test-drb December 2000

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

192 participants
490 discussions

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Dec 28, 10:12, Douglas Quebbeman wrote: > > I've never found a bullet-proof program for testing SIMMs under DOS or > > windows, [...] > > Anybody know of one? > > I have a one, designed by Charles (?) Cook, and first > implemented by John Molnar, which I've reimplemented > for the Sol, some Z-80-based machines, and the 8051 > embedded systems I've developed. But I never got around > to porting it to DOS... > > Our Dell servers shipped with a program called "Dell > Diagnostics" which includes a comprehensive memory > test that can check for stuck bits, shorts between > address bits, short between address and data bits, > etc. > > It complains when I run it on non-Dell equipment, > but usually works, and it's so far caught problems > nothing else would catch. I don't know about Charles Cook, but the name John Molnar sounds vaguely familiar. However, the best test I've ever found was one that runs in linear time (ie twice as much memory takes twice as long to test; most tests run in time dependant on some power of the size -- eg double the size, triple the time, like a Galpat which depends on the square of the size). The test was devised and implemented by Suk and Reddy, and is described in "A march test for functional faults in semiconductor random access memories", published in IEEE Transactions on Computing Vol.C-30 No.12,December 1981. There were a whole lot of articles about memory testing in the journals around that time, and there's a follow-up article by Abadir and Reghbati, in Computing Surveys Vol.15 No.3, September 1983, published by the ACM, which presents a kind of survey of methods. This test will find stuck-at-zero, stuck-at-one, data coupling faults, address coupling faults, data-address-coupling faults, and decoder faults. It's pretty easy to implement, and *provided* each data bit is in a separate IC, you can do all the bits in parallel. If not (eg if the RAMs are 4-bit wide devices) then you need to do some manipulation to ensure you're not affecting bits you don't want to -- a fact conveniently forgotten by most RAM test implementors. Anyway, Suk & Reddy's test is quite fast, and very easy to implement. I did a Z80 version that tested the entire RAM in a bytewide array (so lots of shifts and loops) without using any stack (what's the point in storing data in the memory you think needs testing?), and it runs in just under six seconds at 3.5MHz. If you had one bit per chip, obviously it would be much more than 8 times faster (8 times because of parallelism and a further factor of two or more by eliminating the shifts, some loops, and logical ORs/ANDs used for masking individual bits). The one thing most memory tests *won't* do is test for correct refresh tolerance. You may also have trouble testing the parity fully unless you can read/write the parity bits directly. Very few tests, by the way, will detect pattern-sensitive faults. Luckily, these are very rare, and I've only ever seen one true pattern-sensitive fault that wasn't a simple coupling fault. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager Dept. of Computer Science University of York

23 years, 4 months

IDE Clone: Win95

by jpl15＠panix.com

Duh! You'd think that I'd mention a few little details The system is Windoze 95 v400.0950 IIRC. And thanks to KS for the URL, that's my next stop. Also, thanks Doug for the Norton Ghost reference... I'll look into that too. Cheers John

23 years, 4 months

Somewhat OT: A milestone

by kyrrin＠bluefeathertech.com

Fellow CLASSICCMP'ers, I have reached a milestone. This message originates >from my first qmail server ever based on a SPARCstation LX. I must say I would have been completely lost, configuration-wise, had it not been for the qmail setup how-to at the flounder site. Thanks are also due to Chuck McManis for providing some sanity checks, and especially for taking a few minutes out of Christmas day to field a somewhat frantic phone call from my end. I would also add that I was almost hopelessly lost with Sendmail, even after reading parts of the O'Reilly book on it. qmail was much easier to deal with, and I would not hesitate to suggest it to anyone putting up a Unix mailserver. Keep the peace(es). -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner and head honcho, Blue Feather Technologies http://www.bluefeathertech.com // E-mail: kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com Amateur Radio: WD6EOS since Dec. '77 (Extra class as of June-2K) "I'll get a life when someone demonstrates to me that it would be superior to what I have now..." (Gym Z. Quirk, aka Taki Kogoma).

23 years, 4 months

Cloning IDE drives

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> The subject (I think) is on topic, the hardware to which I'm refering is > a little too new for us, but I'm gonna ask anyway. > > I have a Pentium I wintel box which I've had for nearly five years. > It's 1.9 GB HD has been slowly developing bearing whine for the last > several months. It is getting noticibly louder now and I'm sure this > faithful old HD is nearing the end of it's earthly sojourn. > > My fantasy is that I can buy another IDE drive (of somewhat larger > capacity) and just somehow copy the whole thing on the original down to > the new one, without having to go thru the backup/restore/re-auth all the > programs I've got on it. I have 8mm streaming tape backups of the system, > but that's a pain. Symantec's Ghost can do this. You didn't mention much else about the system, i.e. running DOS or Windows, FAT16 or FAT32... If you're running Windows and you've formetted the older drive as FAT32, then you're in the ideal shape- you can clone your partition to a new partition on the new drive and in its new form, it can be as large as the disk. However, if you're running DOS, and/or have the drive partition(s) formatted as FAT16, you'll be limited to cloning the old drive's paritions to partitions on the new drive that must top out at 2GB (2047MB, actually). Additionally, the BIOS of the motherboard in this PC may or may not be up-to-date enough to handle the large sizes of newer IDE drives. A BIOS upgrade might help that. Also, if you've got multiple FAT16 partitions, I'm not sure how things will work on the second FAT16 partition if, in cloning, you grow the first to the 2047MB limit. I do this all the time, mostly to get around the problem of NT4 not installing on drives larger than just under 8GB. hth, -doug q

23 years, 4 months

Software for Northstar Advantage 8/16?

by r.stek＠snet.net

You can still get new 10 hole hard-sectored disks at www.cadigital.com (or at least you could about a year ago). Bob Stek Saver of Lost Sols

23 years, 4 months

Kaypro 4/software for sale (fwd)

by vcf＠siconic.com

Please contact the original sender. Reply-to: mtnaire(a)easilink.com ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 18:07:46 -0700 From: Robert Specht <mtnaire(a)easilink.com> Subject: Kaypro 4/software for sale I have heard about you from computer museums who were kind enough to respond to my message: I purchased a new Kaypro 4 system around 1983/84 while getting my 2nd college degree; I am ready to sell it with original software and some manuals. The computer has a modem port and includes a power cable. There is also a Kaypro printer and connection cord; the printer is usable (I'm using it now to print off files before selling the computer) but not in as good shape as the computer. The printer takes ribbons that fit the old IBM Selectric typewriters. There is an unopened box of floppy disks and a few other blank disks. Please let me know if you are interested in this historic computer system, and at what price. If you are not interested, I would welcome suggested other buyers to contact. The software consists of several floppy disks in hard cases and includes: CP/M version 2.2, S-Basic Perfect Calc - Program/lessons Microsoft Basic-80 (plus selected games) Perfect Filer Working Diskette- Individual Member Data Base MicroPlan Perfect Writer/Perfect Speller Working Diskete - Edit Disk Perfect Writer - Installation Disk \ Perfect Writer - Lessons Disk A public domain utilites disk with a program called "TYPWRYT" which allows use of the keyboard like a typewriter and the following MASTER disks: Wordstar, The Word Plus Perfect Filer - Individual Member Data Base Perfect Calc - Program/Lessons CP/M v. 2.2, S-Basic MicroPlan, C-Basic Microsoft Basic-80 Perfect Writer - Lessons Disk Perfect Speller Perfect Writer - Installation Disk The manuals include: Perfect Calc Perfect Filer Wordstar CP/M and small handbooks: Kapro The Word Plus Letter Quality Printer User's Manual Introduction to Software Kaypro User's Guide (Read Me First) The above manuals are all the Kaypro publications. In addition, I have the following: Understanding and Using dBase II by Rob Krumm, Brady Communications Company, Inc., copyright 1984 (ISBN 0-89303-916-0). Thank you. Ronnee-Sue Helzner, Utah Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org

23 years, 4 months

Software for Northstar Advantage 8/16?

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

From: r. 'bear' stricklin <red(a)bears.org> To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> Date: Wednesday, December 27, 2000 4:45 PM Subject: Re: Software for Northstar Advantage 8/16? >On Wed, 27 Dec 2000, Rich Beaudry wrote: > >> Would anyone happen to have either Graphics/DOS or Graphics/BASIC for this >> machine? I have complete manuals for them, but no disks :-( > >I have some software for the Advantage, but I'll have to check the >inventory after I get home this evening before I can say for sure whether >I have this particular software. > >> Also, I heard that the Northstars use hard-sectored 5.25" disks. Is this >> true? > >Yes, it is true. I'm nearly certain they were 10-sectored. Based on the Advantage I have standard DD NS* 10 sector hard sector and I think it will do DD/DS 80tr (DDQD) for 780k. Allison

23 years, 4 months

Altos 580 needs a good home

by r_beaudry＠hotmail.com

Hello all, I have an Altos 580, but no docs or software for it. Someone sent me floppy boot disk images, but I could not get them to work (likely some mistake on my end). Upon power up, the floppy light goes on, and never goes off. It's hard to tell if the floppy motor is spinning. The hard drive definitely spins up, and sounds fine. A terminal connected to any port on the back never shows any output. I have no idea if the thing is broken, and without docs, I don't have the time or inclination to find out... The unit is the "squashed hexagon" shape, with one internal 5.25" floppy, and an internal 5.25" hard drive. Five serial ports on the back, labeled JA through JE. Also other ports for what looks like an external hard drive.... I took the covers off, and aside from quite a bit of dust, there is no damage. No apparent heat spots, missing chips, etc. It's possible the floppy is just dust-clogged, but I haven't had time recently to clean it all out. If you want it, it's yours for what I have into it: US $20 plus shipping costs. The unit is fairly heavy, so it might get expensive, depending on where you are (I am located in north central Massachusetts, USA)... I am willing to ship worldwide, and will quote shipping to anyone who is interested. I am also willing to part it out, but will give first preference to someone who wants the whole thing. Thanks! Rich B. (I subscribe to the digest, so I can't reply immediately).

23 years, 4 months

Identifying 72-pin SIMMs

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Dec 26, 22:45, Zane H. Healy wrote: > Pile #1 (12 chips, 8 big & 4 smaller): > SEC KMM53616000AK-6 I don't know -- if you give me the IC numbers I might be able to tell. > Pile #2 (12 chips, 8 big & 4 smaller): > NEC > MC- 428000A36BH-70 MC-428000A36BH-70 is NEC 8M x 36 (32MB with parity) fast page mode, 70ns. Sure this isn't 16 x uPD4217400 and 8 x 424100? -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager Dept. of Computer Science University of York

23 years, 4 months

Does anyone have any PCM-12 (pdp-8 clone) hardware?

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

From: Richard Erlacher <edick(a)idcomm.com> >I stumbled across an intersil board with their PDP-8 clone chip on eBay >recently (yesterday, I think). If you search for Intersil you may find it. > >Dick Which one? 6960 sampler with the basic 6100 chipset? Intercept the 6100 SBC with expansion as embeeded or trainer? PCM-12 system (development system aand boards)? Allison

23 years, 4 months

← Newer
1
...
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
...
49
Older →

Jump to page:

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

test-drb December 2000