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Maintenance Documentation Service

Old Computers

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I ordered a part for my PDP-11 and the seller included two sets of CDs titled: "Maintenance Documentation Service on CD-ROM".

The only issue is that the CD-ROM sets are formatted for openVMS and the search program included is for openVMS. Windows nor Linux (Ubuntu) recognize the disks. I did find a kernel module for Linux that can read ODS-2 and 5 (https://github.com/RomanHargrave/linux-ods5 http://www.vms2linux.de/ods5fs.html). I also found a program for windows that says it can read openVMS files, but I could not figure out how to use it with the CD (http://vms.process.com/scripts/fileserv/fileserv.com?ODS2). Has anybody had any luck with either of these? I'm wanting to read these disks because they might have some helpful documents for the process of restoring my PDP-11/44.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

(If there would be a better place to post this please let me know or move it. Since it's DEC specific I thought it would fit here.)
 
I used the ods2 program ~15 years ago to unpack a couple VMS CDROMs, and I remember doing some hacking on it though not the reasons why.

If I get the time this week I'll setup a github repo and populate it with my changes.

CW
 
I ordered a part for my PDP-11 and the seller included two sets of CDs titled: "Maintenance Documentation Service on CD-ROM".

The only issue is that the CD-ROM sets are formatted for openVMS and the search program included is for openVMS. Windows nor Linux (Ubuntu) recognize the disks. I did find a kernel module for Linux that can read ODS-2 and 5 (https://github.com/RomanHargrave/linux-ods5 http://www.vms2linux.de/ods5fs.html). I also found a program for windows that says it can read openVMS files, but I could not figure out how to use it with the CD (http://vms.process.com/scripts/fileserv/fileserv.com?ODS2). Has anybody had any luck with either of these? I'm wanting to read these disks because they might have some helpful documents for the process of restoring my PDP-11/44.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

(If there would be a better place to post this please let me know or move it. Since it's DEC specific I thought it would fit here.)

You install VMS under SIMH, make images of the disks with Linux DD and then install the software from the CD's. You might have a minor challenge as DEC stopped issuing hobbyist licences for OpenVMS VAX but it will run single user without one.

If the files are DEC Bookshelves you will find windows software to read them on VaxHaven http://vaxhaven.com/CD_Image_Archive you need BNU which will be on the ISO formatted documentation disks there.
 
I used the ods2 program ~15 years ago to unpack a couple VMS CDROMs, and I remember doing some hacking on it though not the reasons why.

CW

The main bug in the released version of ods2 is a pair of lines:
Code:
#ifdef BIG_ENDIAN
Since BIG_ENDIAN is define in the Linux system libraries, this cause mounts to fail. Changing the keyword BIG_ENDIAN to something else fixes the issue.

CW
 
Thank you all for the suggestions.

I will definitely look into both ways to do this.

@Bitly: So just change the keyword BIG_ENDIAN to something like BIG_ENDIAN_ERROR_FIX would work?
 
@Bitly: So just change the keyword BIG_ENDIAN to something like BIG_ENDIAN_ERROR_FIX would work?

Yes. I'm still working on a repo, but the other changes are more QOL stuff, but Linux only (mount images instead of drives, caching of directory sectors, hierarchical output directories)

CW
 
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