(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? Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) id IAA14527 for pups-liszt; Wed, 30 Dec 1998 08:09:29 +1100 (EST) Received: from moe.2bsd.com (0(a)MOE.2BSD.COM [206.139.202.200]) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id IAA14522 for &lt;pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au&gt;au>; Wed, 30 Dec 1998 08:09:17 +1100 (EST) Received: (from sms@localhost) by moe.2bsd.com (8.9.0/8.9.0) id NAA11417 for pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au; Tue, 29 Dec 1998 13:07:32 -0800 (PST) Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1998 13:07:32 -0800 (PST) From: "Steven M. Schultz" &lt;sms(a)moe.2bsd.com&gt; Message-Id: &lt;199812292107.NAA11417(a)moe.2bsd.com&gt; To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Subject: Re: rt11 and disk images Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au Precedence: bulk Hi - 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 :) :) :) 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. 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. 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. 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 Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) id JAA14776 for pups-liszt; Wed, 30 Dec 1998 09:37:12 +1100 (EST) Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-12.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.41]) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id JAA14771 for &lt;pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au&gt;au>; Wed, 30 Dec 1998 09:36:56 +1100 (EST) Received: from [158.152.152.109] (helo=falstaf.demon.co.uk) by post.mail.demon.net with smtp (Exim 2.10 #2) id 0zv7ku-0003ce-00 for pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au; Tue, 29 Dec 1998 22:36:49 +0000 Message-ID: &lt;7OIFxAA4hVi2EwHy(a)falstaf.demon.co.uk&gt; Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1998 22:32:24 +0000 To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au From: Robin Birch &lt;robin(a)falstaf.demon.co.uk&gt; Subject: Bob Supnik's Emulator. MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike (32) Version 3.05 <YSkKJATYm0AxAbv6xUlJqScVOx> Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au Precedence: bulk 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 Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) id JAA14831 for pups-liszt; Wed, 30 Dec 1998 09:49:48 +1100 (EST) Received: from henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (henry.cs.adfa.oz.au [131.236.21.158]) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id JAA14826 for &lt;pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au&gt;au>; Wed, 30 Dec 1998 09:49:40 +1100 (EST) Received: (from wkt@localhost) by henry.cs.adfa.oz.au (8.7.5/8.7.3) id JAA23598; Wed, 30 Dec 1998 09:51:35 +1100 (EST) From: Warren Toomey &lt;wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au&gt; Message-Id: &lt;199812292251.JAA23598(a)henry.cs.adfa.oz.au&gt; 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: &lt;7OIFxAA4hVi2EwHy(a)falstaf.demon.co.uk&gt; from Robin Birch at "Dec 29, 98 10:32:24 pm" 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.edu.au Precedence: bulk In article by Robin Birch: 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 Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) id JAA14858 for pups-liszt; Wed, 30 Dec 1998 09:51:34 +1100 (EST) Received: from caveman.geac.com.au (caveman.geac.com.au [203.30.73.2]) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) with SMTP id JAA14853 for &lt;pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au&gt;au>; Wed, 30 Dec 1998 09:51:26 +1100 (EST) Received: (qmail 11612 invoked from network); 29 Dec 1998 21:55:57 -0000 Received: from brane.geac.com.au (202.6.67.115) by caveman.geac.com.au with SMTP; 29 Dec 1998 21:55:57 -0000 Received: from fgh.geac.com.au by brane.geac.com.au with smtp\n (Smail3.1.29.1 #3) id m0zv7vT-0003l1C; Wed, 30 Dec 98 09:47 AEDT Received: from localhost (dave@localhost) by fgh.geac.com.au (SMI-8.X/SVR4) with ESMTP id JAA22945; Wed, 30 Dec 1998 09:48:10 +1100 Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 09:48:10 +1100 (EST) From: Dave Horsfall &lt;dave(a)fgh.geac.com.au&gt; X-Sender: dave@fgh To: Greg Lehey &lt;grog(a)lemis.com&gt; cc: Unix Heritage Society &lt;pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au&gt; Subject: Re: Converting Sixth Edition man pages In-Reply-To: &lt;19981229184909.O32696(a)freebie.lemis.com&gt; Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.03.9812300947020.22664-100000@fgh> X-No-Archive: Yes X-Witty-Saying: "Tesseract - Enter at own risk" X-Disclaimer: "Me, speak for us?" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au Precedence: bulk On Tue, 29 Dec 1998, Greg Lehey wrote: 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 Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) id JAA14878 for pups-liszt; Wed, 30 Dec 1998 09:55:19 +1100 (EST)