Jerome Fine replies: If anyone has not been able to figure out the answer to that question, or with any of the other PDP-11/44 systems, I am looking for a TU-58 tape drive which I understand came as an external unit with this system. Does anyone have one that they are not using? I understand they were used for diagnostics and if the tapes and manuals are still available, they might still be useful. Otherwise, I have some old tapes I would like to read. On the other hand, I might also be able to locate a few spare DECTAPE II which were the tapes if anyone needs them. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine Year 2000 Solutions for the RT-11 Operating System and Applications (Sources not always required)

Jerome Fine replies: I had not realized that the PDP-11/44 had both internal and external TU-58 drives. I was able to obtain an external model from an old PDP-11/44 some time ago when I needed to replace the internal one When I got the TU-58, both the rollers were worn out and had to be replaced. Finally, I was able to get the external unit to work. Yes, that is true. The problem is that I am afraid that the TU-58 I have is showing signs of problems and I wanted to have a spare if that was possible. Do anyone have a spare external TU-58 available? I don't likely have much use for the TU-58 more than once or twice a year, but I can't predict when it might happen again. As far as RT-11 is concerned, I actually saw RT-11 run on the TU-58, but at the time, the TU-58 was connected to a PC running an emulator under W95. One of the versions of the RT-11 Operating System I ran was from 1978 and was V3.0B of RT-11, or so the banner said when it was booted. Quite a thrill, actually. But, then the other version of RT-11 was V5.4G which had been patched to make it Year 2000 compatible. So, there was an actual 20 year old tape drive that looks like a disk drive under RT-11 that was able to boot both a 20 year old version of the RT-11 Operating System and a 10 year old version of the RT-11 Operating System (well - next month the OS will be 10 years old) which is now able to run for another 100 years until 31-Dec-2099 since the patches were applied to V5.4G to make that OS Y2K. Of course, the real PDP-11 hardware, which is also 20 years old, also still runs both versions of the RT-11 Operating System. Quite a difference between PC hardware and OSs which seem to be so incompatible after only 10 years at the most and often after only 5 years. The only question I am thinking about is whether there will still be runnable PDP-11 hardware for another 100 years. Or as an alternative or fallback, will there be hardware that can run an emulator for another 100 years? From what I have seen, I am more concerned about being able to use an emulator in fallback mode for even as long as real PDP-11 hardware still runs. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine Year 2000 Solutions for RT-11 Operating Systems and Applications (Sources not always required)

Jerome Fine replies: I had not realized that the TU-58 was normally an internal unit. The one I picked up some years ago was an external unit. Perhaps it came I had remembered. Yes, I agree. But every so often, I am asked to read or write one. Any idea of where that "C" source code is? It might be necessary to replace the TU-58. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine Year 2000 Solutions for RT-11 Operating Systems and Applications (Sources not always required)