TDU, TDF and "Doing magtape image archiving" [was: HP 7980S ...]

From: Fred N. van Kempen <Fred.van.Kempen_at_microwalt.nl>
Date: Thu Oct 3 11:22:01 2002

All,

Oooh... hrrm. Didn't realize there was such a lot of interest in
those (already).

The toolkit is basically an API in the shape of a C library, which
handles all the nitty gritty of the TDF (Tape Distribution Format,
aka Tape Dump Format) file format stuff.

The user interface for reading physical tapes to image, writing the
images back to physical tapes, and doing all sorts of weird stuff
with the image files, is handled by a single program called TDU,
the T... Utility. Its synopsis is similar to that of 'tar':

--------------------------------------------------------
TDU version 1.0.15 for OpenBSD on VAX.

Usage: tdu [-f file] [-m maxchunk] [-p path] [-v] cmd [args]

where 'cmd' is one of {c|e|i|p|r|t|w|x}
--------------------------------------------------------

Also, several conversion tools exist to convert between TDF and TAP
(used in Ersatz-11 and SimH simlators) and raw formats.

The tookit is currently in its final First Release testing, at
version 1.0.15. It has been tested with the following systems:

- DOS 6.22 and Win32 DOS box (with ASPI layers for tape I/O)
- Windows 9X, NT 4.0 and 2K, Win32 console app
- DEC Ultrix-32 V4.5 both VAX and MIPS
- OpenBSD/vax V3.1
- DEC Ultrix-11 (on PD-11/83, both real and emulated)
- SunOS 4.1.4 on SPARCstation
- Solaris (cant memebr which one)
- SGI IRIX

Porting to VMS is being done by Robert Alan Byer, of SimH/VMS
fame. Thanks to Tim Shoppa for helping me out with one of those
'does this ever happen?' issues ... :)

I have added TDF support to SimH, so you can just do a

simh> mount mt0: /u/dist/rsx11mplus-4.2-tp1.tdf /wprotect /tdf

in SinH and then boot the tape.

The goal, of course, is to be able to easly get an archive of
software up and running.

Here's sample output of what an RSX-11M Plus V4.2 tape looks
like:

--------------------------------------------------------
(vaxlab)$ tdu tfv rsx11mplus-4.2-tp1.tdf

    TDF version : 1
    CRC-32 : 0x32b466df
    Part # : BB-J083H-BC
    Serial Number : ME109856
    Tape Label : RSX-11M-PLUS V4.2 MT:1600
    Description : BRUSYS STANDALONE COPY SYSTEM
    Copyright : 1989
    Owner : DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION
    

File 0 : blocksize 512 (439 blocks)
File 1 : blocksize 80 (2 blocks)
File 2 : blocksize 80 (1 blocks)
     2 : blocksize 512 (2 blocks)
     2 : blocksize 80 (1 blocks)
     2 : blocksize 512 (1 blocks)
     2 : blocksize 80 (2 blocks)
     2 : blocksize 2560 (1 blocks)
     2 : blocksize 80 (1 blocks)
     2 : blocksize 4144 (28 blocks)
     2 : blocksize 560 (1 blocks)
File 3 : blocksize 80 (2 blocks)
File 4 : blocksize 80 (2 blocks)
File 5 : blocksize 80 (1 blocks)
     5 : blocksize 512 (2 blocks)
   .......
--------------------------------------------------------

All I need to do is testing magtapes written with TDU, and
I need the HP to work for that. The code will be released
for more testing after I merge in Robert Byer's VMS stuff
when he's done.

Cheers,
        Fred
Received on Thu Oct 03 2002 - 11:22:01 BST