VAX 11/725

[Ethan Dicks]

On Sat, 4 Dec 2004 00:56:42 +0000 (GMT), Tony Duell
<ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Personally I'd rather rebuild the roller (I've done HP [1] ones, I can't
> believe the DEC ones are any worse) than adulterate a perfectly good DEC
> PDP/VAX with a PC :-)

The DEC ones should be identical... I've done several DEC and one HP
(line analyzer)

But one big advantage to a PC TU-58 emulator is zero seek time; it
eliminates delays caused by non-optimized boot tapes.  The other is
that you never have to worry about having a clean tape handy if you
want to make changes.  Finally... no read errors.

That having been said, I have several TU-58 drives and do still use
real tapes, but I keep meaning to fiddle with an emulator someday, but
one that is dedicated and has an LCD text display to select which
tape/and or internal memory slot.  Also, ideally, a TU-58 emulator
should talk to the outside world, even if over a serial line... I
could see building one that serves virtual tape images via HTTP/PPP...
 
> [1] Including the 9100 and 9810, for which I had to make special tools...

Ow.
 
> As am I!. In the case of the 11/730, I think you want to remove the TU58
> chassis as well, you don't want to cook the chips on its controller board
> if the PSU is malfunctioning...

Indeed... a quick thing to do - disconnect one plug and it's safe.
 
-ethan