Hi,
I've been making progress with my pdp11/53 project. Once I figured out
how to get into Emulex F.R.D. mode from ODT, I was able to configure,
format, and test my QD01 connected MFM hard drive.
I'd like to try installing 2.11BSD. Although I've got a TK50 drive
and controller, I don't have any tapes, or anything else here that
can write to them.
I have a Quantum DLT8000 SCSI drive, and an Emulex UC07 scsi controller.
I was able to set the UC07 as the first TMSCP controller, and F.R.D on
the UC07 reports the DLT8000 drive, and tests writing and reading to
tapes loaded in the drive with no errors.
I followed the 2.11BSD setup.ps and HOWTO file instructions to create
a tape with dd, using a Sun Solaris SPARC server connected to the DLT8000.
It seems silly trying to install an OS on a 70MB MFM drive from an
80GB DLT tape, but that's what I've got to work with so far, and my
UC07 can't do TMSCP and MSCP at once, so no SCSI disks if I'm installing
from SCSI tape.
Back on the 11/53, if I try to "BOOT MU0", the DLT tape spins for a few
seconds encouragingly, but then I get:
KDJ11-D/S E.03
Media not bootable
Should I be able to boot the 2.11BSD boot block on an 11/53 from a
TMSCP connected SCSI tape drive? The BSD setup.ps file includes bootstrap
monitor examples for TM and TS tape drives. Do I need to use one of
these instead of the normal 11/53 bootstrap ROM? Or, maybe there is
something about block sizes and writing the tapes from Sun Solaris SPARC
dd that means they aren't compatible?
Alternate paths I could take might be installing 2.11BSD using VTserver,
or maybe using PUTR or an emulator to set up OS directly onto a SCSI hard
drive or zip drive for use on the 11/53, but I liked the idea of doing it
with tape if I can figure out how. I have successfully booted the 11/53
from an RT11 RX33 floppy I created with PUTR, for what
it's worth.
Mark
--
Mark G. Thomas (Mark at
Misty.com)