Can disks be copied using only one RL02 drive?

[Patrick Finnegan]

On Thursday 03 May 2007 10:19, charlesmorris at hughes.net wrote:
> The alternative is to take the RL02 from my PDP-8/A and connect it,
> but then I don't have a "1" key, they are both unit "0".
>
> Any thoughts?

Assuming that the new disk doesn't have any bad blocks in its bad block 
table that aren't on the original disk :), my first suggestion would be 
to write a small PDP11 assembly program to read a bunch of blocks from 
one pack, and write them out to another pack (with a lot of swapping).  
It'd be tedious, but you could hand assemble a program (or use macro11 
on another system) and enter it in using ODT... but you'd be limited to 
reading and writing no more than about 55kB at a time, which would mean 
about 20 pack swaps.

The other option I can think of, is that you could change the unit number 
on one of your RL02's, either by snapping fingers off the ready 
indicator, or (probably a better idea) sticking small plastic rods or 
similar into the holes where the fingers go in the ready lamp for the 
2nd RL02, and use that.

A little bit of googling or "ask-Tony" :) should help you figure out 
exactly how to trick the drive into being another unit number.

Pat
-- 
Purdue University ITAP/RCAC       --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge               --- http://computer-refuge.org