[Info-vax] Backup TK50 tapes

[Paul Sture]

In article <kgh0ef$ftm$1 at Iltempo.Update.UU.SE>,
 Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:

> On 2013-02-25 15:57, Paul Sture wrote:
> > In article <kgb9r6$mac$2 at tdi.cu.mi.it>, supervinx <nessuno at libero.it>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Il Sat, 23 Feb 2013 13:39:34 -0500, Stephen Hoffman ha scritto:
> >>
> >>> 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.
> >>>
> >> Hmmm ... so why do boot tapes exist ?
> >> I know that booting from TK50 takes more than an hour ...
> >> But for an historical purpose I'll save those tapes.
> >
> > I first came across bootable tapes in the IBM world circa 1980 and yes
> > the IBM 4331 could boot from a 9 track tape.
> 
> DEC was doing bootable tapes for the PDP-11 pretty much from the start, 
> which place us around 1970. Not sure about other DEC systems, such as 
> the PDP-10. I don't remember ever seeing bootable tapes for the PDP-5, 
> PDP-8 or PDP-12. And I don't know about the 18-bit series...

I didn't realise they had that ability so early.  The only PDPs I got to 
install from scratch came with the installation software on disk packs.

-- 
Paul Sture