>
> > > >were a lot of bizarre proprietary CD-ROM interfaces.
> > I have some old Hitachi CD-ROM drives. They are single speed, from memory part
> > number CDR-1503S. About the area of a desktop PC, but not as high. Connect to
> > the host computer via a 37-way D connector.
> > Does anyone know what type of controller card is needed in the PC to use these
> > drives?
>
> HITACHI. Sometimes "proprietary" is quite literal. I think that some
> models of them were also sold by Amdek, and therefore possibly
> interchangeable. I probably still have some (and drivers!). But I'm not
> sure how long it will take me to find 'em.
>
Oooppsss.. Sorry about the blank message....
A friend of mine worked at Reference Technology developing a CD-ROM drive
based on the hitachi mechanism, way before CD-ROMs were a thing. In fact,
they created a custom file format (pre-pre-ISO 9660) for a shareware disk
that they used as a demo. Unfortunately, the market didn't develop fast
enough, and Ref. Tech. went belly up.
Long story short, I MAY have an interface card in my junk at home, but I
think I threw all the documentation away with the drive (a VCR sized box)
several years ago. If I can find it, I'll send it to you.
clint
>
> > > >were a lot of bizarre proprietary CD-ROM interfaces.
> > I have some old Hitachi CD-ROM drives. They are single speed, from memory part
> > number CDR-1503S. About the area of a desktop PC, but not as high. Connect to
> > the host computer via a 37-way D connector.
> > Does anyone know what type of controller card is needed in the PC to use these
> > drives?
>
> HITACHI. Sometimes "proprietary" is quite literal. I think that some
> models of them were also sold by Amdek, and therefore possibly
> interchangeable. I probably still have some (and drivers!). But I'm not
> sure how long it will take me to find 'em.
>
Hi,
On Fri, 16 Apr 1999 Max Eskin wrote:
> On Fri, 16 Apr 1999, Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) wrote:
> >Also, before the days of IDE CD-ROMs, and "Sound-Card interface", there
> >were a lot of bizarre proprietary CD-ROM interfaces.
>
> Yes, I've even owned a huge external drive for a while, I mailed it to
> someone on this list.
I have some old Hitachi CD-ROM drives. They are single speed, from memory part
number CDR-1503S. About the area of a desktop PC, but not as high. Connect to
the host computer via a 37-way D connector.
Does anyone know what type of controller card is needed in the PC to use these
drives?
Also, can anyone recommend a free C compiler running under MS-DOS, that can
produce code capable of running on an XT type PC? I have used djgpp, but
programs compiled with that require at least a 286SX.
-- Mark
Hi,
On Sat, 17 Apr 1999 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.
> ...
> Are there any tools to go divining on DOS floppies that work better than
> an endless succession of "R"etries? It's an all or nothing prospect; the
> first disk has the install file, the remaning disks have a chopped monolithic
> data file. If one disk can't be read, the whole set is fundamentally
> useless.
First, I take it you have tried reading the disks on different drives? If that
didn't help, using the fdread package *might*, but I doubt it.
You have an Amiga right? One possible solution, if you want to spend some time
on this, would be to write a program to read the raw data from the disk, then
MFM-decode and analyse the data and report/correct any errors. This could work
if the only problems are with sector headers. Or try creating disk images
using one of the various Amiga PC-disk-access packages, maybe one of those is
more forgiving? (CrossDOS, XFS, MultiDOS, etc.)
(Aside: since the Amiga disk controller is so versatile, it should be possible
to archive "all" copy-protected PC disks using a program such as MFMWarp.)
-- Mark
The Heathkit H-8 was made from about 1977-78 to about 1981-82. It was an 8080 computer (Z-80 boards became available later), proprietary bus [there were a very few 3rd party source cards]. It originally ran HDOS [Heath Disk Operating System], which was not compatible with anything; Heath went to CP/M around 1980-81, which required changing the memory map of the machine [it had it's system ROM in low memory]. The front panel was implemented in firmware and was octal [thank you Gordon Letwin] [who left Heath for Microsoft in 1978, after designing much of the Heath architecture and software/firmware]. The system was originally cassette based, then the H-17 was introduced [hard sectored floppies, SSSD, 100k or so], and near the very end the H-37 components [DSDD 5", based on a Western Digital controller]. It was an "ok" but unexceptional machine, inferior to the better S-100 stuff available at the time.
The H-89 and its variants incorporated the same basic architecture in a very user-friendly "All-in-one" package, and with a Z-80 instead of an 8080 [but only 2 MHz]. The H-89 was among the most solid, reliable and user friendly CP/M systems available at the time and made a good, if not fast [even by the standards of the day] business system for the 1979 to 1982 time frame.
Barry Watzman
----------
From: bluoval [SMTP:bluoval@mindspring.com]
Sent: Saturday, April 10, 1999 2:34 AM
To: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu
Subject: Heathkit H-8 questions
I saw a H-8 on eBay tonight. What year were these made? What could one
do with it? From the photo it has a 16 key keypad, numbers 1-9 and the
math symbols, decimal point, and 2 others i can't make out. What are
those 2 keys? I'm not trying to buy it, I wouldn't know what to do
with it even if i did. just curious. TIA.
Hi,
On Mon, 19 Apr 1999 Jason wrote:
> I'm getting a couple of IBM optical drives (one internal, one external).
> From the description, they have MCA controller cards. My question is:
> Would there be a way to run the internal one from an ISA controller? Maybe
> the question should be where can I get an ISA controller for an IBM optical
> drive?
There are optical drives and optical drives... (read on)
> My other question is if Optical disks are re-writable? I've talked to two
> people, and one of them says that Optical disks aren't re-writable,
> mangeto-optical disks are. The other person said that no optical disk is
> re-writable, and that only floptical disks are (isn't that a form of optical
> disk?)
The other person is wrong. MO disks are rewriteable, and come to think of it
some other types of optical media are, including CD-RW, DVD-RAM and PD.
As I understand it, flopticals are just like floppies but use a laser to assist
in positioning the drive head. I wouldn't call these optical disks. (I bet
they're as reliable as Windows too.)
There are various types of optical disk, of which magneto-optical ("MO") disks
are one. MO disks are rewritable (like 10 million times), and are about the
best -- in terms of media reliability and longevity -- true random-access
rewriteable removable storage there is. And the media is much cheaper than
Zip, Jaz etc. disks.
There are 3.5" and 5.25" MO disks. 5.25" disks are also available in write-once
varieties, but the drives themselves can handle both. (In fact the write-once
disks are physically almost identical to the normal ones. The drive reads a
flag to see that the disk should be write-only, and the drive firmware handles
preventing writes to sectors that have already been written.)
Anyway, I'll elaborate on my previous comment. IBM certainly used to sell SCSI
128MB 3.5" MO drives (circa 1992?). If you are getting a pair of these, using
them will be no problem, assuming you have a SCSI controller.
Earlier than that, IBM sold at least one other type of optical drive, which was
a WORM (write once read many) drive. As the WORM acronym suggests, disks for
the 3363 are not rewritable. They hold about 200MB each. The model 3363 drive
was introduced in 1987, and I picked one up recently, along with two MCA
controllers. The 3363 uses a custom interface. I want to get hold of an ISA
controller to use with the 3363. I found someone who has one for sale, sold as
seen for US$25. Too much for me.
If you are getting a couple of 3363 drives (which are big, heavy beasts), they
will be more of a curiosity than anything else.
They use proprietary disks, which -- if you can still get them from IBM at all
-- probably cost about $90 each. I have four still-sealed ones, but I'm
hanging onto them in the hope that I eventually get an ISA controller card for
my 3363...
Plug: check out my Amiga Magneto-Optical Drive FAQ. This contains some info on
why MO drives are cool, and a fair amount of details about using them with
Amiga computers and well as non-platform-specific things. The URL is
http://home.freeuk.net/markk/Amiga_MO_FAQ/main.html
-- Mark
>The requirement to put in a new disk suggests that the disk is designed for
>one to copy on to the new disk those things one would need in a "working"
>version and the use the working copy. Unfortunately there isn't any SYSGEN
>or MAKESYS or anythign that suggests this.
Your floppy doesn't have all the files necessary to reconfigure your
system in that way, in any event. Most likely it's a "Backup this disk
for dummies" procedure that's common with many distribution media.
>.R ASEMBL - starts a version of MACRO-11
>.R XBASIC - starts BASIC (again no docs but can hack a bit)
>.R EDIT - gives a '*' prompt
>.R DUMP - gives an octal dump
>.R MACRO - on SAMPLE.MAC exits to ODT at address 000002
In early RT-11 distributions, like DOS-11, the Macro processor was
separate from the actual assembly phase. I don't know why it'd be
dumping out on execution, though. How much memory is in your H-11?
>Very weird stuff. I think it is RT-11v2B
It looks like you've got the basic RT-11 development tools of the time,
then. Good! You can go to
ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/rt/decus/
and you'll find that most of the stuff on the Spring '76 RT SIG tape
ought to work under V2B. Some of the stuff from later SIG tapes ought
to work as well.
--
Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com
Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/
7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917
Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927
I see so many of these in thrift stores, etc, for around $10-15, that I pay
them no attention at all. They're not particularly interesting since
deskjet printers will accept HPGL also. I don't see them with an assortment
of pens, as I once did, so I'd say that's the weak link. What's more, the
color deskjet printers, e.g. DJ550, etc, costing about the same as the
plotters, print in color, accept HPGL, and are about 10x as fast, even
though they're quite slow.
Third-party pens are available in art and drafting supply houses. There's a
line of refillable ink pens from Kohinoor which I've found doesn't work
terribly well in my somewhat larger 7595B ("E"-size) plotter, but they may
have something for the little desktop plotter. The not-refillable ones seem
to work fine, though. If you use the roller ball pens or the tip-wicks,
they may work for you.
Good luck!
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Christian Fandt <cfandt(a)netsync.net>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Thursday, April 29, 1999 6:27 AM
Subject: Re: Anyone have an old plotter.... found.
>Upon the date 12:14 AM 4/29/99 -0700, Jason Willgruber said something like:
>>I found a _new_ plotter (HP 7475 Color Pen Plotter).
>>
>>One question:
>>
>>Where would I be able to find replacement pens? Are they still fairly
>>readily available?
>
>Try a drafting supply store, office supply store or one of the big chain
>office supply stores such as Office Max. Check Yellow Pages under Office
>Supplies or Drafting Supplies, etc. (Or call John Lovitz ;)
>
>HP doesn't make pens anymore but there are one or two good third-party
>outfits who do. Lots of those plotters out there yet so should be no
>problem finding pens for several years at least.
>
>Regards, Chris
>-- --
>Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian
>Jamestown, NY USA cfandt(a)netsync.net
>Member of Antique Wireless Association
> URL: http://www.ggw.org/awa
