29 Apr
2015
29 Apr
'15
2:37 a.m.
On Apr 28, 2015, at 11:55 AM, Johnny Billquist <bqt
at softjar.se> wrote:
It is really too bad that wasn't a BRU tape.
On 2015-04-28 20:10, Mark Matlock wrote:
The process to see if you got the right combination of blocks is the key to whether an
automated process could be used. I guess you would have BRU try to read a virtual tape and
produce a listing, but the listing could be correct, but still have some blocks out of
order in some small file stored on the tape.
The BP2 tape is not a BRU tape. Had it been, I already have a fix. On Apr
27, 2015, at 5:31 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
On 2015-04-28 02:15, Mark Matlock wrote:
BP2 with I/D space would be worth some effort to bring back from extinction. With the
high speed of Simh and E11 with modern CPUs, if one could figure out a way to reassemble
the tape blocks in the various combinations the see if BRU could read it successfully or
not in some automated way, then just let the CPU have at it. It can't be worse than
breaking the Enigma code in World War II.
A few thousand blocks. The number of permutations can be interesting... Also, it is not
totally trivial to see if you got it all right... It's a plain DOS tape. DOS tapes are extremely
stupid. Basically, anything goes. There is nothing telling you if the data comes out right
or not. It's essentially implied just by being able to read the block.
(. Why would you ever get blocks in a different order than written? .)
Indeed! I wonder if the original tape that Tim Shoppa had still exists?
Also, I meant to say that the PDP-11 C V1.2 is
corrupt but the V1.1 is okay as I recall. Also, DECUS C works quite well, but I don't
recall which DECUS tape it is on.
I did some changes/improvements to DECUS C many years ago. I believe my changed version
should be available with ftp from Update. I should
probably make a kit disk or something available from MIM/Madame as well. If I only had
time...
Too bad noone is willing to pay for me doing this kind of work. I could spend full time
just fixing things for years... :-)
That is too bad. There are a number of things
in RSX that I'm sure you could improve. I really do appreciate what you've done on
TCP/IP. Thanks!
Johnny