Subject: Re: Wollongong V7 Unix
From: Richard Miller <miller@xxxxxxx.uk>
Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2001 11:13:45 0000
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I've had a quick look at www.spies.com/aek/WollongongV7_Tape1.tap -
it seems to be intact except for one bad record in the root filesystem
dump.  Contents are:

(file no,record length,number of records,contents)

0    80    138    bootstrap
1    256    45    another bootstrap
2    512    36    standalone mkfs
3    512    38    standalone restor
4    512    33    standalone fsck
5    512    89    standalone adb
6    10240  331/332    dump of root filesystem
7    10240  444   dump of usr filesystem

The root dump was made on Wed Sep 24 17:00:53 GMT 1980.  Probably by
me.  What does the paper label on the tape say?

I must resist the temptation to start extracting the contents of the
dump files until I have more officially free time.

I nearly bought an 8/32 myself when the Oxford University Programming
Research Group decommissioned theirs - but I discovered at the last moment
I would have had to rewire my house to provide enough current to run it.

Looking at my collection of tapes again, I think it's pretty unlikely
that Edition VII is there.  So I'm glad to see that one has turned up
elsewhere.

-- Richard

To: aek@spies.com
Subject: Re: Wollongong V7 Unix
From: Richard Miller <miller@xxxxxxxx.uk>
Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2001 21:39:15 0000
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I've extracted the contents of the v7 filesystem dumps from your tape image.
It appears the 1 byte record was spurious, and no data has been lost.

For your interest, the reconstructed root and usr file systems are in
w7.tgz

In making the tar file, a couple of hard links were broken, and special
files in /dev were turned into empty regular files; but otherwise I think
everything's in its original form.

Your first message to me said:

> I have been able to read the first of the two tape distribution, and am
> working on trying to restore the second.

Actually I don't think the two tapes belong together.  The one with the
filesystem dumps is definitely an original distribution which I made, with
kernels configured for various Interdata x/32 and Perkin-Elmer 32x0 machines
at Melbourne and Yale Universities, and "Santa Clara" (University of California?
I can't recall now).  It has binaries and kernel source, but unfortunately no
command source.

The other tape containing (some?) command and kernel source, dates from
several years later, after I had returned from Wollongong University to Canada,
and represents a later version of the system.  It may well have been an update
destined for the Wollongong Group in California.

If you ever have occasion to try to install the first tape on a real machine,
I'd be pleased to help out.

-- Happy new year,
   Richard Miller

