cvs commit: src/usr.sbin/fdcontrol fdcontrol.8

[Kevin Oberman]

> Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 20:28:38 +0100
> From: Wilko Bulte <wkb at freebie.xs4all.nl>
> Sender: owner-cvs-all at freebsd.org
> 
> On Wed, Feb 25, 2004 at 07:34:26PM +0100, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:
> > In message <20040225181946.GA18703 at freebie.xs4all.nl>, Wilko Bulte writes:
> > 
> > >> PS: If anybody has a manual for the Y-E data YD174 8" drive I'd
> > >> love to get a scan or copy.
> > >
> > >Too modern.. 8" 128KB (IIRC)  DEC RX01 are the way forward :-P
> > 
> > Well, the objective is to read all sorts of formats, not to demostrate
> > the second law of thermodynamics.
> 
> But it sure could rotate disks full of sand using its 115V AC motor. :)
> 
> It needed to, as the PDP that used it was the control CPU for a
> concrete mixing factory. I just vacumed out all of the sand and cement
> dust, stuck new media in and it ran. Now *that* is NonStop hardware
> (pun intended).

Time to put on my old fart hat on.

If you want an old portable media system that is REALLY "NonStop" (and
makes an RX01 look really fast), take a look at DECtape (nee LINCtape)
developed by MIT's Lincoln Lab. I spent a lot of time doing nightly
re-links of our main mapping tool for an atmospheric flow analysis
project on a GT-42 running RT-11 on DECtape. Started the build at about
17:00 and it usually finished up at about 08:00 the following
morning. (And, if you thought Windows 98 was slow to boot...)

The tape could be spun into a trash can, stomped down with a boot,
covered with dirt, re-wound onto the reels, and be read without
error. It was random access and all data was recorded redundantly with
full error correction and was in use from the early 60s to the mid
70s. I still marvel at the level of over-engineering done on this. (This
is NOT the little cassette drive on VAX 750, 730, and 725 system. It was
reel to reel.)
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)
Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
E-mail: oberman at es.net			Phone: +1 510 486-8634