VAX6460: VMS 5.4 how to move on?

Hi, O.K. I am delighted! I did boot VMS 5.4 from that RA90 labeled as unit 0. I changed the system password and am now copying ULTRIX filed off the TK50 tape onto disk in order to write them on 9-track trying to boot from there. Of course I will have all sorts of grief because of the weird VMS blocked file formats. For instance, what I read from the tape should look like this on UNIX: -rw-r--r-- 1 operator 17408 May 12 03:44 file0 -rw-r--r-- 1 operator 2091208 May 12 03:45 file1 -rw-r--r-- 1 operator 6594560 May 12 03:47 file2 -rw-r--r-- 1 operator 727040 May 12 03:47 file3 -rw-r--r-- 1 operator 8826880 May 12 03:48 file4 -rw-r--r-- 1 operator 3143680 May 12 03:48 file5 -rw-r--r-- 1 operator 2007040 May 12 03:48 file6 -rw-r--r-- 1 operator 522240 May 12 03:48 file7 -rw-r--r-- 1 operator 665600 May 12 03:48 file8 -rw-r--r-- 1 operator 286720 May 12 03:48 file9 -rw-r--r-- 1 operator 2949120 May 12 03:45 file10 -rw-r--r-- 1 operator 2160640 May 12 03:45 file11 -rw-r--r-- 1 operator 1249280 May 12 03:45 file12 -rw-r--r-- 1 operator 1024000 May 12 03:45 file13 -rw-r--r-- 1 operator 1495040 May 12 03:45 file14 ... -rw-r--r-- 1 operator 276480 May 12 03:47 file38 and what I have copied from TK50 so far looks like this: $ dir /size Directory SYS$SYSROOT:[GUNTHER] FILE.000;1 0 FILE.001;1 0 FILE.002;1 12880 FILE.003;1 1420 FILE.004;1 17240 FILE.005;1 6140 FILE.006;1 3920 FILE.007;1 1020 Total of 8 files, 42620 blocks. O.K. seems like we have file sizes reported in 512 byte blocks. But file 1 didn't come up right. May be that was because of this read error that keeps the tape from booting? Anyway, before I go to bed I will have copied the first set of filed to disk and back to a tape. Either a TK70 or a 9-track and will try to boot. It looks like I'm making progress, finally. However, I ask myself what to do with that VMS 5.4 system disk. Should I keep it and get another drive downstairs for my Ultrix attempts? Should I rather keep this running 5.4 VMS or should I make a fresh install of a VMS 6.1 of which I have tapes? I am a curious person, so I could first dig in the disks for interesting stuff, but then, I rather want to get away from VMS and onto Ultrix and finally NetBSD. So how much are old filesystems worth keeping? I don't have enough tape to back it all up, and even if I had, how would I do this? How can I find UCX on this VMS 5.4 filesystem? It appears as absent. Is there something like find(1) on VMS? Did UCX not exist for VMS 5.4? Could I install it from a VMS 6.1 bin tape? Do I have any chance of using my ethernet for anything like file transfer or NFS without having UCX? thanks much for helping me accross the VMS river :-) regards -Gunther -- Gunther Schadow, M.D., Ph.D. gschadow(a)regenstrief.org Medical Information Scientist Regenstrief Institute for Health Care Adjunct Assistant Professor Indiana University School of Medicine tel:1(317)630-7960 http://aurora.regenstrief.org