Ra81 disks under System V

[x0705]

> I must move System V UN*X to a system that has ra81 disk drives.
> The problem is that I cannot find a driver for this disk even though
> it is listed in the manual as ra(7). I have a System V release 2
> version 2 source tape, but it may be a pre-release. Does the current
> SV2.2 release have this driver? Does anyone know how I can get it?
> Alan Fargusson.
> { ihnp4, amdahl, mot }!drivax!alan

You have to get the driver from DEC.  There are three versions of
System V that are relevant here:

System V Rel 0 - DEC has a driver for this one.  It's a shade buggy,
		but the bugs are fixed in the SVR2 version.

System V Rel 2 - The standard vanilla SVR2.  DEC has a driver for this
		one, and it's pretty decent.  Cost was about $2500.
		Installation is pretty clean; arrangements of disk
		slices are not the same as in the vanilla SVR2
		documentation, but DEC gives you the documentation.

System V Rel 2 version 2 - SVR2 with Paging (+ a few other things.)
		Surprise!  SVR2v2 may be a released product, but the
		UDA50 driver isn't.  DEC has some beta-versions out,
		and several of us here have locally hacked versions
		(hacked with DEC's help, since the DEC office that's
		developing them is located near a big Bell Labs location.)
		The SVR2 DEC driver can't cope with the new paging loader,
		and there are a few other problems.

<break for some technical background>
DEC makes the UDA50, an intelligent disk controller for the UNIBUS,
and several disks that it knows about.  The RA81 is a ~450 Meg Winchester;
the RA60 is a ~205 Meg removable disk;  the RA82 is a ~900 Meg Winchester.
All of them are small; you can stack three of them into one cabinet.

<where-to-get-info>
The DEC project supervisor is Dave Leonard, at the Holmdel NJ DEC office,
1-201-946-9333.  I don't know the part numbers for the drivers, so you'll
have to talk to your sales rep or (last-resort) call Dave.  For Bell Labs
people, the Div 452 Comp. Centers have a SVR2 release, and are working with
DEC to put together a SVR2v2 paging release.

<a disclaimer so I can flame safely>
I'm part of a technical organization that doesn't develop UNIX; we work on
telephones and write memos and stuff like that, and use computers to help us
do our work.  We are primarily a customer for operating system stuff, though
we are often a beta-site if we need something that isn't released yet,
and we use lots of locally-hacked products.
Anything I say here is on my
own and does not represent policy of AT&T, Bell Labs, My department, or
anybody important.  DEC and VAX are trademarks of DEC; UNIX is a trademark
of AT&T, and any time I refer to "AT&T" or "Bell Labs" I really mean
"AT&T" or "AT&T's Bell Laboratories group" or "AT&T <relevant subsidiary>".

<now for some flames>
A year or two ago, lots of us bought DEC's latest-and-cheapest systems, the
VAX 750 or 780 with RA81s, and found out we didn't have any software.
Lots of people pointed their fingers at the other guy, which didn't help
those of us who had hardware but no software.

DEC said "well, they work fine with VMS ..."   (Actually they were fairly
helpful, but they hadn't really gotten into the UNIX business yet.)

The BTL organizations said "We're really a lot more interested in 3B-20's
right now; if DEC wants to sell a disk that's new and weird maybe they
should write some software for them...."  "... Besides, we can't write a
driver until our hardware and documentation get delivered."

Various university people said "Hey, this is a neat disk; let's write a
4.2BSD driver for it!".

Some of us ran Berkeley Unix; some of us used System V drivers hacked by
people who didn't have adequate documentation; some of us let the system
spin it's disk and wished it had blinking lights like the old PDP-11's.

Eventually DEC came out with some software, but their stuff takes a while to
get to market - when AT&T develops a new version of the UNIX Operating
System, DEC has to wait for it to get released and delivered, then adapt
it to their hardware, then let their lawyers and marketing people do
their thing, then our purchasing people and lawyers have to do their thing
so we can get a copy, and meanwhile we've been running internal versions
of the UNIX release for six months.  It's a slow cycle, and 2/3 of it is
bureaucracy rather than technical work.
-- 
Bill Stewart, AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ 1-201-949-0705 ihnp4!ho95c!wcs