Getting files from HP 3000 tapes (was: Re: HP 2000 TSB and FORTRAN)
ED SHARPE
couryhouse at aol.com
Fri Nov 19 16:27:15 CST 2021
It is solved when I have a tape drive at our physical location to restore our tapes to our system buy US.
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On Fri, Nov 19, 2021 at 12:27 PM, Stan Sieler<sieler at allegro.com> wrote: Ed writes: ?If? we? ever? ?get? a? way? to? read? tapes? ? for? the? 2000 and? 3000?
Well, we can "read" tapes for the HP 3000, and restore the files from HP 3000 backup tapes ... via Allegro Consultant's "ROSETTA STORE" product (of which I'm the primary author).
I'm happy to restore some files for fellow collectors/enthusiasts (as time/energy permits) for free.
The problem breaks down into two parts:
1. reading the tape
Although Rosetta can read from a physical tape drive, that capability hasn't been tested for a decade (because of loss of hardware).
Every user we know of uses Rosetta to restore files from tape images.
There are a number of formats of tape images ... quite a number.
Rosetta understands many tape image formats, including: AWS / HET
STORE-to-disk
SIMH
Stromasys tape image
Tapecopy format (Data Conversion Resources)
(Oddly, I think it doesn't understand Allegro's own proprietary tape image format, which records a lot more information than others (e.g., read-retry information).)
If you need an HP 3000 'STORE' tape recovered, and it's in a different format, let me know.
2. extracting files from the tape image
Rosetta can read Classic HP 3000 STORE tapes (aka "CM STORE") of various versions, and MPE/iX STORE tapes (aka "NM STORE") of various versions (although 'interleave' has been tested only very lightly).
By "read" I mean that it extracts the desired files, converts some (with some controls), and creates either a hierarchical directory structure matching the original, or a flattened one.
What about IMAGE databases?On some platforms (Linux, HP-UX, Windows (?)), IMAGE databases can be converted to Eloquence databases (Eloquence is a product of Marxmeier software).On all platforms, IMAGE databases can be converted to .csv or .xml files.
It can also handle SLT tapes, and provide some information on a few other kinds of tapes one might see from an HP 3000 (e.g., dump tapes, Serial Disc images), SPOOK tapes.
Rosetta runs on Mac, Linux, HP-UX, and Windows.
The HP-UX version can read older versions of ORBiT's Online Backup tapes (before they changed the tape record header format)
TL;DR Ed: for the 3000, it's essentially a solved problem, and has been for over 20 years!
Note: I also have a utility to restore files from (older?) Burroughs mainframe (e.g., B6700) backup tapes.
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