3 May
2007
3 May
'07
5:05 p.m.
[excuse this second copy of my reply; worried that my first went into the Great Bit Bucket
In The Sky]
Charles said:
I've got a PDP-11/23+ with 4 Mb RAM, but only one
RL02 and no software
except an XXDP pack. Henk Gooijen helpfully made for me a (RT-11)
bootable pack that is on the way (if the post offices between Europe
and the US don't lose or destroy it). So I definitely want to make a
backup copy.
Is this possible to do with only one drive? Apparently you can't swap
disks back and forth like the old DOS or CP/M systems. Henk thinks
creating a RAM disk would work, and copy files but I don't know
anything about RT-11.
You will have very good success using Will Kranz' TU58 emulation on a PC as an
intermediate store:
http://www.fpns.net/willy/pdp11/tu58-emu.htm
He has a MSDOS flavor and a Linux flavor. I've used the MSDOS flavor as a way to
image RL01s and RL02s for archival on other media (CDROM).
Be sure to read his documentation about patching the DD.SYS driver (renaming it to DW.SYS)
to allow the emulated TU58 to have the same capacity as your RL02 cartridge. Don't
worry, it's not difficult and when I first did this myself I had sub-zero DEC / PDP-11
/ RT-11 experience.
While fairly slow (it is RS-232 serial, after all), the extra benefit your will enjoy
using this method, is that you automatically will have a backup of the installation that
Henk made for you and that you no doubt suffered some small expense to get.
If you have any more questions about using Will's TU58 emulator, feel free to contact
me directly.
- Jared