[Info-vax] VMS 5.0

[Stafford Winters]

On 11/12/2011 2:12 PM, Paul Sture wrote:
> On Tue, 08 Nov 2011 15:09:21 -0600, Bob Koehler wrote:
>
>> In article
>> <df519bc5-baeb-43fb-ae91-757eacf11aa2 at e3g2000vbs.googlegroups.com>,
>> RobertsonEricW<robertsonericw at netzero.net>  writes:
>>> I remember installing my very first VAX/VMS system (V5.0) using the
>>> TU58 tapes. I don't remember the exact number of TU58 cassettes in the
>>> installation kit. Somewhere slightly south of 2 dozen TU58 cassettes.
>>> The system generation process took virtually all day to accomplish. No
>>> wonder DEC got complaints about that. Even back then (circa 1986), that
>>> was a big chunk of time just to do a bare bones operating system
>>> installation.
> An essential part of my installation kit was plenty of reading material,
> especially for installations at customer sites.
>
>>     By the time I got to VMS 5, I had switched from VAX-11 to MicroVAX II
>>     and 2000.  We were using TK70 drives, and disctributions came on
>>     TK50.
>>
>>     That didn't make the MV II any faster, but it sure moved tape data
>>     faster than a TU58.
>>
>>     Just got lucky that I didn't have to boot STABACKIT from TK50, that
>>     alone was all morning.
> My first job on getting VMS up and running was to create a bootable
> STABACKIT on several disks.  That largely eliminated the need to reach
> for the STABACKIT TK50s again.
I remember booting standalone backup from TK50 once, just to be able to 
say that I had seen it work.  It took 45 minutes on a MicroVAX 3100.  
Ouch.  I always built the standalone backup kit on every disk.