12 Mar
2023
12 Mar
'23
9:32 p.m.
On 2023-03-12 21:24, Thomas DeBellis wrote:
It's exactly similar; in other words, it's the
same thing. "archive" is
the Tops-20 term for offline files that are voluntarily put on tape.
The directory entries still exist, but don't point to any data. The FIle
Descriptor Block (FDB) contains two entries for the names of two tapes
with copies of the data. You can set things up so that if you tryto
open the file, you get put to sleep until the operator mounts the tape
and then DUMPER goes and finds your file. Seamless, but slow unless you
happened to already have the tape loaded (and it was labeled ANSI or
Tops-20).
Oh, I know. I was managing two TOPS-20 systems at the university, and
sometimes got mount requests for files to be brought back on disk. So
off to the vault and fetch the requested tape, mount it, tell the system
to proceed. I think it was very neat.
Files could be set for forced archiving, known as
"migration". The
installation would set expiration dates for files so that if they hadn't
been used in certain period of time, they were "migrated" to tape.
Yeah. We used that too.
DEC Marlboro was an extremely cool place to be before
the Jupiter was
cancelled. Very interesting stuff happening, some of which made its to VMS.
At least in the United States, if you were full time, you had a blue
badge and if you weren't (like a contractor) you got purple. You didn't
get your face on the purple badge.
I wasn't a contractor either. I was still a student, but for various
reasons got employed in parallel to being a student. Gymnasium in
Sweden. I guess somewhat similar to highschool in the US. So it was more
like a temporary employment, but not with a defined time limit either.
Or at least that is how I remember it.
As far as I can remember, my badge was white. Can't remember if I had a
picture on it or not. But I think all other people around me also had
white badges.
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt(a)softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol