Wanted VMS BACKUP for UNIX

[rlb@purdue@sri-unix.uucp]

From: Bob Brown <rlb@purdue>

Someone dropped a VMS BACKUP-format tape on my desk today, thinking they
were giving me a real gem. So I pulled out od and emacs and tried to
make just a little bit of sense out of it and got nowhere. I looked
over the six feet of VMS manuals that came with my VAX and didn't see
anything that would help me decipher it on my system. So I took it over
to a DEC engineer (NASA has loads of DEC people) and asked him for help
and he (considered to be a VMS Wizard) had no idea what the format was,
either, but boasted that he could scrape half an inch of oxide off any
spot of the tape and still read it correctly.

So, my question is, have any of you heard of anyone that has written
a UNIX (BSD) program to decipher VMS BACKUP tapes?

Give me a call.

Bob Brown
RIACS at NASA Ames
(415)965-6363

PS The immediate problem is solved. By the way, those orange VMS
binders are great for holding the UNIX manual.

[Corot Reason]

Try looking in the Master Index to the VMS volume set. There,
under BACKUP, you will see a pointer off to appendix B of manual 4A.
This appendix describes the BACKUP tape format in some detail.
The VMS people have a cute little piece of advice for people
who are too slug-headed to read the manuals: RTFM.