Easiest way to get MAINDEC diags onto a PDP-8 (sans paper tape)

-----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk- bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Marc Howard Sent: Monday, January 06, 2014 11:24 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only Subject: Easiest way to get MAINDEC diags onto a PDP-8 (sans paper tape) Hi, I've been bringing up a PDP-8a system over the past few months. It has 2 x TU56 (TC08 controller), 3 x RK05J and a 3rd party RX01 dual floppy. The processor itself is an 8e board set w/EAE and 32K core. As for media I have 7 RK05 packs, one floppy and about 60-75 dectapes. My first attempt at booting was with the RK05. It took a ton of cleaning (and capacitor replacement/reforming) to bring up the 8, followed by cleaning one of the RK05 drives. (BTW, this stuff apparently was in the equvalent of a barn for at least 20 years by what I could see). Anyway I cleaned 2 of the RK05 packs that seemed most likely to be bootable media but no joy. The drive just seeks to cylinder 0 and sits there, although I think a data transfer *might* have occured. I suspect that all of the RK05 packs were for individual user backup. Apparently from the documentation I have this system at one time had a RL01 attached. Next I worked on the better looking of the two TU56's. I've got one drive shuttling okay; the other half has no torque in one direction; I suspect I need to replace yet another AC motor run capacitor. The TC08 checked out okay and I replaced all of the das blinken lights with new bulbs, it looks really cool. Then the big test. I picked out a tape that had a listing with it indicating that it was a system tape of some sort (Focal, editor, etc.) I toggled in the TC08 boot code (since my M8317 has the wrong boot roms for it) and hit run. The tape wound back to the beginning, reversed, seemed to transfer many blocks of data and then just spins in a loop. So the next step would obviously be to run some TC08/TU56 diagnostics but I don't have any way of loading them. If I had an RK05 pack with OS8 + diags on it that would work but I don't see that happening. Perhaps another alternative would be to get the equivalent on RX01 floppies from someone, but I don't even know if the floppy system works yet. So for now I think figuring out how to make a combo terminal emulator/raw data file thingy might be the best way to go. I'm thinking of putting a beagleboard to use for this unless anyone out there has a simpler/quicker solution. Suggestions anyone?