3 Feb
2019
3 Feb
'19
11:13 a.m.
Here's a question for someone who has been around long enough to
remember.
Why did none of the available PDP-11 Unixes support the TU-58?
I have looked at Ultrix-11, V7M and BSD 2.11 (didn't try 2.9
but I suspect if it isn't in 2.11 it wasn't in 2.9) and none
of them had support for the TU-58. Seems to me it would have
been a rather simple device to handle as it ran over a serial
line.
bill
3 Feb
3 Feb
12:41 p.m.
TU-58 support wouldn't need to be in the kernel, it could easily run in
user space. Perhaps someone had written an application in user-space to
dump TU-58 tapes.
Aaron.
Bill Gunshannon via cctalk writes:
Here's a question for someone who has been around
long enough to
remember.
Why did none of the available PDP-11 Unixes support the TU-58?
I have looked at Ultrix-11, V7M and BSD 2.11 (didn't try 2.9
but I suspect if it isn't in 2.11 it wasn't in 2.9) and none
of them had support for the TU-58. Seems to me it would have
been a rather simple device to handle as it ran over a serial
line.
bill
--
Aaron Jackson - M6PIU
http://aaronsplace.co.uk/
1:33 p.m.
On 2/3/19 3:41 PM, Aaron Jackson wrote:
TU-58 support wouldn't need to be in the kernel,
it could easily run in
user space. Perhaps someone had written an application in user-space to
dump TU-58 tapes.
I was looking for a device driver and when I didn't find it I
looked at SPD's and release notes, No mention of the TU-58 at
all. And this just as I am about to build a real TU-58 emulator.
:-)
bill
2:13 p.m.
I built support under V6 all in user space. That would be in the early 1980s and I don?t
recall it being very difficult. I suspect others did that as well. Have you tried looking
in the USENIX tapes?
Sent from my iPhone
On Feb 3, 2019, at 4:33 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On 2/3/19 3:41 PM, Aaron Jackson wrote:
TU-58 support wouldn't need to be in the kernel, it could easily run in
user space. Perhaps someone had written an application in user-space to
dump TU-58 tapes.
I was looking for a device driver and when I didn't find it I
looked at SPD's and release notes, No mention of the TU-58 at
all. And this just as I am about to build a real TU-58 emulator.
:-)
bill
5:06 p.m.
On 2/3/19 5:13 PM, GREEN wrote:
I built support under V6 all in user space. That would
be in the early 1980s and I don?t recall it being very difficult. I suspect others did
that as well. Have you tried looking in the USENIX tapes?
I will probably look at writing a driver once I have some systems
running them again. Have any of the USENIX Tapes survived? My
recollection is they weren't very good about preserving things.
bill
6:51 p.m.
My speculation would be that TU58 did not add anything of value or
convenience to these systems.
I used Ultrix-11, V7M, Venix in this era.? My recollection is that in
most cases to build these systems and patch them, you needed regular
access? to 800/1600 BPI tape. Given this relatively standard media, the
addition of a smaller, slower, proprietary secondary tape media would at
best be a low priority.??? Throw in the raise of floppy media, then
Ethernet, it becomes even less so.? Also this was a fixed block type
device, so any use between different OS's would have required additional
utilities and/or OS support to transfer files.
We had TU58's in our VAX 11/750? and few computerized medical systems.?
Only on the later did we ever use them to move data on a regular basis.?
This was for research purposes as vendor had not made any other
arrangements for data offloading.? The TU58's were in a small
semi-portable cabinet.? Thus they could be added and removed quickly w/o
altering the qualification of the medical device.
?Jerry
On 2/3/19 1:13 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
Here's a question for someone who has been around
long enough to
remember.
Why did none of the available PDP-11 Unixes support the TU-58?
I have looked at Ultrix-11, V7M and BSD 2.11 (didn't try 2.9
but I suspect if it isn't in 2.11 it wasn't in 2.9) and none
of them had support for the TU-58. Seems to me it would have
been a rather simple device to handle as it ran over a serial
line.
bill
1931
days inactive
1932
days old
5 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
-
aaron＠aaronsplace.co.uk -
bill.gunshannon＠hotmail.com -
jsw＠ieee.org -
markwgreen＠rogers.com