27 May
2014
27 May
'14
11:52 a.m.
From: Al Kossow
Sent: Friday, May 23, 2014 11:15 AM
On 5/23/14 10:42 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> I did wonder why the SIMH TAP had no header,
basically saying what's in the
> file.
I guess it is all due to it just being hacks upon
DECUS .tpc format.
It is completely inadequate for archival purposes
because of the lack of
metadata and fixity information in the file.
I had heard several years ago that there was some work
on a proper archival
container format for variable-block length magnetic media but I've never seen
a spec for it.
I would think one exists by now at the Library of
Congress with all of the
media conversion work they've been doing.
http://www.boogles.com/local/papers/tcfs-thesis/thesis.html
I had great hopes at one time for the Time Capsule File System designed at MIT
by Alan Bawden and Brian Zuzga. The URL is for an on-line version of the
latter's senior thesis describing it.
The only system using it at all of which I'm aware is the KLH10 emulator (which
can read all of .tpc, .tps, and .tap, as well); TCFS was used for some of the
ITS instantiation on the kn10-ks emulated processor.
It now seems less adequate, but it was designed to be extensible. The addition
of pictures of the physical medium is something I came up with for a project
here. I'm glad to know others have had the same idea in other projects.
Rich
Rich Alderson
Sr. Systems Engineer
Living Computer Museum
2245 1st Avenue S
Seattle, WA 98134
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/