OK, I got a 6.4 GB laptop drive hooked up and right now the iOpener is running
DOS/BATCH V10-01A on an emulated PDP-11/40+RK05 system. I love it!!!
It's going to take some real butchery to get the case closed, but I guess
that's to be expected. The low-profile 3M connector barely fit under the
CPU heat sink w/o needing it to be clearanced, that was nice.
BTW the CPU seems to be 200 MHz, not 180 MHz. But it still gets only about
80 BogoMIPS, pretty slow.
John Wilson
D Bit
<>BTW the CPU seems to be 200 MHz, not 180 MHz. But it still gets only
<>about 80 BogoMIPS, pretty slow.
The winchip is about slow as pents come. Pentium with MMX at 180 is
much better.
<I heard last night that Netpliance is making modifications so that people
<can no longer do this... they are apparently losing a LOT of money selling
<the machines, having expected to recoup it in the service charges...
No one has seen one and there is commentary both ways from Netplience.
<Can someone confirm this... and maybe confirm the change that they
<have done (which I understand is simply removal of the cable connector
<for the drive).
Removing(not putting it in really) the connector is about all they could
do with a production stream like that otherwise the cost to manufacture
and all goes out the window. To me that does not constitute hacker
proofing as putting one in is trivial and I might get to put in in the
right side of the board even.
In any case it would take a major effort to change something in production
more than trivially, I've had to push that at DEC and elsewhere, it was
hell. The other half os the current hacker words for it is that it's a
great box even as is and they'd give their mother one. Loosing that good
will to a few thousand hacked units at most would be costly in the long
term. They have gotten a lot of VERY positive free press and it could
become negative fast if they tried something too nasty.
<Oh, and supposedly back-ordered units will have the mod...
We shall see, I'm waiting.
Allison
>On many of the operating systems, you don't have to do a SYSGEN - just
>tweak a number in the configuration word and viola, it's now a 50Hz
>machine.
>
>For an RT-11 machine, in particular, you can tweak this on a running
>system if you wish:
[... 50hz.mac deleted ...]
Tim - I'm surprised at you... simply setting this bit is *not* sufficient.
The bit is set based on assembly parameters. Those parameters also
set the values for ticks/day based on 50 and 60 hz. Those values are
patched at boot time to reflect what the system thinks the clock is
supposed to be (what it was genned for).
Without the other counters set correctly, date rollover won't work
at all correctly... since it will be waiting for sufficient clock
ticks at the 60hz rate to have gone by before it bumps the clock.
I seem to recall that there is another gotcha to this, but haven't
yet found it in the sources...
Bottom line is that the config bits are supposed to be read, not
written, as they indicate what the system was built for or what it
has determined (via probe) to be running on...
Megan Gentry
Former RT-11 Developer
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry!zk3.dec.com |
| Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg!world.std.com |
| Compaq Computer Corporation | addresses need '@' in place of '!' |
| 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43 | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ |
| Nashua, NH 03062 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler |
| (603) 884 1055 | required." - mbg |
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
Thanks all for the advice on the BA23 110/230v power switching.
I've done that now and powered it up. I have a VT220 terminal that is
functional as far as I know and connected to a random serial connector on
the PDP, one of 6.
Unfortunately I know nothing at all about PDP's or VT's.
Anyway, I start the VT220 before the PDP and it gives a message VT220 Ready.
I power up the PDP and basically get nothing at all. The only sequence that
gets any response is hitting the halt button. The terminal then says:
165262
@
When I hit the Restart button after that nothing happens for about 2
minutes.
Then an "&" prompt appears.
Nothing I type in gets any response after that. Typing "help" gets no
response.
The machine is in a BA23 case and was a PDP11/23 I think, but has a PDP11/73
CPU upgrade. There is a full height ST506 hard drive reputed to be 30Mb in
size, which spins and makes all the right noises.
It was last operational about 5 years ago and was part of a Cybermation
laser cutting system. I have no idea what OS would have been installed. I
have no docs or media.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Hans
>Anyway, I start the VT220 before the PDP and it gives a message VT220 Ready.
>I power up the PDP and basically get nothing at all. The only sequence that
>gets any response is hitting the halt button. The terminal then says:
>165262
>@
>When I hit the Restart button after that nothing happens for about 2
>minutes.
>Then an "&" prompt appears.
>Nothing I type in gets any response after that. Typing "help" gets no
>response.
The "165262 @" prompting is from ODT. ODT is a very simplistic monitor
that lets you modify memory and registers and start or single-step
through instructions in memory.
165000 is a common (but not the most common) address to put a ROM'ed
bootstrap at. I'm guessing that when you halted it it was either doing
the self-test or waiting for an external device to come ready.
The "&" prompt I'm not so sure about. It's possible that this is a prompt
>from the bootstrap monitor (some Emulex bootstraps will say that) or
maybe it's from the OS/embedded application.
>The machine is in a BA23 case and was a PDP11/23 I think, but has a PDP11/73
>CPU upgrade. There is a full height ST506 hard drive reputed to be 30Mb in
>size, which spins and makes all the right noises.
>Any suggestions?
What would help the most of all is an inventory of cards in the backplane.
If they're DEC cards they'll have a "Mxxxx" number on the handle. Third
party cards you'll probably have to pull to identify. Also tell us
the exact position of each card in the backplane, and what cards are cabled
to what drives.
I suspect from the less-than-perfectly-standard bootstrap address of
165000 that you've got a third-party controller in there with on-board
bootstrap, though of course there an infinite number of permutations that
things could have been set up for!
--
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 just today acquired a Sharp PC-7000 "lunchbox" style luggable, I thought
it was a boombox until I opened it up. I know that it is an MS-DOS (XT or AT
class?) machine, but now I need software for it. Can someone direct me to a
good software archive for this machine? Also, what is the purpose of the
metal-covered (screwed shut) connector on the underside of the machine? Is
it for an external hard drive?
____________________________________________________________
David Vohs, Digital Archaeologist & Computer Historian.
Computer Collection:
"Triumph": Commodore 64C, 1802, 1541, FSD-1, GeoRAM 512, Okimate 20.
"Leela": Macintosh 128 (Plus upgrade), Nova SCSI HDD, Imagewriter II.
"Delorean": TI-99/4A.
"Monolith": Apple Macintosh Portable.
"Spectrum": Tandy Color Computer 3.
"Boombox": Sharp PC-7000.
____________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
>Does anyone have any pointers to sites on the web which cover Altos
>machines? I've done a search on Yahoo and a couple of other places and
>turned up nothing.
Yes, there is a surprising lack of information "on the web" on Altos
machines.
>I'm particularly interested in information on the Unix systems they were
>making around 1990 - we had one at work, an i386 in a tower case. Not PC
>compatible IIRC, possibly called an "Altos III" or something similar.
If you can wait a day or two, a fellow classiccmper and I are going to be
inventorying the Altos machines that we've (temporarily) taken custody
of, as well as the documents. All the machines that we have are
19" wide by about 7.5" high tabletop units, often with 8" floppies in the
front so they're almost certainly older than your machine, but there may
be some documentation (we've several binders full of it) on your machine.
--
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
CC'd to port-vax (NetBSD) and Classiccmp...
Last call! I have a complete doc set for the VAX GKS software (whatever
the heck it is) that's going in RECYCLE if someone doesn't speak up by
Tuesday. These are still in their shrink wrap, and they can be yours for
$1.00 plus the shipping cost (small box, not very nasty at all).
Let me know. Thanks!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
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
"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..."
>This pair of boxes is nominally the same size, somewhat narrower than
>"rack-width" and about 7" tall. They're plastic boxes with a beige (could
>be influenced by many years' cigarrette smoke) exterior and black (probably
>... I haven't looked closely at them for some time.) front.
>
>They're quite weighty. By that I mean absolutely too heavy to ship across
>the planet.
Huh? The boxes you're talking about must be different than the 6 Altos
boxes I have that meet the same dimensions... they only weigh 55 or 60
pounds each.
(OB disclaimer: my standard for "heavy enough that I don't want to lift
it too often" is a DG 6045 drive or a DEC RA80 drive, about 140-150 pounds.
I used to be a puny weakling until I started collecting old computers and
drives...)
Tim.
I'm CC'ing this to both classiccmp and port-vax.
Found on Usenet. Keith Huff, in Allentown, PA has a bunch of DEC'ish
freebies up for grabs. Get 'em while you can!
Attachment follows.
-=-=- <snip> -=-=-
On Sun, 26 Mar 00 18:31:13 GMT, in comp.sys.dec you wrote:
>> I still have some stuff I need to get rid of, otherwise it goes to the
>>dumpster. Everything listed is best offer and shipping. Items located in
>>Allentown, Pa 18103.
>>
>>
>> (2) VR262 19" mono monitors
>>
>> (1) VR260 19" mono monitor
>>
>> (2) DECstation 3100 motherboards
>>
>> (18) DEC 2Mb 80-pin SIMMs
>>
>> (1) VFB01 mono framebuffer
>>
>> (10) used TK50 tapes
>>
>> (6) brand new TK50 tapes
>>
>> (1) bare TK50 drive
>>
>> (1) LK201 keyboard
>>
>> (1) VT320 terminal
>>
>> (1) VT1200 mono X-term base
>>
>> (1) Wyse WY-85 terminal & keyboard
>>
>> (8) CDROM caddies
>>
>> (1) DZ11 users guide
>>
>> (1) DZ11 maintenance manual
>>
>> (1) RL01/RL02 disk subsystem users manual
>>
>> (23) 6250 BPI 9-track tapes
>>
>>Keith Huff
>>
>>kshuff(a)fast.net
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Owner and head honcho,
Blue Feather Technologies -- kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech [dot] com
Web: http://www.bluefeathertech.com
"...No matter how we may wish otherwise, our science can only describe an object,
event, or living thing in our own human terms. It cannot possibly define any of them..."
