[Simh] booting vanilla v6 unix

[Abel]

Indeed, this list should be called more like VAX/VMS something.
That's the impression I got trying to find info on how to boot vanilla v6 and v7.
No offence though..
Just somehow v6 and v7 disk images from trailing-edge.com look like a
vintage car with half the parts modern. Thus, these heavily modified versions
didn't impress me, and I was looking for something more authentic.
The only place of useful info was "www.ba-stuttgart.de/~helbig/os/v6" and maybe
this article "www.tuhs.org/Archive/PDP-11/Tools/Tapes/Vtserver/vtreadme.html".
But the way of booting v6 explained at www.ba-stuttgart.de didn't work out for me,
so I played with "v6.tape" from Ken Wellsch and it happened to be just the thing I
wanted.
In short it looks like this:

dd if=v6.tape of=root.rk skip=100 count=4000 # cutting the root rk disk from the tape
dd if=v6.tape of=src.rk skip=4100 count=4000 # the same with source disk
dd if=v6.tape of=doc.rk skip=8100 count=4000 # and the doc rk disk

See the "www.tuhs.org/Archive/PDP-11/Distributions/DETAILS" # "Ken_Wellsch_v6" part.
Then as usual:

set cpu u18
att rk0 root.rk
att rk1 src.rk
att rk2 doc.rk
boot rk0

and at the @ prompt supplying the rk kernel:

@rkunix

login:

It's just the matter of making rk devices in /dev and mounting them under /usr/source
and /usr/doc then, and v6 is good & shiny, the same as in 1975.
	
And I couldn't boot "Dennis_v6" images, don't ask me why, I don't know.

The sad thing I couldn't find so easily bootable tape for vanilla v7, but maybe
some guru here will point me in right derection.

-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.