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VAX 4000-200 in BA215 chassis. Can I install a KFQSA card and connect the cabinet disks to it?

by thomasdzubin＠gmail.com

I have a couple of VAX 4000-200 boxen running OpenVMS. I want to try out NetBSD on them but NetBSD does not support the SHAC DSSI controller on the KA660 CPU card. However NetBSD *DOES* support the KFQSA DSSI controller which I have a few of in my VAX 3800s. Can I install the KFQSA card in my 4000-200, disconnect the internal disks from the SHAC and connect the disks to the KFQSA thereby allowing NetBSD to run? Has anyone done anything like that? Happy 2024 everyone! Thomas Dzubin Calgary, Vancouver, or Saskatoon CANADA

2 years, 4 months

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Anyone have any IO Corp 8219HP docs or info

by Peter Ekstrom

Happy New Year everyone! I was wondering if anyone happens to have any documentation or information about the 8219HP adapter by IO Corporation? It is a protocol converter from Twinax to RS232 emulating an IBM 5219 printer. I am mostly looking for information about the option/rate switches on the back. I acquired one of these for cheap recently but haven't been able to find any information about it. Thanks!

2 years, 4 months

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Axil 220/245 PSU

by Alan Perry

Does anyone here have a running Axil 220 or 245 (Sun SPARCstation LX clone)? My 220 has a dead PSU and I am trying to get it working with a modern PC PSU. But I don’t know the pinout for the power connector. While the power connector is the same as used by Sun, the pinout and, aside from +5V and GND, the wire color scheme are different. I have identified 3 of the 6 wire colors and 7 of the 10 pins. The wire color scheme seemed to be a match for early sun4c but I just found something that suggests a couple wire colors are used differently. I have found that black is ground, red is +5V, and yellow is +12V. White, orange, and blue are TBD. A marking on the PSU board suggests white is -12V. Blue and orange seem to only used by a daughter board centered on a LM339 chip. But, as a software guy, I can’t tell what it does. Anyone here have any insight here that might help me? alan

2 years, 4 months

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VCF EAST 2024 (Wall, NJ) : Registration Links and info

by Jeffrey Brace

https://vcfed.org/2023/12/31/vcf-east-2024-is-coming-april-12-13-14-infoage/

2 years, 4 months

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Re: Computhink Eagle 32 - software, docs, info?

by Chris Hanson

I picked up this system from its previous caretaker yesterday, to hold onto for a friend. I’ve also inventoried the major functional ICs and archived the “IPL-M” ROMs. Here’s what’s in the Eagle-32: - Main Logic Board - 8MHz 68000 CPU - 2x D8255 programmable peripheral interface - left 8255 is clearly for parallel and user port - right 8255 I strongly suspect is for hard disk, possibly ANSI or SASI - D8253C programmable interval timer - 2x 2651N programmable communications interface for serial ports - 2x 2716 for IPL-M 0/1 ROMs - Disk Controller Board - FD1701B-02 floppy disk controller - No video board, whether text or graphics Since there’s no video board in the system, and a couple of cables internally that aren’t attached to anything, I expect it was removed by a previous caretaker. This is sad because without one it’s unlikely to come up, not that anyone has found any software for it. On the other hand, there are zero PALs, so both full reverse engineering and maintenance should be straightforward. I threw the 4KB of boot ROM in Ghidra and confirmed a couple things: - At boot, ROM is mapped to 0, and then remapped either by a write to the location or by a cycle counter: The initial stack pointer at 0x0 is 0x0001fffe and the initial program counter at 0x4 is 0x00ffc026, indicating the ROM is normally located at 0x00ffc000. - The ROM freely interchanges addresses in the 0x00ffc000..0x00ffffff range and addresses in the 0xffffc000..0xffffffff range, which is annoying to deal with in Ghidra. - I/O devices appear to be in the 0x00ff8000..0x00ffbfff range, all of the devices accessed via the bootstrap seem to be barely above 0x00ff8000. - Only NMI, bus error, interrupt 2, and interrupt 5 are set up by the bootstrap. - The bootstrap is very bare-bones but still has a bunch of indirection in it; it’s obviously written in assembly, but it does seem to have parameterization so it may support both console and serial I/O. I suspect that I can figure out from the pattern of I/O accesses which devices are at which address in the memory map, at least if I bring up an emulation in MAME. That should at least allow writing new code for it, and _maybe_ even figuring out which CRT controller the video hardware uses and where in the memory map it is. (I suspect the 6845 and/or 6847 just from the time period, but who knows? Gotta see what it actually do when trying to show the “IPL IN PROGRESS” string contained in the ROM, or one of the couple error strings…) — Chris

2 years, 4 months

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qbert license?

by Steve Lewis

Perhaps slightly off topic, but perhaps someone here has a contact or idea on how to get started on this: Someone has done a Q-Bert port in 2023 to a new system. The title is different, but the "look and feel" (and audio) is pretty "authentic" to the original (not sure if using exactly the same original tiles and such, I believe it was all original work - but still, it's very much an arcade-style clone). We see now that Sony "owns" it these days (I seem to remember decades ago there a Q-bert cartoon? But perhaps remembering it wrong). The question is, how would one start on obtaining a license? I assume it wouldn't be cost effective (for a free casual port), but still just curious. I've tried to contact Sony in the past (on a different software title), but it's just a huge enterprise it's a bit challenging to approach. Just wondering on the off chance if maybe someone around here has gone down this road already? -Steve

2 years, 4 months

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RSTS/E questions.

by Bill Gunshannon

I am back to playing with RSTS/E 10.1 again and have a couple questions if there is still anyone around with experience. First: Is there a way to change the allowed length for passwords? Second: Is there a way to make login take the assigned name rather than the x,x format for logins? I seem to remember using a system once that did but I have no idea if it was legit or a local hack. Although I have no problem using local hacks. :-) Need to get a system going and maybe even join HECNET. I really wish there was TCP/IP for RSTS. bill

2 years, 4 months

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Sorbus Micro Handbook 1990 Update

by Jay Jaeger

I have been scanning in a lot of manuals that I have that relate to computers that are not in my collectiion, but which may be unique, or nearly so. Today I scanned in the Sorbus Micro Handbook 1990 Update, which has information provided to Sorbus FEs who might service various microcomputers. There is info in there on all sorts of stuff, including motherboard jumper/switch info up through a PS/2 model 80, for example, and lots of other manufacturer's computers and expansion cards, stuff like IOMEGA, AST, Zenith Tandon, etc. etc. It can be found in my Google drive under my directory of things I have provided for bitsavers to snag: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2v4WRwISEQRWWFFdVpCZWFTZEU&resourcekey=0… in subdirectory pdf/sorbus JRJ

2 years, 4 months

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programming the IBM PC synchronous serial boards (Northstar Advantage project)

by r.stricklin

Did IBM ever publish programming information for their PC SDLC or BiSync communications boards? I’m wondering about the possibility of programming one to drive the synchronous protocol needed for “booting” a Northstar Advantage over its serial port. Or, for that matter, wondering what Northstar had in mind when they made that protocol synchronous - what would they have had driving it? ok bear.

2 years, 4 months

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some old PC-DOS file managers

by Steve Lewis

Hey all! I'm looking for a couple "file manager" type pieces of software. I can't find them on WinWorld. First one is from about 1984-1985, possibly called DRBOSS.COM, I just remember it used IBM extended graphics for "window" borders (which were colored red) and the filenames were either in gray or green. The main feature was you could select a few files at a time, then do some operation on those selected ones. And as a .COM it was well under 64K. The other is from around 1996, and called MWIZ or Menu Wizard. Apparently there were a few variations with possibly the same/similar name. All I recall about this one is it came with both a .EXE and a .COM, and was written by a person named Tony. I believe it was available on the '96 or '97 BYTE magazine CD, and possibly also on CompuServe (I'm not current on what the state of any CompuServe archives are these days). Not urgent - just curious if they could be found. And if anyone is in an MS-DOS mood throughout the holiday break: I still find my ancient CDIR.EXE useful even in DOSBOX or on my physical IBM 5150. It is available in my utility collection archived here: https://github.com/voidstar78/VUC4DOS For other early IBM PC notes (like floppy drive emulators and NIC setup), I have some notes here: https://voidstar.blog/ibm-pc-5150-notes/ (including all about using the tape deck!) -Steve / v*

2 years, 4 months

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