Re: i386-Misc questions: [non-]disklabel'd wd1X, initrd-floppy, PUFFS-vnconfig

[Greg Troxel <gdt%lexort.com@localhost>]

Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost> writes:

>     Date:        Tue, 10 Nov 2026 17:35:27 -0500
>     From:        Greg Troxel <gdt%lexort.com@localhost>
>     Message-ID:  <rmi1p8smi1c.fsf%s1.lexort.com@localhost>
>
>   | (I'm 99% sure Sixth and Seventh edition, 1976, 1978ish) had disklabels.
>
> They didn't - or not if you mean "labels on the disks".   Those systems
> had "labels" (really partition tables) compiled into the various disk
> drivers (one set of partitions for rm03's, another for rk07's, ...)
> Those partitions usually overlapped, so different drives (or packs loaded
> into drives) could have different partition schemes, but the users needed
> to know which /dev entries were valid for a particular disk pack.

Thanks for straightening me out. I now dimly remember the compiled in
tables.

> Labels written to the drive were a BSD invention (still earlier than
> MBR's I think - DOS (no windows at the time) was still generally just
> using floppies, if it existed at all).

I guess I blurred 1976 and the early 80s!

>   | The 1st-stage bootloader loaded the first disk block and ran it.
>
> If you're going far back in time, it was often from tape.   Reading
> from a disk tends to be a more complex set of operations than a tape.

I'm remembering an 11/40 reading from an RK05.  Perhaps incorrectly :-)