you giving it?
On a silly note, if there is only a single thing on the tape you are trying
to restor, you could always save it without the record structure imposed
by makesimtape, attach it as RL00, and then restor it from /dev/rl00 :-)
Best of luck,
Warren
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From Dave Horsfall <dave(a)fgh.geac.com.au> Wed Dec
30 08:48:10 1998
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From: Dave Horsfall <dave(a)fgh.geac.com.au>
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To: Greg Lehey <grog(a)lemis.com>
cc: Unix Heritage Society <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>
Subject: Re: Converting Sixth Edition man pages
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On Tue, 29 Dec 1998, Greg Lehey wrote:
In fact, I'm not sure that just viewing them
*would* be easier. From
observation, the markup isn't too different from the -an macros. A
lot of the macros seem to be the same, just in a different case. But
there are enough differences that I wouldn't want to tackle it right
now.
Do you have thee 6th Edition documentation to tell you what the macros
do? I have them somewhere...
--
Dave Horsfall VK2KFU dave(a)geac.com.au Ph: +61 2 9978-7493 Fx: +61 2 9978-7422
Geac Computers P/L (FGH Division) 2/57 Christie St, St Leonards 2065, Australia
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