14 Jan
2004
14 Jan
'04
9:10 a.m.
This may seem silly, but it occured to me this morning (musing about how
to boot an old 11/34) that I could use a device which would pretend to
be an actual tape drive.
There are lots of tape images out there (on the web) in the form of big
disk files. It would be nice to be able to turn one of my pc's into a
"virtual tape drive" by plugging a cable from the pc into a TS11
controller...
Has anyone ever seen such a device? seems like it would not be that
hard to build (he said, never having looked at the interface between a
physical tape drive and a controller like a TS11).
I hope to find an old RL01/2 drive around the Boston area (anyone?) but
even when I do it seems bootstrapping will be an issue. Even if I grab
one of those Dilog controllers which talk SCSI I'll need some way to
load up the drives initially. It's just that those 9-track drives are
*really heavy* :-)
any comments appreciated!
-brad
14 Jan
14 Jan
9:29 a.m.
This may seem silly, but it occured to me this morning
(musing about how
to boot an old 11/34) that I could use a device which would pretend to
be an actual tape drive.
You can take a look at 'vtserver', though it seems to only be for Unix (I'm
not positive about this, as I've not looked into it much).
I hope to find an old RL01/2 drive around the Boston
area (anyone?) but
even when I do it seems bootstrapping will be an issue. Even if I grab
one of those Dilog controllers which talk SCSI I'll need some way to
load up the drives initially. It's just that those 9-track drives are
*really heavy* :-)
If you get RL02 drives, and a MicroVAX (Q-Bus) with an RLV12 controller to drive the
RL01/RL02 drives, there are a few tricks that you can pull to get an OS onto the packs.
Still, that might be a lot more hardware to collect.
Zane
--
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
9:43 a.m.
"Zane H. Healy" wrote:
You can take a look at 'vtserver', though it seems to only be for Unix (I'm
no
t positive about this, as I've not looked into it much).
Excellent suggestion - I especially like the first stage boot code in
octal. (I'm serious actually, it means I can boot from nothing, which
is what I need).
ftp://minnie.tuhs.org/pub/PDP-11/Vtserver/README
It looks like it will do what I want. (I have fun memories of RSTS/E but
it's BSD that I want).
If you get RL02 drives, and a MicroVAX (Q-Bus) with an
RLV12 controller to dri
ve the RL01/RL02 drives, there are a few tricks that you can pull to get an OS
onto the packs. Still, that might be a lot more hardware to collect.
No such thing as too much... :-) besides, my Symbolics 3600 is getting
lonely.
thanks!
-brad
11:53 p.m.
On Jan 14, 2004, at 2:29 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote:
I don't know about booting another OS directly from vtserver, but
I've successfully copied a BRUSYS image to RX02 with it, and booted
This may seem
silly, but it occured to me this morning (musing about
how
to boot an old 11/34) that I could use a device which would pretend to
be an actual tape drive.
You can take a look at 'vtserver', though it seems to only be for Unix
(I'm not positive about this, as I've not looked into it much). from the resulting disk. ISTR that there's also a
method to make a
vtserver-bootable xxdp image, but I've not tried it.
If you get RL02 drives, and a MicroVAX (Q-Bus) with an
RLV12
controller to drive the RL01/RL02 drives, there are a few tricks that
you can pull to get an OS onto the packs. Still, that might be a lot
more hardware to collect.
Heh. I've got SDI with functional RA60s and media, TU80, several
miles of tape, RX02s with exactly two(2) working floppy disks and about
30 pounds of 8-inch bulk-erased coasters, and a borrowed RT-11
v5.<mumble> install set on 8-inch media, except Disk 1 has about 3
critical corrupt files on it.
I apparently own the licenses for both RT-11 v5.x and RSX11M on this
box (very long story), but the previous owner bulk-erased *all* the
storage media except the disk packs (and wrote zeroes, then trash files
then zeroes again, to the disk packs). Including all the distribution
media.
It's enough to make a grown man cry. I've got BSD running on it, but
frankly, I've got a metric assload of Unix boxes that are more
interesting as Unix servers and cheaper to run. I wanted something
that's unique to my PDP-11.
<pout>
Doc
5:19 a.m.
FYI: Did you see the 9-Track Tape on auction on e-Bay, looks like an RSX-11
distribution....
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces(a)classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of John Allain
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2004 10:31 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: physical tape drive emulation? ts-11?
From: Doc Shipley <doc(a)mdrconsult.com>
I wanted something that's unique to my PDP-11.
<pout>
What kind of PDP?
...and I'll add that I'm working on the same problem
myself, and am 99.93% of the way towards RSX-11,
and 90% the way towards RT-11.
John A.
9:13 a.m.
On Jan 15, 2004, at 10:19 AM, David V. Corbin wrote:
FYI: Did you see the 9-Track Tape on auction on e-Bay,
looks like an
RSX-11
distribution....
I have 2 or 3 reels that have very similar labels, and a couple
labeled "TCPWare". All bulk-erased. I'm not paying ~$75.00 for a
distribution tape that may or may not be intact.
Actually, if I can get proof that license was conferred with the
machinery - not unlikely in this instance - I can get the install media
pretty easily, including the TCPWare.
Doc
10:24 a.m.
On Jan 15, 2004, at 9:30 AM, John Allain wrote:
From: Doc Shipley <doc(a)mdrconsult.com>
11V03-L (32KW, RX02)
11/53 (1.5MB, RD51/RX33)
11/83* (TZ30, RZ26, DEQNA)
11/93 (4MB, RZ24)
11/84 (2MB, RA60, TU80, RX02)
11/84* (4MB, UDA50, DEUNA, RL02 board)
* Not running yet. The 11/83 needs memory and a cab kit for the CPU
(it came with the cab kit off an 11/23+), and the second 11/84 I just
brought home, and don't have any storage attached to it yet. Haven't
powered it up, for that matter.
I wanted something that's unique to my
PDP-11.
<pout>
What kind of PDP? ...and I'll add that I'm working on the same
problem
myself, and am 99.93% of the way towards RSX-11,
and 90% the way towards RT-11.
I have Qbus SCSI (should include a tested TSZ07 by week's end), TZ30,
TLZ06, RX33, RX50, and a Qbus RX02 adapter (that isn't tested yet), so
I can transcribe nearly anything. I *should* have a decent supply of
RX02 disks in a couple of weeks. A friend has a setup that will do the
LLF, and we're doing some trading.
Anything I can help with or test, let me know.
BTW, I have a 50-pound box of RZ26 disks from a guy who upgraded a
bunch of SBBs, pretty much fee for the price of shipping and materials,
if anyone needs some. They're untested.
Doc
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