WH-27 Problems (was RE: Heathkit H8's, H9's and H-11's) - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

19 Apr 2007

...

Subject: Re: WH-27 Problems (was RE: Heathkit H8's, H9's and H-11's)
   From: "Ethan Dicks" <ethan.dicks at gmail.com>
   Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2007 09:31:25 -0400
     To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at
classiccmp.org>

On 4/19/07, Robert Armstrong <bob at jfcl.com> wrote:
    The [W]H-27 drives were both the best and the
most disappointing part of
 the H-11 system... 
  Yes, most people would not be impressed by a
drive that can format
 diskettes, but real DEC RX01/2 users never knew this joy. 
And, except for Rainbow uses, most RX50 users never knew this joy, either. 
Other than Robin (Vt180), Rainbow and Vaxmate (sorta PC) formatting a disk
was unheard of.  The first vax widely available that could format it's hard 
disk or a floppy was the Microvax-2000 without resorting to diagnotic 
software kits (MDM for VAX or XXDP for PDP11).

...
 >   So the bottom line is that if you want to run
standard RT-11 on the H-11,
> you have to set the switch to RX-01 mode and you have the equivalent of an
> RX01 drive.  No double density, and no formatting. 
...
 Perhaps, but, then again, with a "custom" OS,
there might have been
some check somewhere in the Monitor to enforce compliance.  It will be
interesting to take apart the OS and see where the differences lie.
One could then, presumably, build a patch kit to "transform" a genuine
RT-11 kit into HT-11, as folks already do with various versions of
Infocom adventures (i.e. - *you* get a legitimate copy of the game
file, then acquire and apply patches to it to turn it into the
different release versions of the game.  Since the patches are based
on a known quantity and aren't themselves the game, they are made
freely available) 
It was simpler than that.  It was an old version of RT11 and from that 
version to current the driver structure apparently is different enough
to not work.  However if you used drivers from V2.x HT11 was happy.

...
 I have never seen one, but another list member has
offered to send me
some H-11 media.  Once I get things working, I'll see about archiving
it. 
I'd have to dig as I have media and tu58 tape that overlaps that timeframe
and OS use. Not anytime soon as I'm ripping the room apart to build a 
new desk in.

Allison