How to read v6 distribution tapes?

[Dik T. Winter]

We did not (yet) receive the parent article, so I do not know what the
exact question was, but ...

In article <11872 at alice.att.com> dmr at alice.att.com (Dennis Ritchie) writes:
 > Roy Smith wondered about how to look at v6, which exist on tape as
 > RK05 disk images.  Here's how we do it.  It's instructive of
 > something--I'm not sure quite what, but it makes an interesting demo,
 > and it is a useful way to keep these archives.
What I did do a long time ago was to write a program that would look at the
disk image on file and convert it to a complete directory structure.  The
trick is to find inode #2 and start from there.  I do not know, but perhaps,
if I look long enough in my archives,  the program might even be sitting
somewhere.
 > 
 > We transferred the disk images to big single files.  Norman Wilson
 > wrote a file server that understands the v6 disk format (512-byte disk
 > blocks, 32-byte inodes, 16-bit disk addresses).  Thus we can mount
 > this disk image as a file system and poke around in it.
This is of course far superior.
--
dik t. winter, cwi, amsterdam, nederland
dik at cwi.nl