Re: Some nice progress with hardware and Ultrix in the PUPS archive

In article by Michael Sokolov: We have to be careful with 3rd party UNIXes. We would have to get approval from DEC (or whoever they are) to allow us to add their product into the archive. I did this with V7M and the later Ultrix-11s before DEC got bought out. Warren Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) id BAA04900 for pups-liszt; Sun, 6 Dec 1998 01:36:15 +1100 (EST) Received: from timaxp.trailing-edge.com (trailing-edge.wdn.com [198.232.144.27]) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) with SMTP id BAA04895 for <PUPS(a)MINNIE.CS.ADFA.OZ.AU>AU>; Sun, 6 Dec 1998 01:36:03 +1100 (EST) Received: by timaxp.trailing-edge.com; Sat, 5 Dec 1998 9:33:16 -0500 Date: Sat, 5 Dec 1998 9:33:16 -0500 From: Tim Shoppa <SHOPPA(a)trailing-edge.com> To: msokolov(a)harrier.Uznet.NET CC: PUPS(a)MINNIE.CS.ADFA.OZ.AU Message-Id: <981205093316.2de002c3(a)trailing-edge.com> Subject: Re: System Industries MSCP disk controller problem Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au Precedence: bulk "It has to be simple or I can't do it :-)". In this case (like just about all), it's a matter of getting rid of unknowns. Oh yeah - the Webster controllers are wonderfully configurable. It's incredibly useful, as one physical disk can be partitioned up many ways into "virtual" MSCP units - especially useful for OS's which don't deal well with large units (or when it's desirable to have many different versions of many different OS's on the same disk.) Sure, for the cost of copying and postage. Or I'd trade you for some surplus of yours. Yep - high end 3100 and 4000 units are still available. (It looks like someone has already pointed you towards the Emulex QD21 and QT13 docs available around the net.) Nearly all non-SCSI, non-proprietary interface tape drives will have either (or both) Pertec formatted and Pertec unformatted interfaces. Pertec unformatted drives have three cables; one carries read data, another carries write data, and the third carries control signals. It's a rather low-level interface - the controller tells the drive to go forward, then reads or writes data, with the controller responsible for all the timing. The controller gets to do the nitty-gritty work of repositioning and spacing forward and backward over tape marks. Pertec formatted drives have two 50-pin cables. It's a higher-level interface, where the "formatter" does a lot of the nitty-gritty work, and the controller in the backplane just has to spew out data bytes (or take them in). Many times you'll see a Pertec unformatted drive with a formatter bolted onto it with two 50-pin cables coming out. (In most cases, a formatter could control multiple physical drives.) Other times you'll find "embedded formatter" drives, where there is no 3-cable unformatted interface lurking inside. Yep, Pertec formatted. The QT13 is nice because it'll emulate either MU: or MS:-type devices. Yep, a TS05 is a rebadged Cipher F880 (with some slightly-different firmware). It probably had 4 50-pin edge connectors, so that multiple drives could be chained on the same Pertec-formatted-bus. (There are terminators at each end of the bus, much like SCSI.) There's provisions for at least 4 formatters per bus, with each formatter potentially running multiple drives. Yep. Actually, the DEC TS05/TSV05/TU80 controllers are rebadged Dilog boards (again, with slightly different firmware - for instance a DEC TU80 controller will only work with TU80 drives or their CDC equivalent, the Keystone.) At the guts of most DEC tape drives, you will often find either a Pertec formatted or unformatted interface. TU80's and TS(V)05's are simple Pertec formatted interfaces. Other times they convert to some other interface (Massbus, LESI, etc.) before the cables come out to the "real world". Any chance it's a simple parallel I/O? Could also be the bus interface for a Sigma and/or DSD MFM drive controller (if so, it probably emulates RL02's). The assembly number sounds vaguely DSD-like. -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927 Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) id BAA04942 for pups-liszt; Sun, 6 Dec 1998 01:44:43 +1100 (EST) Received: from timaxp.trailing-edge.com (trailing-edge.wdn.com [198.232.144.27]) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) with SMTP id BAA04937 for <PUPS(a)MINNIE.CS.ADFA.OZ.AU>AU>; Sun, 6 Dec 1998 01:44:33 +1100 (EST) Received: by timaxp.trailing-edge.com for PUPS(a)MINNIE.CS.ADFA.OZ.AU; Sat, 5 Dec 1998 9:42:42 -0500 Date: Sat, 5 Dec 1998 9:42:42 -0500 From: Tim Shoppa <SHOPPA(a)trailing-edge.com> To: PUPS(a)MINNIE.CS.ADFA.OZ.AU Message-Id: <981205094242.2de002c3(a)trailing-edge.com> Subject: Re: Some nice progress with hardware and Ultrix in the PUPS archive Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au Precedence: bulk As Warren pointed out, there might be a problem with putting such tapes on the PUPS archive. I'd be glad to run off TK50's from images for you, though I think your earlier idea, about installing from the miniroot image that's commonly put on 4.2- and 4.3BSD derived distributions, is a *far* better idea as it avoids using a TK50 tape drive at all. It's not that tape copies are bad ideas - it's just that TK50's are so slow. If you were coming from 9-track or DLT or something fast, that wouldn't be so bad. If you can get just about any OS running on your Q-bus machine, under any CPU - i.e. NetBSD, RT-11, 2.11BSD, RSX, whatever you might have - then you can just write the miniroot straight to a "scratch" disk. You can also write the root dump and tar savesets straight to another scratch disk, in "raw" format, if you desire. -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927