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

[Mike Rechtman]

On 15/08/12 22:14, John Wallace wrote:
> On Aug 15, 1:02 pm, Paul Sture <paul.nos... at sture.ch> wrote:
>> 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


...We used to *dream*  of a  VAXstation 2000 ...

(the secret policeman's ball)

-- 
Mike R.
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