formating a disk

[ptw@JASPER.SCRC.Symbolics.COM (P. T. Withington)]

    Date: Wed, 26 Jun 1991 17:32 EDT
    From: paul@PERSEPHONE.aegean-sea.dialnet.symbolics.com (Paul Cross)

	Date: Wed, 26 Jun 1991 15:16-0400
	From: ptw@JASPER.SCRC.Symbolics.COM (P. T. Withington)

	    Date: Wed, 26 Jun 1991 13:40 EDT
	    From: bouma@cs.purdue.edu

	    . . .

	    When I call the above function
	    it verifies writing all the flods including "disk".  But when I do
	    "scan cart:" it just loads the file cart:>commands.flod which doesn't
	    contain the "disk restore"!  I don't know how to list any files on the
	    tape from the fep as "show directory cart:>*.*" doesn't take.  How
	    can I load the disk commands from the tape?

	    Bill

	Are you scaning +all+ the flods?  You have to do a scan for each flod
	file on the tape, so if there are 5 flod files you have to do five
	scans.  (I believe you can also say scan cart:<N>, where <N> is the
	0-based index of the flod file on tape, to scan just a particular flod).

    I always thought that <N> refered to the Nth file on the tape, so 1 was
    the first file.

    To confirm PTW's belief:  I always do successive explicit scans from
    the tape.  So, instead of "scan cart:", I always do "scan cart:1" "scan
    cart:2" etc.  In this manner, the number corresponds to the nth file on
    the tape.

    Let's say that the disk flod is the sixth file on your tape.
    Scan Cart:6 will properly read it in.

    It sounds to me, too, that you weren't scanning in all the files.  The
    only thing I'd add is that if you get an error about something not
    starting with FEP Overlay, you're trying to scan a file that is not a
    flod file.

    Hint:  When you later need to do a Load Microcode on the machine, you
    can do that off the cart, too.  Or, you can Disk Restore it off the
    tape.  Use this to put microcode on a tape: 

    ;;; -*- Mode: LISP; Package: USER; Base: 8; Lowercase: T; Syntax: Common-lisp -*-

    (with-open-stream (tape (tape:make-stream :direction :output :host :local :device "Cart"))
	  (with-open-file (mic "sys:l-ucode;3650-mic.mic.430" :characters nil :byte-size 8)
	    (stream-copy-until-eof mic tape)
	    (send tape :write-eof)))

    Then you can do a Load Microcode cart:0 or Load Microcode cart:1,
    depending on who's right about the indexing scheme, or just a normal
    Load Microcode if you restored the file.

    Good Luck.

At least two people have pointed out that the file index is 1-based not
zero-based.  A check of the code proves them right.  CART: and CART:0
are synonyms meaning "the next file", so by putting just what you need
on the tape in the right order, you can just use CART:. 

An interesting side point, which I'm not sure is documented anywhere, is
that you can put a netboot core on the tape, and (after loading the
microcode per Paul's instructions) use Load World CART: and Set World to
Netboot to boot a machine whose worlds are all trash (assuming a netboot
server at your site).  (You can't load a normal world from the tape,
since Lisp will not know how to page off the tape; but a netboot core is
a "complete" world, so it works.)