Date: Fri, 16 Aug 1996 14:49:35 -0400 (EDT) From: Bill/Carolyn Pechter <pechter@shell.monmouth.com> To: hackers@freefall.freebsd.org, dgy@rtd.com Subject: Re: hackers-digest V1 #1386 Message-ID: <199608161849.OAA27138@shell.monmouth.com> In-Reply-To: <199608161822.LAA05013@freefall.freebsd.org> from "owner-hackers-digest@freefall.freebsd.org" at Aug 16, 96 11:22:33 am
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> > From: Don Yuniskis <dgy@rtd.com> > Date: Fri, 16 Aug 1996 08:57:12 -0700 (MST) > Subject: Re: File System on a tape > > It seems that Alan Batie said: > > > > > With a file system on tape, you can boot and then just mount the tape > > > and 'cp /tape/what/ever/you/want /wherever/you/want/it'. > > > > What's wrong with 'tar xvf /dev/rst0' for an installation? Now for a > > Nothing! *But* if you want to extract one *file*, tar sucks eggs. > Also, you can't *run* a system off of a tar image (whereas you > *could* mount a tape filesystem and execute whatever is on the > tape!) > > > restore, it might be a useful model, but even there, it's just about > > as fast to 'tar tvf /dev/rst0 > tape.list', and you can go watch a movie > > in the meantime instead of waiting a few minutes to go to this directory, > > a few minutes to that directory, etc. It would be almost as bad as > > navigating the web :-) > > > > I'm surprised I haven't yet heard mention of the DEC tape system. I seem > > to recall that they had a system (PDP-8 version?) that ran solely off tape. > > TU58's? > > - --don Well, er TU55/56's were kind of reel-to-reel floppies. 512 byte sectors... seeking, a kind of 8 inch floppy on a 3/4 tape reel. DECtapeII was something else. Imagine the slowest seral storage device running over a 9600 baud serial line. The TU58 was an RS232 controlled QIC80 sized cartridge (preformatted only) with the same sectoring as the DECtape and floppy drives. It was designed as a load media for diags, microcode, standalone embedded systems etc. Think SLOW... Bill ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Pechter/Carolyn Pechter | 17 Meredith Drive, Tinton Falls, NJ 07724, 908-389-3592 | pechter@shell.monmouth.com I'll run Win95 on my box when you pry the keyboard from my cold, dead hands. FreeBSD, OS/2, CP/M, RT11, spoken here.
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