TU58 dump tool on Linux?

[Paul Koning]

> On Jun 10, 2020, at 5:33 PM, Jon Elson via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> 
> On 06/10/2020 02:06 PM, Mattis Lind via cctalk wrote:
>> Is there anyone that has already built a tool to dump TU58-tapes on a Linux
>> machine? I have the drive of course.
>> 
>> There is PUTR. But it is DOS only and is written in assembler so it cannot
>> be ported easily. The other option is running RT11 on a PDP-11, but then
>> there is the hassle of getting the dumps off the RT11 file system.
>> 
> Wait, isn't a TU58 actually connected by plain serial port?  That should be fairly easy to write a
> dump program for.
> 
> Jon

Yes, it connects to a serial port.  But on that serial port it speaks some sort of protocol that implements a block access service.  So what you actually have to do is implement that protocol.  I have never looked at it (never wanted to touch a TU58), but it's been done, so there's probably code that can be used.  With that, the next step is to tie it to an implementation of the RT11 file system, which is a simple matter.

	paul