PDP-11 Freeware CD's under emulators

From: Jerome Fine <jhfine_at_idirect.com>
Date: Sun Nov 21 18:40:59 1999

>CLASSICCMP_at_trailing-edge.com wrote:

> >Perhaps Tim Shoppa or Megan Gentry could comment on the
> >legality of using PUTR to split apart SIG tapes into their smaller
> >DSK files.
> The RT-11 (and RSX-11 and RSTS/E and ...) SIG tapes, like all DECUS
> contributed material, had their authors sign pieces of paper stating
> that the material can be redistributed and repackaged as necessary.
> So there's no problem with manipulating any of these as you need or
> desire.

Jerome Fine replies:

I was also going to ask if it was legal to use the hobby version of the E11
emulator to split apart the SIG tapes. Fortunately that is not necessary
since PUTR is available. But I just took a quick look at all the DSK files
and a few are larger than an RL02 disk pack. Which would mean that
the Supnik emulator would not be able to handle the complete set of
files in those DSKs since no MSCP emulation is available - unless the
Supnik emulator is allowed to address more than 20450 blocks for the
RL02 emulation. It is certainly disappointing to know that there is a
perfectly good hobby emulator available which actually does work, of
course, but is just not allowed to be used on a hobby basis with V5.3 of
RT-11 although V5.3 is allowed to be used on a hobby basis, but only
with an emulator written by DEC - which for the PC hardware running
DOS/W95/W98 is the Supnik emulator.

So for you fellows who are using the Supnik emulator with V5.3 of RT-11
on a PC under DOS/W95/W98, you must still rely on PUTR to legally
extract the DSKs at the very end of the larger ones which exceed the
size of an RL02 as opposed to using the hobby version of E11 with
V5.3 of RT-11. Also, if you have a SCSI CD-ROM drive, PUTR
will allow access to the last 7 partitions on the CD while you would
have to have the "Full" commercial version of E11 to do the same. I
will also investigate the use of the "Full" commercial V2.1A of E11
to access those partitions using an IDE based CD-ROM drive on a
PC and let you know the results.

Sincerely yours,

Jerome Fine
Received on Sun Nov 21 1999 - 18:40:59 GMT