6386 WGS Questions

[Mark Horton]

In article <16 at zds-ux.UUCP> gerry at zds-ux.UUCP (Gerry Gleason) writes:
>In article <4615 at cbnewsc.ATT.COM> psfales at cbnewsc.ATT.COM (Peter Fales) writes:
>>In article <6358 at cbnewsm.ATT.COM>, dab at cbnewsm.ATT.COM (david.a.berk) writes:
>>> 3. Can the 6386 read a floppy witten by a 3b2 ?
>
>>I you mean mount a floppy with 3b2 file system, the answer is no.  However,
>>I have transferred cpio archives written to the raw floppy in both 
>>directions between a 3b2 and 6386 WGS.  Use /dev/rdsk/f05qt.
>
>Wait a minute, if you can read the physical format, you should be able to
>mount it.  Isn't a System V file system a System V file system (with the
>possible exception of version skews).

No.  The System V release [123] filesystems are basically the V7 filesystem
with bigger blocks.  This filesystem was designed for speed and convenience
of access, not portability.  The superblock, directory block, and inodes
are full of 16-bit and 32-bit integers.  A big endian machine, like the
3B2, Sun, or Amdahl will store a 32-bit integer with the MSB first, but
a little endian machine, like the VAX or 6386, will store it LSB first.

We've all become spoiled by the portability of the MS DOS filesystem,
which means that DOS floppies are interchangable anywhere the media
can be read.  This only works because DOS only works on the 80x86 family,
which is all little endian.

cpio -c and tar are both quite portable UNIX system interchange formats,
as long as you can read the physical media.

	Mark