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Date:      Fri, 01 Mar 2002 08:50:40 -0800
From:      Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>
To:        Cliff Sarginson <csfbsd@raggedclown.net>
Cc:        freebsd-chat@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Dectapes (was Re: First test of GPL in court)
Message-ID:  <3C7FB160.1D153773@mindspring.com>
References:  <20020227135103.E64839@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <20020227061336.N12253@rain.macguire.net> <20020227142303.A65635@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <15484.63760.663944.125557@guru.mired.org> <20020227163501.A66574@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <15485.4354.561280.729573@guru.mired.org> <20020228020025.B65094@titus.hanley.stade.co.uk> <15485.40778.433515.165006@guru.mired.org> <20020301035636.C20774@titus.hanley.stade.co.uk> <15487.405.365982.645106@guru.mired.org> <20020301055026.GB2196@raggedclown.net>

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Cliff Sarginson wrote:
[ ... Dectapes ... ]
> > > They were an interesting concept - a block addressable tape device, on
> > > which you could do random access, and thus use it like a s.l.o.w. disk.
> >
> > Yup. They were bootable, too, so you could put / on them.
> >
> Hee hee, yes I remember doing that as well :)
> A moderately entertaining exercise.

Oh God.  Ultrix when you booted off of TK50 didn't want
to install on hard drives that weren't exactly the same
size as  DEC hard drives.

You had to boot the tape, break out of the script, and
then use "dd" to edit the script to include the hard
drive size, and the drive table to match, so that you
could install on third party hard drives.  What an
experience...

> I also remember booting PDP 11/44's in which you had to type into the
> console some magic octal numbers to get it to read the boot block. There
> was a single digit difference between the incantation to "read" the
> block and to "write" it :).

Heh.  I can probably still toggle in the front panel
bootstrap on a SWTP 6800 to get it to read the paper
tape reader to boot the rest of the way up... the
sequence is stored in my spine somewhere.

-- Terry

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