HP(IV) 2/9/75 HP(IV)
NAME
hp - RH-11/RP04 moving-head disk
DESCRIPTION
The files hp0 ... hp7 refer to sections of RP disk drive 0.
The files hp8 ... hp15 refer to drive 1 etc. This is done
since the size of a full RP drive is 170,544 blocks and in-
ternally the system is only capable of addressing 65536
blocks. Also since the disk is so large, this allows it to
be broken up into more manageable pieces.
The origin and size of the pseudo-disks on each drive are as
follows:
disk start length
0 0 9614
1 18392 65535
2 48018 65535
3 149644 20900
4 0 40600
5 41800 40600
6 83600 40600
7 125400 40600
It is unwise for all of these files to be present in one in-
stallation, since there is overlap in addresses and protec-
tion becomes a sticky matter.
The hp files access the disk via the system's normal buffer-
ing mechanism and may be read and written without regard to
physical disk records. There is also a ``raw'' interface
which provides for direct transmission between the disk and
the user's read or write buffer. A single read or write
call results in exactly one I/O operation and therefore raw
I/O is considerably more efficient when many words are
transmitted. The names of the raw RP files begin with rhp
and end with a number which selects the same disk section as
the corresponding hp file.
In raw I/O the buffer must begin on a word boundary, and
counts should be a multiple of 512 bytes (a disk block).
Likewise seek calls should specify a multiple of 512 bytes.
FILES
/dev/hp?, /dev/rhp?
BUGS
- 1 -