On Jul 5, 23:04, Tony Duell wrote:
> I have _a_ FD235 service manual here. The problem is that there are many
> versions, and my manual only covers one or two of them. It shows the 'F'
> as having the 4*7 block and the 'HF' as having a 3*7 block. Oh well...
>
> Here are the settings for those, in case they're any use
Excellent, thanks, Tony! I'll try that out tomorrow.
I've just spent ages trying to connect to TEAC's web site, after Lawrence
suggested a URL -- but no luck for me.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
In a message dated 7/5/99 5:36:09 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
roblwill(a)usaor.net writes:
<< O.k.... here's the question: What would cause a capacitor in a power
supply to suddenly explode, spraying its 'guts' and a bunch of smoke all
over the place?? >>
Remarkable -- the same thing happened to a desktop PC of mine years ago. I
had been using it for a couple of hours, when BANG -- smoke -- and the system
shut down. It was so loud my wife raced into the room, thinking I'd been
shot (imagine her disappointment at finding me alive ;>).
Cursory examination revealed a filter cap with the top blown off; further
inspection turned up a short in the transformer.
Glen Goodwin
0/0
You can use any connector which suits you. You can use any name for a bus,
even Fred or Jake. You can use any existing bus protocol you desire. It's
your computer.
What I said, apparently not clearly enough, is that I'm partial to the VME,
and, though the typical wire-wrap connector for VME (i.e. that particular
connector, VME or not) costs more than a typical PC at the junk store. I
made the mistake of believing that, from your prior comments in other
context, you watch every penny with considerable interest, and you might
appreciate the opportunity to use a video board, perhaps a Mono, or a VGA,
or even HGA, none of which use interrupts or DMA. For that reason I figured
you'd not mind corrupting the "standard" usage of ISA signals since you'd
not be using circuits which use the ones which you felt were inappropriately
implemented. I said that because if you go dumpster diving in almost any
business park or office complex, you'll find ISA serial cards and ISA video
cards, particularly on a Monday or a Friday.
OTOH, if dumpsters are not to your taste, the thrift stores sell them for
the approximate cost of a burger here in the US. You can get LAN boards and
others there too, but they sometimes use interrupts and DMA, which might be
a problem if you've changed the way in which you use them from what a
typical PC does.
In my view, and that's not universal, by any means, $2 VME cards don't come
up often enough for me ever to have seen one. If you like VME and find them
to be cheap enough, I think that's an excellent choice, not that my approval
is needed for what goes in YOUR computer.
I did say, however, that if I were going to switch to the 96-pin DIN 41612
connector, I'd use VME because that gives me a fallback position if I
haven't time, patience, or skill enough to create my own ??? and I don't
mind shelling out the $$$.
I can guarantee you, though, that if you build your own serial card for
whatever bus, it will cost more for the parts than an ISA video card at the
thrift store would cost. Maybe, if you intend to roll your own, you SHOULD
build an ISA adapter or two, so you can save the time and trouble, not to
mention expense, of building a card you can buy for little money. That way
you can allocate your scarce resources in the way which best serves your
goals and build your own video board, or whatever, later.
If you were to choose to reinvent the ISA on a better connector, being short
a couple of pins, you could quickly do away with the 4x Color-burst
oscillator and the AEN signal, neither of which would do much four you
outside the PC.
regards,
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Monday, July 05, 1999 2:14 PM
Subject: Re: OT: A call to arms (sort of)
>>
>> On Sun, 4 Jul 1999, Richard Erlacher wrote:
>> >If I were using the DIN connectors, I'd get a standard out, read and
>> >understand it, and then use it, calling it VME, its rightful name.
>> >Unfortunately, I'd not be able to get a two-port serial board or a LAN
board
>> >for VME from the local thrift store.
>>
>> I don't get it...are you saying that the connector somehow determines the
>> bus? An bus could in theory be compatible with ISA and use some other
>> connector, and still be ISA for the most part.
>
>Exactly. A 3-row DIN 41612 connector has 96 pins. ISA bus has 98 pins (on
>a 16 bit slot). And I'm sure I could find 2 signals that I could 'do
>without' (miss off one of the DMA channels?).
>
>In other words you could put something with much the same signals as ISA
>on a DIN41612 if you wanted to. The result shouldn't be called ISA
>(because you can't just plug a card straight in). But it would work, and
>the cards would be easy to design.
>
>I like DIN41612 connectors because you can easily use them on homebrew
>cards. Wire-wrap versions exist. If you want to use a card edge type of
>connector you really have to gold-plate the PCB, and that's hard to do at
>home. It's also a pain having to get a PCB house to make all the
>prototype boards. Much easier if you can homebrew them.
>
>I've used those connectors for all sorts of things, most of them not
>VME-related. Of course I've not called the result VME...
>
>-tony
>
I have a number of older TEAC FD235-HF drives, and no service manual. One
particularly old one has what I can only describe as a "jumper block", a
matrix of 4 pins x 7 pins labelled 1,2,3,4 and A,B,C,D,E,F,G. I'd like to
use this drive in a particular system that wants it set to be drive 0, with
the disk-changed line active. Anyone know the settings?
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
Greetings all,
I am trying to see if I can get an IBM 5150 working still. I was
wondering if anyone out there can tell me:
1. If the IBM 5150 XT computer came with documentation
2. Is an IBM monitor, model # 5153 (Personal Computer Color Display) is
compatible with an IBM 5150 XT?
3. What kind of monitor (graphics array) is an IBM 5153. I would guess
EGA, but don't know.
If anyone can help me out I sure would appreciate it.
Robert
On Jul 5, 12:14, John Lawson wrote:
> SO: the object of this sysgen was primarily to allow the use of
> the RL02 disks. And here I have a stuckness: I can sucessfully
> init an RL02 disk, erase it, exercise it, find it's bad blocks, and
> then mount it. All ok. But I can't allocate it, write a file to it,
> or get a directory. The error message is 'Device not available.'
>
> I can do 'show dev' and see that it is mounted, but from there I
> cannot find out what the next step is. I have a RSTS Orange Wall on
> the way in, but it will be almost two weeks before I get it.
>
> Until then.. what need I do to read and write the RL02s?
I've never used RSTS, but in RSX, you have to provide a /PUB switch to
mount, to mount it as public. Maybe RSTS is similar?
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
Thanks to everyone who provided help of all kinds. I finished up
the sysgen in just under two hours.. praying all the way that my
semi-flaky Kennedy drive would behave during the process, which it
did, bless it's little blower motor. :)
I added support for RL02s, RK05s, RX02, PC05, and expanded
some of the runtime language packages to include math and FPP
functions. Everything else got the defaults.
SO: the object of this sysgen was primarily to allow the use of
the RL02 disks. And here I have a stuckness: I can sucessfully
init an RL02 disk, erase it, exercise it, find it's bad blocks, and
then mount it. All ok. But I can't allocate it, write a file to it,
or get a directory. The error message is 'Device not available.'
I can do 'show dev' and see that it is mounted, but from there I
cannot find out what the next step is. I have a RSTS Orange Wall on
the way in, but it will be almost two weeks before I get it.
Until then.. what need I do to read and write the RL02s?
NOTE>>> Especial thanks to Tim Shoppa and Bruce Lane! <<<NOTE
None of this would have been possible without your
kindness and generous sharing of Knowledge.
Cheers
John
No. Your point is well taken, though. What I'm advocating in this case is
the adoption of VME, which has shown itself to be as good as any more or
less standard bus and better than most.
The connector hardware doesn't define the bus, but it restricts it to the
ones which used that connector. You then have to adopt a signal set which
complies with that standard in both its definition and its usage if you want
to consider yourself using that BUS. However, it's conceivable one might
use a "modified" XXX bus, with changes implemented in a way which doesn't
conflict with the use of certain cards already in existence.
This is not easy, nor is it easly understood, particularly in its
motivation, since you have the option of doing whatever you want. It is
YOUR computer, after all.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Max Eskin <max82(a)surfree.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Monday, July 05, 1999 6:08 AM
Subject: Re: OT: A call to arms (sort of)
>On Sun, 4 Jul 1999, Richard Erlacher wrote:
>>If I were using the DIN connectors, I'd get a standard out, read and
>>understand it, and then use it, calling it VME, its rightful name.
>>Unfortunately, I'd not be able to get a two-port serial board or a LAN
board
>>for VME from the local thrift store.
>
>I don't get it...are you saying that the connector somehow determines the
>bus? Any bus could in theory be compatible with ISA and use some other
>connector, and still be ISA for the most part.
>
>--Max Eskin (max82(a)surfree.com)
> http://scivault.hypermart.net: Ignorance is Impotence - Knowledge is
Power
>
The old OrCAD electronics drafting software came with a tool which pretty
automatically generated an 800x600 driver for most any available card of the
day. This suggests that a "generic" driver may be available. My experience
with the 1Kx768 types has been less encouraging, however.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Max Eskin <max82(a)surfree.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Monday, July 05, 1999 6:00 AM
Subject: Re: OT: A call to arms (sort of)
>On Sun, 4 Jul 1999, Tony Duell wrote:
>>Actually, if you want to do anything beyond plain VGA then you do start
>>to have problems. This is what started this discussion - the fact that
>>many modern video cards are _not_ properly documented.
>
>What worries me even more is that there is no universal SVGA standard, as
>there is with VGA. S3 requires a different driver than Trident 9400, while
>the results are indistinguishable for me.
>
>--Max Eskin (max82(a)surfree.com)
> http://scivault.hypermart.net: Ignorance is Impotence - Knowledge is
Power
>
I didn't say you need to call a bus a given thing. What I was suggesting is
using and staying close to the ISA hardware because ISA hardware is so
cheap. You can go to almost any thrift store and get a video board or a
serial board, or a disk controller for $3. U.S. They throw them away by
the 55-gal drumful.
Once you've got the hardware, YOU decide how to make the interrupts work,
and YOU decide how to use the DMA control lines. You can call if FRED for
all I care.
Have a look below for additional comments embedded in your reply.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Sunday, July 04, 1999 2:00 PM
Subject: Re: OT: A call to arms (sort of)
>> >
>> >Well, IMHO there is _if you want to call the bus ISA_.
>> >
>> >There's no reason not to use this type of DMA on a homebrew system.
>> >There's no reason not to use cards that have the same form factor and
>> >same connectors and ISA cards.
>> >
>> I've seen little reason to use DMA at all when processors generally have
the
>> capacity to move data at the bus bandwidth with block transfer
instructions.
>
>If the system is properly designed (adequate cache, etc) then the CPU can
>run a program from the cache _while_ a DMA transfer is going on. That's
>one advantage of DMA.
Well, I don't know what you want to do, so I can't size a cache for you.
Moreover, most DMA depends on external events to schedule its access to the
bus. If the external event is concurrent with the time the processor is
running from CACHE, it works out well, otherwise, it doesn't. I don't know
why you'd want DMA in a typical system. The CPU is quick enough to
accommplish the transfers as fast as they can go, and it just sits waiting,
generally, when it's allowing DMA, since it can't use the bus. Floppies,
for some stupid reason, use DMA in a PC, though it's not warranted, yet hard
disks, yes, including CDROMs generally don't. There are some PCI
controllers which use DMA, but we're talking ISA for now.
>> It's not a religious issue for me to call the bus whatever seems
>
>Hmmm... One thing I _really_ object to is calling a bus (or whatever) a
>standard name when it doesn't meet the standard. At one time Apple were
>particularly bad about this - they had 'RS422 ports' that were nothing
>like what they should have been, etc.
>
I agree that it's inappropriate to call an interface by a name unwarranted
by its characteristics.
>
>As I said, design your own bus, sure. If I was doing it, I'd use those
>DIN41612 connectors because you don't need to etch (and preferably
>gold-plate) PCBs. But don't call it ISA.
>
If I were using the DIN connectors, I'd get a standard out, read and
understand it, and then use it, calling it VME, its rightful name.
Unfortunately, I'd not be able to get a two-port serial board or a LAN board
for VME from the local thrift store.
>
>[As an aside, my MG1 workstation has the ISA adapter board in it. This is
>a 32016-based workstation, and the ISA adapter goes to great trouble to
>exactly emulate the ISA bus, even down to 'useless' things like a refresh
>address appearing on the address lines, all the clocks, etc. The result
>is that all ISA cards will work in this machine]
>
But to what end??? If you have a "decent" system already, why would you
want to use ISA. For that matter, why the crusade to invent a new bus?
>
>> with video boards. There aren't really any terribly interesting parallel
>> I/O boards, and if you want to use IEEE488 stuff you'll play hell beating
>> the WIndows software to help you do it.
>
>Eh? Maybe the Windows software is OK if all you want are 'virtual
>instruments' (but I really can't see the point of that - physical
>controls are a lot easier) but for real automatic test/measurement
>systems give me a decent GPIB driver, a good compiler and a real
>operating system...
>
A friend of mine uses it at the Cape and on the west coast for launching
rockets. I think it probably works O.K. I guess it's a matter of
preference.
>
>> >Suppose you don't have a central DMA controller. What do you propose
>> >doing with the DRQ/DACK signals? Sure you can make them effectively
>> >bus request signals. But now the peripheral card has to know to generate
>> >the address. And no standard ISA card would do that.
>> >
>> Just exactly which boards do you wish to use that do that? If they don't
>
>Err, any ISA card that uses DMA, like CD-ROM controllers, FDCs,
>soundcards, tape controllers, etc, etc,etc.
I know of no ISA I/O devices which require DMA. I know of only a few which
CAN use DMA, and of those, only the high-end SCSI adapters e.g. ADAPTEC 154x
series actually use it, albeit poorly. I have fairly fast equipment, in
general, and find that programmed I/O performs as well as DMA in the cases
I've tested, because the software I use does little else while the DMA is
progressing. Now I've seen little FDC based tape controllers, the kind you
use to interface one of those QIC toys to a PC which use DMA, but only
because they're grafting themselves onto the FDC handler. They don't NEED
DMA, they just inherited it.
>You may say you don't want the above. Fine. Design your own bus. But
>don't call it ISA, because it isn't..
>
Remember, I just suggested making the choices compatible with ISA cards to
save guys like yourself money. You're always complaining about the cost of
computer hardware.
>
>> >> too soon? I made no such assertion! There are lots of processors
which
>> >> have block transfer instructions which operate at the bus bandwidth.
>> Even
>> >> the Z80 did that.
>> >
>> >And IIRC the Z80 block moves were ridiculously slow...
>> >
>> Yes, perhaps it was ridiculously slow, but it was the bus bandwidth at
the
>> time.
>
>Not so. A Z80 LDIR doesn't hit the bus bandwidth _at all_. Heck, it
>fetches the instruction each time for one thing. IIRC at least one of the
>Z80 block instructions is slower than doing it in hand-optimised machine
>code.
>
Well, it was fast enough to transfer a whole track of data from an ST-506 in
one revolution of the disk . . . that's 10416 byte-times, nominally, in 16.6
ms . . .
>
>> >> which used it, I'd say that's a non-issue. You don't need the
schematic,
>> >> though,since the board you'll be using will be an IDE interface with
>> onboard
>> >
>> >For the <n>th time, the aim is to get 'open hardware'. That means (at
>> >least to me) available schematics. Not schematics of things that _might_
>> >work the same (e.g. WD1003 .vs. IDE). It means scheamtics and
>> >documentation for the hardware that's actually in the machine.
>> >
>> So, you want schematics of the disk drives as well, and the keyboard, and
>> the floppy drive? . . . and when you have them, how are you going to
stick
>
>YES!! That's exactly what I want.
>
>> your 'scope probe into that IC, and how are you going to fix it when it's
>> broken. It's a custom IC, after all, and they will cost 10x what a new
disk
>
>Why do you insist on wanting custom ICs? You can do an awful lot with
>standard chips, you know.
Except buy them, since they don't make them anymore.
>> drive costs if you try to buy just one. If "OPEN" means to you that you
>
>At the moment maybe. But in 20-30 years time it will be nice to be able
>to fix the machine when new modules simply aren't available. Now that you
>can't get new 5.25" drives, I'm darn glad I've got a pile of service
>manuals for them.
>
First of all you CAN get new ones, and secondly, death is inevitable. Once
they stop making the stuff you want to use, it's only a matter of time
before something you can't fix will fail.
>
>> have access and rights to all the intellectual property contained in your
>> computer, you might as well give up right now. If what you want is
enough
>
>Why? OK, I am not going get the rights to copy standard chips, but I
>don't see why the PCB schematics, etc can't be open.
The reason is because YOU don't make the rules regarding other people's
intellectual property. I agree it would be nice, but if a board costs $15
new, and $2 used, why would anyone worry about fixing them? You just buy a
couple of identical spares while the opportunity is in front of you. Most
commercial boards, nowadays, have custom firmware of some sort. There's no
reason at all why anyone should give you that. I doubt you'll have a
problem getting schematics for "standard" chips. It's the custom logic,
e.g. FPGA's, CPLD's, PAL's, and PROM's that will be the problem.
>As I have said many times before, I am using a '100% documented' PC. It's
>not open, in that schematics, etc are copyright IBM etc, but I didn't sign
>any NDAs to get them. The _only_ thing I don't have the schematics for is
>the hard disk. I have them for the motherboard, PSU, keyboard, monitor,
>floppy drives, CD-ROM, expansion cards, etc.
>
Yes, but as you said, you don't have the firmware listing for the keyboard
interface.
>
>> >I've found it _very_ hard to get data on the typical ASICs that you find
>> >on modern PC motherboards and I/O cards. In fact I've not managed to do
>> >it in a lot of cases.
>> >
>> That's the reason, precisely, why you don't use them.
>
>You're the one who wants to use standard PC I/O cards. I don't...
>
Well, what would you use instead? Would that save money? Would it save
time?
>
>-tony
>
