30 Jan
2005
30 Jan
'05
4:49 a.m.
So I'm in the process of pulling a bunch of files
off of some RX02 disks
to get them onto a PC.
So far (thanks to help from Howard Harte) I've got an 11/44 with an RX02
drive running RSTS that has the DD module loaded. I'm running the serial
tape drive simulator on a PC (I forget what it's called or who wrote it).
So I can do:
COPY DY1:*.* DD0:
Which then copies all the files off of the disk into an image file on my
PC. Works very nicely, albeit slowly (only 9600bps transfer rate).
Is there a better way to do this? I've seen various postings of people
getting RX02 drives connected to Linux boxen. How so? Has anyone done
this?
Although still limited by the 9600 bps transfer rate, I use a program
called VTServer to get disk images from my PDP-11 to my PC. It runs on
my PC, sends an Ultrix image to the PDP-11 and boots in Ultrix. Then
you can use the Ultrix COPY command to copy images from any disk or tape
device on the PDP-11 to a file on the PC. You can also do the reverse,
copy disk image files from the PC to a physical disk on the PDP-11. I've
done both and it works fine as long as the disk on the PDP-11 doesn't
have bad blocks on it. I don't know all the inner workings of VTServer,
I just run it and it works for me. If I've made any mis-statements
about the way it works, someone with more detailed knowledge on its
innards can give a better explanation. I think basically it allows the
PC to function as "Virtual Tape" drive on the PDP-11.
I have recently copied 20+ RK05 disk images, 6 or 8 RL01 images, and
a few RL02 images from actual disks on the PDP-11 to image files on
my PC. These disk image files can be used on the simh simulator as
if they were the actual disks. I've also done the reverse. I SYSGENed
a RSTS/E v7.0 system on simh and copied it to RL02 packs on the
PDP-11. It's faster to SYSGEN a system on simh than it is to do it
on the real hardware.
Other folks have told me that a better way to get files from the -11
to a PC is to install a 9-track tape drive on the -11 and another
9-track drive on your PC. This is much faster. The problem is that
I don't have any 9-track tape drives right now, so that's not an option
for me.
Ashley