[Info-vax] Backup TK50 tapes

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2013-02-23 19:39, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
> On 2013-02-23 17:41:38 +0000, supervinx said:
>
>> Well, let's see again what I've understood...
>
> 0) No one willing uses tape boot.

Awww... C'mon. It's a perfectly valid boot media, depending on your 
computer.

> Yep!  You're right.  Nobody really wants to use something that slow and
> tedious and ill-featured.  So much so that OpenVMS engineering
> intentionally didn't support tape bootstraps with OpenVMS Alpha.

They did not support it initially on VAX either. It wasn't until the 
uVAX when they actually did start supporting that.
Earlier machines loaded STABACKIT from the console media, and then just 
restored the savesets from tape.

>> 1) Bootable VMS installation tapes cannot be duplicated easily.
>
> No one willing uses tape boot.
 >
 > There are some steps involved, yes.

:-)
But apart from that, the statement is actually incorrect. It's not hard 
at all to duplicate the tapes. You just need the right tool. I believe 
there was a VMS version of TPC, which should do just fine. Check the 
DECUS library.

	Johnny

-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol