18 Oct
2016
18 Oct
'16
11:32 a.m.
OK, I have a fairly large collection of VAX 4000 and VAXStation 3000
systems which I have fun with and use with both OpenVMS and OpenBSD
over the years....
But, I also have two big rubbermade containers (about half a cubic
meter) filled with TK50 and TK70 tapes which I have never used.
Some are blank, some are the boot & install media for VMS 5.5, some are
software installations, etc. etc.
In the past 25 years that I have had them, I have not once ever used
my TK50 or TK70 drives...I've always either booted off the attached
disks or netbooted.
Should I just throw these things out? Do any collectors consider them
to be valuable? Since it's now 2016 and I think the last TK tapes were
made in the 1990s, I'm getting the urge to toss them.
Opinions? Comments?
---------------
Thomas "PDP-11" Dzubin
Vancouver, Calgary, or Saskatoon; CANADA
18 Oct
18 Oct
11:38 a.m.
On 18 October 2016 at 16:32, Thomas Dzubin <dzubint at vcn.bc.ca> wrote:
Some are blank, some are the boot & install media
for VMS 5.5, some are
software installations, etc. etc.
Hi Thomas,
Have you got an install media set for VAX Dibol 4.2? Someone here was
looking for a copy a few weeks ago.
--
adrian/witchy
Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest home computer collection?
www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk
12:27 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Adrian
Graham
Sent: 18 October 2016 16:38
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: Are DEC TK50/TK70 tapes worth hanging onto?
On 18 October 2016 at 16:32, Thomas Dzubin <dzubint at vcn.bc.ca> wrote:
I realise it is a big task to ask you to do, but if you could inventory the tapes it would
really help.
Regards
Rob
Some are blank, some are the boot & install
media for VMS 5.5, some
are software installations, etc. etc.
Hi Thomas,
Have you got an install media set for VAX Dibol 4.2? Someone here was
looking for a copy a few weeks ago.
18 Oct
18 Oct
4:05 p.m.
On Tue, Oct 18, 2016 at 11:32 AM, Thomas Dzubin <dzubint at vcn.bc.ca> wrote:
OK, I have a fairly large collection of VAX 4000 and VAXStation 3000
systems which I have fun with and use with both OpenVMS and OpenBSD
over the years....
But, I also have two big rubbermade containers (about half a cubic
meter) filled with TK50 and TK70 tapes which I have never used.
Some are blank, some are the boot & install media for VMS 5.5, some are
software installations, etc. etc.
In the past 25 years that I have had them, I have not once ever used
my TK50 or TK70 drives...I've always either booted off the attached
disks or netbooted.
Should I just throw these things out? Do any collectors consider them
to be valuable? Since it's now 2016 and I think the last TK tapes were
made in the 1990s, I'm getting the urge to toss them.
Opinions? Comments?
Good question, there are those capstans that may not hold their shape,
ruining the tapes. I have a box of RK05s, one has VMS 4.6 label, no idea
if it works. But there it is.
b
4:42 p.m.
Thomas,
I could use a few TK50 tapes, especialy it it has install for VMS! I am
currently looking for a Microvax II system :-)
Thanks!
--barrym
On Tue, Oct 18, 2016 at 2:05 PM, william degnan <billdegnan at gmail.com>
wrote:
On Tue, Oct 18, 2016 at 11:32 AM, Thomas Dzubin
<dzubint at vcn.bc.ca> wrote:
OK, I have a fairly large collection of VAX 4000 and VAXStation 3000
systems which I have fun with and use with both OpenVMS and OpenBSD
over the years....
But, I also have two big rubbermade containers (about half a cubic
meter) filled with TK50 and TK70 tapes which I have never used.
Some are blank, some are the boot & install media for VMS 5.5, some are
software installations, etc. etc.
In the past 25 years that I have had them, I have not once ever used
my TK50 or TK70 drives...I've always either booted off the attached
disks or netbooted.
Should I just throw these things out? Do any collectors consider them
to be valuable? Since it's now 2016 and I think the last TK tapes were
made in the 1990s, I'm getting the urge to toss them.
Opinions? Comments?
Good question, there are those capstans that may not hold their shape,
ruining the tapes. I have a box of RK05s, one has VMS 4.6 label, no idea
if it works. But there it is.
b
8:18 p.m.
If any of those tapes are relevant to my VAX-11/730, then they might interest me.
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
19 Oct
19 Oct
1:25 p.m.
On 19/10/16 01:18, Mark J. Blair wrote:
If any of those tapes are relevant to my VAX-11/730,
then they might interest me.
I know that there was a Unibus TK50 interface but I would have thought
either
TU58 or 9-track would have been a more likely software delivery mechanism
for a VAX-11/730 back in the day.
Antonio
--
Antonio Carlini
arcarlini at iee.org
1:58 p.m.
On Oct 19, 2016, at 10:25 , Antonio Carlini
<a.carlini at ntlworld.com> wrote:
On 19/10/16 01:18, Mark J. Blair wrote:
I would much rather use either emulated TU58 or real 9-track for installation. I think I
would need to boot from TU58 in any case. But I don't have any 9-track installation
media, and I've had no luck yet getting real TU58 tapes working. I would certainly be
interested in getting my hands on probably-good TU58 and 9-track installation media
relevant to my 11/730. I'm only expressing interest in the TK50 media (which I've
also had poor luck with) because I haven't tripped over better options yet.
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
If any of those tapes are relevant to my
VAX-11/730, then they might interest me.
I know that there was a Unibus TK50 interface but I would have thought either
TU58 or 9-track would have been a more likely software delivery mechanism
for a VAX-11/730 back in the day. 
8:04 p.m.
On Wed, Oct 19, 2016 at 1:25 PM, Antonio Carlini <a.carlini at ntlworld.com> wrote:
On 19/10/16 01:18, Mark J. Blair wrote:
TUK50 - M7547. Very rare (not many people really wanted to read or
write TK50 tapes when they could so easily use 9-track from a Unibus
machine).
If any of those tapes are relevant to my
VAX-11/730, then they might
interest me.
I know that there was a Unibus TK50 interface ... but I would have thought
either TU58 or 9-track would have been a more likely software delivery
mechanism for a VAX-11/730 back in the day.
Indeed (or RL02... that was a valid distribution medium choice,
especially since most of the 11/730s had an RL02 on top not a magtape
drive.
-ethan
8:51 p.m.
On Oct 19, 2016, at 5:04 PM, Ethan Dicks
<ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
I?m especially interested in accumulating good RL02 packs. I?m even working on a project
to add a USB interface to one of my RL02 drives for imaging and writing packs.
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
... but I would have thought
either TU58 or 9-track would have been a more likely software delivery
mechanism for a VAX-11/730 back in the day.
Indeed (or RL02... that was a valid distribution medium choice,
especially since most of the 11/730s had an RL02 on top not a magtape
drive. 
20 Oct
20 Oct
2:38 a.m.
New subject: RL02 packs available [Was: Re: Are DEC TK50/TK70 tapes worth hanging onto?]
On Wed, Oct 19, 2016 at 05:51:06PM -0700, Mark J. Blair wrote:
I?m especially interested in accumulating good RL02 packs. I?m even
working on a project to add a USB interface to one of my RL02 drives
for imaging and writing packs.
I have more RL01 and RL02 packs than I need, some still in original
packaging.
If you are seriously interested I could muster up the energy to test
them and put them in the mail.
/P
3:04 a.m.
New subject: RL02 packs available [Was: Re: Are DEC TK50/TK70 tapes worth hanging onto?]
On Oct 19, 2016, at 11:38 PM, Pontus Pihlgren
<pontus at Update.UU.SE> wrote:
On Wed, Oct 19, 2016 at 05:51:06PM -0700, Mark J. Blair wrote:
I have a small pile of packs, some of which look unused. I keep my eyes open for more,
since I don?t know it I have more than I need yet. :)
Do any of your extra RL02 packs have potentially interesting contents, such as software
that might be useful for my VAX-11/730 or my future PDP-11/44 restoration?
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
I?m especially interested in accumulating good RL02 packs. I?m even
working on a project to add a USB interface to one of my RL02 drives
for imaging and writing packs.
I have more RL01 and RL02 packs than I need, some still in original
packaging.
If you are seriously interested I could muster up the energy to test
them and put them in the mail.
3:09 a.m.
New subject: RL02 packs available [Was: Re: Are DEC TK50/TK70 tapes worth hanging onto?]
On Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 12:04:40AM -0700, Mark J. Blair wrote:
I have a small pile of packs, some of which look unused. I keep my
eyes open for more, since I don?t know it I have more than I need yet.
:)
Do any of your extra RL02 packs have potentially interesting contents,
such as software that might be useful for my VAX-11/730 or my future
PDP-11/44 restoration?
My packs come from a PDP-11/34 system. So there are some XXDP and RT-11
packs. I look to image them before I ship them off.
/P
11:17 a.m.
New subject: RL02 packs available [Was: Re: Are DEC TK50/TK70 tapes worth hanging onto?]
On Oct 20, 2016, at 00:09, Pontus Pihlgren <pontus
at Update.UU.SE> wrote:
My packs come from a PDP-11/34 system. So there are some XXDP and RT-11
packs. I look to image them before I ship them off.
I have an XXDP 2.5 pack, but I don't think I have any with RT-11 on them. One or two
RT-11 packs could be useful to help me get bootstrapped. No hurry, though. It'll still
be quite a while before my PDP-11/44 project bubbles to the top.
If anybody listening has RL02 packs with installation stuff suitable for my VAX-11/730,
that would really interest me.
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
4:24 p.m.
New subject: RL02 packs available [Was: Re: Are DEC TK50/TK70 tapes worth hanging onto?]
Hello,
I would be interested in a few RL-02 packs with DDXP or RT-11 on them. Any
idea what you would want for them?
Matt
On Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 1:38 AM, Pontus Pihlgren <pontus at update.uu.se>
wrote:
On Wed, Oct 19, 2016 at 05:51:06PM -0700, Mark J.
Blair wrote:
--
Matt Patoray
Owner, MSP Productions
KD8AMG
I?m especially interested in accumulating good RL02 packs. I?m even
working on a project to add a USB interface to one of my RL02 drives
for imaging and writing packs.
I have more RL01 and RL02 packs than I need, some still in original
packaging.
If you are seriously interested I could muster up the energy to test
them and put them in the mail.
/P
21 Oct
21 Oct
4:31 p.m.
New subject: RL02 packs available [Was: Re: Are DEC TK50/TK70 tapes worth hanging onto?]
On Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 03:24:28PM -0500, Matt Patoray wrote:
Hello,
I would be interested in a few RL-02 packs with DDXP or RT-11 on them. Any
idea what you would want for them?
Not really :) A bit of patience is necessary though. I don't know if
the RL drives I have access to is working.
But seeing that at least two persons care I'll bump it up the TODO-list.
/P
Matt
On Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 1:38 AM, Pontus Pihlgren <pontus at update.uu.se>
wrote:
On Wed, Oct 19, 2016 at 05:51:06PM -0700, Mark J.
Blair wrote:
--
Matt Patoray
Owner, MSP Productions
KD8AMG
I?m especially interested in accumulating good RL02 packs. I?m even
working on a project to add a USB interface to one of my RL02 drives
for imaging and writing packs.
I have more RL01 and RL02 packs than I need, some still in original
packaging.
If you are seriously interested I could muster up the energy to test
them and put them in the mail.
/P
18 Oct
18 Oct
8:37 p.m.
On 10/18/2016 08:32, Thomas Dzubin wrote:
But, I also have two big rubbermade containers (about half a cubic
meter) filled with TK50 and TK70 tapes which I have never used.
In the past 25 years that I have had them, I have not once ever used
my TK50 or TK70 drives...I've always either booted off the attached
disks or netbooted.
Nothing wrong if that's what's worked for you. Glad to hear you've used
and enjoyed the machines.
Should I just throw these things out? Do any
collectors consider them
to be valuable? Since it's now 2016 and I think the last TK tapes were
made in the 1990s, I'm getting the urge to toss them.
Opinions? Comments?
I think it would be a shame to just thrown them out, though ultimately
it's your call.
I don't know if anybody considers them "valuable," if you mean "can I
make some sweet cash selling them on eBay?" Which doesn't mean you
couldn't sell them on eBay, I just wouldn't expect much from it.
I think they're useful to folks who have drives that can use them, and
they aren't nearly as fragile as QIC or helical scan drives (4mm, 8mm)
of a similar age.
If you're amenable, perhaps somebody within BC might be interested in
them and willing to pick them up? I would, if I were close to one of the
cities you listed...
--S.
19 Oct
19 Oct
1:23 p.m.
On 18/10/16 16:32, Thomas Dzubin wrote:
But, I also have two big rubbermade containers (about half a cubic
meter) filled with TK50 and TK70 tapes which I have never used.
Some are blank, some are the boot & install media for VMS 5.5, some are
software installations, etc. etc.
In the past 25 years that I have had them, I have not once ever used
my TK50 or TK70 drives...I've always either booted off the attached
disks or netbooted.
I don't use TK50 tapes very often, but when I do, it's either to boot a
VAX from cold
(and install VMS) or to make a standalone backup.
As for the value of the tapes, I've no idea about monetary value, but -
in my view - they
are part of the culture associated with the machines. I probably
wouldn't use TK50 to
install software as I already have it on CD and can set up an infoserver
on the home
network if needed, but back in the day there were plenty of machines
which had no easy
way to talk to a CD-ROM. When I worked in DEC that wasn't an issue,
again because
there were infoservers around. When I was a customer, tapes were the
only viable option for
a few of the machines (and for one it had to be 9-track tapes).
I expect that you'll get a few offers to take the carts off your hands.
Antonio
--
Antonio Carlini
arcarlini at iee.org
20 Oct
20 Oct
7:14 a.m.
Hi,
I search some time for TK50/TK70 media for my MVII, and 3600 so I'm
Interested.
By now I have the need for the following tapes, if you have them.
>>>biggest need>>>
- MVII DIAG
MAINT TK50
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
- MVII DIAG CUST TK50
- VMS V5.5-1 BIN TK50
- VMX XYZ BIN TK50 xx/nn
- VMS LIC KEY BIN TK50
- MICROVMS xyz BIN TK50
- DEC TCP/IP SER VMS xyz TK50
And any other MVII or Microvax 3600 TK70 related Tape ;-).
I know, that there is only a 50% chance, that they are still readable,
but with view onto my QIC and other old media, it looks like I have some
luck, in using old tape media.
Many Greetings
Ulrich
8:23 a.m.
New subject: Old versions of Emacs
Hello,
I'm looking for old versions of Emacs. I want to preserve them for the
future. By "old", I mean roughly released before 1990. Or before GNU
Emacs 19.7.
I'm interested in having the most complete set of GNU Emacs release
there can be. Tarballs are great, but diffs are also good. These
releases are missing so far:
- 19.0-19.6; these were never released publicly.
- 18.56, 18.50-18.42, and everything before 18.41.
- All 17.x except 17.61 and 17.60.
- All 16.x except 16.56.
- Everything older, except 13.8.
I also have a few versions of TECO EMACS (MIT/ITS/TOPS-20), Lisp Machine
Zwei/Zmacs, Multics Emacs, and Gosling Emacs. And a pretty complete set
of Lucid Emacs and XEmacs releases.
Best
5:46 p.m.
New subject: Old versions of Emacs
Any chance you can share your archive? I went looking for emacs 17
years ago and couldn't find it... I have several ancient CDROMs that
have "internet archives" that have random versions of stuff on them,
including emacs. I'll see if I can help you, but it will be emacs the
18 stuff only (maybe)
Warner
On Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 6:23 AM, Lars Brinkhoff <lars at nocrew.org> wrote:
Hello,
I'm looking for old versions of Emacs. I want to preserve them for the
future. By "old", I mean roughly released before 1990. Or before GNU
Emacs 19.7.
I'm interested in having the most complete set of GNU Emacs release
there can be. Tarballs are great, but diffs are also good. These
releases are missing so far:
- 19.0-19.6; these were never released publicly.
- 18.56, 18.50-18.42, and everything before 18.41.
- All 17.x except 17.61 and 17.60.
- All 16.x except 16.56.
- Everything older, except 13.8.
I also have a few versions of TECO EMACS (MIT/ITS/TOPS-20), Lisp Machine
Zwei/Zmacs, Multics Emacs, and Gosling Emacs. And a pretty complete set
of Lucid Emacs and XEmacs releases.
Best
5:58 p.m.
New subject: Old versions of Emacs
Warner Losh wrote:
Any chance you can share your archive?
Oh, sure! For now, my most ethical repository is this:
https://gitlab.com/larsbrinkhoff/emacs-history
But I'd be happy to mirror it on savannah.
I went looking for emacs 17 years ago and couldn't
find it...
Turns out 4.3BSD had a copy!
I have several ancient CDROMs that have "internet
archives" that have
random versions of stuff on them, including emacs. I'll see if I can
help you, but it will be emacs the 18 stuff only (maybe)
Those CDs sound exactly like where random versions of Emacs might turn
up. 18 is fine. I'm especially irked that I haven't found 18.56.
21 Oct
21 Oct
12:17 a.m.
New subject: Old versions of Emacs
Chuck Guzis wrote:
Lars Brinkhoff wrote:
I am! I looked in 4.2BSD, but didn't find any Emacs.
Emacs in 1983 would have been Gosling Emacs, I guess. RMS started
working on GNU Emacs in September 1984.
Turns out 4.3BSD had a copy!
It goes back
before then--I can remember using it on early BSD around
1983. I can look around, if you're really curious. 
1:24 p.m.
New subject: Old versions of Emacs
Do you have any of the ?GNU? emacs versions that were derived from Unipress/Gosling emacs,
prior to the clean-room rewrite of the Gosmacs code? (Were those ever widely
distributed?)
? Chris
2:48 p.m.
New subject: Old versions of Emacs
Chris Hanson wrote:
Do you have any of the ?GNU? emacs versions that were
derived from
Unipress/Gosling emacs, prior to the clean-room rewrite of the Gosmacs
code? (Were those ever widely distributed?)
I seem to have stumbled upon a GNU Emacs 13.8. I'll post this
src/display.c snippet as evidence:
/-------------\
/ \
/ \
/ \
| XXXX XXXX |
| XXXX XXXX |
| XXX XXX |
\ X /
--\ XXX /--
| | XXX | |
| | | |
| I I I I I I I |
| I I I I I I |
\ /
-- --
\-------/
XXX XXX
XXXXX XXXXX
XXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX
XXXXX XXXXX
XXXXXXX
XXXXX XXXXX
XXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX
XXXXX XXXXX
XXX XXX
**************
* BEWARE!! *
**************
All ye who enter here:
Most of the code in this module
is twisted beyond belief!
Tread carefully.
If you think you understand it,
You Don't,
So Look Again.
3:16 p.m.
New subject: Old versions of Emacs
Starting my trek through old tape archives, I can find EMACS (all caps)
mentioned in 1978. (MIT labs). Is there any earlier mention?
--Chuck
3:51 p.m.
New subject: Old versions of Emacs
Chuck Guzis write:
Starting my trek through old tape archives, I can find
EMACS (all caps)
mentioned in 1978. (MIT labs). Is there any earlier mention?
Yes. Files in MIT's ITS systems documents the early EMACS history well.
For example, MC:EAK;EMACS LORE.
David Moon:
In August 1976, a bunch of hackers decided it was time
to write a new
editor, using the sharable-library and named-commands (MM) technology
developed by Tmacs, but intended for general use. Tmacs was not
really set up to be used by anyone but its maintainers, and I think
every user had a different set of key bindings, although by that time
it was in use by perhaps eight or ten people. The new editor, which
was initially called "?" because that was a command name which could
not be typed to DDT, was supposed to take full advantage of the TV
keyboards, to have a more sensible and consistent set of commands, to
have good self-documentation, and to be faster than Tecmac. ? was
intended to woo people away from Tecmac.
The initial work, up to the point of a semi-usable system, was done by
GLS. Later, RMS got interested in his indefatigible fashion, put in a
large number of features, and made Teco changes to greatly increase
the efficiency and flavorfulness. The editor was renamed to Emacs
(abbreviated E) in imitation of the name of the Stanford editor, which
it otherwise does not resemble.
Notes: Tmacs, Tecmac, etc were several competing macro packages for
TECO. GLS = Guy Steele. RMS = Richard Stallman.
22 Oct
22 Oct
9:45 a.m.
New subject: Old versions of Emacs
I seem to have stumbled upon a GNU Emacs 13.8.
I'll post this
src/display.c snippet as evidence:
[...skull-and-crossbones with text warning...]
That looks identical to the comment at the head of display.c from the
Gosling derivative I use. Presumably one is derived from the other...?
/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
1:49 p.m.
New subject: Old versions of Emacs
Mouse <mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG> writes:
Yes, it's the same in the copy of Gosling Emacs I got. I asked Gosling
himself, and he referred me to Brian Reid. He got it from Gosling in
1983, and it was modified at DEC over the years. What pedigree is your
copy?
I seem to have
stumbled upon a GNU Emacs 13.8. I'll post this
[...skull-and-crossbones with text warning...]
That looks identical to the comment at the head of display.c from the
Gosling derivative I use. Presumably one is derived from the other...?
5:13 p.m.
New subject: Old versions of Emacs
[...skull-and-crossbones with text warning...]
That looks identical to the comment at the head of display.c from
the Gosling derivative I use.
2837
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32 comments
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