[Simh] SIMH tape images to real tapes

[Larry Baker]

Cory,

I wrote a conversion program, SIMH2MTD, to translate a SIMH mag tape image file into my own MTD format.  I ran it on the RSX-11M-Plus SRC tape image.  Then I ran my TAPELOOK program on the result.  At a glance, the TAPELOOK scan of the MTD tape image looks the same as the scan of the original SIMH tape image.  You should be able to do the same with the SIMH tape image you've got.  My TAPELOOK program should produce the same scan of the SIMH tape image, the MTD tape image after you run it through SIMH2MTD, and the actual tape after you run that through MTD.

You can fetch all the programs you'll need from our ftpext.usgs.gov FTP server in the /pub/wr/ca/menlo.park/baker folder.

FTPEXT.CR.USGS.GOV>ls
<Here comes the directory listing.
mtd.cld
mtd.exe
simh2mtd.cld
simh2mtd.exe
simh2mtd.exe_alpha
tapelook.cld
tapelook.exe
tapelook.exe_alpha
<Directory send OK.

The .cld's are ASCII, the .exe*'s are binary.  I only have a VAX version of the MTD program because our 9-track tape drive is on our VAX.  (I haven't tried to make a tape from the MTD file I made.)

Larry Baker
US Geological Survey
650-329-5608
baker at usgs.gov



On 20 May 2014, at 12:29 PM, Larry Baker wrote:

> Cory,
> 
> If you are still in need of assistance, I have made some progress with my old VMS code.
> 
> I put on our public FTP site my TapeLook mag tape analyzer program, both for Alpha (OpenVMS 7.2-1) and VAX (OpenVMS 6.2).  I modified it to understand the SIMH mag tape image format.  If you care to try it out, you'll know whether my Mag Tape Duplicator (MTD) program might work for you as well.  MTD copies tapes tape-to-tape, tape-to-disk (my own Fortran format), and disk-to-tape.  I have to write a SIMH-to-MTD format converter first.  In the mean time, you can experiment with TapeLook.  For example, here's the first few lines of what it says about the RSX-11M-Plus V3.0 SRC tape image I downloaded from BitSavers (http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/):

<SNIP>

> You can download the executables and the DCL command definition files from ftpext.usgs.gov:
> 
>> $ ftp ftpext.usgs.gov
>> Name (ftpext.usgs.gov:baker): anonymous
>> 230 Login successful.
>> ftp> pwd
>> Remote directory: /pub/wr/ca/menlo.park/baker
>> ftp> ls tapelook.*
>> 229 Entering Extended Passive Mode (|||29378|)
>> 150 Here comes the directory listing.
>> -r--r--r--    1 14       50           1865 May 20 13:02 tapelook.cld
>> -r--r--r--    1 14       50          34816 May 20 13:02 tapelook.exe
>> -r--r--r--    1 14       50          65536 May 20 13:02 tapelook.exe_alpha
> 
> You will need to edit the TAPELOOK.CLD file to specify the location of the executable.  Then
> 
> $ Set Command/Replace TapeLook
> 
> To find out how to use TapeLook, type
> 
> $ TapeLook /Help
> 
> or read the TAPELOOK.CLD file.
> 
> Larry Baker
> US Geological Survey
> 650-329-5608
> baker at usgs.gov
> 
> On 17 May 2014, at 9:26 AM, <simh-request at trailing-edge.com> <simh-request at trailing-edge.com> wrote:
> 
>> Hello all,
>> 
>> Googling around only seems to want to show me how to copy real tapes to images.  I need to copy a SIMH tape image to a real tape!
>> 
>> I seem to recall SIMH including a utility for this...but I could be mistaken.
>> 
>> I will need a utility that will run on VMS (VAX) as I need to use a TK50 to make a TK50. (Unless someone wants to doante a TK70. ;) )
>> 
>> --
>> Cory Smelosky
>> http://gewt.net Personal stuff
>> http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects