[Info-vax] Alpha V8.4-2 distribution

[Paul Sture]

On 2016-06-20, Michael Moroney <moroney at world.std.spaamtrap.com> wrote:
> Hans Vlems <hvlems at freenet.de> writes:
>
>>Which one,[SYS0E.]?
>
> If I remember, it was [SYSD.]  I don't have an upgrade disk to check at 
> the moment, I'll check tomorrow if nobody else beats me to it.

On the ALPHA084.ISO image I received as part of the Hobbyist kit in May-2015:

$ dir SYS%

Directory DUC0:<000000>

SYS0.DIR;1          SYS1.DIR;1          SYS2.DIR;1          SYS3.DIR;1         
SYS4.DIR;1          SYS5.DIR;1          SYS6.DIR;1          SYS7.DIR;1         
SYS8.DIR;1          SYS9.DIR;1          SYSA.DIR;1          SYSB.DIR;1         
SYSC.DIR;1          SYSE.DIR;1          SYSF.DIR;1          

Total of 15 files.

SYSD it is.

> I believe that in CI VAX days root F was reserved for upgrades, E for
> standalone backup. I don't know if D or anything else was reserved
> perhaps making this deliberate.

Correct.  I'd speculate that D was 'reserved for use by Digital' rather
than being an omission.

>From VAX/VMS V7.3 STABACKIT.COM

$ !  P1 - Target device
$ !  P2 - Target directory, defaults to <SYS0.SYSEXE>.  If target
$ !       device is SYS$SYSDEVICE:, the directory is forced to
$ !       <SYSE.SYSEXE> and the <SYSE> directory will be given
$ !       a SYSCOMMON root which points to common system files
$ !       (i.e. points to SYS$TOPSYS for normal systems and to
$ !       existing SYSCOMMON for shared system disks).  Forced to
$ !       <SYS0.SYSEXE> for small media.
$ !  P3 - Source device and directory, defaults to SYS$SYSROOT:<SYSEXE>
$ !  P4 - Application kit type, one of [BACKUP, BAD] (Forced to
$ !       BACKUP for V5.0)   !*bad*
$ !  P5 - If run from VMSKITBLD, do not INITIALIZE tape or large disk.
$ !       This parameter is unsupported, for internal use only.

I don't recall using P4=BAD at any stage.

-- 
There are two hard things in computer science, and they are cache invalidation,
naming, and off-by-one errors.