From: "Christopher McNabb" I could help relieve someone of the burden of excess PDP-8 cartridges, too :-)! The question lurking in my mind, though, is are the 'F' cartridges different convert to PDP-8 use.) Vince

If someone can reassure me that the RK05J cartridges can be reformatted for RK05F use, I'd be willing to tear into my RK05Fs to liberate their cartridges. I also can't vouch for my cartridges' usefulness, given the drives have been unused for quite some time, and I have no working -11 to try them with. At least one drive has had the plastic elbow shatter during shipment; hopefully none of the debris made it into the cartridge (but I'd recommend cleaning it before use). Vince

On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 05:30:47AM -0700, vrs wrote: I think a lot of us could... I myself have a number (a few dozen, some with versions of RT-11, some with random contents) of 12-sector packs and one 16-sector F pack (never been able to read it, and I've had it for 20 years!) and one 16-sector J pack. One thing that's come up here a couple of times is what it would take to "convert" either a 12-sector hub to a 16-sector hub, or to modify a drive to read 12 sector marks, but to pass along 16 sector marks to the electronics. Since 12 and 16 share a common denominator of 4, you would be able to keep 4 sector slits intact, block up 8, and make 12 new ones... not impossible, as long as you could keep any aluminum dust off the platter. If anyone has any *crashed* 16-sector packs, it might be worth an experiment to unclamp the hub and put it on a former 12-sector platter, and reformat. I don't know if that's even possible, but it's an idea. Inherently, no, but the F packs have been tested and qualified for twice as many tracks (the differences between an RK05F drive and an RK05J drive are a few jumper settings, different heads, and different mounting mechanisms - the J has the full door and pack guide rails; the F has a blank front-panel and uses a plastic wedge and springs screwed to the pack since it's fixed). Much like taking an ST-225 and formatting it on an RLL controller as if it were an ST-238, it's theoretically possible to take a J pack and mount it in an F drive, but there's a potential for data loss. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 12-Jul-2004 24:00 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -96.4 F (-71.3 C) Windchill -138.4 F (-94.7 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 10.3 kts Grid 076 Barometer 670.8 mb (10973. ft) Ethan.Dicks(a)amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html