I've got one or two of these DAVONG controllers, as well as some of the
documentation. I bought them as spare parts for the Western Digital
controllers I liked better. Since they had the 8X305 and the requisite
current injection valve transistor (don't ask me about that!. . . it's
characteristic of I2L logic, I'm told.) and similar varistors, I thought the
couple of bucks for the controllers was worth it. I bought the boxes and
supplies for useful applications, though the boxes were odd enough never to
find them.
If you have questions, I may be able to help, but I've never read the doc on
these so be patient.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Ethan Dicks <ethan_dicks(a)yahoo.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Saturday, April 17, 1999 6:18 PM
Subject: Ancient disk controllers
>
>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
>
<65C02, because it was buillt in several conflicting versions. What about
<the Z-80 core? Whose? Which one? Speed, of course, should be "limited" t
<whatever was available in 1982. That certainly includes the Synertek (MOS
In 1982 all of the z80s in the market had the same hidden features
including the IX/IY 8bit ops. I know of no z80 that didn't have them.
Not all of them were available to the 6mhz spec though many could be
pushed. Also allowed is the 8085 (available as a 5-6mhz part then). Again
all of the 8085s had the extra unsupported instructions as they were deem
important!
Allison
aaaaa
>Ethan Dicks wrote:
> I am attempting to back up some floppies from a project I did a few years ago.
> The sets of 3.5" 1.44Mb IBM floppies have been stored in a box, in a cool and
> dry room. Out of one set of 12 and one set of 15 disks, I have four disks
> that have read errors that DOS won't get past, bad sectors and the like.
Jerome Fine replies:
You don't mention if the bad sectors are in the data or the file structure.
Also, if in the data, would a partial recovery of the file be acceptable?
Also, out of 2880 blocks for each 3.5" 1.44 MByte floppy, about
how many sectors (blocks) are bad?
While I can't help much with hardware recovery techniques, I can
guarantee that you can use RT-11 to at least write (copy) each diskette
onto a second copy with only the bad sectors not copied across.
If all the bad sectors are in the data files, you will at least recover
as much of the file as possible. Sometimes in RT-11, blocks that
are mostly bad can be encouraged to be duplicated by repeated
attempts. The copy utilities (PIP or DUP) have a switch to
repeat the read until it completely fails OR to IGNORE failures
and continue. I don't remember if a DEVICE copy has that
feature, but if you say you are willing to try RT-11, I can help
guide you through the process. What OS on what hardware
will you read the 3.5" floppy. If it is a PC under W95 (I use
it only to do e-mail - not by choice), there are very good tools
to help.
Sincerely yours,
Jerome Fine
RT-11/TSX-PLUS User/Addict
This must be something different from what we had at the beginning, as the
constraints were for production processors commercially available in
1982-1983 and in either the Z-80 or 6502 architecture families.
The reason for this is obvious. It has got to be possible to run the code
in a real device in the "here and now" timeframe. Otherwise one could
simply say well, "I wrote this code for the XYZ at 24.576 GHz and the whole
program requires only one instruction." Further constraint should be that
the author must own a running system capable of running the subject software
on it in the native processor. This system must consist of components
commercially available during or before the subject time period, i.e. 1983.
Thirdly, it should be proven by replication (successful execution of the
submitted code set on another computer not necessarily owned by the author
of the submitted software) that this fete is achievable with the code set
submitted. A simulator or even some fancier assemblers can be used to
indicate the execution time.
It's not desirable to include processors which don't exist yet in any
comparison purported to be a timing comparison between Z-80 and 6502. That
doesn't mean you can't look at whatever else someone might submit for
general inspection and interest, but we do want to have a well-defined goal.
-----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 5:27 PM
Subject: Re: z80 timing... 6502 timing
>On Sat, 17 Apr 1999, Tony Duell wrote:
>
>> > Contest open for any CPU anyone would care to write code for.
>>
>> Including one that I've designed? In which case, how general-purpose does
>> it have to be? I have half an idea to make a state machine that does
>> binary -> roman conversions, but not anything else. I suspect I could get
>> it rather fast, though.
>
>Sure, why not! That would be great.
>
>> (Yes, that's cheating. I know it's cheating. But it's not specifically
>> disallowed by the above).
>
>I don't think anyone should have to be handicapped. Of course, you'll
>have to demonstrate that it actually work, although I have no doubt you
>can and will :)
>
>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]
>
I recently found an ancient copy of QNX, which seems to be a light unix like
OS.
Looking on the WEB, I found that current versions are still around, but
marketed as a "Real Time" OS. The 80's documentation I have says nothing
about real time.
My dumb question: What is a real time operating system?
Hans Olminkhof
--- LordTyran <a2k(a)one.net> wrote:
> Beats me. I just said screw it and reformatted the old drive.
Boot from an install floppy and check the device numbers with showconfig.
> I know that it autoboots, as I've done it many many times with this card
OK... that's a good start. There are ways to check the driver name, but
not with the supplied tools.
> .. And just checking up on my emails with my hand VT100
> terminal and 14.4 modem :)
Ugh. It's been a long time since I've had to do that.
> P.S. Do you have CIAs that you would like to sell? I'd be interested in
> getting my dead 500 working again..
Not really. I have some A500 boards here, but I'd have to pull chips from
them to get chips. Are the usual sources dried up? I haven't had to buy
any Amiga chips in a while.
-ethan
_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
Any classiccmpers attending the NAB show in Vegas next week? I
will be there Tuesday all day... about as much as I can stand of
trade shows... even ones specific to my career. :)
If so, drop me private e-mail if you would like to get together,
or just meet somewhere and say 'hi' on Tues the 20th.
[Okay so it's more on-topic than Evolutionary Civic Nomenclature..]
Cheers
John
PS: SoCal TRW Swap, Brunch, and 1st Quarterly Compucrawl coming up
on Saturday, the 27th... watch the List or e-mail me for details.
--- LordTyran <a2k(a)one.net> wrote:
> Hmm... I'll take the 68k if you can get me an even and odd CIA :)
>
> Well, I know about HDToolbox, but there's one problem.
>
> When I try to run HDToolbox, it always says "Driver not installed" in the
> box that is supposed to contain drive information.
What kind of SCSI card do you have? HDToolbox can be invoked with a
parameter (Tooltype from Workbench, CLI parameter from CLI) specifying
the SCSI-driver's name. If your controller is not autobooting, you
may need to build a special boot floppy with the driver in the Expansion
drawer and a BindDrivers to load it into RAM.
The default driver name for HDToolbox is scsi.device. If your card
does not use that as a driver name, the software won't go looking for it.
-ethan
_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
NOTE: This will be my ONLY message to the list on this subject. I will not
reply except via private E-mail.
Ya know, when I first joined CLASSICCMP, I joined because I felt it would
be a good resource to aid in my work with DEC systems (notably VAXen and
PDP), and a meeting place for those who still knew which end of a soldering
pencil to use. So far, it has proven to be both, and I've been pretty happy
with it.
I couldn't care less about the occasional flame war. Such things are
inevitable. I'll simply filter it and get on with life.
HOWEVER -- Am I the only one getting -really- fed up with all the 'OT:'
and 'Re: OT' subject lines and off-topic messages?
If a subject is off-topic for the list, then it is off-topic for the list
and should, IMO, be taken to private E-mail. Just because you mark it OT
does not, in my view, make it OK to clutter the list with it.
I've installed a filter at my end that should dump most, if not all,
messages with OT: in the subject line. However, the point remains that I
should not have had to do so in the first place.
Please take OT's elsewhere. Ok? Thanks!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Owner and head honcho, Blue Feather Technologies
http://www.bluefeathertech.com
Amateur Radio:(WD6EOS) E-mail: kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com
SysOp: The Dragon's Cave (Fido 1:343/272, 253-639-9905)
"Our science can only describe an object, event, or living thing in our own
human terms. It cannot, in any way, define any of them..."
Let's not start throwing up our respective hands in disgust! Nothing's been
attempted yet. In fact, nothing's been suggested yet except a couple of
things which at first inspection didn't seem like they'd work. Now, Hans
Franke suggested something like a KIM-1. There's no reason one couldn't
code for something LIKE a KIM-1, even the guys working the Z-80 side, but
it's not convenient programming a 6532 or whatever those ROM-I/O-Timer
things were, or even a 6522 for simple I/O if that's what's needed. I
suggested a published algorithm which solves a published problem or
something close to that. There haven't been many suggestions made yet, so
it's inappropriate to choose. If one wants the hardware, it should be the
SAME hardware throughout the exercise, though. That's why I was suggesting
a simulator. All that's really needed is a run to see if it actually will
execute and end up with the desired result when code is submitted to the
hardware. A simulator would be adequate so long as it was trusted to give
honest timing results. That way, nobody would have to risk burning his
fingers.
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 3:01 PM
Subject: Re: z80 timing... 6502 timing
>On Sat, 17 Apr 1999, Richard Erlacher wrote:
>
>> Do we really want to build hardware for the sake of this comparison?
>> Writing a bare-bones simulator would be straightforward enough. It's
really
>> just a big switch statement. The beauty is that you can include/exclude
>> undocumented features as you see fit. The gotcha is that it's easy to go
>> down a road which has no relevance to reality, i.e. if the processor
doesn't
>> work like that, even though it should, then simulating it like that is
not
>> valid.
>
>Ok, let's first assemble a committee to decide all these issues. We'll
>have to start with a Statement of Work. Perhaps we should put out an RFP
>first to select the person or group who should develop the SoW. Of course
>we'll have to pull together a comittee to draft the RFP. Once that's all
>done, then we must put together an administrative committee. We'll have
>to vote in a President, Vice President and Secretary. Perhaps we should
>incorporate as well. Let's choose the state of Delaware, since that seems
>to be the quickest route.
>
>Fucken-A people! Is this supposed to be a simple coding challenge, or a
>competition to see how much work we can create around the same? At the
>rate you all are going, it will be a year before we can even decide what
>it is we'll be coding!
>
>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]
>
