[Info-vax] VMS 5.0

[Richard B. Gilbert]

On 11/8/2011 2:42 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> On 2011-11-08 15.50, Bob Koehler wrote:
>> In
>> article<e26cf339-adbf-48b1-aaf0-8bf7e6bceac7 at i10g2000vbk.googlegroups.com>,
>> abrsvc<dansabrservices at yahoo.com> writes:
>>>
>>> The more likely contents are the standanlone backup kit. IIRC, the
>>> actual VMS software was distributed on magtape,TK50 and removeable
>>> disk only.
>>
>> Some VMS update kits were distributed on TU58.
>>
>> One of the 3.x update kits was on several TU58, at the time the only
>> option for 11/750 owners. (I think it was on 8" floppies for
>> 11/780). At the time only full installs shipped on 9-track.
>>
>> It took so long to ingest from TU58 and DEC got so many complaints
>> that DEC decided, and loudly declared at the next DECUS symposium,
>> that in the future _all_ kits would be available on 9-track.
>>
>> Then CD became the standard media for Alpha, and available for VAX,
>> so we immediately ordered a Qbus CD reader for our MV II.
>
> I can't even imagine how many TU58 it would take for a full VMS
> distribution. About 100 tapes maybe? Considering that the standalone
> backup alone is 5 RX01 floppies, and the capacity of the TU58 is
> similar, the number of disks/tapes even for some update kit quickly
> becomes ridiculous as far as the number of media is concerned.
>
> Johnny

ISTR that you could die of old age trying to install from TU58!

Just doing a BACKUP /VERIFY to nine track 1600 BPI tape took about 
fourteen hours!  At this late date, I understand why DEC gave us 
(Princeton University) an 11/750 with RA-81 disk at an extreme discount! 
  Nobody in his right mind would have paid for it if he had to install 
it and/or do full disk backups!

I put in a few fourteen hour days doing BACKUP and RESTORE to remedy
disk/file fragmentation.  I also put in a good deal of time trying to
convince users that they should allocate a reasonable amount of 
contiguous disk space to hold their data.

Eventually, somebody wrote some software that could defragment an ODS-2 
file system without doing a backup and restore.