As of June 14, 2004:

To read VAXEN optical disks (1024 bytes per sector, ~300 MB per side)
on a linux box: 

Go to the linux box in the Wedge (located beside Yorick, the really
big SGI monitor); you will have to borrow a monitor and power cord
for the CPU from another machine (I borrowed from the Macintosh
computer that sits in the back corner of the Wedge.

Put an optical disk in the drive marked Optical2. Turn on the drive
and then the pc.  See /home/bic/kate/VaxOD/hc_vax_mod_inventory.txt
for a list of which cartridges (in the computer room) contain data HC
may have collected.

It is likely that X-windows won't operate with the monitor, and the
machine doesn't boot up into an X-win session anyway.  You will need
an account on this machine.  Contact me at kate@bic.mni.mcgill.ca to
get this set up.

Once you've logged in, change to the vms directory:

$> cd /tmp/vms



Copy the disk image from the MO cartridge to the local hard drive:

$> dd if=/dev/sda of=/tmp/vms/MOcartridgeLabela.raw bs=1024


Note that "MOcartridgeLabela" refers to the handwritten label on the
cartridge in the drive.  Once the raw file has been written to the
hard disk, you can look at its contents for the files you're looking
for: 

$> ./ods-2-rdr -l -nMOcartridgeLabela.raw '[000000]'

This gives a list of everything on the drive.  Anything that ends in
.DIR is, not surprisingly, a directory.  So, to check out the MNI.DIR
you would do this:

$> ./ods-2-rdr -l -nMOcartridgeLabela.raw '[mni]'


Then, if you see another directory you wish to view in the MNI.DIR
(e.g. RESULTS.DIR), you would do this:

$> ./ods-2-rdr -l -nMOcartridgeLabela.raw '[mni.results]'


I think you get the idea for nested directories...

If you are looking for certain files, you can pass this command to
grep:

$> ./ods-2-rdr -l -nMOcartridgeLabela.raw '[mni.results]' | grep keywordhere


If you only want to copy one file from the raw file to the present
working directory, invoke this form of the command:

$> ./ods-2-rdr -i -nMOcartridgeLabela.raw '[mni.results]'"filename.ext"

NB: the -i switch indicates the file is binary (as most of them will
be).  If you are just copying text files (eg. .tex files) omit the -i
switch.  FYI, the -l switch tells the program to list the files in the
directory indicated.  Don't know what the other switches do.  Google
might be of some help...

--
If you want to copy a group of files matching a certain pattern:

$> set files = `./ods-2-rdr -l -nMOcartridgeLabela.raw '[mni.results]' | grep keyword`
$> echo $files  
(This lists the files you have 'selected')
$> foreach ($files)

  foreach? echo $file; ./ods-2-rdr -nMOcartridgeLabela.raw '[mni.results]'"$file"
  foreach? end

--
If you are starting from scratch, get thee to a linux box with a SCSI
card and a functioning C compiler.  The source lives in:

/home/bic/neelin/ftp/vms/vms_filesystem/ods-2-reader

Best to use a low-capacity SCSI optical drive to try and access such
antique disks.