CD-rom > TK50?

[Rob Urban]

In article <1991Jun5.111537.1885 at cl.cam.ac.uk>, maj at cl.cam.ac.uk (Martyn Johnson) writes:

> >  Here's a problem I've been working on for quite a while, with no
> > success:  Does anyone know how to produce setld-installable TK50's
> > from the files on a CD-rom?
> 
> I have put a certain amount of thought into this problem, though since I 
> do not have any Ultrix CD-ROMs I have not been able to try anything out.
>...
> I think, therefore, that the problem of making a bootable tape reduces to 
> that of getting the bootstrap files (2 for VAX, 1 for RISC).  Whether 
> they are lurking on the CDROM somewhere is anybody's guess.
 
I'd like to be able to contradict you, but I've been playing with the
RISC Ultrix version 4.0 distribution CD, and a TK50 drive, and to the
best of my knowledge, it can't be done.  You are
correct that all you need is the "bootstrap" file (called the "miniroot"
around DEC, I think).  This
is a special boot+kernel file that runs standalone (including memdisk). 
It has the basic utilities
necessary for installing a system (restore, dd, ifconfig, sh, MAKEDEV,
mkdir, ed, etc).  I'm pretty
sure that what you need can only be found on a distribution tape (TK50).
However, once you have
that, it is relative easy to produce a bootable tape from the rest of
the stuff on the CD.

-rob urban