On Thu, 13 Apr 2000, Erno Palonheimo wrote:

> I've understood that if you want to format MSCP disks on a MicroVAX II,
> you have to use some DEC-supplied utility to do that. If I'm correct, the
> utility is on a TK50 cartridge, from which you're supposed to boot to the
> diagnostics utility which also includes formatter.

Correct.

> Does anyone by chance have this formatter utility around?

Yes.

> Does the copyright prevent someone
> from dumping the tape contents to an image file which I could 'dd' to a
> TK50 cartridge? If it doesn't, could the tape image be put somewhere so I
> could download it? Even emailing could be an option.

I think there is a copyright, but I don't know the legalese of this.

But apart from that, dd is *not* a usable tool.
This is a typical example when Unix tools fail miserably. Tapes have
records, of perhaps different lengths. You need to preserve this
meta-information when copying tapes, or the copy will not actually be the
same as the original, even though you have the same bytes on both.

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt@update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol