[pups] Needed 2.11BSD 9-track boot tapes

[Steven M. Schultz]

> From: "Gregory R. Travis" <greg at ciswired.com>
> What I have:
> 
> 	11/83, QBUS, 2MB, DH11, running RT-11 5.04 plus TSX
> 		- Kermit is installed on the machine
> 	2x CDC 384MB SMD disks attached to Emulex Controller emulating MSCP
> 	1 DigiData 800/1600 BPI 9-track drive attached to TM-11 emulating
> 	controller

	It wouldn't happen to be an Emulex UC07 or UC08 would it?   If so
	there are a couple possibilities that open up.

> How I can do that:
> 	1.  Kermit transfer of 2.11BSD images to RT-11

	Slow but sure - the sum total of data to move is close to 80mb

> 		q1.  Is there a way to then transfer from RT-11 to one
> 		of the CDC disks?

	I don't think RT-11 understands the 2.11BSD filesystem so I don't think
	this approach can be made to work.

> 		q2.  Is there a way to then transfer from RT-11 to tape
> 		images on the DigiData?

	This can be made to work but it depends on having a program that can
	transfer the the files "bytes as bytes" (no record format 
	interpretation, etc) _and_ handle multiple blocking factors on the
	first tape.

	If you have the PDP-11 volume of the archives you should see in the
	PDP-11/Distributions/ucb/2.11BSD directory two files called 'maketape.c'
	and 'maketape.data'.  It's a small program and if a counterpart to
	that could be created for RT-11 you'd be all set to go.

	The layout of the first tape normally is:

		mtboot+mtboot+boot  (512 byte blocking factor)
		<tapemark>
		disklabel  (1024 byte blocking factor)
		<tapemark>
		mkfs       (1024 byte blocking factor)
		<tapemark>
		restor     (1024 byte blocking factor)
		<tapemark>
		icheck     (1024 byte blocking factor)
		<tapemark>
		root.dump  (10240 byte blocking factor)
		<tapemark>
		file6.tar  (10240 byte blocking factor)
		<tapemark>
		file7.tar  (10240 byte blocking factor)
		<tapemark>
		<tapemark>

	The 2nd tape contains file8.tar blocked at 10240 bytes.

	The "boot" tape really only need to have the first few files, up to
	and including 'root.dump'.   Those are enough to boot the tape,
	run the standalone utilties to label the disk, create the filesystem
	and restor the root filesystem.   The tar archives can be (with
	suitable interpolation of the installation instructions) be placed
	on individual tapes.  This may be necessary because file7.tar may or
	may not fit any longer on the first tape.
	
	Why three blocking factors?   Well, partly historical and partly
	hardware reasons.   The first "file" contains the 'bootblock' and that
	needs to be 512 bytes since that's all the hardware will read.   The
	standalone i/o system uses 1024 byte blocks so the next few files
	use 1k records.  After the standalone utilities are done and the
	system is loaded 'tar' can use its default 20 sector (10kb) record
	size.

> 	2.  A kind soul sends me a set of 9-track 2.11BSD tapes with
> 	boot images.

	My tape drive may or may not work - it's been ages since it was
	last powered up and I fear the rubber parts may have disintegrated
	(or the capacitors dried out, etc).

> 	3.  Other?

	If you could find a TK70+TQK70 drive+controller that would be awesome.
	They're pretty cheap (less than $100 I believe - I didn't pay much
	for mine).   Or even a TK50 drive (almost free) attached to a TQK70
	would be fine. The TQK70 is a vastly better controller than the TQK50
	because the former has a buffer cache that makes a huge difference
	is how often the tape stops moving.

	If the Emulex controller you have is SCSI based (UC07 or 08) then
	someone could stage and make available a 2.11BSD Zip disk image 
	with all the stuff needed to boot and run the installation proceedure
	(I've a Zip disk attached to my UC08 - works great).
	Alternatively a 2.11 formatted CDROM could be created and a CDrom
	drive (that knew about 512 byte blocks instead of 2048 byte blocks)
	could be used.

	Good Luck!

	Steven Schultz
	sms at moe.2bsd.com

Received: (from major at localhost)
	by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.3/8.9.3) id OAA57080
	for pups-liszt; Mon, 14 Aug 2000 14:12:09 +1000 (EST)
	(envelope-from owner-pups at minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au)