dig mine out if you're serious about wanting to do this), the RL's 'ready' lampholder has 4 internal switch contacts, which are opened/closed by the shape of the top and bottom edges of the 2 side pegs on the lamp cap. In the RL, only 2 of the contacts are used, as a binary encoding of the unit number.Oh yes, there's a fifth cotnact that detects there is a cap in place (and disables the drive if not). I wouldn't mess about with the lamp cpas themsleves, since any modifications are not easily reversed. What I would to is remove the front panel from the drive, remocve the switch/indicator PCB from that and do the changes there. Now, what I can't remember (as I said, I'll check the prints if you're serieous), is whether a closed contact is a '1' or a '0'. If it's the former, then the kludge is easy. Just solder a wire across the least-significant contact, and your drive 0 becomes drive 1. If it's the latter, then either cut the trace ot the least significant contact (so it appears open to the rest of the electronics), or remove the lamp cap, and solder a jumper across the 'cap present' contact, and across the most siginificant drive number conact. Doing it that way has the advantage that it'll be easy to undo the mods when you want to put the PDP8/a back together. -tony

Charles did not tell completely what I suggested, but since I am not sure how to do it either, I would like to know ... I also suggested the obvious ones, get the 2nd drive connected and do some kludge work on the READY/UNIT indicator/plug. Since Charles' 11/23+ has 4 Mb of memory ... I remember I once had a visitor (some 5 years go!) who showed me how to use the extra memory (core) in my 11/35 as a "RAM disk". I don't remember which RT11 command(s?) he used, but creating a RAM disk is definitely possible! So, if you copy the system files that you need to run RT11 to the RAM disk *and* you can boot RT11 from that RAM disk, you can use the rest of the RAM disk space to copy a few files from the RL02 disk, swap the RL02 disk and copy the files from RAM to disk, etc. You need the RAM disk for RT11 too, because you can not simply swap the RL02 disk, because RT11 is running from it! Ethan did point that out. So, here is the question I have. After creating the RAM disk, and copying the necessary system files to the RAM disk, is it possible to *boot* from the RAM disk, like .BOOT dev:RT11FB.SYS ? And what would "dev" be? I also would like to know what commands create the RAM disk! thanks, - Henk. This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for use by the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a 'reply' message. Thank you for your co-operation.