Hi. I recently got an Apple II+. OK, it's not the most exciting
system in the world, but very cool in it's own respect. It's totally
FULL of all kinds of add-in cards (including a AD/DA converter),
and has 64K RAM. (48K+16K Pocket Rocket), etc. So basically,
it's a nice II+, but more important to me is the add on cards, which
probably hold tons of interesting secrets. There's a problem.
MACHINE WILL NOT BOOT. I can turn it on, floppy spins, but I
won't get a display. None at all. One possible reason is that the
local power is 110v, 50hz, not 60, but the IIc works fine. It was
also shipped here air freight, but once again, other computers
work, but that doesn't prove anything. Ideas? Suggestions?
Tim
********************************************
*Tim D. Hotze - Co-Founder, The ReviewGuide*
*tim(a)thereviewguide.com *
*http://www.thereviewguide.com *
********************************************
I'm sure someone here has heard of a NorthStar Dimension. Was it a PC
compatible system?
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Always being hassled by the man.
Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0
See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details!
[Last web site update: 12/27/98]
In a message dated 1/10/99 8:04:23 AM EST, tim(a)thereviewguide.com writes:
<< I recently got an Apple II+. OK, it's not the most exciting
system in the world, but very cool in it's own respect. It's totally
FULL of all kinds of add-in cards (including a AD/DA converter),
and has 64K RAM. (48K+16K Pocket Rocket), etc. So basically,
it's a nice II+, but more important to me is the add on cards, which
probably hold tons of interesting secrets. There's a problem.
MACHINE WILL NOT BOOT. >>
does it beep when you turn it on? try removing most or all of the i/o cards
and try it again. if it was shipped to you, it probably got beat to heck.
reseat/replug everything component on the board and try that.
david
NorthStar (founded by 2 Berkeley professors) made one of the earliest S-100
5.25" disk sub-systems. IIRC, it sold for $699 which was cheaper than than
the 8" systems available, and made it a popular add-on for IMSAI and other
early S-100 machines. It always included NorthStar DOS and BASIC, but CP/M
was eventually adapted for it (by Lifeboat Associates I think). The Horizon
was a farily well-designed 4 MHz Z-80 S-100 box supplied with N*'s own 16K
(and later 32K, 48K, and 64K) dynamic RAM cards. The floppy controller was
designed to use 10 hole hard sectored diskettes (which are still available
>from California Digital for $10 a box!) in formats ranging from SSSD (90K)
to DSQD (800K). They also made one of the earliest floating point processor
boards (which I believe only their own BASIC supported, in precisions from 8
to 14 digits). They eventually added a range of HDs and continued with
their own operating system development including a multi-user environment,
though they also officially offered CP/M. I was one of the founding members
(along with John Dvorak, who at one time published a Software Review and
sold N* software out of his home!) of INSUA, the International NorthStar
User's Association which published a very good newsletter for many years.
NorthStar made the transistion past the introduction of the PC by offering
an all-in-one SBC system with graphics (the Advantage) and even had a
dual-processor (Z-80 / 8088) model. Despite attempting to expand their
marketing by linking up with General Bindery Corporation (spiral-bound and
other binding equipment) to sell NorthStars through business equipment
suppliers, they eventually went the way of all S-100 manufacturers - R.I.P.
Bob Stek
bobstek(a)ix.netcom.com
Saver of Lost SOLs
On Jan 10, 11:10, Andrew Davie wrote:
> First question: there are two drives, and each has a set of jumper pins.
> The pins are labeled..
>
> DS 0
> 1
> 2
> 3
> MX
> MS
> H M
> H C
>
> The top drive, on which the red LED lights when I power the drive, has
> jumpers across DS1 and HC. I am guessing that this drive is the second
> drive, and that the two jumpers that fell out of the casing belong on the
> second drive. That should be, I'm guessing, DS0 and mmmh... HM? Can
> anybody enlighten me on this?
Probably DS0 (Drive Select 0) and all other links the same as the other
drive (so HC, rather than HM -- that determines the behaviour of head
loading w.r.t. drive select/motor on/some other condition)
> Second question: Powering the Sorcerer (I thought I didn't have a
monitor,
> but the VIDEO IN on my VCR works nicely - it shows up well on my TV)
exibits
> some strange behaviour. What's trying to come up on screen is "EXIDY
> STANDARD MONITOR" and a few lines after that. But it simply stops after
the
> second or third character. Repeated efforts see it stop in different
> places - sometimes you see the whole lot, and it's actually usable for a
few
[...]
> I found a homebrew cartridge for this machine, and when its plugged in,
the
> wordprocessor it contains appears to work fine - everytime - with no
> apparent problems.
> So, the question is, what's wrong with the monitor?
Did you have a BASIC cartidge plugged in? If that were so, and it were
faulty, it might well interfere with what happens after a cold start.
If not, it could be a faulty monitor PROM. I can't remeber at what point
the monitor checks for a cartridge and hands over control, but it could be
that one of the monitor PROMs is faulty. That might only be visible when
no other cartridge ius fitted, and the CLI part of the monitor is executed.
> Third question: Assuming I actually get the machine powering up
correctly,
> and that the drive I have isn't missing some vital component - it will be
> time to insert a disk. Can anybody tell me how to actually use a drive
with
> the Sorcerer system? I'm afraid it's going to be some arcane "GO C800"
or
> something like that, from the monitor. I think I might need someone with
> documentation!
That's how they usually work, but there are lots of different Sorcerer disk
formats/systems. We'd need to know more about the specific disk system you
have. Usually the bootstrap is quite small, and in the area you mention;
you could probably find the start of the bootstrap code just by DUmping
memory and looking for it.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
>> Graphics we know were not going to happen on PDP11 or most other
>> 16bit cpus as they don't address enough space. OSs were driven by
>> the environment and it's tasks plus space needs.
>>
>> Allison
>
>Jerome Fine replies:
>
>While I realize that it would not have been possible to make
>their graphics part of the standard OS for a PDP-11, I
>was led to believe that the PR0 350/380 had access to
>their bit mapped screen displays. While doing such
>manipulations was likely discouraged, is that a true
>statement of the situation and in a few lines, how was
>it done? I may have a working PRO 350/380 and
>it would be interesting.
That depends on the extent of the graphics you want on PDP11.
I am thinking of the VS11 and the VSV21 board sets. They work
quite nicely - I have a few VS11's and my VSV21 is on loan at a
customer site. I also have full docs on them if anyone need info on them.
Dan
Having spent the last several hours plowing through the boxes of
doc that came (thank you thank you thank you) with the system.. it
seems that I have either a 250-II or a 550-II; I have to drag the
CPU out to tell which.
The Mag Tape susbsystem has some very interesting conversion
routines... not like DECworld... much simpler.
I am *really* curious to see what's on the 'Games' reel.
Cheerz
John
If so, I have some old copies of the ORA books if you
want them. Yes, X11 is well over 10 years old!
-Miles, loves X but still misses Sun's original graphics
system
> Hi (from the list owner). :)
Hi yerself.
> I usually tell people to stop eventually, though I am rather lazy about it.
> Generally, I come down harder on the poltiical discussions.
I acknowledge that I'm jumping in without the benefit of a lurking period,
and that what I've seen so far may not be statistically significant, but
I'd like to offer a little perspective. I subscribe to a pretty varied
assortment of lists (ranging from old Ramblers to new music), and this is
by far the highest volume, with each digest in the 3000-4500 line range.
This, folks, is a lot of mail. In the case of at least one of the other
lists I subscribe to, the list owner borders on tyrannical in keeping the
discussion on-topic. We like it this way. Otherwise the S/N just drops
off too hard, and the list becomes more burden than useful.
> The Altair-price discussions are generally considered to be on topic,
> not just because they deal with classic computers, but because they deal
> with changes in the hobby of _collecting_ classic computers. If you've been
> looking at prices and available machines for any length of time, you can
> probably tell that it just isn't easy to pick up machines that used to be
> fairly readily available. (PDP-8's and -11's, for example.)
Understood. Me, I'm interested in the exchange of technical information,
and as I suggested above, it might be argued that the volume and variety
of discussion is going to make the list a less-than-satisfying thing for
people with specific interests.
Might I respectfully suggest that, in the absence of aggressive subject
management by the owner, the list would be better broken into four, say:
classiccmp-historical
classiccmp-technical
classiccmp-overblown_prices_collector_scum_die_die_die
classiccmp-more_about_television_licensing_really
> Maybe I should start keeping a list of subjects that are on-topic by
> consensus, and those that are off-topic by consensus.
That's admirably democratic of you, but impossible in practice. It's
really just a job for one individual's discretion, and I have no reason
to not trust yours.
Jonathan
I have various & sundry HP/UX 6.2 manuals, such as a Systems
Administrator manual. These went with the HP 9000 Series
300 systems, circa 1988. Still in the binders, mostly.
Anyone need them?
