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From: carl@CITHEX.CALTECH.EDU.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.computers.vax
Subject: Re: reading BRU tapes under VMS
Message-ID: <870328001911.069@CitHex.Caltech.Edu>
Date: Sat, 28-Mar-87 03:19:24 EST
Article-I.D.: CitHex.870328001911.069
Posted: Sat Mar 28 03:19:24 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 29-Mar-87 11:17:42 EST
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>  Can anyone tell me if there is a way to read BRU tapes under VMS?

>  We  need  to move large volumes of data from a PDP11/70 (RSX+) to a Vax and
>  are using BRU (Backup/Restore utility) to write multiple directories,  much
>  like  backup  does.   I've tried reading the BRU tapes with Backup but with 
>  no success.

This question makes me nostalgic for the days when VMS was VMS and a VAX
was a VAX (complete with a floppy drive for mass storage, even though the
floppies for 750's looked sort of strange).  The answer to your question
is "Yes, there is a way to read BRU tapes under VMS, but no, I'm not at
all certain that you can do so on your computer."  If you're running VMS
on a VAX-11 series machine, then there is a known way to do it.  If the
machine in question is old enough, it doesn't even cost you any money. 
The VAX-11 series has this alternate instruction set called "compatiblity
mode", in which a part of your VAX thinks it's a PDP-11.  Furthermore, there's
a file in SYS$SYSTEM called MCR.EXE that you can use to activate compatibility
mode images, and the image BRU.EXE also exists.  If you're system was around
back in the days when much of VMS was written in compatibility mode, you
should have received a (free) initial version of the RSX product to run under
VMS about the time you got 4.0 VMS, which is when it stopped being a required
part of VMS.  It still seems to work under VMS 4.5.  The bad news, of course,
is that uVAX-II's don't have compatibility mode.  You might be able, however,
to get someone who has both RSX and a DECnet path to your machine to agree
to convert the tapes from BRU format to BACKUP format for you, at least
if he's got a relatively empty Files-11 disk volume to use as an intermediary
between BACKUP and BRU.