Re: What's magtape good for anyway?

<There are certain areas of Unix that don't seem quite "done" to me. <Printing comes to mind (compare Unix benign neglect with Windows' <universal printer driver). Most of magtapes short commings under unix are common across most OSs and are assignable to the characterisitcs of the medium. Mag tape has several things that make it difficult, one is old (late 60s and through the 70s) drives had a difficult time starting and stopping without breaking tape or resorting to complex(then standards) controllers. This lead to things like large interrecord gaps (start, speed up read, stop, backspace records, stop, read) due to the inerta of starting and stoping the reels. Also fixed record sizes were used to make blocks about the same length so blocks and marks could be differentiated using simple timers. Magtape was for the longest time the only portable media, which lead to the ansi/EBCDIC problems (Evryone else and IBM/HP). It was generally used for archival storage making file organized access excess overhead. While often used as block oriented, many systems used it more as a stream device where the high volume storage (relative to the disks of the time) capability was available. When processing was done on early system usually two or three drives were involved as one of two were for reading and the third was writing results usually due to memory size limitations of the time compared to the amount of data. Alot of magtapes lore is a result of historical use. FYI the idea of tar files had spilled over to CP/M (8080, z80) systems back in the 80s for distribution sets. It was done usually by creating an archive set of compressed files (.arc, .ark, .lbr). to get the most out of limited space of floppies (under 300k) of the time and to keep programs set and sources together. Allison Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id DAA22183 for pups-liszt; Thu, 26 Mar 1998 03:04:46 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f Received: from aiai.ed.ac.uk (eigg.aiai.ed.ac.uk [129.215.41.7]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id DAA22178 for &lt;pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au&gt;au>; Thu, 26 Mar 1998 03:04:37 +1100 (EST) Received: from cara.aiai.ed.ac.uk (cara.aiai.ed.ac.uk [129.215.105.50]) by aiai.ed.ac.uk (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id QAA10436; Wed, 25 Mar 1998 16:04:00 GMT Received: (tfb@localhost) by cara.aiai.ed.ac.uk (8.6.13/8.6.12) id QAA13855; Wed, 25 Mar 1998 16:03:59 GMT Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 16:03:59 GMT Message-Id: &lt;199803251603.QAA13855(a)cara.aiai.ed.ac.uk&gt; From: Tim Bradshaw &lt;tfb(a)aiai.ed.ac.uk&gt; MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: wkt(a)cs.adfa.oz.au Cc: haba(a)pdc.kth.se (Harald Barth), pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (PDP Unix Preservation) Subject: Re: What's TENIX?? In-Reply-To: &lt;199803190227.NAA04067(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au&gt; References: &lt;199803190143.CAA28649(a)pancake.pdc.kth.se&gt; &lt;199803190227.NAA04067(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au&gt; X-Mailer: VM 6.32 under 19.14 XEmacs Lucid Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk * Warren Toomey wrote: I remember this. Somewhere I worked as a student there was a tektronix box which supported some kind of microcontroller development system and/or and in-circuit emulator (for things like 8048 / 8051, though I think it had personality modules). It was a box which was known to be a PDP11, and had a couple of tek terminals on it, probably another box with stuff to support the emulators/PROM blowers & stuff, and it ran Tenix. I had an account on it, but all I knew then was that it was some kind of Unix. V7 sounds right -- perhaps it was Tek's OEMd version of this, with (I guess) support for whatever HW they had + some kind of development environment / x-assemblers & so on. The box just might still exist somewhere -- I made an attempt to get hold of it after I realised that PDP11s were cool, but it was hard because it had been worth a lot of money once and the accountants went all funny about it. --tim Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id DAA22240 for pups-liszt; Thu, 26 Mar 1998 03:30:47 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f Received: from toes.its.uwlax.edu (toes.its.uwlax.edu [138.49.128.183]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id DAA22235 for &lt;pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au&gt;au>; Thu, 26 Mar 1998 03:30:41 +1100 (EST) Received: by toes.its.uwlax.edu; id AA01056; NX5.67e/42; Wed, 25 Mar 98 10:32:20 -0600 Message-Id: &lt;9803251632.AA01056(a)toes.its.uwlax.edu&gt; Mime-Version: 1.0 (NeXT Mail 3.3 v118.2) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Received: by NeXT.Mailer (1.118.2.RR) From: Milo Velimirovic &lt;milov(a)toes.its.uwlax.edu&gt; Date: Wed, 25 Mar 98 10:32:14 -0600 To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Subject: oddball versions of Unix Reply-To: Milo_Velimirovic(a)uwlax.edu Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk Hey, does anyone know if LSX is coverd by the SCO source license? And where to get sources for it? It was a version of Unix that I played with 15 years ago on an LSI-11 system with dual AED floppy drives... it was nice in that it woudl run on a pdp11 that was lacking memory mangaement i.e. a 28kWord machine.... Shake those gray cells friends and let's see if we can scare this one out of the woodwork... it would make a lot of ancient pdp11's much more useful. Regards, Milo --- Milo Velimirovic &lt;Milo.Velimirovic(a)uwlax.edu&gt; Unix Computer Network Administrator (608) 785-8030 Information Technology Services -- Network Services University of Wisconsin - La Crosse La Crosse, Wisconsin 54601 USA 43 48 05 N 91 14 22 W Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id DAA22307 for pups-liszt; Thu, 26 Mar 1998 03:52:27 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f Received: from pancake.pdc.kth.se (pancake.pdc.kth.se [130.237.221.163]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id DAA22302 for &lt;pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au&gt;au>; Thu, 26 Mar 1998 03:52:20 +1100 (EST) Received: from pancake.pdc.kth.se (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pancake.pdc.kth.se (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id RAA23470; Wed, 25 Mar 1998 17:52:00 +0100 (MET) Message-Id: &lt;199803251652.RAA23470(a)pancake.pdc.kth.se&gt; To: tfb(a)aiai.ed.ac.uk Cc: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Subject: Re: What's TENIX?? From: Harald Barth &lt;haba(a)pdc.kth.se&gt; In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 25 Mar 1998 16:03:59 GMT" References: &lt;199803251603.QAA13855(a)cara.aiai.ed.ac.uk&gt; X-Mailer: Mew version 1.54 on Emacs 20.2.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 17:51:55 +0100 Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk Oh yes, very common scenario. Booted just for fun, see below. Harald. Welcome to Tnix Version 2.1 (rev b) on an 11/73 We recommend that you check the file system after TNIX has been restarted. ( Checking the file system takes about 5 minutes for a minimum system of files, longer for more files. ) Do you want to check the file system at this time? Enter y for yes, n for no, or question mark for more information : y The standard TNIX syschk command reports any problems with the file system, but does not fix them. The Standalone Utilities syschk command reports any problems with the file system, and queries you on how to fix the problems. Which file system checker? 1) standard TNIX syschk (reports problems) 2) Standalone Utilities syschk (fixes problems) Please enter a number: 1 checking /dev/rhd0: ...checking i-nodes and directory entries... ...checking tree structure... ...checking free list... free list is ok. rebuild free list? (y or n): n 75349 total blocks in filesystem 0 bad blocks (0 percent) 44112 free blocks (58 percent) 22491 free i-nodes (89 percent) TNIX shows the current date and time as Sat Mar 22 23:31:31 MET 1997 If date and time is already correct, press RETURN. Otherwise, you need to reenter the date. The format for a date entry is [dd-mmm-yy] hh:mm[:ss] Example: 22-jun-83 14:20 Please enter correct date: 25-mar-98 02:34 Wed Mar 25 02:34:51 MET 1998 Do you want to remain single user? (Enter y for yes, n for no, or question mark for more information) : y Now entering single-user mode. To exit from single-user mode, enter CTRL-D. # Do you want to remain single user? (Enter y for yes, n for no, or question mark for more information) : n When you see the login prompt, you can enter your login name, "manager", or "root". login: your login name Logs you into your personal account. The account must already have been created by the system manager. login: manager Displays information about common system manager tasks, and information about the "root" account. login: root Logs you in to the "root" account -- the account used to maintain system files. As root, you have full access to all files on the system, and no restrictions as to what you can do with the files. We recommend that you limit access to the root account, and that you assign a password to the root account. login: root Password: ******************************************************************************** * * * WELCOME TO TEKTRONIX * * * ******************************************************************************** USERS ON THE SYSTEM: ASSAR HABA MHO IF YOU HAVE ANY PROBLEMS, DO NOT ASK HABA IF HE CAN HELP YOU # ls -ltr total 499 -rw------- 1 root 58740 Apr 10 1984 tnix.old -rw------- 1 root 9852 Apr 10 1984 boot drwxr-xr-x11 bin 176 Apr 10 1984 tek -rw------- 1 root 57584 Apr 10 1984 TNIX.old -rw------- 1 root 58740 Jun 20 1985 tnix -rwx--x--x 1 root 57584 Nov 9 1985 TNIX drwxr-xr-x 2 bin 736 Sep 23 1986 lib -rw-r--r-- 1 root 1024 Oct 1 1986 .hp_memory drwxrwxrwx 2 root 176 Jan 30 1987 lost+found drwxr-xr-x 5 root 80 Sep 1 1992 home drwxr-xr-x 7 bin 4336 Sep 1 1992 bin drwxr-xr-x 2 root 928 Nov 5 1992 dev drwxr-xr-x 2 root 80 Nov 5 1992 mnt drwxrwxr-x 4 root 128 Apr 19 1993 vaxboot drwxr-xr-x 4 bin 480 Mar 25 02:36 etc drwxr-xr-x25 bin 416 Mar 25 02:36 usr drwxrwxrwx 2 root 64 Mar 25 02:36 tmp # shutdown Wait for the message on the system console saying it is all right to halt the system. System may now be safely powered down or rebooted Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id GAA22899 for pups-liszt; Thu, 26 Mar 1998 06:45:51 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f Received: from toes.its.uwlax.edu (toes.its.uwlax.edu [138.49.128.183]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id GAA22894 for &lt;pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au&gt;au>; Thu, 26 Mar 1998 06:45:44 +1100 (EST) Received: by toes.its.uwlax.edu; id AA01217; NX5.67e/42; Wed, 25 Mar 98 13:47:26 -0600 Message-Id: &lt;9803251947.AA01217(a)toes.its.uwlax.edu&gt; Mime-Version: 1.0 (NeXT Mail 3.3 v118.2) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Received: by NeXT.Mailer (1.118.2.RR) From: Milo Velimirovic &lt;milov(a)toes.its.uwlax.edu&gt; Date: Wed, 25 Mar 98 13:47:24 -0600 To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (PDP Unix Preservation) Subject: Follow-up: oddball versions of Unix Reply-To: Milo_Velimirovic(a)uwlax.edu References: &lt;9803251632.AA01056(a)toes.its.uwlax.edu&gt; Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au id GAA22895 Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk Hi, The system I referred to below was described in: Lycklama, H. UNIX on a Microprocessor, Bell System Technical Journal, Vol. 57, No. 6, July-August 1978, pp. 2087-2101 --Milo Begin forwarded message: Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id HAA23043 for pups-liszt; Thu, 26 Mar 1998 07:33:40 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f Received: from henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (henry.cs.adfa.oz.au [131.236.21.158]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id HAA23038 for &lt;pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au&gt;au>; Thu, 26 Mar 1998 07:33:37 +1100 (EST) Received: (from wkt@localhost) by henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.7.5/8.7.3) id HAA03043 for pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au; Thu, 26 Mar 1998 07:33:46 +1100 (EST) From: Warren Toomey &lt;wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au&gt; Message-Id: &lt;199803252033.HAA03043(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au&gt; Subject: Re: gzip on PDP-11: not so simple To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (PDP Unix Preservation) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 07:33:46 +1100 (EST) In-Reply-To: &lt;199803251433.AA22453(a)world.std.com&gt; from Allison J Parent at "Mar 25, 98 09:33:18 am" Reply-To: wkt(a)cs.adfa.oz.au X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL22 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk In article by Allison J Parent: Well, I've got uncompress working, but I thought having gunzip would be good as it gives better compression results. Warren Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id IAA23256 for pups-liszt; Thu, 26 Mar 1998 08:52:38 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f Received: from mercury.Sun.COM (mercury.Sun.COM [192.9.25.1]) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id IAA23251 for &lt;pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au&gt;au>; Thu, 26 Mar 1998 08:52:30 +1100 (EST) Received: from Corp.Sun.COM ([129.145.35.78]) by mercury.Sun.COM (SMI-8.6/mail.byaddr) with SMTP id NAA24729 for &lt;pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au&gt;au>; Wed, 25 Mar 1998 13:51:35 -0800 Received: from rainbow.Corp.Sun.COM by Corp.Sun.COM (SMI-8.6/SMI-5.3) id NAA20782; Wed, 25 Mar 1998 13:51:11 -0800 Received: from zatch by rainbow.Corp.Sun.COM (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id NAA10104; Wed, 25 Mar 1998 13:50:51 -0800 Message-Id: &lt;199803252150.NAA10104(a)rainbow.Corp.Sun.COM&gt; Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 13:50:07 -0800 (PST) From: Chris Drake &lt;Chris.Drake(a)Corp.Sun.COM&gt; Reply-To: Chris Drake &lt;Chris.Drake(a)Corp.Sun.COM&gt; Subject: Re: Follow-up: oddball versions of Unix To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-MD5: 4vG0cZlENp2tqeGyAF8ZKA== X-Mailer: dtmail 1.2.0 CDE Version 1.2 SunOS 5.6 sun4u sparc Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk I did use something called "Mini-Unix" on a PDP-11/10, which was a single- address space machine. It worked, sort of, but had some problems - like, pipes were implemented as temporary files, so the shell broke things apart into individual sequential commands... and printing with lpr generally froze the machine up. There may have been later and better versions, though. (This was around 76/77, as I recall). - Chris Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id IAA23267 for pups-liszt; Thu, 26 Mar 1998 08:54:39 +1100 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f