Xerox Alto on eBay

[Josh Dersch]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Al Kossow
> Sent: Thursday, April 14, 2016 9:22 AM
> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
> Subject: Re: Xerox Alto on eBay
> 
> 
> 
> On 4/13/16 7:52 PM, jwsmobile wrote:
> 
> > Side discussion on Facebook says that media is rare too.  None with
> > the system (I think) from the discussion there.
> >
> 
> I have tons of it. They are 12 sector 2315 packs.
> You have to duplicate it on a two drive Alto, since the format is unique. I've
> heard LCM has written some code to load it from the Alto pack images that I
> created.

Yes, we're able to duplicate packs and write new ones out from disk images.  (At the moment it's kind of cumbersome -- involving a PDP-11/44 with a 3mbit Ethernet board, a seriously hacked 2.11BSD kernel and a bit of luck -- but we're working on a more elegant solution.)  If anyone out there ends up with a working Alto and needs working media, we can help out in that regard (assuming you provide usable packs).

- Josh

Sr. Vintage Software Engineer
Living Computer Museum
www.livingcomputermuseum.org