19 May
2016
19 May
'16
11:41 a.m.
Hi
I'd like to load RSTS/e on my 11/83. I have TK50's available so I
guess the question is how do I get or create an install
TK50 tape with RSTS/e on it
Rod
19 May
19 May
11:54 a.m.
On May 19, 2016 11:42 AM, "Rod Smallwood" <rodsmallwood52 at
btinternet.com>
wrote:
Hi
I'd like to load RSTS/e on my 11/83. I have TK50's available so I
guess
the question is how do I get or create an install
TK50 tape with RSTS/e on it
Rod
If you really want to install from tape use a Q-bus SCSI controller and
SCSI tape drive instead. It will be a lot less painful.
I've had reasonable luck doing that with Exabyte 8mm SCSI drives. (Also
with Pertec interface 9-track drives.) I have had no good luck doing
anything with TK50 drives.
12:15 p.m.
On May 19, 2016, at 2:54 PM, Glen Slick <glen.slick
at gmail.com> wrote:
On May 19, 2016 11:42 AM, "Rod Smallwood" <rodsmallwood52 at
btinternet.com>
wrote:
That's odd, I know DEC used TK50 distribution and I personally have never had problems
with a TK50.
If you can find a TK50 distribution tape, just boot it and follow the instructions in the
installation manual.
If you don't have one, but you can find a 1600 BPI distribution tape, you can
block-copy it to a TK50 and boot that. However, an 800 BPI tape won't work because it
won't boot on a TMSCP controller.
Oh yes, you need to make sure the RSTS in question is one that supports the TK50. I
forgot exactly when that appeared. It certainly isn't in RSTS V7, which is a widely
available version.
paul
Hi
I'd like to load RSTS/e on my 11/83. I have TK50's available so I
guess
the question is how do I get or create an install
TK50 tape with RSTS/e on it
Rod
If you really want to install from tape use a Q-bus SCSI controller and
SCSI tape drive instead. It will be a lot less painful.
I've had reasonable luck doing that with Exabyte 8mm SCSI drives. (Also
with Pertec interface 9-track drives.) I have had no good luck doing
anything with TK50 drives.
12:37 p.m.
On 19/05/2016 20:15, Paul Koning wrote:
I'm not overly worried about it being on TK50 other than knowing that
was one of the distribution mediums.
So a quick rephrase of the question. I have an 11/83 system with an RX50
and an RD54. How do I install RSTS on it?
Rod
On May 19,
2016, at 2:54 PM, Glen Slick <glen.slick at gmail.com> wrote:
On May 19, 2016 11:42 AM, "Rod Smallwood" <rodsmallwood52 at
btinternet.com>
wrote:
That's odd, I know DEC used TK50 distribution and I
personally have never had problems with a TK50.
If you can find a TK50 distribution tape, just boot it and follow the instructions in the
installation manual.
If you don't have one, but you can find a 1600 BPI distribution tape, you can
block-copy it to a TK50 and boot that. However, an 800 BPI tape won't work because it
won't boot on a TMSCP controller.
Oh yes, you need to make sure the RSTS in question is one that supports the TK50. I
forgot exactly when that appeared. It certainly isn't in RSTS V7, which is a widely
available version.
paul
Hi
I'd like to load RSTS/e on my 11/83. I have TK50's available so I
guess
the question is how do I get or create an install
TK50 tape with RSTS/e on it
Rod
If you really want to install from tape use a Q-bus SCSI controller and
SCSI tape drive instead. It will be a lot less painful.
I've had reasonable luck doing that with Exabyte 8mm SCSI drives. (Also
with Pertec interface 9-track drives.) I have had no good luck doing
anything with TK50 drives.
1:12 p.m.
On May 19, 2016, at 3:37 PM, Rod Smallwood
<rodsmallwood52 at btinternet.com> wrote:
...
I'm not overly worried about it being on TK50 other than knowing that was one of the
distribution mediums.
So a quick rephrase of the question. I have an 11/83 system with an RX50 and an RD54. How
do I install RSTS on it?
Regular RSTS/E, you don't. Given RX50s, you'd need a Micro-RSTS kit. That's
not all that different from regular RSTS; it's a bit stripped down, but mostly it has
a different installation procedure to deal with the fact that it's packaged on a pile
of tiny little floppies.
paul
1:24 p.m.
On 05/19/2016 01:12 PM, Paul Koning wrote:
Regular RSTS/E, you don't. Given RX50s, you'd
need a Micro-RSTS kit.
That's not all that different from regular RSTS; it's a bit stripped
down, but mostly it has a different installation procedure to deal
with the fact that it's packaged on a pile of tiny little floppies.
I thought that the Zenith Minisport was the only system to use tiny
little floppies... :)
--Chuck
1:38 p.m.
On Thu, 19 May 2016, Chuck Guzis wrote:
I thought that the Zenith Minisport was the only
system to use tiny
little floppies... :)
Like a too-curious-ferret I had to weasel out what you were talking about
from duckduckgo:
http://www.oldcomputers.net/zenith-minisport.html
Neato. I remember seeing those floppies for use with Japanese digital
cameras (I worked in Japan for a while for a subsidary of NTT-Dokomo).
That's a pretty cool looking laptop, too. I liked those LCD screens
("SuperTwist" ?) where you could adjust both the contrast and intensity.
My eyes aren't great, and that always helped.
-Swift
9:19 p.m.
Rod Smallwood wrote:
I'm not overly worried about it being on TK50
other than knowing that
was one of the distribution mediums.
So a quick rephrase of the question. I have an 11/83 system with an
RX50 and an RD54. How do I install RSTS on it?
Why do you want to use the PDP-11/83? Do you want
to run RSTS/E or just exercise the PDP-11/83 hardware?
If your answer is running RSTS/E, there is much more
convenient hardware than a PDP-11/83.
If you want to exercise the PDP-11/83, the solution I
understand is to use a hammer when you only have a nail.
If you don't know how to prepare a TK50 tape that self boots
and then does a restore of RSTS/E, then you might resort to
using RT-11. Backup each RT-11 partition under either
SimH or Ersatz-11. The restore using the RX50 drive and
copy each RT-11 partition to the RD54 from the TK50 file
images.
Of course, you need to be able to write to a TK50 tape
under SimH or Ersatz-11. You also have to take care
of block 65535 for each RT-11 partition since I don't
know if RT-11 will backup it up. If you need some help
with this, I will try and figure it out as long as you test
to determine if you can write to a TK50 tape in the first
place.
Jerome Fine
11:47 p.m.
On 20/05/2016 05:19, Jerome H. Fine wrote:
Hi Jerome
Thanks for the answer.
1. The system is going into an exhibit. There will be an assortment of
DEC terminals attached
2. The guy who is going to look after it has years of RSTS user knowledge.
3, There are several systems available all 11/83. All with RD54
4. They are working and boot RSX .
5. I cant remember how to remember how to prepare a bootable RSTS
install tape (I last did the course in 1983)
6. I do have a copy of RSTS V9 and I know the version supports TK50.
Its a .tap image
7. So its a case move the image over to my VAX from my PC. My network
can do that.
8. Then make the tape boot and install RSTS
9 . How do I do that?
Rod
Rod Smallwood
wrote:
I'm not overly worried about it being on TK50
other than knowing that
was one of the distribution mediums.
So a quick rephrase of the question. I have an 11/83 system with an
RX50 and an RD54. How do I install RSTS on it?
Why do you want to use the PDP-11/83? Do you want
to run RSTS/E or just exercise the PDP-11/83 hardware?
If your answer is running RSTS/E, there is much more
convenient hardware than a PDP-11/83.
If you want to exercise the PDP-11/83, the solution I
understand is to use a hammer when you only have a nail.
If you don't know how to prepare a TK50 tape that self boots
and then does a restore of RSTS/E, then you might resort to
using RT-11. Backup each RT-11 partition under either
SimH or Ersatz-11. The restore using the RX50 drive and
copy each RT-11 partition to the RD54 from the TK50 file
images.
Of course, you need to be able to write to a TK50 tape
under SimH or Ersatz-11. You also have to take care
of block 65535 for each RT-11 partition since I don't
know if RT-11 will backup it up. If you need some help
with this, I will try and figure it out as long as you test
to determine if you can write to a TK50 tape in the first
place.
Jerome Fine
20 May
20 May
6:46 a.m.
Rod Smallwood wrote:>
On 20/05/2016 05:19, Jerome H. Fine wrote:
Hi Jerome
Thanks for the answer.
1. The system is going into an exhibit. There will be an assortment of
DEC terminals attached
2. The guy who is going to look after it has years of RSTS user
knowledge.
3, There are several systems available all 11/83. All with RD54
4. They are working and boot RSX .
5. I cant remember how to remember how to prepare a bootable RSTS
install tape (I last did the course in 1983)
6. I do have a copy of RSTS V9 and I know the version supports TK50.
Its a .tap image
7. So its a case move the image over to my VAX from my PC. My
network can do that.
8. Then make the tape boot and install RSTS
9 . How do I do that?
As I mentioned, the ONLY advice that I can offer is what to
do with an image file on a system that supports SimH and / or
Ersatz-11. AFTER RSTS/E is installed on such a system
within an image file that is the same size as an RD54, then
assuming you can copy file images to physical TK50 media
on that same system, I can probably figure out how to do it
under RT-11, i.e. how to copy each RT-11 partition of the
RD54 (actually the image file the size of an RD54) with the
installed RSTS/E files to TK50 images although in the past
I have never used TK50s under Ersatz-11, just under a real
DEC PDP-11/83 (actually TK70s, but the software is the
same).
Are you that far at this point?
Maybe if you can find someone who knows how to produce
a bootable TK50 media would be easier. One thing that I
would be concerned over is that a TK50, if I remember
correctly, can't hold much more than 50 MB, so if the image
file of the RD54 holds more than that many files, you will
need more than one TK50 media of data.
If you go the RT-11 method, each TK50 will need to hold
32 MB at most, so there will not be a problem.
Jerome Fine
Rod
Smallwood wrote:
I'm not overly worried about it being on TK50
other than knowing
that was one of the distribution mediums.
So a quick rephrase of the question. I have an 11/83 system with an
RX50 and an RD54. How do I install RSTS on it?
Why do you want to use the PDP-11/83? Do you want
to run RSTS/E or just exercise the PDP-11/83 hardware?
If your answer is running RSTS/E, there is much more
convenient hardware than a PDP-11/83.
If you want to exercise the PDP-11/83, the solution I
understand is to use a hammer when you only have a nail.
If you don't know how to prepare a TK50 tape that self boots
and then does a restore of RSTS/E, then you might resort to
using RT-11. Backup each RT-11 partition under either
SimH or Ersatz-11. The restore using the RX50 drive and
copy each RT-11 partition to the RD54 from the TK50 file
images.
Of course, you need to be able to write to a TK50 tape
under SimH or Ersatz-11. You also have to take care
of block 65535 for each RT-11 partition since I don't
know if RT-11 will backup it up. If you need some help
with this, I will try and figure it out as long as you test
to determine if you can write to a TK50 tape in the first
place.
Jerome Fine
7:01 a.m.
On May 20, 2016, at 2:47 AM, Rod Smallwood
<rodsmallwood52 at btinternet.com> wrote:
...
1. The system is going into an exhibit. There will be an assortment of DEC terminals
attached
2. The guy who is going to look after it has years of RSTS user knowledge.
3, There are several systems available all 11/83. All with RD54
4. They are working and boot RSX .
5. I cant remember how to remember how to prepare a bootable RSTS install tape (I last
did the course in 1983)
Install tapes for V9 or later are weird constructs; they are partly DOS and partly ANSI
format. I don't remember the messy details.
6. I do have a copy of RSTS V9 and I know the version
supports TK50. Its a .tap image
If you have a TAP image of a good installation tape, the best answer is to copy that to
the physical tape, because then it will definitely work. Trying to construct one out of
pieces isn't as easy.
7. So its a case move the image over to my VAX from
my PC. My network can do that.
8. Then make the tape boot and install RSTS
9 . How do I do that?
If you have a way to make TK50 tapes from TAP images, then I'd suggest this:
1. Make a TK50 install tape from a TAP image of a known good install tape. Remember that
installation tapes have to be write locked when you boot them to be recognized as an
install tape.
2. Do just the first steps of the install, just what's needed to copy the sysgen
environment to the disk.
3. Do a full backup of your SIMH setup to tape (TAP image), with the Backup command. That
will create a simple tape, nothing nearly as strange as a kit tape. Then copy that image
to another TK50.
4. Put the backup TK50 into your 11/83 system and do a full restore.
5. Reboot and use the INSTALL command in Init to select the regular system SIL that you
copied in step 4. Proceed with startup; you should now be all set.
paul
3138
days inactive
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