11 Feb
2015
11 Feb
'15
4:56 p.m.
All,
I have the SC-40 home safe and sound.
Before I go ANY further...I want to image the boot/microcode drives which
aren't 512-byte sectors. What's the best approach?
My options are a VAX netbooting VMS or netbooting NetBSD (install doable
for that one.)
Thanks!
--
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects
5:16 p.m.
On Wed, 11 Feb 2015, Al Kossow wrote:
--
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects
On 2/11/15 1:56 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
Should be. I don't believe CompuServe did anything too silly.
netbooting NetBSD (install doable for that one.)
You'll need to put something together that can talk to the raw scsi interface
and issue
your own read commands. Are they common command set drives?
5:48 p.m.
On Feb 11, 2015, at 4:16 PM, Cory Smelosky <b4 at
gewt.net> wrote:
What, actually, is the blocksize? 1024 or ?
On Wed, 11 Feb 2015, Al Kossow wrote:
Should be. I don't believe CompuServe did anything too silly. On 2/11/15 1:56 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
netbooting NetBSD (install doable for that one.)
You'll need to put something together that can talk to the raw scsi interface and
issue
your own read commands. Are they common command set drives?
--
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects
6:04 p.m.
On Wed, 11 Feb 2015, Roe Peterson wrote:
576 or 2304.
--
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects
On Feb 11, 2015, at 4:16 PM, Cory Smelosky <b4
at gewt.net> wrote:
What, actually, is the blocksize? 1024 or ?
On Wed, 11 Feb 2015, Al Kossow wrote:
Should be. I don't believe CompuServe did anything too silly. On 2/11/15 1:56 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
netbooting NetBSD (install doable for that one.)
You'll need to put something together that can talk to the raw scsi interface and
issue
your own read commands. Are they common command set drives?
--
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects
6:51 p.m.
What, actually, is the blocksize? 1024 or ?
576 or 2304.
8:17 p.m.
Sent from my iPhone
On Feb 11, 2015, at 18:51, Roe Peterson
<roeapeterson at gmail.com> wrote:
36 bit, right. Sorry -:)
No worries! If you want a video in uploading the winner of the 2015 award for worst
cinematography right now. ;)
What, actually, is the blocksize? 1024 or ?
576 or 2304.
And serious congratulations on the 40s. I worked on decsystem 20s back in the day; very
nice machines.
Thanks! I'm excited to get 'em running!
In fact, an early Unix project was to (essentially) duplicate the OPR system, including
the COMND(?) jsys, so our operators didn't have to learn a new set of procedures.
(This was an actuarial/pension mgmt company with 3 Tops-20 systems)
6:06 p.m.
On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 3:48 PM, Roe Peterson <roeapeterson at gmail.com> wrote:
What, actually, is the blocksize? 1024 or ?
I have no idea specifically about the SC40, but in general when a
PDP-10 (36-bit machine) when using byte-oriented media uses 576-byte
sectors, in order to store a PDP-10 128x36 block. That's what DEC did
on the HSC50/RA81. (Note that you can only use an RA81 with a
factory-supplied 576-byte HDA; there's no way to field-reformat an
RA81 HDA to a different sector size due to the use of embedded servo.)
6:15 p.m.
On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 3:16 PM, Cory Smelosky <b4 at gewt.net> wrote:
On Wed, 11 Feb 2015, Al Kossow wrote:
I don't have any special insight into it, but wouldn't it have been a
matter of whether Systems Concepts did anything too silly? Surely
Compuserve must have purchased whatever kind of drives SC specified
for use with the SC40, even when Compuserve built the machines
themselves.
SC certainly wasn't a large enough purchaser of disk drives that any
of the mainstream disk manufacturers would have built anything
particularly special for them. However, there were a lot of standard
SCSI drives that could be formatted with a user-specified block size.
Some allowed arbitrary size within a range, while others only had a
few specific choices.
Are they common command set drives?
Should
be. I don't believe CompuServe did anything too silly.
6:20 p.m.
On Wed, 11 Feb 2015, Eric Smith wrote:
On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 3:16 PM, Cory Smelosky <b4
at gewt.net> wrote:
Hmmmm.
On Wed, 11 Feb 2015, Al Kossow wrote:
I don't have any special insight into it, but wouldn't it have been a
matter of whether Systems Concepts did anything too silly? Surely
Compuserve must have purchased whatever kind of drives SC specified
for use with the SC40, even when Compuserve built the machines
themselves.
Are they common command set drives?
Should
be. I don't believe CompuServe did anything too silly. SC certainly wasn't a large enough purchaser of
disk drives that any
of the mainstream disk manufacturers would have built anything
particularly special for them. However, there were a lot of standard
SCSI drives that could be formatted with a user-specified block size.
Some allowed arbitrary size within a range, while others only had a
few specific choices.
Looks like an HP C2247.
--
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects
7 p.m.
On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 6:20 PM, Cory Smelosky <b4 at gewt.net> wrote:
Looks like an HP C2247.
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/hp/disc/scsi/5960-8346_C2240_Technic…
9:16 p.m.
On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 5:00 PM, Jim Carpenter <jim at deitygraveyard.com> wrote:
That confirms that the drive can be formatted for physical sector
sizes with any even byte count between 180 and 744, and logical block
sizes of 1, 2, 4, or 8 sectors, so 576 byte sectors work, and 576-byte
or 2304-byte logical blocks work.
12 Feb
12 Feb
6:18 p.m.
From: Eric Smith
Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2015 3:16 PM
On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 3:16 PM, Cory Smelosky <b4
at gewt.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 11 Feb 2015, Al Kossow wrote:
>> Are they common command set drives?
> Should be. I don't believe CompuServe did
anything too silly.
I don't have any special insight into it, but
wouldn't it have been a
matter of whether Systems Concepts did anything too silly? Surely
Compuserve must have purchased whatever kind of drives SC specified
for use with the SC40, even when Compuserve built the machines
themselves.
SC certainly wasn't a large enough purchaser of
disk drives that any
of the mainstream disk manufacturers would have built anything
particularly special for them. However, there were a lot of standard
SCSI drives that could be formatted with a user-specified block size.
Some allowed arbitrary size within a range, while others only had a
few specific choices.
I don't believe that Stewart ever did anything with SCSI disks. When I
spoke to some of the CompuServe alumni last year, they mentioned that
they had created the SCSI interface for their SC-40 boxes, and did all
the monitor development work for it.
XKL had the same issue in the 1990s. We ended up sourcing Seagate
Barracudas with OEM (that was us) microcode to allow for a 2304 byte
sector size.
Rich
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer
Living Computer Museum
2245 1st Avenue S
Seattle, WA 98134
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/
7:35 p.m.
On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 4:18 PM, Rich Alderson
<RichA at livingcomputermuseum.org> wrote:
I don't believe that Stewart ever did anything
with SCSI disks. When I
spoke to some of the CompuServe alumni last year, they mentioned that
they had created the SCSI interface for their SC-40 boxes, and did all
the monitor development work for it.
Thanks for the explanation. I had been under the misimpression that
SCSI disks were standard on the SC-40, and that the microcode emulated
Massbus drives.
Eric
7:38 p.m.
Keep in mind I'm discussing the boot drive, not general expansion. THAT might be
emulation.
Sent from my iPhone
On Feb 12, 2015, at 19:35, Eric Smith <spacewar at
gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 4:18 PM, Rich Alderson
<RichA at livingcomputermuseum.org> wrote:
I don't believe that Stewart ever did
anything with SCSI disks. When I
spoke to some of the CompuServe alumni last year, they mentioned that
they had created the SCSI interface for their SC-40 boxes, and did all
the monitor development work for it.
Thanks for the explanation. I had been under the misimpression that
SCSI disks were standard on the SC-40, and that the microcode emulated
Massbus drives.
Eric 
11 Feb
11 Feb
5:17 p.m.
netbooting
NetBSD (install doable for that one.)
You'll need to put something together
that can talk to the raw scsi
interface and issue your own read commands. 
5:25 p.m.
On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 5:17 PM, Mouse <mouse at rodents-montreal.org> wrote:
This isn't THAT difficult. Build a kernel with nothing but sg on the
relevant ID/LUN and then use something like cdparanoia as an example of
how to issue your own SCSI commands.
It's been a while since I fiddled with NetBSD, but would sg3_utils be
a good starting point for how to tackle this?
http://linux.die.net/man/8/sg3_utils
I'm also curious if these are HVD or LVD drives (I remember long
cables on the units at WorldCom, so I doubt they are single-ended).
-ethan
netbooting NetBSD (install doable for that one.)
You'll need to put something together that can talk to the raw scsi
interface and issue your own read commands. 
12 Feb
12 Feb
4:42 a.m.
On Wed, 11 Feb 2015, Ethan Dicks wrote:
It's been a while since I fiddled with NetBSD, but
would sg3_utils be
a good starting point for how to tackle this?
http://linux.die.net/man/8/sg3_utils
Right, and I think especially sg_dd should be capable of this task.
Christian
11 Feb
11 Feb
5:47 p.m.
On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 04:56:57PM -0500, Cory Smelosky wrote:
Before I go ANY further...I want to image the
boot/microcode drives
which aren't 512-byte sectors. What's the best approach?
If you can dig up a DOS PC (FreeDOS should be fine but not an emulated or
virtualized DOS) with a SCSI adapter that's old enough to have a DOS ASPI
driver available, my PUTR.COM *should* be able to do it. (Never tested
with non-512-b/s sectors, but it uses the sector size reported by the drive
rather than hard-coding for 512 so it should work.) www.dbit.com/putr and
the commands would be something like:
mount x: scsi1: /foreign
copy /file /dev x: image.dsk
HTH,
John Wilson
D Bit
6:05 p.m.
On Wed, 11 Feb 2015, John Wilson wrote:
On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 04:56:57PM -0500, Cory
Smelosky wrote:
Hmmmmm. Not sure if My SCSI adapter'd let me connect this drive to it...
Before I go ANY further...I want to image the
boot/microcode drives
which aren't 512-byte sectors. What's the best approach?
If you can dig up a DOS PC (FreeDOS should be fine but not an emulated or
virtualized DOS) with a SCSI adapter that's old enough to have a DOS ASPI
driver available, my PUTR.COM *should* be able to do it. (Never tested
with non-512-b/s sectors, but it uses the sector size reported by the drive
rather than hard-coding for 512 so it should work.) www.dbit.com/putr and
the commands would be something like:
mount x: scsi1: /foreign
copy /file /dev x: image.dsk
HTH,
John Wilson
D Bit
--
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects
6:08 p.m.
On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 06:05:29PM -0500, Cory Smelosky wrote:
Hmmmmm. Not sure if My SCSI adapter'd let me
connect this drive to it...
Well if you manage it and want to try PUTR, let me know of any problems.
If it doesn't work, I'll make it work! This is just the kind of wacky
project it's for. Congrats on the awesome hardware!
John Wilson
D Bit
6:37 p.m.
On Wed, 11 Feb 2015, John Wilson wrote:
On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 06:05:29PM -0500, Cory
Smelosky wrote:
Thanks!
Can't get my VAXstation 4000/VLC to give me a console (Must be a day
ending in 'day') and can't find any PC cards. Up to making it work on
VMS? ;)
Hmmmmm. Not sure if My SCSI adapter'd let me
connect this drive to it...
Well if you manage it and want to try PUTR, let me know of any problems.
If it doesn't work, I'll make it work! This is just the kind of wacky
project it's for. Congrats on the awesome hardware!
John Wilson
D Bit
--
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects
17 Feb
17 Feb
11:48 a.m.
On 2/11/15, 4:56 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
All,
I have the SC-40 home safe and sound.
Before I go ANY further...I want to image the boot/microcode drives
which aren't 512-byte sectors. What's the best approach?
My options are a VAX netbooting VMS or netbooting NetBSD (install
doable for that one.)
Thanks!
I've had very good luck cloning scsi drives with non standard sector
sizes using linux. I did it all from the command line using the "sg"
device interface. It does the reads "by hand" so it's a little slow but
it works fine. I can dig up the command line I used if you need.
I would set up linux box with a good scsi card if I were you.
-brad
11:51 a.m.
ddpt (related to sg_utils) did the trick on FreeBSD!
Sent from my iPhone
On Feb 17, 2015, at 11:48, Brad Parker <brad at
heeltoe.com> wrote:
On 2/11/15, 4:56 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
All,
I have the SC-40 home safe and sound.
Before I go ANY further...I want to image the boot/microcode drives which aren't
512-byte sectors. What's the best approach?
My options are a VAX netbooting VMS or netbooting NetBSD (install doable for that one.)
Thanks!
I've had very good luck cloning scsi drives with non standard sector
sizes using linux. I did it all from the command line using the "sg" device
interface. It does the reads "by hand" so it's a little slow but it works
fine. I can dig up the command line I used if you need.
I would set up linux box with a good scsi card if I were you.
-brad
3438
days inactive
3444
days old
24 comments
11 participants
participants (11)
-
aek＠bitsavers.org -
b4＠gewt.net -
brad＠heeltoe.com -
cc＠informatik.uni-stuttgart.de -
ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
jim＠deitygraveyard.com -
mouse＠Rodents-Montreal.ORG -
RichA＠LivingComputerMuseum.org -
roeapeterson＠gmail.com -
spacewar＠gmail.com -
wilson＠dbit.com