test-drb February 1998

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

147 participants
783 discussions

by adavie＠mad.scientist.com

Just curious if I should really keep this rather well designed computer Its an "Olivetti M24 Personal Computer". I'd never seen an Olivetti before, which is why I saved it from the scap heap. Now is it scarce or nice enough to attempt to get running? If not, it becomes my new post box - rip out the drives and contents, sit it on top of a pole outside the house, paint the house number on the monitor screen :) Should look good! Also found, and free for a good home (cover my costs) a great condition box set of Texas Instruments Professional Computer MS-DOS manuals. I don't but thought somebody else might want them. Andrew.

26 years, 5 months

Stupid BIOS tricks

by maxeskin＠hotmail.com

I just downloaded the assembly source to a generic XT bios. It compiles, but I can't apparently run it from a command line, or boot off a floppy disk that has the thing rawritten on it. Is there a way I COULD do it without getting a ROM burner? ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

26 years, 5 months

C64 Modem issue

by kroma＠worldnet.att.net

>I have a C-64c and a Commodore brand 1200 modem. Since I still haven't had >a chance to resolve the problem with my 1541 disk drive, I'd like to >explore using the modem a bit. Can it be done in BASIC? Meaning, can I >issue certain BASIC commands to init the modem and dial out? It's been a >while since I've messed with any Commie machine, and when I did, I couldn't >afford the "luxury" of a 1200 baud modem. This may be something simple, and >I'd appreciate any help, even a pointer to info on the internet. >

26 years, 5 months

Kaypro 4 modem

by alanr＠morgan.ucs.mun.ca

I just got my hands on a Kaypro 4 in excellent condition, complete with software and manuals. However, I cannot seem to get the internal 300 baud modem working. I have two programs here with it, one is KERMIT for the Kaypro II CP/M 2.2, and the other is Superterm Version 5. According to the addendum with the machine, the version of Superterm that I have was modified for use with the internal modem on the Kaypro 4, however I cannot seem to get the modem to do anything. Would this modem accept AT commands? and if not, what commands do I have to send to it in command mode? Any help would be appreciated. On a side note, anybody remember the Star Trek basic game? They just don't make games like that anymore. I'm sitting here with Quake, QuakeII, and a whole slew of other advanced 3D games on my pentium, but I cannot tear myself away from playng Star Trek on the Kaypro! (getting my ass kicked, can't aim the torpedo's worth a damn :)

26 years, 5 months

Is there some special trick required to get RT-11 to sysgen?

by DSEAGRAV＠toad.xkl.com

I do @sysgen and it runs out of memory every time. Under RT11XM. I have 2 MW of RAM here, shouldn't that be enough? -------

26 years, 5 months

System/34 contd.

by maxeskin＠hotmail.com

UHOH! That means that I will have to move the thing! It's against the wall! With three 74-pound terminals on it, no less! This machine ran in 1980, when it was last used. Possibly, it has been eaten by the two- foot long rats that live in our building. To restate what I previously said, it needs a 220-v power source and I am trying to run it in an area that only has 110-v plugs. >[Previously, a load of questions...] >The CE panel is the Customer Engineer panel. WHile facing the front of the machine, take a step to your right. Turn left 90 degrees. Take another step >right. You should (Depending on your stride) be looking at a small hinged cover >about 12" high, on the left side of the machine. Open it. Inside is a mess of >switches and lights. This is the CE panel, similar to the frontpanel of a PDP-11 >or similar mini. WHen the machine is running you can watch the LEDs flash at >you. > >I'm not sure on the voltage stuff... >Is this machine running? Are you tyring to get it that way? >------- > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

26 years, 5 months

System/34 contd.

by maxeskin＠hotmail.com

For one thing, what is the CE Panel? The thing is in a corner, with the end that has the floppy drive on it visible, as well as the side that has a small power switch on it. I went down to Radio Shack, they only had 220-110 transformers that could handle up to 40 Watts. I have a hint this might not be enoug ;) Also, they had 110-220 transformers. Could I just wire one of those backwards and get the same result? Wouldn't it be easier to just wire two 110 volt plugs together like I was told I could try if I like "but I would far better notter"? IS this indeed like trying to move heat from a cold to a hot object? How many question marks can the listsevrer handle before crashing? ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

26 years, 5 months

9370 is a dog! Was: Re: Re[2]: Firsts

by Philip.Belben＠powertech.co.uk

> > Possibly. But I'm not convinced. I seem to remember the biggest IBM > > 3090 system drew about 250kW (I'll have to look that up too!). I > > imagine a typical system might draw perhaps 50kW. > > That is probably for a typical installation. The actual processor is > nowhere near that value (still enough to make the utility very happy, > however). A big string of DASDs adds up very fast, especially the power > sucking IBM disks (why is that? Really big motors)? I don't know where the figure of 250kW came from. I cannot find it anywhere. I have found some figures, though, for indifidual 3090 processor units _only_, dated 1986 and 1987. While I agree with you in principle, William, you'll be surprised at some of these. Figures are electricity consumption in kVA - an upper bound on kW, but not a useful indicator - and heat output in Btu/h which I have converted to kW, which should give a lower bound on electrical power requirements. 3090 Model kVA kW Heat 150 (1986) 32 23.2 kW 400 (top of range in 1986) 83.6 61.8 kW 400 with vector coprocessor 97.8 70.6 kW 120E (1987) 29.7 21.4 kW 150E (1987, replaces 150) 30.4 22.1 kW 400E (1987, replaces 400) 79.9 59.6 kW 600E (top of range in 1987) 95.6 71.5 kW 600E with all expansion 134.6 103.6 kW Note 1986 figures were given with and without vector facility; 1987 figures were given as minimum and maximum values. These figures are not even for a minimum system - you have to add disk drives and that awful 400Hz motor generator set - which can consume up to 7kW in itself. So, as I said, a typical system based around, say, a model 200 might consume 50kW, but even that needn't cripple you financially. Philip.

26 years, 5 months

IEEE-488 and Commodore (was: GP-IB)

by foxnhare＠goldrush.com

From: Yowza! <yowza(a)yowza.com> Subject: GP-IB (was Re: Atari 8-bit Find) >On Sat, 14 Feb 1998, Larry Anderson & Diane Hare wrote: >> Remember if you find a hint of something you are collecting at a thrift, >> look around for other components (i.e. if you find a Commodore IEEE-488 >> cable start looking for PET/B-128 drives, printers, computers, tapes, >> disks, manuals, etc.) >Which reminds me: why didn't IEEE-488 ever become a big hit in the >computer biz? It's been around since the 60's, is standard, has good >performance, has IC support, can handle a bunch of devices, etc., but it >became relagated to a niche of scientific instrument control for some >reason. Here is an interesting tidbit I found a year or so ago which partially answers at least Commodore's part of the question: **QUOTE** From: brain(a)garnet.msen.com (Jim Brain) Newsgroups: comp.sys.cbm Subject: PC's as 64 HD's and the 6522 chip! Date: 7 Apr 1994 13:48:35 GMT Right after I posted about hooking a 6522 VIA up to a PC parallel port to turn the PC into a "char-banger" instead of a "bit-banger", someone posted that they had thought the 6522 had a problem with the shift register. The poster also said that Jim Butterfield had alerted him and others to it. Well, I have been in correspondence with "The Commodore Man", so I asked him to elaborate on the topic. Here is the two responses: > Yes, it's true. Although I didn't get official confirmation of this >long after, when a Spectrum article quoted the designers. > As you know, the first Commodore computers used the IEEE bus to connect to >peripherals such as disk and printer. I understand that these were available >only from one source: Belden cables. A couple of years into Commodore's >computer career, Belden went out of stock on such cables (military contract? >who knows?). In any case, Commodore were in quite a fix: they made >computers and disk drives, but couldn't hook 'em together! > So Tramiel issued the order: "On our next computer, get off that bus. >Make it a cable anyone can manufacture". And so, starting with the VIC-20 >the serial bus was born. It was intended to be just as fast as the >IEEE-488 it replaced. > Technically, the idea was sound: the 6522 VIA chip has a "shift >register" circuit that, if tickled with the right signals (data and clock) >will cheerfully collect 8 bits of data without any help from the CPU. >At that time, it would signal that it had a byte to be collected, and >the processor would do so, using an automatic handshake built into the >6522 to trigger the next incoming byte. Things worked in a similar way >outgoing from the computer, too. > We early PET/CBM freaks knew, from playing music, that there was something >wrong with the 6522's shift register: it interfered with other functions. >The rule was: turn off the music before you start the tape! (The shift >register was a popular sound generator). But the Commodore engineers, >who only made the chip, didn't know this. Until they got into final >checkout of the VIC-20. > By this time, the VIC-20 board was in manufacture. A new chip could >be designed in a few months (yes, the silicon guys had application notes >about the problem, long since), but it was TOO LATE! > A major software rewrite had to take place that changed the VIC-20 >into a "bit-catcher" rather than a "character-catcher". It called for >eight times as much work on the part of the CPU; and unlike the shift >register plan, there was no timing/handshake slack time. The whole >thing slowed down by a factor of approximately 5 to 6. > There's more (the follow-on C64 catastrophe), but that's where it >happened. --Jim And the saga continues ... > When the 64 came out, the problem VIA 6522 chip had been >replaced by the CIA 6526. This did not have the shift register problem >which had caused trouble on the VIC-20, and at that time it would have >been possible to restore plan 1, a fast serial bus. Note that this would >have called for a redesign of the 1540 disk drive, which also used a VIA. > As best I can estimate - and an article in the IEEE Spectrum magazine >supports this - the matter was discussed within Commodore, and it was >decided that VIC-20 compatibility was more important than disk speed. >Perhaps the prospect of a 1541 redesign was an important part of the >decision, since current inventories needed to be taken into account. > But to keep the Commodore 64 as a "bit-banger", a new problem arose. >The higher-resolution screen of the 64 (as compared to the VIC-20) >could not be supported without stopping the CPU every once in a while. >To be exact: Every 8 screen raster lines (each line of text), the CPU >had to be put into a WAIT condition for 42 microseconds, so as to allow >the next line of screen text and color nybbles to be swept into the chip. >(More time would be needed if sprites were being used). > But the bits were coming in on the serial bus faster than that: aD >a bit would come in about every 20 microseconds! So the poor CPU, frozen >for longer than that, would miss some serial bits completely! > Commodore's solution was to slow down the serial bus even more. >That's why the VIC-20 has a faster serial bus than the 64, even though >the 64 was capable, technically, of running many times faster. > Fast disk finally came into its own with the Commodore 128. --Jim Now someone also told me at one time that they had seen a fastloader that same someone said he thought it was odd that the author of the loader had credited Commodore with the routines. Well, I can hazard a guess that the routines were the ones they had wanted to put in the 6522, but had to scrap due to the 6522 problem. Now I have no idea what the problem is/was, but I am eager to find out. However, I rescind my plans to build something around the 6522 until we find out what the problem is. Jim "Just the Facts" Brain **END QUOTE** The 64 and VIC would have had a faster drive if it wern't for the cables and the chip problems... Probably HP was doing major IEEE-488 sales and it was a strain on the cable manufactuer. IEEE-488 cables nowadays run from $40-$90 new, of course it is a standard 'get' item on my mental thrift store shopping list. -- -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- Visit our web page at: http://www.goldrush.com/~foxnhare/ Call our Commodore 64 BBS (Silicon Realms 300-2400 baud) at: (209) 754-1363 -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

26 years, 5 months

RSTS/E on a PDP-11?

by rcini＠email.msn.com

On Mon, 16 Feb 1998 15:06:55 -0800 (PST), Tim Shoppa <shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca> wrote: >>What sort of packs? What commands were you issuing to read them? >>What OS did you try to read them from? What error message did you get >>when it failed? They're RK05 packs, inserted in the DK2: device. I booted from DK0: with RT-11 v.4 and used "dir dk2:" to read the disk directory. Although I don't remember the specific error, it's something like "invalid directory." > Can RSTS/E be used on an 11/34? >>Most later versions support the 11/34, though some early versions (pre- >>1977 or so) don't. RSTS/E tends to be quite picky about peripheral >>configurations that it'll run on. I have v.6 and v.7. ------------------------------------------------- Rich Cini/WUGNET <nospam_rcini(a)msn.com> (remove nospam_ to use) - ClubWin Charter Member (6) - MCP Windows 95/Windows Networking

26 years, 5 months

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test-drb February 1998