25 Jan
2014
25 Jan
'14
11:37 a.m.
It looks like I might have an extra RK05j available, but first, a question:
Can a reasonable PDP-11/45 system be made using a single RK05? The
Yes, but...
RT11 will run on a single RK05. It will certainly run on an 11/45. I
think most other OSes do need more than 2.5M of disk sapce though (IIRC
V.5 Unix origianlly ran on 2 RK05s, one as '/', the other as '/usr', for
example).
The 'but' is that doind backups on single RK05 system is a PAIN. I think
there were programs that would read a few tracks into meory, then let you
swap disks, and write them out again. The problem is that on an RK05 you
have to wait quite a time for it to spin down, then change the cartridge,
and wait quite a time for it for it to spin up again. This gets boring
fast!
Of course if you sre goign to do backups to the magtape only, this is not
a problem
-tony