8 Jan
2025
8 Jan
'25
8:23 p.m.
On 1/8/25 19:22, Rich Alderson via cctalk wrote:
A 7 track tape should have the 36 data bits across 6
frames, unlike the 9 track
usage of 5x8 with zero padding in the 5th.
Someone familiar with the TENEX file system (i. e., TOPS-20 lite) should be
able to decipher the block headers easily enough. There's at least one of us
on the list.
I'm familiar with the data format; back around 1975, a DEC CE friend
smuggled a tape (don't recall if it was 7 or 9 track) of Colossal Cave
Adventure to me. I figured out the 36 bit 5 x 7bit character scheme
back then and got the thing running on a Cyber 74 running SCOPE. Darned
thing spread like wildfire at SVLOPS to the extent that COMSOURCE wrote
a "search and destroy" program.
Did Tenex employ the Rad50 file naming scheme?
--Chuck