How to make a tape 386 Unix boot diskette

[~XT6561110~Frank McGee~C23~L25~6326~]

In article <1687 at ctisbv.cti-software.nl> pim at cti-software.nl (Pim Zandbergen) writes:
>root at nebulus.UUCP (Dennis S. Breckenridge) writes:
>
>
>>Presto - installable Unix from tape. Maybe in another article I 
>>will tell you how to put Unix on Tape. AT&T if you are listening
>>why did you guys not release a TAPE version of Unix. It's obvious
>>to me that such a copy exists by looking at the INSTALL scripts
>
>I believe AT&T have done just that! Their new SCSI based
>systems install from tape. Maybe they even boot from tape,
>but I am not sure about that.

You can't boot from tape (ala 3b2 and non-PC systems) but you
can install Unix from tape.  Basically you boot a small kernel
from a floppy, then install everything from tape.  This
feature is provided in System V Release 3.2.2, and is intended
primarily for ESDI systems.  If you order a Model S, you will
get a SCSI boot floppy.  Unfortunately, currently that's the
only way to get a 386 Unix SCSI boot floppy (unless you have a
running system that you can roll your own on).  The Model S is
the only system we support bootable SCSI on - all other
systems offer SCSI as an add-on to an ESDI-based system.

You can order 3.2.2 as a floppy-only distribution, or as a
single floppy and a cartridge tape.  This will only boot on an
ESDI system.  If you order a Model S, Unix comes bundled with
the cpu and is already installed on the hard disk.  It does
come with a SCSI boot floppy and Unix distribution tape for
backup purposes.  The distribution tape is identical for ESDI
and SCSI systems.

Note that for this to work on ESDI systems, you have to have
your tape drive on DMA 1, IRQ 5, and I/O ports 288 and 289.

On SCSI systems, you need to be using the SCSI tape drive
(which is bundled with the Model S).  For those that are
wondering, the basic Model S configuration includes a 300 MB
SCSI disk, 120 MB SCSI cartridge tape unit, 4 MB of RAM, 
Unix, and PMX/TERM.

-- 
Frank McGee, AT&T
Entry Level Systems Support
attmail!fmcgee (preferred)
att!cuuxb!fmcgee (those that can't reach attmail)