[pups] How to arrange bootable media for 2.11BSD?

Steven M. Schultz sms at moe.2bsd.com
Tue Oct 10 14:36:03 AEST 2000


Greetings -

> From: Martijn van Buul <pino at dohd.org>
> I've about given up hope to create a 2.11 boottape myself[1], so I'm wondering
> what to do next. I have this MicroPDP, with a DELQA network card, a PC

	It is an 11/53 or better (73, 83, 93)?   There were numerous "MicroPDP"
	systems made but some of them were 11/23 or 23+ and those will not
	run 2.11BSD

> 5.25" diskdrive shoe-horned into working as RX33 and a TK50 tape drive.
> If it helps: I've managed to get Kermit running on the PDP, but I haven't
> figured out if it is possible to "kermit" to the tapedrive directly. Probably
> not.

	What OS did you manage to get Kermit running under?   I do not believe
	Kermit itself can handle the multiple block sizes used when writing
	the files that make up the "boot tape".   Do you have any development
	facilities on the currently running system?   If so then it might be
	possible to write a program to create a tape from the files brought
	over via kermit.

> Any hints?

	First shoot the individuals mentioned in [1]? ;)

	If you've a PC with a 5.25" drive and the ability to do image copies
	to it ('dd' on a *BSD* or Linux system) that might be one way to
	get 2.11 over to the MicroPDP.    A single RX33 can easily hold the
	standalone programs (boot, disklabel, restore, mkfs, icheck) and
	it only takes 3 or 4 RX33 disks to hold a root filesystem dump.
	The bad part is that the GENERIC kernel lacks networking due to
	space contraints.   Someone would have to create a custom kernel+
	networking root filesystem and create 3 or 4 RX33 images to be dd'd
	out to floppies.    Then, once a networking based root filesystem
	was loaded it should be possible to get pull the remaining data
	over the network with a "rsh ... | tar ..." command.

	Much depends on the ability to create floppy disks from images on a PC 
	that can be read on the RX33 which the PDP-11 has.  If that works
	then the rest will be timeconsuming (and the install instructions
	will of course be heavily modified ;)) but at least possible.

	Steven Schultz
	sms at moe.2bsd.com



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