On Tue, Jul 27, 2004 at 11:31:38PM -0500, Doc Shipley wrote:
> OK. I've heard yea and nay on this count.
>
> You're saying that on an RT-11 system (no OS/8 or its hardware to
> play with), I can take an "IBM 3740 Compatible" SSSD disk out of the
> box, run FORMAT/DOUBLE, and have an RX02 diskette? That would help
> quite a lot.
AFAIK, yes... that's true. The RX01 media that DEC used to sell was
"IBM 3740 Compatible", and that's what I remember doing to "turn" RX01Ks
into RX02Ks on an RT-11 system. If anyone has any contradictory
information, please feel free to pipe up.
> Hmm. I need to see if I have a Qbus RXV21 that can run in a 22-bit
> system. Does VMS/VAX support RX02?
I'm pretty sure VMS supports it, but my only experience is with Unibus
hardware - an RX211 on a VAX-11/750. I would hope that an RXV21 works
in a Qbus VAX, but I can't speak from experience.
> Or, yes, there's an RX211 driver in 2.11BSD. Problem is getting it
> *on* the Unibus box. There have been "issues".
Right. I've fiddled with 2.9BSD and gotten over some of those issues
myself. I haven't played at all with 2.11BSD - I've only recently aquired
any hardware that could handle it (KDJ11 CPU card).
> And there's still no way to LL format the target disk.
Of course. This only takes care of part of what you want to do.
> >I wonder what it would take to hook a real RX02 up to modern hardware. The
> >interface isn't complicated, but AFAIK, it would take more than a PeeCee
> >parallel port to drive it. Similar to hooking up a real Commodore 1541
> >to a modern machine and siphoning off a physical backup...
>
> Well, there's an interface to make the PC look like an RX02....
That's right... I remember that. I always wanted to fiddle with that. Last
I heard, it was working with some hosts and not others (PDP-11 vs PDP-8
differences, mostly). It looked interesting, but personally, my problem is
not enough Omnibus controllers to go into all of my machines, as opposed
to not enough drives to go around.
-ethan
--
Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 28-Jul-2004 04:30 Z
South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -99.7 F (-73.2 C) Windchill -132.2 F (-91.2 C)
APO AP 96598 Wind 5.7 kts Grid 103 Barometer 673.6 mb (10868. ft)
Ethan.Dicks_at_amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
Received on Tue Jul 27 2004 - 23:47:33 BST