test-drb April 1999

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

170 participants
1190 discussions

by edick＠idcomm.com

My understanding prior to buying these controllers was that they were incompatible with the WD1000 and 1001 series, and were not SASI or SCSI either, thought they purportedly had a similar handshake. Beyond that, I need to find and subsequently read the documents. Dick -----Original Message----- From: Eric Smith <eric(a)brouhaha.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Saturday, April 17, 1999 7:28 PM Subject: Re: Ancient disk controllers >> include a N8X305N processor, some N82S181N ROMs, an N8X371N with leads going >> right to the 50-pin connector, and five socketed WDC parts copyrighted in 1980: >> WD1100V-03, WD1100V-01, WD1100V-04, WD1100V-05 and WD1100V-12. There is a >... >> As I said, I was told when I bought it that it was a SCSI controller. I >> remember trying to use it some years ago and not having much success. Does >> anyone have any info on this oddball? > >Sounds like a clone of the WD1000 or WD1001, which are nowhere close to >either SASI or SCSI.

25 years, 8 months

z80 timing... 6502 timing

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<Western Digital disk controllers are a little harder to get, so I'd <change it to 'a disk controller of your choice' which means you can use <an 8272 or whatever (trivial to get off an old PC card). 1793s are common enough and cheap too. If I went with the 765 (8272) I have to claim unfair advantage! <Considering you can make a serial port in a couple of chips, this is not <a major design task.... But it's overhead is trivial and well enough understood as to mean little. IT would be more of a challenge if each person supporting a processor had to use a different one. That would be a true learning experience. As to hardware... I cheat. I have SBCs for most common cpus. 1976 imp48 8048 (cute little sbc with tape IO, TTY, relays) 1977 8048 from byte 8048 (this was an 8035 with a mini front pannel) 1980 8051 8751 (basically a 8051 SBC with monitor) 1978 SC/mp ISP8A500 (sc/mp I) 1979 National TBX 8073 (SC/MP II with tiny basic) 1977 COSMAC ELF base 1802 (quest board) 1976 6800d1 6800 1977 kim1 6502 1983 Telvideo 905 R65c02 (card from terminal, good as SBC!) 1978 8x300 proto 8x300 (signetics) 1981 SDK78 7800 (nec propritary) 1981 78pg11 Protoboard 78pg11 (NEC propritary) 1979 Tk80 8080 1980 explorer8085 8085 (base card has 8085, ram and rom) 1980 Computime CPUZ z80 (s100 card with 1k ram, serial, eprom z80) 1981 Vt180 Z80 (z80, 64k, 4 serial, FDC, Eprom, RTC) 1981 Hurikon MLZ92 Z80 (Z80, mmu, 64k ram, eprom, serial,FDC) 1978 INtersil sampler (6100, 256w ram, rom, serial) 1982 29116 proto 29116/2911 proto for bitblitter 1982 Z8001 proto z8001 (z8001, 16k ram, 16k eprom, serial) 1982 Falcon T-11 (pdp11 chip, ram, parallel, serial, rom) 1979 SSS technico TI9900 (9900, ram, rom, serial) 1986 Advice 78032 (uVAXII, serial, 96k ram, 512k rom) The advice was used in 87 to assist the MV2000 design! All are classics, only the Advice wasn't available in '83. Now if I wanted to get exotic, I have a load of 2901/2911s with date codes pre 1980. Also 29116s (pre 83). Also enough raw 8748/9 and 8751 parts to do a major hack (maybe 50 or 60 of each). the 8749s are the slower 1982 parts that only run at 11mhz (instruction cycle time of 1.36uS) However with the prior to 1982 limit sthere are no sortage of choices. I'm not above using multiple cpus to do the task or mixing several different ones. Allison

25 years, 8 months

OT Was z80 timing... 6502 timing

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<In a _programming_ contest? Surely you jest... (or rather, don't waste <your hypothetical money)... < <Although, if I'm allowed to use _any_ processor, including one I've <designed myself, then things might get mildly more interesting... Oh, I could do that. My spin would be a PDP-8 with hardware of my own making. At one time I had static ram card in an 8e with hacked cpu timing (1uS cycle without trying hard). Then again the list of CPUs I have programmed on is long enough to know which ones to pick for what. Allison

25 years, 8 months

OT: K&R vs. ANSI C (was: Re: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?...)

by yakowenk＠cs.unc.edu

Actually, yes, I presently maintain (and develop) code for a living.

25 years, 8 months

shipping floppy disk drives

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

In a message dated 99-04-17 22:35:42 EDT, you write: > I'll be shipping a few floppy disk drives soon, and want to minimize > the shipping damage to them. So, is it better to ship them with the > drive door open or closed? And with or without a floppy inserted? ive always shipped drives with a floppy inserted if i dont have the original cardboard/plastic shipping disk. since the heads are clamped down on the disk, supposedly that would minimize damage from movement or rough handling by idiot delivery companies that never treat anything with care.

25 years, 8 months

Signal detection

by yakowenk＠cs.unc.edu

On 16 Apr 1999, Cameron Kaiser <ckaiser(a)oa.ptloma.edu> wrote: ] ... ] ::Could anyone tell me how a radio detects signals vs. static? There is a ] ... ] Probably signal strength. Undoubtedly really loud static would trip it also ] but your garden-variety radio static just isn't that loud. It's a shame that wouldn't work on a mailing list. Getting lots of noise lately. :-/ Bill.

25 years, 8 months

OT: City Names

by yakowenk＠cs.unc.edu

On 16 Apr 1999, Philip.Belben(a)pgen.com wrote: ] (I have somewhere a Yugoslavian banknote. Everything is written on it in four ] local languages - two using Cyrillic and two using Latin characters. The ] languages are similar enough that AFAIK nothing needs to be said more than ] three times...) Take a look an Indian rupee sometime. Each note is printed in eleven languages, each with its own script. (Though to me, two or three look pretty darn similar to Hindi.) To try and drag this back to a somewhat related topic, we often hear about computers from North America, Europe, Russia, and Australia. But is anyone here collecting machines from any more "exotic" places? Are there any cool classic machines indiginous to any country from the Middle East, Africa, South America, or South or East Asia? It would be nifty to compare architectures that were not just clones or incremental improvements of machines we already know about. Heck, I know Japan produced a lot of their own computers. Were they all clones of machines we know (or vice-versa)? Bill.

25 years, 8 months

z80 timing... 6502 timing

by ethan_dicks＠yahoo.com

--- Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote: > > Ok, the environment is any home micro from the 70s or 80s that ran on any > > processor. The more rudimentary the processor, the more points you get. > > I choose the 4004. > > You have a _home micro_ based on a 4004? What the heck is it? I always wanted to implement a binary clock on the 4004. I never got around to it. Has anyone written a 4004 simulator in some flavor of C? (I recall a recent announcement about a simulator in a language other than one that I use on a regular basis). -ethan -ethan _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

25 years, 8 months

Ancient disk controllers

by ethan_dicks＠yahoo.com

The recent postings regarding old disk controllers has caused me to dig out one I got at Dayton many years ago. I bought it for the external box, something I didn't have at the time... it appears to be a SCSI card, but might be a SASI card. It was made by Davong Systems, Inc., a company I remember from my younger days. The copyright is 1982, but there are chips on it from 1983. On the back are numbers like 0034 REV (J1) K 310026 170. The J1 is scratched out and the K handwritten. The 170 is also handwritten. On the long end in copper is the number 11-000034 REV E. Connector J2 and J1 are together on one side of the long end (J1 is 34-pins with half of them grounds, J2 is 20 pins with pins 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16 and 20 grounded). J3, J4 and J5 are in line on a short end, 20 pins each, similar ground pattern to J2. J2 through J5 appear to have connections to a Motorola AM26LS32 and a TI AM26LS31 which I take to be some sort of analog chip. The final connector, J6 is 50 pins. J1 appears to be the control cable for an ST506 drive, J2-J5 appear to be data cables for talking to four drives. The interesting chips on the board include a N8X305N processor, some N82S181N ROMs, an N8X371N with leads going right to the 50-pin connector, and five socketed WDC parts copyrighted in 1980: WD1100V-03, WD1100V-01, WD1100V-04, WD1100V-05 and WD1100V-12. There is a crystal at 20Mhz in the analog section of the board and an 8Mhz crystal by the processor. In the middle of the board are three vias that are labelled as if they are configuration pads, in an inverted-L, labelled "1", "2" and "3", with a "W" above them, As I said, I was told when I bought it that it was a SCSI controller. I remember trying to use it some years ago and not having much success. Does anyone have any info on this oddball? Thanks, -ethan _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

25 years, 8 months

z80 timing... 6502 timing

by edick＠idcomm.com

I don't really care what's done here, but I thought the object was to see which of the two processors in the "subject" field would make for faster execution of a useful and published algorithm than the other. It's necessary that the algorithm be implementable on similarly equipped platforms, whether they exist physically or not. The limitation is that it must be timed as executed on a device from one of the two processor types in question, and physically available in 1982-83 as that's the time-frame about which the discussion preceding this coding exercise was centered. There's no point in specifying it for an Apple-II, because that one didn't even run the processor at the current maximum rate due to its overlap with video display refresh timing, and because it would involve too much unrelated design and construction effort to come up with a suitable substitute implemented using a Z-80. Consequently I proposed one wire his own computer using the processor, 64K of static ram, and a serial port of some type TBD. Maybe, just for the exercise, a file device, e.g. a floppy disk controller ala WD1770/72 ought to be included. That's got to be hashed out for sure, if it's to be realized in hardware. Problems potentially lie in the path, however, as some of the hardware may be scarce if availalble at all. A suitable port for attaching a terminal or PC ought to be included, but only in its most basic form. That way, when the builder is finished, he has an item he could possibly use for something, should he choose to do so. This can all get to be a mite burdensome when all you wanted was to see what the fastest or most efficient code one could come up with would look like, which I why I suggested a simulator. The only problem with that is that one could then write and assemble code which didn't in reality do what it claimed because the I/O wasn't simulated as well. This requires some more thought. Dick -----Original Message----- From: Sellam Ismail <dastar(a)ncal.verio.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Saturday, April 17, 1999 2:22 PM Subject: Re: z80 timing... 6502 timing >On Sat, 17 Apr 1999, Richard Erlacher wrote: > >> Well . . . There's the problem . . . first of all, the code's got to be >> executable on something everyone has got available, or it's got to be >> simulated on a simulator everyone has available, else there'll be a limit on >> interest right away . . . Then, shouldn't there be some consideration of >> the coding/debugging time involved? I'd lean in favor of a PC-compatible >> simulator. That makes the computation of actual execution time >> straightforward. . . > >Not necessarily. You measure the code based on an analysis of the clock >ticks it uses. This way the competition is platform independent. Of >course a suitably platform independent code spec would need to be >developed. > >> . Then there's the question about WHICH 6502 to use. Given a listing, it's >> easy enough to compute how long it takes the code to run, but which >> instruction set? What about undocumented features? Both these processors >> were famous for those. Of course, there doesn't have to be a limitation, >> i.e. one could consider ALL available cores. > >This would not be limited to the 6502. The idea is to see who can come up >with the most efficient algorithm on any processor. > >Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- >Don't rub the lamp if you don't want the genie to come out. > > Coming this October 2-3: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0! > See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details! > [Last web site update: 04/03/99] >

25 years, 8 months

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test-drb April 1999