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
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
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).
> 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
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
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
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).
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
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
