17 Jul
2026
17 Jul
'26
7:30 a.m.
On Fri, Jul 17, 2026 at 11:00 AM Chris Zach via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
Well, you can fit VMS onto an R(M,A, )80 drive with no
problem, the
mighty 11/730 is living proof.
We ran VMS 5.0 on an 11/730 on the internal R80 for years (it was our
VMS 5.x object linking box for deliverables). It fits but is a little
cramped. Room for one copy of our product but not lots of room for
user files.
RD54's though are a lot less power hungry.
RD54s were fine through VMS 5.x. ISTR a buddy of mine put VMS
6.something on an RD54 for me and it was not really large enough. I
think he had to remove the help files.
For our main 11/750, we ran either 4.5 or 4.7 to the last of its days
in 1993 (I forget if we did that last update cycle or not). Our boot
volume was 1/2 of a Fujitsu SMD drive that emulated two RM03s, so DRA0
was 67MB. We might have shoved some system stuff on DRA1.
I'd have to check the SPD for VMS 6.x but it wouldn't surprise me if
200MB was the smallest supported system device.
-ethan