[HECnet] SIMH TOPS-20 question --> recipe for handling Tops20 install tapes --> MTBOOT --> create new PS: structure

[R. Voorhorst]

Actually, come to think about it you should be able to create a new PS in 2
phases:

1.	boot tape and create a pristine PS: up to and including DLUSER
stuff; see installation manual posted earlier.
2.	boot another monitor, mount the pristine PS as another structure on
it; skip the tape 7 files and use monitor dumper to restore the savesets on
the pristine structure.

Point to check is if a bootstrap is written to the pristine structure but
the installation manual will make that clear.
If I have some time I will checkthe problem out if the tape has a problem or
not and how to create a structure from it; meanwhile you still cann retrieve
files which was your primary requirement I believe.

Reindert

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Koning [mailto:paulkoning at comcast.net] 
Sent: Saturday, 25 December, 2021 22:24
To: Reindert Voorhorst <R.Voorhorst at swabhawat.com>
Cc: <hecnet at update.uu.se> <hecnet at Update.UU.SE>
Subject: Re: [HECnet] SIMH TOPS-20 question --> recipe for handling Tops20
install tapes --> MTBOOT



> On Dec 25, 2021, at 3:21 PM, R. Voorhorst <R.Voorhorst at swabhawat.com>
wrote:
> 
> I do not see that problem and I posted it here somewhat earlier:
>  
> Swbx04> att -f tu0 simh 
> Swbx04> g:\temp\bb-d867e-bm_tops20_v41_2020_instl.tap-1
> Swbx04> b tu0
>  
> And on console:
>  
> MTBOOT>
>  
> The first must be MTBOOT else you cannot load de monitor with /L and
?G143, so no skipping filemarks are needed as the monitor is the first file.
> Mark well, it is format simh=tps!

So it is, interesting.

What's strange is that -f tpc reports success, while -f simh reports an
error:

After processing 1159680 bytes of tape data (453 records, 5 tapemarks) Read
Tape Record Returned Unexpected Status: invalid record length
19827814 bytes of unexamined data remain in the tape image file

but indeed in this format I can boot the tape.

	paul