[Info-vax] The (now lost) future of Alpha.

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 08/07/2018 08:15 PM, Chris wrote:
> On 08/07/18 19:45, Bob Koehler wrote:
>> In article<pkajsi$u2a$1 at gioia.aioe.org>, 
>> Chris<xxx.syseng.yyy at gfsys.co.uk>  writes:
>>>
>>> Ok, but that's a pretty special case, though who knows what systems
>>> programmers have to deal with from time to time :-). If you are on a
>>> unix machine, then there are other utils, like dd to investigate low
>>> level disk and tape formats...
>>>
>>
>>     dd would not tell me what desnity a 9-track tape drive was written 
>> at.
>>
> 
> No, but assume you know what system it came from, which should be a
> pointer to the data format, or at least narrow it down. Otherwise, why
> would you want to read it...
> 
> Chris
> 

Back in the days when I still had the 11/44's and VAX
running at the University I used to get approached all
the time by random faculty members to read tapes they
did not know the format of or even what machine made
them but they needed the data for a book they were
writing.  (As an aside for Kerry, who thinks University
datacenters are all that is needed, the reason they
approached me was because the University datacenter
had gotten rid of all their tape drives!!)

bill