Amiga Unix tape images (Beta 3j, 1.1, 2.03)

[KillaByte]

Hi!

I've been toying around with Amiga Unix (aka Amix) on WinUAE for the past couple of days. I've done install tests with all the available tape images out there (2.01, 2.03 and 2.1). I noticed that on the 2.03 tape image the gnusrc.cpio.Z archive (3rd file from the end of the tape; i_25 in most archives) is corrupted. Does anyone have a working 2.03 install tape plus matching tape drive and could pull a working image?

Looks like there are also Beta 3j and 1.1 tapes and boot floppies floating around. I'd be very interested in images of those, too

[mark_k]

I finally found the files that I dumped from my original AMIX tape in 1998.

My tape is version 2.03, unlimited user, international.

I compared my files with those in the amix_2.03.7z archive on the EAB file server (~Uploads/twilen directory).

Three files differ. Using the number naming system (first file on tape is 00) they are 02, 24 and 26.

File 26 is truncated in amix_2.03.7z; its length is 5242880 bytes, whereas my one is 14672384 bytes long.

Both 24 files are the same length (8244224 bytes) but their contents differ. They are cpio archives which have been compressed with the UNIX compress command. Both files test as okay with gzip -t, but on trying to unpack the amix_2.03.7z 24 cpio archive, cpio prints cpio: warning: skipped 675 bytes of junk

File 02 might not be corrupted in amix_2.03.7z, but may just reflect differences between the international and US versions. Export of strong encryption from the US was not allowed at the time. (I didn't look into which files in that archive differ, someone else please do that!)

I have uploaded an archive of my 02, 24 and 26 files (~24.4MB) to:
hxxp://www.4!shared.com/file/PO_UjqLVba/mark_k_AMIX_203_filestar.html
and
hxxp://www.media!fire.com/download/856658jbh2ua0cc/mark_k_AMIX_2.03_files.tar.xz

(fix the URLs by changing hxxp to http and removing !)


By the way, if anyone has an AMIX tape that they want to dump/backup using their real Amiga...

I transferred each file from my tape using the BTNTape 3.0 handler, using commands like "rcopy TAPE: 00". (Rcopy is a file copy program that only uses simple reads, unlike the CLI Copy command.)

It should be possible to recreate an Amiga UNIX tape by using commands like "rcopy 00 TAPE:", when the tape handler is configured to not rewind after reading.

[KillaByte]

Great - thanks a lot!

I'll have a look tomorrow.

[KillaByte]

I'm happy to report that your files fix all the problems the 2.03 tape was having. It now installs without problems!

The old 24 file from the FTP only differed in one single byte at offset 0x11B1FE (resulting in whitespace damage when uncompressed) while the i_25 file from the other tape image floating around was corrupted at many different places all over the file.

As you already noted, the 26 file was simply truncated. Yours was identical to the i_27 file from the other image.

As for the 02 file - there's only a single difference:
/usr/bin/login allows unlimited simultaneous logins in your version while the version in the other tape images seems to be the limited version. All the other files are identical.

So - thanks again for rescuing another piece of Amix history