From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2018 14:41:22 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] /dev/drum
Message-ID: <20180423184122.82A0918C07E@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: "Ron Natalie"

    > I'm pretty sure that swapping in V6 took place to a major/minor number
    > configured at kernel build time.

Yup, in c.c, along with the block/character device switches (which converted
major device numbers to routines).

    > You could create a dev node for the swap device, but it wasn't used for
    > the actual swapping.

Yes.

    > We actually dedicated a full 1024 block RF11 fixed head to the system in
    > the early days

Speaking of fixed-head disks, one of the Bell systems used (IIRC) an RS04
fixed-head disk for the root. DEC apparently only used that disk for swapping
in their OS's... So the DEC diagnsotics felt free to scribble on the disk.
So, Field Circus comes in to work on the machine... Ooops!

    Noel