[Info-vax] Attaching an actual 3.5" floppy drive to SIMH-VAX RXV21 device?

[Paul Sture]

On Tue, 14 Aug 2012 12:15:42 -0700, John Wallace wrote:

> On Aug 14, 9:05 am, Paul Sture <paul.nos... at sture.ch> wrote:
>
>> I once installed the layered software on an 11/730 using a pile of
>> floppies.  It wasn't much fun.  I also had to use the VMSä$TAILOR stuff
>> to leave enough space on the undersized system disk to do anything.
>>
>> This was a case where the owner's son had got involved in specifying a
>> system.  Of course a computer needed floppies and a BASIC compiler!
>>
>> <shudder>
>>
> 
> Who remembers the 11/725? A 730 (OK, not the world's speediest, but it
> runs VMS) in a neat little pedestal package, with RC25 disks, a
> removable and a fixed one on the same spindle, each holding a
> magnificent 25MB? And with 2*TU58 as the other removable media.
> 
> Happy days.

I never got my paws on one of those.

> Well, happy in comparison with the alternative available to me at that
> time in the mid 1980s, which was some flavour of System V on a 68k of
> some kind, or transatlantic access to a Gould/SEL UTX32 system via
> dialup or BT X.25 (we had to phone BT every few weeks to get them to
> retune the echo suppressor suppressor reed relays in the exchange so our
> Racal MPS1222 modems would actually connect).

I remember a customer getting a dedicated BT line between two buildings 
in the mid 1980s.  It tested OK but a few weeks elapsed before they 
wanted to use it regularly and by that time it wasn't working.  It turned 
out that when installing new phone lines, the BT engineers would simply 
look for a wire with no signal and assume it was free.

> Back in 1985, System V left a great deal to be desired for software
> development, whereas VMS, especially VMS V4, was quite respectable, and
> certainly more productive than the System V box (even if the System
> V/68K was nominally higher performance).
> 

MicroVAXes were also portable.  In 1980 we used a consultant who could 
have any company car he liked within a fairly generous budget, as long as 
it could carry a PDP of that era.  He and a couple of colleagues really 
put some effort into getting one into a VW Scirocco, without success.

I will probably never forget the first time I saw a VAX 2000, circa 1988. 
We had flown to Glasgow to demonstrate some software at DEC Livingstone 
and it was my job to install that software.  When the system started 
crashing the DEC guy simply unplugged it and brought us another.

The carrying handle on those 2000s was a very neat idea.  When I 
eventually got my own VAXstation 2000 I would think nothing of popping it 
into the car and taking it to another location.  My productivity also 
went up - prior to having that I was regularly using two VT220s for 
development and testing, and now I had multiple windows on one screen, 
and could copy and paste around them.

> Try telling that to the young people of today (etc).

Aye lad.

-- 
Paul Sture