Help with RT11

[Yves Houbion]

We have an EDAX Xray analyser. It use a DEC LSI-11/73 processor unit and a
Winchester hard drive which store the RT11 operating system.
I want to reinstall all the software from floppy disk because the system
freeze from time to time.
I never use RT11 and I need help.
After some try and with the help of mini reference manual I found that DE6: is
the floppy disk and DE0: is the winchester.
I plan to use the following command to replace the files:

.COPY DE6:*.* DE0:

Is it the good way to reinstall the software?

Thanks

Yves

[Tim Shoppa]

In article <621u19$d...@hermes.fundp.ac.be>,

It depends on your definition of the "software". Assuming that there
are no .SYS (RT-11 drivers or monitors) or protected files that you
need to replace, it'll work fine. But the command you're using
won't copy any .SYS files, won't replace any protected files on DE0:,
and won't install a boot block on the output device.

To unprotect any protected output files, do a UNP DE0:*.* first.
Or to wipe the Winchester clean do a INIT DE0:.

To copy .SYS files as well, do a COPY/SYS DE6:*.* DE0:.

To write a boot block for a new monitor, do a COPY/BOOT DE0:RT11xx DE0:
where "xx" is FB, SJ, SB, XM, XB, ZB, ZM, or your custom-SYSGENed monitor.

This reinstall is best done while booted from floppy. Replacing
the operating system on your Winchester while booted from the Winchester
is risky for a neophyte!

Notice that there has been at least one customization to your RT-11
system: "DE" is not the standard name of a DEC-distrubuted device
driver.

Blindly replacing all files is something that is typical for a
MS-DOS or MS-Windows system, but it shouldn't have to be done
for RT-11 unless a hardware problem has corrupted your Winchester.
If such corruption has taken place, you'd probably need to reformat
your Winchester drive anyway. There is also the potential problem
of corrupted RT-11 directory structures, but blindly replacing
all the files won't solve this either. "Reinstall everything" is
purely a last-ditch move of desperation in my book.

Tim. (sho...@triumf.ca)

[bi...@mix.com]

Tim Shoppa <sho...@alph02.triumf.ca> writes:

> Blindly replacing all files is something that is typical for a
> MS-DOS or MS-Windows system, but it shouldn't have to be done
> for RT-11 unless a hardware problem has corrupted your Winchester.

I'd first check for bad blocks on the hard disk - DIR/BAD - if you
find any the procedure for replacing them depends on the type of
disk controller you have - since you have DE devices this is probably
made by some third party, you'd have to look at the board and post
who made it and what model it is. Bad blocks should be marked as
bad before doing anything further. Some drives may need to be
reformatted as when they get old the alignment of the heads may
drift enough to cause problems too. Before doing that you should
confirm you have all the files needed to rebuild, and perhaps make
a new copy of everything to floppies regardless. You can compare
files on floppies vs. the hard disk with DIFF/BIN DEa:*.* DEb:*.*
(where a and b are the correct unit numbers)...

If all is ok check for free space on the hard disk - DIR/FREE - if you
don't have enough you'll have to delete some of the temporary or work
files (sizes are shown in numbers of 512 byte blocks). Then you may
also need to squeeze the disk to move all the files next to each
other (this is defragmentation..) - RT-11 stores all files in
contiguous (next to each other) blocks, and a few small files left
scattered about the disk can make it impossible to open a large
enough file to do any real work. DIR/FREE shows each group of free
blocks individually so this is fairly easy to see. DIR/FULL will
include all existing files in the listing, along with free spaces.
From this you should be able to see sizes of files used and determine
if lack of enough contiguous free space is a problem.

To squeeze, first be sure no other jobs are running on the system,
especially anything that would have files open, then SQUEEZE DE6:
which will likely take some time to complete, after which if this
is the system disk your machine will reboot itself.

Billy Y..

[Stuart Brook]

Yves Houbion wrote:
>
> We have an EDAX Xray analyser. It use a DEC LSI-11/73 processor unit and a
> Winchester hard drive which store the RT11 operating system.
> I want to reinstall all the software from floppy disk because the system
> freeze from time to time.
> I never use RT11 and I need help.
> After some try and with the help of mini reference manual I found that DE6: is
> the floppy disk and DE0: is the winchester.
> I plan to use the following command to replace the files:
>
> .COPY DE6:*.* DE0:
>
> Is it the good way to reinstall the software?
>

> Thanks
>
> Yves

I would doubt that your freezing problem is caused by the software.

Reinstalling it, given the age of the floppies could cause you more harm
than good, as the bits have fallen off the floppies over the years.

I would suspect that your freezing problem is a hardware based problem,
particularly if the computer has been in a dirty, or chemical laden
atmosphere.

Stuart