- cctalk - classiccmp.org

Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks

by Robert Feldman

>Message: 6 >Date: Sat, 20 May 2023 07:25:39 -0700 >From: Chuck Guzis <cclist(a)sydex.com> >Subject: [cctalk] Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks. > >On 5/20/23 04:21, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote: > >> I was startled to discover my (long gone) Athlon XP box could only >> handle a single floppy drive. The BIOS has no option for a 2nd. >> >> I can't imagine that was a significant cost saving. > >It's a matter of pins. I believe that it started when the "SuperIO" >chip started packing in more support for various peripheral functions >and the 2 pins for drive select and motor control of an extra drive were >viewed as least important. Earlier versions of the chip often allowed >re-purposing the pins used for the parallel port as an interface for an >extra floppy--you saw this on laptop systems, which often had only one >floppy drive in any case. cf. Intel's PCISet chip sets. > >--Chuck My main computer is a 15-year old Dell Precision T3400 (Core 2 Duo). It can handle multiple floppy drives, but the BIOS does not allow 360KB 5.25" disks, only 1.2MB in that size. Bob

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VCF Swap Meet June 10, 2023. Wall, NJ.

by Jeffrey Brace

VCF will be having another Swap Meet this coming June 10 from 8AM to 2PM for the general public and 7AM for vendors. Signup here to reserve a spot. <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeLdDjGN1TtOjPxNq38VA43p36oW5HXuX0…> Same place as the previous swap meets in the big parking lot on Monmouth Boulevard in Wall, NJ <https://www.google.com/maps/place/40%C2%B011'05.5%22N+74%C2%B003'47.9%22W/@40.1848619,-74.0643212,350m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m13!1m6!3m5!1s0x89c228394afc24b3:0x793045909b6e8fba!2sInfoAge+Science+and+History+Museums!8m2!3d40.1857343!4d-74.0593097!3m5!1s0x0:0xbe14db9783fe1872!7e2!8m2!3d40.18486!4d-74.0633081> . A change for this year is that we will have some food being sold by the South Monmouth Fire Museum. This will be a fundraiser for them and a welcome service for our attendees. All the information that you need is here: https://vcfed.org/vcf-swap-meet/ Take care, Jeff Brace VCF National Board Member Chairman & Vice President Vintage Computer Festival East Showrunner VCF Mid-Atlantic Event Manager Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity https://vcfed.org/ <http://www.vcfed.org/>

1 year, 11 months

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Paper Tape Reader Needed

by Mike Katz

I have just acquired a number of PDP-8 paper tapes. My reader/punch is not working at the moment (neither is my PDP-8 but that's another story). I am looking to beg, borrow or buy a paper tape reader or reader/punch (stand alone or PC04) so that I can archive these tapes as they are getting more and more rare. I would prefer a serial (RS-232) reader or reader/punch but I could deal with a parallel and create my own parallel to serial converter or get some kind of USB to parallel adapter. There are several "hand pull" types of readers out there (like the OP-80A) but I am afraid of damaging the very old fanfold paper tape by using my inconsistent hand rather than some kind of motor driven mechanism which is designed for smooth paper tape flow. Does anyone have any ideas or something they have to sell or donate? Please contact me by email directly. Note: This is also being posted to the VCF DEC Forum. Thank you, Mike Katz bitwiz@12bitsbe

1 year, 11 months

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Re: ST-251 Data Recovery for Glenside Color Computer Club (GCCC)

by Robert Feldman

>Message: 23 >Date: Thu, 18 May 2023 17:32:00 +0100 >From: Tony Duell <ard.p850ug1(a)gmail.com> >Subject: [cctalk] > <snip> <But that's a minor issue. The loss of RS232 communications is a lot <more serious. < <-tony Can you fix it using MODE.com from a DOS prompt? Bob

1 year, 11 months

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Re: ST-251 Data Recovery for Glenside Color Computer Club (GCCC)

by Robert Feldman

>Message: 21 >Date: Wed, 17 May 2023 04:56:05 +0100 >From: Tony Duell <ard.p850ug1(a)gmail.com> >Subject: [cctalk] Re: ST-251 Data Recovery for Glenside Color Computer > Club (GCCC) <snip> >As for the target machine having a serial port, one of the machines I >want to get stuff onto is an Osborne 1A. The serial port on that is >horrible. <snip> >-tony For CP/M computers such as the Osborne, you can read and write their diskettes on an MS-DOS computer with a program like Media Master. KayPro disks are harder, as there are problems formatting them on an MS-DOS computer. Bob

1 year, 11 months

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Using Teledisk 2.16 to read old RX50 images

by Chris Zach

Hi! Well, after a good bit of work I have finally gotten my Compaq XE4000 up and running with Windows 98, the BIOS all set, a new battery, and of course a 1.2mb 5.25 floppy that seems to be working. I'd now like to start sucking the rare images I have here on RX50 into a TD0 format which can be converted to a .IMG format which can then be used on the mighty GoTek's to allow people to run such operating systems as: Micro RSTS 2.1 Micro RSX (I forget the exact version) Micro-11 Maint disks Ultrix 11 Version 2.0 (all 30 disks) Before I start popping these in I have a question: I just did a test using an XXDP floppy and the message I got included Single sided, double density Interleave 1:1 Sector Size is 512 And then for each track from 1 to 82 (?) it said "Data, No ID adding sector 110" Is this right? Something else I might need to do for reading RX50's? Thanks! CZ

1 year, 11 months

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Are there any useful OCR programs for scanning old listings and producing text with proper formatting

by Marc Howard

Marc Howard <cramcram(a)gmail.com> [image: Attachments]May 10, 2023, 8:58 PM (15 hours ago) to cctalk-owner I have some listings I want to convert to ASCII. They're line printer output from a computer that existed from the mid-sixties to the early 70's (Agage AGT series). I can't find any OCR package that can take scanner output (either PDF or JPEG) and convert it to text with roughly the same number of spaces between words as was there originally. Seems like it would be an easy task. The input is non-proportional text from line printer output (actually it might have been printed on a Diablo hytype). And yet all I get is most of the characters with either no or single spacing between words. And it misses quite a bit of scanned characters at that. Anyone have any good experiences trying to do this? I've attached a PDF scan if you have a way to do a test run. Thanks, Marc Howard

1 year, 11 months

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KIM-1 stuck bits from $280 to $29f

by Cameron Kaiser

Odd fault on my Rev D KIM-1 popped up while writing code this afternoon (initially I thought I had a bug in my paper tape transmitter) - between $0280 and $029f, the upper 5 bits are stuck at zero. The rest of the address range seems fine. In particular, $0080-$009f, $0180-$019f and $0380-$039f work correctly. This doesn't smell like a bad RAM chip to me or I would think there would be a bad bit throughout the entire 1K, so I suspect this is a data bus problem but I'm not sure where to start looking. Any guesses from the group? -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser(a)floodgap.com -- require "std_disclaimer.pl"; -----------------------------------------------

1 year, 11 months

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Altair 8800 question

by Mike Douglas

I have a reproduction of the metal nameplate strip that looks very close to the original if you want one. $10 plus shipping. Mike D

1 year, 11 months

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Did Intel's Insite User Program Library survive?

by Veit, Holger

Hi all, The PDF at https://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/intel/insite/1983_Insite_Users_Program_Librar… lists various old user submitted software which could have been ordered from Intel those days. Is there anything of that archived and downloadable somewhere? Regards Holger

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