[Info-vax] Assistance needed!! working RM05 drive and VAX needed for proje

[gah4]

On Wednesday, September 27, 2023 at 1:01:40 PM UTC-7, Dave McGuire wrote:

(snip regarding the Living Computer Museum)

> > I believe the VAX runs on emulated disk, though.

> Most everything there was emulated, it seems.

Last I remember, the Xerox Sigma 9 was running on real disks.

When it was open, the museum computers were running 24/7.
Even when they were new, those drives were never expected 
to do that.  Systems I remember, had a maintenance time every
morning. And disks were often backed up every day.

As well as I know it, whatever is running now, is running unattended.

At some point, though, it isn't obvious what emulated means.

I a MicroVAX an emulation of the 11/780?  

In any case, yes, more is now emulated than when the museum
was open.  The Toad2 was designed as competition for DEC,
not as a later day emulator. 

Does it matter if it is hardware emulation or software emulation?

I remember knowing about RP07, and not RM05.

> > Keeping old disk drives running is much harder than old CPUs.

> It is, but we do it at LSSM. It's not like it's impossible.
 
Running continuously for 20 years might be, though.

Oh, one more thing.

One way that LCM does floppy disks, is to make a bit image 
backup.  That is, not decode the bits, just record where they are.
That works even if it is an unusual low-level format. 

That might be the best way to read old RM05 packs, too.