>From: "Ethan Dicks" <erd_6502(a)yahoo.com>
>
>--- M H Stein <mhstein(a)canada.com> wrote:
>> BTW, I've used 6821s & 6520s interchangeably as well without problems.
>
>I only mentioned it because someone either here or on the CBM Hackers
>list said they had problems substituting a 6821 for a 6520. Since I
>have tubes of 6821s and a small pad of 6520s, I was happy to verify
>the substitution (I have, in the meantime, traded a tube of one for
>a tube of the other across the pond, so I'm all set with both).
>
Hi
It may be that he confused 6521's with 6821,6820 and 6520's.
The last three are essentially the same but the 6521 is different.
( or maybe I got it confused? I know one is different ).
Dwight
Hi,
I'd like to experiment with OpenBSD on the HP 300 platform (mainly because
these machines have both HP-IB interfaces and Ethernet interfaces).
My intention is to make either an HP-IB to Ethernet gateway or at the
very least write software enabling the HP 300 to emulate a CS-80 disk drive.
If anybody has hardware that they are willing to sell, advice or
links, I'd very grateful.
Thanks
**vp
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ethan Dicks [mailto:erd_6502@yahoo.com]
> If he means "no internal mass storage interface", he might
...but what is "internal?" If the storage interface is in
a separate rack, does that make the machine a toy?
After that, what is a "storage interface?" A common 'IDE' disk
will plug nearly directly into an ISA bus. Does that mean that
any system with an ISA bus could not be a "toy?" We could further
assume that most busses could be adapted in similar ways to drive
mass storage devices, and claim that no computer with any bus which
could do this can be a toy.
> have something
> of a point. Ignoring audio cassette, I can think of few
> computers more
> complicated than a traditional "single-board" computer that
> lack an in-
> cabinet mass storage interface. The PET, VIC-20 and C-64 all
Well, again, which cabinet?
> interfaces. Non-
> Zorro-equipped Amigas (A1000, A500, A500+) have floppy but
> not hard disk
> interfaces in-box, but the A600 and A1200 have 44-pin
> internal IDE ports.
> Does that make the A500 a toy, but not the A600?
What about the Mac plus which had a SCSI interface, but Apple
discouraged its use (preferring, rather, that you plug your
hard drive into the floppy interface, IIRC)...
> I would propose that the label "toy" might be suitable for
> machines that
> have external disk controllers _and_ an external network interface (if
> any; I'll bend and accept a serial port as a network
> interface if it runs
> some network protocol - SLIP, PPP, LocalTalk, DDCMP...) I'm not sure
> how to classify single-boards, though. By the nature of them being
Transputers might also be tricky.
> Mind you, I love toy computers. They have been fun and profitable for
> me. Others, though, need that "bittybox" label to glorify whatever
> they like at the expense of others. Let's at least agree on what
> constitutes a "toy", even in the most general of terms.
I'd say anything that runs windows primarily. *duck*
Chris
Christopher Smith, Perl Developer
Amdocs - Champaign, IL
/usr/bin/perl -e '
print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n");
'
Hi,
I've got such a FutureData System with 8085 CPU. It's modell type is 2300-9402. It's with an 8 ich double floppy drive and some cards. The cases (especially
>from the floppy) are strongly scratched. The CPU seem to work, it shows the FutureData logo and a Prompt ( > ) on the screen but nothing else.
I have no idea what it is or what I can do with it. Where can I find an operating system for it? Please help me.
Greetings from Germany,
Flori
From: Andy Holt <andyh(a)andyh-rayleigh.freeserve.co.uk>
>I'll agree - but perhaps the main reason is that modern components are
>almost impossible for the home builder ... and only the odd few (Tony? :-)
Impossible? How?
>want to spend lots of time and a fair bit of money to build something that
>is usually less capable than a less expensive commercial product.
There are two good reasons to DIY. One is for personal understanding
and in that case practical is often not the point. Two is something
specialized
that a commercial peice that may be expensive or a poor compromize.
I happen to build, RF, AF and digital and the economicas is that I have
a very deep junkbox and parts supply to exhaust doing it. I the realm of
radios (transceivers) I have several I've designed that far exceed
commercial
gear as I could specialize them.
Generalizing on DIY/homebrewing is not good as exceptions do abound.
Allison
Sounds like a worthwhile project. Can't tell you why they used the 6520, can only
speculate, same as you, that it's intended to sit on the 6500 bus while the DL1416s
are a little more generic and might not interface directly without some additional
logic & decoding anyway and using up more address space to boot. Also, since
they brought a number of signals out to the display board that were not used, I
suppose they might have intended to provide maximum flexibility; I'd think that no
matter what signals & timing a display might require, you can generate it with the
PIA and the wiring would be there, while you might not have what you need available
on the bus without some extra glue anyway.
BTW, I've used 6821s & 6520s interchangeably as well without problems.
Not sure what you're looking for; the E & F ROMS are very well documented in the
separate monitor manual which is on R Cini's site AFAIK (and in your care package
waiting to go out), and if you wanted machine-readable source, the AIM itself should
easily be able to disassemble the ROMs & send the source out on the serial port for
capture.
I've done some hacking of the monitor; my main accomplishment was to reverse &
turn the printing upside down to allow mounting the board vertically with the tape
feeding down, some graphic stuff, and trivial stuff like autostarting the user program, etc.
I wouldn't think that the software to drive an LCD display would be very difficult; as I
recall, there are hooks and vectors in place for user I/O. Of course even as it is,
using the TTY switch the display is echoed out the serial port, but cursor movement
codes might be incompatible with an ASCII Serial display.
And I did find some extra DL1416s, although that won't help you with the unit that
doesn't have a display board
mike
-------------Original Message--------------
Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 11:01:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ethan Dicks <erd_6502(a)yahoo.com>
Subject: AIM-65 displays
I am evaluating building a replacement display for the AIM-65 that does
not use the DL1416. I have several modern options - a 20x1 LCD is
cheap enough, as are more modern 4-char ASCII LED displays. The interface
is somewhat trivial - the connector on the AIM-65 mainboard has enough
signals to talk to a 6520 PIA (since that's what is on the normal display
board to begin with). There are couple of angles to pursue...
I have successfully tested a Motorola 6821 in place of the Rockwell 6520
in a real AIM-65. Since I have a few 6520s and many 6821s, that's a win.
Either way, it's trivial to hang a display off of the 6502 bus without
a PIA in the way. I'm curious if anyone knows why they bothered to
put a 6520 on the display card? Did they want to keep the bus loading
to a small, known quantity? If so, then I'll consider that any ASCII
LED solution I come up with needs to have appropriate signal conditioning.
I can't see how a modern LCD display would load the bus any worse than
a 6520, so it might be worth the direct approach.
So... the hardware is no big deal. The software, though, could be lots
more work. I have real ROMs and ROM images. Are there any sources to
the AIM-65 ROMs that are in a state to be compiled back into working,
matching binaries? If I'm going to change the nature of the display,
the code will have to follow. If the code is changing, then there's
no reason I can't experiment with a multi-line display - I have a 20x4
VCD and a 20X4 LCD display already in hand. I think I can locate a
40x2 in my junk box, but at first, I'll probably ignore the right half
and if I used it, treat it like a 20x2.
Is there anyone out there who has done any real AIM-65 hacking? I can
start from zero if I have to, but if there's any preexisting work out
there, I'd like to see about starting ahead of zero.
- -ethan
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner [mailto:spc@conman.org]
> I used a Personal Iris 4D 35 at school. It came with IRIX
> 3.3.2 which
> used NeWS (Network Window System) for the GUI which was quite
I didn't know IRIX ever used it. That's interesting.
> fast (despite
> being based on PostScript) and easily extensible, but that
Despite being based on Postscript? :) Postscript must be easily
more efficient than the X11 protocol ;)
NeWS was (is) also supported under SunOS 4. For a while,
the server was actually merged with the X11 server in a
program called XNeWS. You could run the apps side-by-side.
Chris
Christopher Smith, Perl Developer
Amdocs - Champaign, IL
/usr/bin/perl -e '
print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n");
'
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jason McBrien [mailto:jbmcb@hotmail.com]
> Are Personal Irises good for anything? I've got two, a 25
> and a 35 and
> they seem to work but I don't have a monitor or keyboard for
Good for running IRIX 4.x or 5.x. They have no audio without
a special option, possibly, so you'll want to check the
configurations out. Also, as with other SGI systems, the graphics
boards can make a big diference.
Make sure they have all the plastic "skin," or they'll have cooling
problems.
I think the monitor and keyboard are the same as Indigo, but I'm
not certain.
Chris
Christopher Smith, Perl Developer
Amdocs - Champaign, IL
/usr/bin/perl -e '
print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n");
'
