Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version nyu B notes v1.5 12/10/84; site acf4.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!think!harvard!cmcl2!acf4!tihor
From: tihor@acf4.UUCP (Stephen Tihor)
Newsgroups: net.unix
Subject: Re: UNIX coresident with VMS
Message-ID: <5110002@acf4.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 22-Oct-85 01:02:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: acf4.5110002
Posted: Tue Oct 22 01:02:00 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 23-Oct-85 06:16:18 EDT
References: <5732@tekecs.UUCP>
Organization: New York University
Lines: 9

Note that the primary VAX bootstrap code (VMB.EXE) can be made to load
an arbitrary thing from an arbitrary block and then branch to it.  
Thus putting a FILES-11 structure on the disk as the basic file
structure and restricting UNIX to a partition that was a large suitably 
inaccessible file (or bad block list) to VMS sould suffice admirably.  
Fortunately for UNIX's generality the PDPism that restricted the number
of i-nodes on a disk forced it to develop virtual disks (aka partitions)
as the standard way of handling almost all disks in current use and even
Berkeley has not felt impelled to replace them.