[Info-vax] Looking for VAX/VMS V1.0 and V2.x kits

[johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk]

On Tuesday, 14 August 2018 11:36:52 UTC+1, corn... at eisner.decus.org  wrote:
> Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-earth.ufp> wrote:
> > On 2018-08-14, cornelius at eisner.decus.org <cornelius at eisner.decus.org> wrote:
> 
> >> There's a chance that I have a system disk backup on RA60
> >> from that era.  Ignoring the issue of finding a drive that can
> >> read it, might it be possible to a kit from that? I have forgotten.
>  
> > I don't know if it's possible to build a kit from that, but that
> > is only a means to the end goal which is a running VMS 2.x system.
> 
> On Eisner there's sys$update:spkitbld.com, which is likely what
> I was trying to remember.
> 
> Otherwise, however, the likelihood of making it all come
> together is quite small, beginning with the fact that by the
> time the hardware in question (a 750 and 780) was retired, it
> was probably at 4.x or later.  Since the removable packs in
> question were a scarce resource, the ones that were left on the
> shelf for many years afterward, up until someone asked me what
> to do with them, would likely have been newer backups.
> 
> Secondly, the reason they never left the organization was that there
> is likely at least a small amount of sensitive information present
> and no one would ever have been able to justify paying a recovery
> service to extract the data to other media for further examination
> and possible archiving.
> 
> But I will check - I believe the packs are in a coworker's possession -
> and see if I can determine what their contents are.  All I remember
> seeing were small handwritten labels, one per pack, with the
> operator's initials, date, and type of backup, so it would be a
> guess as to VMS version anyway.
> 
> [...]
> 
> > I have good coverage of running VMS versions all the way back to 3.x
> > and I have the VMS 1.5 kit which I am going to set up, but there's
> > a big jump from 3.x back to 1.5 so it would be nice to get an
> > intermediate version (as well as 1.0 itself if it still exists).
> > 
> > BTW, was Macro-32 always supplied with the VMS distribution starting
> > from V1.0 or was it an optional kit until a later VMS version ?
> 
> I believe it was present in V2.   It was likely there in V1 as
> well, since I do not remember it ever having been mentioned as
> a layered product.
> 
> George

[clanking of worn and tired washing-machine-size disk drives...]

Does EISNER also have SYS$UPDATE:VMSKITBLD.COM ?

It's still referenced in VMS documentation, e.g. OpenVMS System
Manager's Manual available online in various places:
 
"2.5 Using VMSKITBLD.COM to Modify a System Disk

On VAX systems, the command procedure SYS$UPDATE:VMSKITBLD.COM allows you to duplicate system files from an existing system disk on another disk. 
[...]"

Not sure how far back it goes, ie when in the history of VMS versions 
it first became useful.

SPKITBLD is a bit different.