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From: dave@onfcanim.UUCP (Dave Martindale)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: DECtape
Message-ID: <14775@onfcanim.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 12-Jan-86 13:33:29 EST
Article-I.D.: onfcanim.14775
Posted: Sun Jan 12 13:33:29 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 13-Jan-86 05:02:24 EST
References: <1464@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Reply-To: dave@onfcanim.UUCP (Dave Martindale)
Organization: ONF, Montreal
Lines: 9

You could actually boot from DECtape.  The real challenge was getting a
minimal root filesytem (bootloader, some inodes, unix, /etc/init, /bin/sh,
and some of /dev) onto a DECtape.  If I remember correctly, they only
stored about 256Kb.

Speaking of strange DEC hardware, anyone remember the RF11 disk?  A fixed-
head drive that was formatted so you could rewrite individual 16-bit
words, and whose transfer rate was *slower* than the not-exactly-fast
RK05 disk.  It made a good /tmp though (zero seek time).