test-drb June 1998

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

158 participants
941 discussions

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<Of course, I was just using the vernacular... (About like "CMOS setup" - <you didn't make any comments about that one though. :-)) But I didn't <remember that it was called ST506. Sounds like a Seagate part number. <Was it a PC hard drive, or even earlier? The ST506 was an early 5mb full height 5.25" hard disk from Shugart (later to become seagate). I still have a few. I predates the PC! The first PCs to have a hard disk used either the ST506 (5m) ST412 (10mb) or the Tandon t100 10mb all of which had a similar st506 drive level interface. <> You're probably thinking of the servo bursts - the signals that keep th <> heads on a track. Some drives did use a particular side of one of the <> platters for these. Other drives 'embedded' them in the sector headers <> the data platters. The latter is not common on ST506 interfaced drives, <> but is common on SCSI/IDE drives < <Hmmm, interesting. So low-level formatting doesn't rewrite these? <That would imply that the servo bursts are not involved in determining <sectors at all. I used to use an RLL card with a couple of formerly <MFM drives, and it made more sectors per track, so I thought the <wasted platter had something to do with that. Servo bursts are written at the factory and if lost the drive is junk as there is no way to reconstitue them. Their primary function is to get the head correctly centered on the cylinder regardless of temperature, vibrations and mechanical wear. MFM vs RLL... The media has a capacity to store a certain number of magnetic transistions per linear inch. This is a design number and unchangeable. What can change is the interpretation of those. RLL uses fewer magnetic transistions to encode data and it's clocking information needed to recover the data later. RLL in effect is data compression. <> Are you sure: While almost all clone controllers have a formatter routi <> at C800:5, < <Yep, that's the one. < <> I couldn't find it in the original IBM XT hard disk BIOS. Some of the controllers didn't have rom and depended on a floppy loaded formatter or floppy loaded driver routine. On one of my floppies I have HDINIT that was used for that purpose. Allison

26 years, 6 months

Final Xerox Star demo

by IVIE＠cc.usu.edu

>What are these bad things? I certainly want to know since I live >near it! > >If you want a description, it's fairly small (in terms of total info), >with a 2-story walk-through PC (when will they get that not every >computer in the world uses intel processors?), To make room for the two-story walk-through PC, they had to get rid of the neato walk-through SAGE exhibit, among others. Basically, they went from a museum a techno-geek could enjoy to something which appeals to the public at large. Roger Ivie ivie(a)cc.usu.edu

26 years, 6 months

Final Xerox Star demo

by maxeskin＠hotmail.com

What are these bad things? I certainly want to know since I live near it! If you want a description, it's fairly small (in terms of total info), with a 2-story walk-through PC (when will they get that not every computer in the world uses intel processors?), a history exhibit, a robotics exhibit, and an "internet exhibit" with stuff like how the information superhighway has transformed the technology paradigm for the new millenium. THe history one is the only mildly interesting one with lots of old machines (S/360, PDP-8, Altair, Apple I, etc.), but a bit small. The machines used in other sections are certainly worth museum appearance. Weird DEC and Apple stuff is all over the place, used for multimedia, but cool in themselves. > >I've certainly heard bad things about the BCM - how true they are I don't >know, since I've never been. > >-tony > > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

26 years, 6 months

Imsai before 76

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<Almost let an error slip by there, the IMSAI dates to the end of 1975, <November I think, the first ad was in the December 75 issue of Popular <Electronics, along with the Processor Tech VDM-1 video board. We had <one running in the lab by Xmas 75, the short motherboard (12 slot, IMSAI <dropped it early in 76), 8080 CPU and 4K static ram (1K installed), all <for only $429 in kit form. Which is why I said "more like 76". actually I have the Jan 1975 PE with the Altair on the fron which predated the IMSAI. That summer IMSAI announced the IMSAI. FYI by December 76 I would have over 11 months of operational experience with my altair... and wishing I'd gotten a SOL or IMSAI! Speaking of IMSAI I have a IMP-48 (8035 cpu) which was also made by IMSAI as a SBC for control apps and low cost computing. I'm seriously looking for a manual. I've had this board since 81 sans book (It works and I can run it, even preserved the eprom!). The dates on the parts suggest late 78 manufacture. Allison

26 years, 6 months

Imsai before 76

by peacock＠simconv.com

Almost let an error slip by there, the IMSAI dates to the end of 1975, November I think, the first ad was in the December 75 issue of Popular Electronics, along with the Processor Tech VDM-1 video board. We had one running in the lab by Xmas 75, the short motherboard (12 slot, IMSAI dropped it early in 76), 8080 CPU and 4K static ram (1K installed), all for only $429 in kit form. Jack

26 years, 6 months

Atari hard drives?

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<[Everyone predates the PC, except for me...] <I'm from 1978, same year VAX was invented. <The PC is from 76, right? I'm not too far off... <------- Kids.... The PC as in IBM PC was more like 1981... 76 was more like imsai. Allison

26 years, 6 months

Atari hard drives?

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<> I predates the PC! I do I do I do, I do. So does the ST506 interface! Allison

26 years, 6 months

Clueless Museums (was: Final Xerox Star demo)

by icyblackhand＠hotmail.com

do any of you have a Lisa, if so, I'll pay $100 or less. Thanks Mike

26 years, 6 months

Setup HD?

by sinasohn＠ricochet.net

I've got an Altima One computer (286, iirc -- it's at home) with a Conner CP-3044 (again, iirc) hard drive. I got the specs from the Hard Drive Bible for the drive, and went into the CMOS set up to set it up. No problem so far. After scanning through the predefined drives without success, I, of course, set it to type 47 -- user defined. Still no problem. Now comes the problem. I can't for the life of me figure out how to get to the Cyl/Sec/Heads/etc. fields to enter the appropriate numbers. If anyone has any suggestions.... Also, if anyone has any info on Altima (other than that it's a car sold by Nissan) I'd love to hear about it. Thanks! --------------------------------------------------------------------- O- Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know." Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates San Francisco, California http://www.sinasohn.com/

26 years, 6 months

Ressurecting FDDs (was Original IBM PC (was Re: Prices to pa

by maxeskin＠hotmail.com

What exactly does alignment entail? What part is getting misaligned? Does this happen to any other type of drive (CD-ROM, HDD,etc.) >> > It's better to get the right alignment disk, though >> > >> With the current price of fdds so low, it's hard to justify buying something >> that I would rarely use. > >Probably true for PCs, although I've found _new_ cheap fdds to be >misaligned. I check them befroe installation, you see. > >Definitely untrue for classic computers :-), where you either want to >keep as many parts original as possible, or need a floppy drive that's no >longer made e.g. 80 track 300 rpm 5.25". Yes, some 1.2Mbyte drives _can_ >be kludged to rotate slower, but it's not always obvious what to do. And >service manuals for cheap fdds are not available. > >> > Are you sure? Putting 12V where 5V should go is a bad idea, and I wasn't >> > aware that Atari drives had the connector backwards. >> > >> Yeah this is pretty well documented in the Atari threads. This isn't true for >> all brands however but I've never heard of any voltage conflicts. It's a 4 pin >> connecter and I wasn't aware of it also having 12v available on that connecter. >> Apparently most fdd brands will work 720 or 1440 but HD is not available >> without a modification, I just got unlucky with the one I bought. > >The standard pinout of the 4 pin power connector (both 5.25" and 3.5" >types) is ground on the middle 2 pins and +5V, +12V on the outside 2. >Some 3.5" drives (but by no means all!) are +5V only, and the +12V pin is >unused. My ST is hard to get to, and I don't have a service manual, so I >can't check to see what it does. > >> lwalker(a)interlog.com > >-tony > > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

26 years, 6 months

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test-drb June 1998