You Won eBay Item: DEC RL1 Diagnostics on RL-01 disk cartridge

[Jerome H. Fine]

 >Zane H. Healy wrote:

>>    "One DEC RL01K-DC disk cartridge. The label on it says that it
>>    contains the RL1 Diagnostics program. the complete label reads
>>    "AX-E380Z-MC CZZLAZO DLP+ RL1 Diag Pkg1". The disk cartridge
>>    
>>
>I was going to comment on my inability to read subject lines, but this
>sounds like something at least a little different from a standard XXDP pack
>(maybe a specialized one?).
>
>>>What hardware and operating system do you have to make a
>>>disk image?
>>>
>>PDP-11/03, dual RL01s, RT-11.
>>
>>I have no idea if RT-11 has a native utility that permits making a
>>disc image.  I can imagine that I might have to write something that
>>grabs a block off the disc and transfers it to another computer Kermit
>>style across the console SLU.
>>
>Ouch.  With that selection of hardware, I'm honestly not sure how you would
>go about doing this.  Jerome might be able to offer some advice.
>
Jerome Fine replies:

First, to clarify, since the "RL01 Diagnostics" pack
is non-native to RT-11, PIP can't be used since it
is able to copy ONLY files.  The utility program
provide by DEC is DUP.SAV and it basically operates
in two modes:

(a)  Device to Device
     COPY/DEVICE   DVA:  DVB:
     options include starting block and ending block for DVA:
     options include starting block for DVB:
     the size of DVA: and DVB: need not be the same, so if the
     destination is smaller, some of the source will obviously
     not be copied

(b)  File to Device OR Device to File
     COPY/DEVICE/FILES   DVA:  DEV:FOOBAR.DSK
     COPY/DEVICE/FILES   DEV:FOOBAR.DSK  DVB:
     options include ??? - I can't remember since I have never
     used them in this mode

Obviously, to hold the complete device, the device "DEV:" must
be at least 8 blocks larger than DVA:, although this is not
required.  In general, if you are using RT-11 to copy only a
portion of a device to a file, I recommend setting up a logical
device under RT-11 and handling the copy as device to device.
When a file is being copied to a device, DUP.SAV will handle
that situation without difficulty in the obvious manner.

ONE other MAJOR problem.  Since the diagnostic pack is NOT
the RT-11 file structure, etc., the bad block replacement
is also not available (at least as far as I know!!!).  If
there are any bad blocks on the diagnostic pack, they can't
be handled automatically by RT-11.  I suggest running the RT-11
command:
DIR/BAD   DLn:
to find out.  If there are NO bad blocks, then just proceed.
Otherwise, you should attempt to figure out what to do.  I
may be able to help if you can't figure out.

Any other questions?

Sincerely yours,

Jerome Fine
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