On 9/7 Philip.Belben(a)pgen.com wrote:
> One thing to beware, at least on our 7012 machines, is that if you want to
add a
> keyboard, you need a special one. PC keyboard doesn't work (no need to
guess
> how I found that out a couple of office moves ago...).
The keyboard is a Model M. The part number listed on it is either 13G4540 or
1394540. I could not distinguish the 'g' from a '9' on the label, although
I suspect it is a 'G'.
> Display is 1280*1024,
> can't remember the scanning rates, on 3 BNCs, sync on green. An IBM 6019 is
> recommended :-)
Philip, I think you mean 6091, sometimes known as the 6091-19.
I have a 5081-16 on my 320H and what documentation I have lists both
monitors.
Specs for the 6091 are:
H Frequency : 63.36/81.32 KHz
V Frequency : 60/67/77 Hz
Resolution: 1024x1024 & 1280x1024
That brings me to an earlier posting I made:
: Does anybody have the specs for an IBM POWERdisplay 20, p/n 09G3821?
I am curious to know, if the 5081 goes south, if the POWERdisplay 20 will
serve as a replacement.
> Mouse is a standard PS/2 mouse - plugged it into my PC and it
> the setup said it had detected a Logitech mouse...
The part number for the mouse is 11F8895
Mike
From: Robert Stek <r.stek(a)snet.net>
>lesser known makes. The 10 hole hard sectored disks were not that
difficult
>to get (you can still buy them at California Digital - www.cadigital.com
I
>think). NorthStar was one of the first, if not THE first on the market
with
>a 5.25" system, and at $699 list with controller, they were $300 cheaper
>than an 8" drive. A LOT of IMSAI owners also went with N*'s. For 8"
drives
Commentary and minor history items.
What truely made the NS* popular was not only was there a drive and
controller for $699 it included a DOS, Monitor and BASIC and in 1977
Billy G was getting 350$ for casette basic and 500$ for disk basic!!
NS* filled two aching niches, lack of reliable inexpensive storage and
a decent OS with a useful language. FYI: NS* Basic was one of the
few that would support multiling functions and even recusive subroutine
calls. While it had it's flaws at the DOS level (lacking in dynamic disk
space allocation) it made up for in memory efficientcy, reliability,
speed and ease of programming. There were better and more
sophisticated products they all came for a bigger price.
>finicky, and CP/M became the universal standard. Someone eventually did
>adapt CP/M to run on the Helios, but by that time PT had disappeared.
CP/M was adapted to everything! I wonder if by 1980 everything was
adapting to CP/M.
>And yes, N* DOS has four entry points -
These are the basic bare bone NS* drivers for Horizon (8251 USART).
The drivers shown do not use the device selection capability in NS*
DOS, up to 7 devices could exist and the device was passed in ACC
at call. Here the rough code.
Loc 02 in this case is data buffer
Loc 03 is the status port
Bit 0 is tx buffer empty
Bit 1 is RX buffer full
Character-IN,
test for and get a character from the input device. 2013h JMP CIN
; CIN
; CONSOLE IN RETURN CHAR IN Acc
;
CIN: IN 03
ANI 02
JZ CIN
IN 02
ANI 07Fh
RET
C-OUT,
Test port for ready and output char in B. 200Dh JMP cout
; COUT
; CHARACTER OUTPUT ROUTINE GOES HERE
; CHAR TO GO IS IN 'B'
;
; SIO DRIVER
COUT: IN 03
ANI 1
JZ COUT
MOV A,B
OUT 02
RET
cont-C,
Test char stream return with Z set if there was Ctrl-C. 201Ch JMP ctrlc
; CTLC
; CONTROL C ROUTINE GOES HERE
; RET Z=1 if control C otherwise Z=0
;
; SIO DRIVER
;
CTRLC: IN 03
ani 02 ; test for char wating
XRI 02 ; use Xor to flip the Z bit
RNZ NONE ; none? then bail
IN 02 ; get data
ANI 07Fh ; mask to ascii
CPI "CTRLC" ; is it CTRLc
RET
Terminal-INIT
used to setup or initalize the terminal (if needed). 2013h JMP TINIT
(if needed) or RET (if not)
- which must be patched to corresponding SOLOS routines in
>ROM. If you are really stuck, email off list for some helpful info.
Allison
From: Neil Cherry <ncherry(a)home.net>
>
>Model 640QS-B2 BA213
>MS650/M7621 KA640/M7624
>M7559
>DSV11-SA/M3108
>M9060-YA
>KSQSA/M5976-SA
>TQK70/M7559-00
>M9060-YA
It's a microvax of mid generation say MVIII.
>
>Can these machines run Linux or NetBSD. Where do I get OpenVMS? And yes
Forget Linux, no ported. NTbsd may run ig you have disks, dont see them
on
the list nor do I see eithernet.
Check out NetBSd port VAX.
>I'm pretty sure that we are licensed for VMS (Corp ITS is crazy about
>that kind of thing!).
VMS without license is useless (it is keyed!). Check the DECUS.org web
page
and Montagar.com. IT likely ram VMS in the V5 era or later and could
have run
also run Ultrix (unix of the BSD flavor with DEC tweeks).
Allison
>Don't have those pages (or the manual!) - do you know if they are on the
>WWW anywhere?
Well I'd look in the 'net but you could too. So happens I have the
manuals
>from my purchase back in '76 or was it '77.
Allison
NorthStar sub-systems were by far the most popular 5.25" systems for the
Sol. Second would have been Micropolis, then perhaps Vista, and other
lesser known makes. The 10 hole hard sectored disks were not that difficult
to get (you can still buy them at California Digital - www.cadigital.com I
think). NorthStar was one of the first, if not THE first on the market with
a 5.25" system, and at $699 list with controller, they were $300 cheaper
than an 8" drive. A LOT of IMSAI owners also went with N*'s. For 8" drives
the Tarbell controller was popular, but the Morrow Disk Jockey (I and II)
was probably the most common. There were many 8" drive controllers - CCS,
SSM, Godbout, etc. - for CP/M. ProcTech's Helios had a two board set for
their Pertec 8" drives in an impressive enclosure, and they did use the 32
hole hard sectored 8" disks. Their PTDOS was more than adequate and
comparable to CP/M, but the Helios was very expensive, the drives were
finicky, and CP/M became the universal standard. Someone eventually did
adapt CP/M to run on the Helios, but by that time PT had disappeared.
And yes, N* DOS has four entry points - Character-IN, C-OUT, cont-C, and
Terminal-INIT - which must be patched to corresponding SOLOS routines in
ROM. If you are really stuck, email off list for some helpful info.
Bob Stek
Saver of Lost Sols
From: Mike Noel <Mike-Noel(a)GCI.net>
>
>I have a N* controller (attached to a pair of N* drives) attached to a
>SOL. I think the controller and drives work (they appear to boot an NOS
>disk but nothing happens on the screen) but I haven't been able to find
>doc on configuring NOS for SOL. Anyone have that or able to explain
>what I have to do?
If you have the NS DOS manuals it's inthere all maybe 6 pages of it.
The SOL was not the defacto IO so you have to setup for that and likely
Bob Stek has it already done. It's very straightforward for the SOL.
Allison
From: Douglas Quebbeman <dhquebbeman(a)theestopinalgroup.com>
>> I have a N* controller (attached to a pair of N* drives) attached to a
>> SOL. I think the controller and drives work (they appear to boot an
NOS
>> disk but nothing happens on the screen) but I haven't been able to
find
>> doc on configuring NOS for SOL. Anyone have that or able to explain
>> what I have to do?
>
>Sounds very familiar... seems like you have to patch the N* controller
>ROM to use the SOLOS ROM jump table entries for get a character/display
>a character... Jim Battles, Bob Stek, and I should all have this info
>somewhere in SOLUS NEWS/PROTEUS NEWS?
>
>Guys? Does that sound right?
No. The Solos roms conveniently provide nice IO for Charin and Charout
the boot rom on the NS* controller is strictly boot(no other IO). And
the
standard NS* DOS is setup for 8251 usarts as in the NS* Horizon.
So to bring uo NS* DOS on anything else you need e800h->efffh clear
for the boot rom. NS* DOS wants ram starting at 2000h which most
systems will do nicely (those that have rom usually have it at 0000 or
FXXXh). With that You boot NS* DOS and halt it after boot appears
done then using whatever debugger or memory editor you patch the jump
table for YOUR IO (there is space if you need to code it). you write
that
out to a new disk after warm boot and now you have custom NS* DOS
for your hardware. If your using NS* CP/M or the UCSD Pascal
System the procedure is similar.
Allison
From: Bill Sudbrink <bills(a)adrenaline.com>
>Hopefully, in the next week or two, I'm going to be
>getting a SOL. In anticipation of this, I'm wondering
>what floppy interfaces one might expect to find in
>a SOL. The one I'm getting does not have a floppy card
Most likely a Northstar* MDS, Helios and maybe Icom FDOS
there are toehrs but those were "of era".
>in it. Looking around, I see that some people have
>NorthStars in theirs. I have a spare N* floppy controller,
>but I'd rather not go this route as the hard sectored
>media is difficult to find. I'll have to inventory my
>S-100 cards... I know I have a couple of Cromemcos 4FDC
>and 16FDC cards. Would someone have put one of these in
>a SOL? I'm not asking if it can be made to work. I'm
>trying to get a sense of whether it's appropriate or if
>it would be like putting a SoundBlaster32 with 16 Megs
>of memory in an original 6MHz PC-AT with a 512K
>motherboard.
Keep in mind a SOL is 2mhz 8080 and without a DMA
based FDC 8" double density is not easily done. It will
do 5.25 double density however.
Allison
>
Hopefully, in the next week or two, I'm going to be
getting a SOL. In anticipation of this, I'm wondering
what floppy interfaces one might expect to find in
a SOL. The one I'm getting does not have a floppy card
in it. Looking around, I see that some people have
NorthStars in theirs. I have a spare N* floppy controller,
but I'd rather not go this route as the hard sectored
media is difficult to find. I'll have to inventory my
S-100 cards... I know I have a couple of Cromemcos 4FDC
and 16FDC cards. Would someone have put one of these in
a SOL? I'm not asking if it can be made to work. I'm
trying to get a sense of whether it's appropriate or if
it would be like putting a SoundBlaster32 with 16 Megs
of memory in an original 6MHz PC-AT with a 512K
motherboard.
> Closely related question -
>
> I have a N* controller (attached to a pair of N* drives) attached to a
> SOL. I think the controller and drives work (they appear to boot an NOS
> disk but nothing happens on the screen) but I haven't been able to find
> doc on configuring NOS for SOL. Anyone have that or able to explain
> what I have to do?
Sounds very familiar... seems like you have to patch the N* controller
ROM to use the SOLOS ROM jump table entries for get a character/display
a character... Jim Battles, Bob Stek, and I should all have this info
somewhere in SOLUS NEWS/PROTEUS NEWS?
Guys? Does that sound right?
-dq
