[TUHS] Help Preserving 8in LSX Floppies?

[Mary Ann Horton via TUHS]

Hi, Matt.

A couple decades ago, someone abandoned an 8" floppy drive on my 
doorstep. I haven't done anything with it, but it's still in my museum.

It's labelled Honeywell, but Google says it's an OEM CDC 9404/9406. It 
has two quarter-sized DIN connectors on the back (for "power" and 
"logic"). The floppy door in front does not latch. It weighs about 17 
pounds. There are no cables (not even a power cable).

I doubt it's very useful, but if you're up for hardware restoration and 
interface I'll work with you to get it to you.

Thanks,

/Mary Ann Horton/ (she/her/ma'am)
       Keynote Speaker on Inclusion and Innovation
       Award Winning Author
maryannhorton.com <https://maryannhorton.com>



On 7/10/26 17:12, segaloco via TUHS wrote:
> Hello, exciting news, I've just received a whole bunch of 8" floppies, among them are two labeled:
>
> UNIX OPERATING SYSTEM LSX
> SYSTEM MASTER (10-29-77)
>
> There are two disks, the second of which additionally bears:
>
> /USR FILE SYSTEM
>
> so presumably the root and usr disks for LSX.  Both are typed labels.  Along with these are 6 with printed listings and hand-written labels indicating snapshots of the /usr directory from one or multiple LSX systems (some are labeled "original", some "development").  Two of the disks are source dumps of a kernel, with one looking like the file listing of a typical V6-ish kernel and the other having some extra LSX-ish bits, but its just path names so couldn't say what is contained therein.
>
> I currently have no means to extract 8" floppies, so wanted to ask if anyone on list is able to?  I can't speak to the FS details although I imagine something like a V6-ish filesystem is involved.  Raw dumps of the disks should allow decoding the FS at a later date.  There are other floppies too, among them some snapshots of UNIX game source code as well as a smattering of RSX-11 and/or RT-11 stuff.
>
> Anywho, if anyone has the machinery, I'll happily pay for the shipping and your time.  In the meantime I'll keep these safely tucked away.  I'm primarily focused on the LSX stuff but maybe the other bits could be interesting too.
>
> - Matt G.