Loading an OS onto a real PDP-11 - not an emulator - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

23 Mar 2008

...
  My final problem (Dont hold me to that though) is that
I while I have a 
 number of disk packs, I don't believe that I have anything to boot!!  
 The packs are not really usefully labeled. 
...
  Having trawled the list, I can find many many messages
about archiving 
 data off RL disk packs, and onto archival systems (such as emulators, 
 etc) - bit I cant find anything about how to take a disk image, and put 
 it onto an real RL01 attached to real PDP11 where there is no other 
 media...  I suspect that I have to load in a serial receiver program, 
 and dump an image - but the details are so far, sparse.... 
Hi Doug,

I usually transfer software to my RL packs this way:

1. I prepare a disk image with simh on my PC
2. I transfer the image file with ftp onto my PDP-11/83 (RD54 system disk) 
   running ULTRIX-11 V3.1 (with TCP/IP!)
3. The said PDP-11/83 has got an RL controller & drive and I use both to
   put the image onto a RL disk pack with the help of 'dd'.

This method has proven its reliability several times with different PDP-11 OSses
as well as with XXDP.

Unfortunately you might be missing a PDP-11 capable of running ULTRIX-11 ...

Regards

Ulli

P.S.
A MicroVAX (e.g. MV II) with an RL Controller should do as well.
Copying disk images to real disks with VMS is no problem at all.
I've done it very often with RD3x and RD5x disks.