Dave those are ANSI tape labels. Unix does not use them DEC did although was inconsistent with the use particularly WRT HDR2 records. Tom Quarles (of spice 3 fame) wrote probably the best version for Unix to deal with them. I believe I gave a copy but it will be in BSD 4.1 maybe 4.2 compiler syntax. I'll ask him if he ever updated it. Clem On Sat, Aug 1, 2020 at 3:55 AM Dave Horsfall wrote: > On Sat, 25 Jul 2020, Warner Losh wrote: > > > Weren't V5/6/7/etc distributed as bootable tapes? Set the switch > > register to point to the tape instead of the disk... > > > > Yes. They were. We have V6 and V7 tapes (and a V5 disk image). Likely > > earlier versions likely did too. What I'd meant was that 2.8BSD is the > > first 2BSD that had a bootable tape. > > Ah, my mistake. > > I think the loader also read just the first block, so woe betide you if > you used a labelled tape... > > If I recall, VOL1, HDR1, etc. > > -- Dave -- Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual