[Simh] Install VAX/VMS 4.4 on a simulated VAX-11/780

[Ethan Dicks]

On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 9:12 AM, Henk van de Kamer <simh at vandekamer.com> wrote:
>> If you want to go full realistic, once you’ve got 4.4 running, generate
>> your own STABACKIT in the media format you prefer and then repeat the
>> install :)
>
> Hmm, but then you depend on your provided disk. It would be nice if you
> could bootstrap it with only the VMS 4.4 tape and the Stand alone back-up
> tapes. I think that is the procedure in the old VAX install manual?

The procedure in the manual was to boot Standalone Backup via whatever
console medium your machine had.  When you got an OS update
subscription, you paid for the media that fit your machine.  Where I
worked in the 80s and 90s, we got our VMS on 1600 bpi magtape with
Standalone Backup on TU58s for our 11/750 and 11/730, and we got
MicroVMS on RX50 diskette (uVAX-I) and TK50 (uVAX-II).  The 11/780
typically got SABACKUP on RX01 disks, IIRC.  The 8600 got it on RL02
packs.

The trick is, once you got any machine running a certain version of
VMS, you could always generate your own Standalone Backup kit on an
type of media that machine could write, console or not.  Our 11/750
could write TU58s, RL02s, and RX50s (we had an RUX50, an uncommon
device, but we needed it to send updates to our own customers).  You
could even designate a directory on a bootable disk (commonly "SYSE")
because you wanted to backup a quiesced machine but didn't want to
have to swap console media out to get to the backup prompt (with real
TU58s and even floppies, it takes a while to boot SABACKUP, vs seconds
if it's on your boot disk).

Here's some information on using and copying Standalone Backup

https://www.itec.suny.edu/scsys/vms/ovmsdoc073/v73/6017/6017pro_050.html

If you mean by "Stand alone back-up tapes" the TU58 images in this
thread, that will only work for specific models of VAX (11/725,
11/730, 11/750) not all models.  There is no one SABACKUPKIT that
works on all models and there never can be.  The consoles are
different between related models.

-ethan