test-drb December 2003

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

252 participants
453 discussions

Disk hardware emulation, was Re: Grandfather system RTE6/VM?

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Dec 7, 19:26, Tony Duell wrote: > OK, many machines used Western Digital hard disk controller chipsets and > had relatively standard formats, but others didn't. Some manufacturers > used homebrew controllers -- 2910-based state machines, 8X300-based > microcontrollers, ASICs, etc. RQDXn controllers come to mind :-( > > the interface is set to write and the relevant drive is selected, and > > stop when it isn't. Similarly it can replay the data stream when > > requested. There's nothing magical about a sector, it's just a stream > > A minor correction : There is no 'request' for outputting data, other > than selecting the drive, head, and cylinder. When that's done, you have > to keep on squirting data to the controller. I meant it can stop as soon as the drive is no longer selected. Most systms, if they want to read a sector, assert the select, wait for the correct header to come around, and then de-select as soon as they've got it. A lot don't of course; they wait until they've verified the checksum, and if it fails, they expect to see the same sector come around again. Or they may keep the drive selected for a while in case whatever software is asking for sectors, asks for another one. > > So Tony's idea could handle everything including an LLF, for any format > > and any encoding scheme you like. > > Which, IMHO, is important. No, it's essential if emulation is going to work for anything other than the simplest case of a PC with an ST506 controller (which is trivial to replace with IDE anyway). :-) BTW, it occured to me that you can alleviate the transfer rate problem on the real drive by splitting the data stream, like RAID systems do. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

21 years

Miniscribe

by tdembinski＠san.rr.com

Do you perchance still have the old Miniscribe 3180E ESDI? Tom dembinski2(a)yahoo.com

21 years

CRT5027

by eddy620＠optonline.net

Did you ever recieve a datasheet for the crt5027? If so please email it to me. Thank you for your time/ Edward Koloski eddy620(a)optonline.net

21 years

FAT file system now licensed by MS ?

by waltje＠pdp11.nl

Hi, To my own laughter and surprise, Microsoft now claims to have the rights to the FAT file system, and intends to execute on a licensing program for it, with obvious results. Wasnt FAT done (in crude format) by MP/M or CP/M86 already *before* Microsoft? They claim it was developed by them in 1976, but I seem to recall it being mentioned before that, around 1974-ish or so, by homebrew people (such as CP/M et al.) ?? --f (who runs FAT on his own PDP-11 OS ;-)

21 years

Copy of STD39 Internet Standard (BBN Report 1822)

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Dec 6, 16:21, SP wrote: > > It is on my list of things to look for. > > BBN 1822 describes the host to IMP protocol > > > > I'm hoping there is a copy in the SRI archives at the Computer > > History Museum. > > Good luck. I only located something remotely similar to one copy, > but in one unreadable format, in: > > ftp.univ-angers.fr/pub2/rfc/rfc/std/std39.txt.gz > > This file is 3.3k long, instead of the 187 bytes of the official STD39.txt What's unreadable about it? It's an ordinary text file, compressed with gzip. However, it's not STD39 at all. It's not even related to it; it's RFC903, which is about RARP (Reverse Address Resolution Protocol). It looks like the people who run that FTP site have not only not updated it in ten years, they've accidentally copied their STD38 file as STD39. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

21 years

Virus Distribution via this group

by r.mueller＠fz-juelich.de

Does anybody else have trouble with routinely receiving a virus in place of the proper collection of messages which constitute an issue from this group? What I often receive looks like ------------------ Virus Warning Message (IIIIIIIIIIIIII) Security warning Exceed_Decompression_Layer in file email-body The file email-body is moved to /etc/iscan/virus/virNUv9Rs. Information from IIIIIIIII Mail-Server: Scanner detected a virus (Exceed_Decompression_Layer) in an attachment (email-body) of this message. The attachment was removed from the message. No further action is required on your part. If you have questions, please contact postmast@IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII --------------------------------------------------------- ------------------ Virus Warning Message (IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII) email-body is removed from here because it contains a virus. I have removed the name of our mail processor and substituted several letters= "I". These viruses come numbered in the correct sequence, as if they were issued by the normal server which distributes the proper message collections. By the time the messages reach me any real content has been removed. Several of these arrive per week. One question I must face is whether our firewall is discovering non-existent viruses, and request a repair, but if the viruses are real, then the server for this group needs cleaning. It is possible there is somebody out there at a third point doing this, but how does this explain having the messages in the correct sequence and delivered to me while eliminating the correct message? (It never shows up, and how would this "Third Party Server" be trapping the proper messages in order to substitute a virus loaded message? If I were receiving one proper message and also the contaminated version it would be easier to explain.) Any advice would be appreciated. Bob

21 years

DSI NC2400 Reader Schem's?

by ohh＠drizzle.com

Hey, all: I've got a DSI NC-2400 paper tape reader/punch which is _almost_ completely working, but still has a small grumpy problem with its reader light source. Whatever it is, it's not as obvious as such a trivial problem _ought_ to be. :) Does anybody out there have a set of schematics or maintenance manual for the NC-2400? If it's scanned and available somewhere, great! If it's hard-copy, let me know and we can see what arrangements we can make. Thanks! -O.-

21 years

HP 85 Program Development ROM Manual

by lbickley＠bickleywest.com

Does anyone have a scanned copy of the HP 85 "Program Development ROM" manual? [Not the "Advanced Programing ROM" manual - I have that]. If so, please let me know where I can download it - or simply email it directly to me. Thanks, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

21 years

Space Invaders returning to arcades...

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Teo Zenios" <teoz(a)neo.rr.com> > > > >> Its ridiculous price gouging, the cost to put such a unit together is >under >> $400. Midway has been doing this same thing for a while with its Ms Pac >> Man/Galaga units, Atari has a Missile Command/Millipede/Centipede machine >> out there and one thing that article doesn't mention is just like the >Midway >> machine, the Taito unit is also a dual machine with both Space Invaders >and >> Qix together... >> >> These are already available in the US, Frontgate has them for $3495 each, >> you can also find them through Amazon.com and Walmart.com as well... all >> way overpriced. >> >> >> Curt > >Companies need to make a profit, they more they can squeeze out of a >customer the better. These units are for arcades I assume, where the >operator will make the money back and hopefully then some from kids with >pockets full of cash. Not many home users would spend $400 let alone $3495 >for a cabinet with just 1 or 2 games in it. > >I would pump a few quarters into a pacman machine if I ran into one >somewhere just because I played quite a few games on them when they were >originally released (more quarters then I care to think about). > > Hi One thing to consider. If they were making so much money that it was a overwelming gouge, other would compete against them. Arcade machines are not cheap to make. Doing 10K units of a 10 year lifetime is not a large run. The CPU board is most likely designed in house because they can not depend on outside vendors to keep an obsolete design. Any uP design is obsolete within 6 months to a year. They need a longer product life. Knowing the methods used to create these arcade machines, I would say that $3K is a little on the high side but not all that much. One wouldn't stay in business doing these for anything less then $2.5K. Maybe you know something I don't. Dwight

21 years

Fw: classiccmp server issue

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

----- Original Message ----- From: "Jay West" <jwest(a)classiccmp.org> To: <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> Sent: Saturday, December 06, 2003 8:36 PM Subject: classiccmp server issue > Sometime around 3am this morning, the classiccmp server tossed cookies. Not > sure exactly what happend, I tried powering it off and back on remotely - no > joy. So, this afternoon (sorry, but I was busy gutting (refurbing) another > HP 7906 drive and for once I decided my collection comes first!). I went > down to the datacenter and hooked up a console. Got this wonderful message: > > "HDD S.M.A.R.T. monitoring has determined that a hard drive failure is > imminent. Back up your data immediately. Press F1 to continue" > > *sigh* > > So I hit F1, made sure it came back up. All disks were present and accounted > for. Tonight I'm sending copies of the filesystems over to a different > server... just in case. Not sure how much I trust S.M.A.R.T., so I may let > it ride for a while and just keep a closer eye on it. We'll see. > > On the bright side, my 2nd 7906 is now mechanically sound, servo/positioning > tested ok too. On to the diags tomorrow for some read/write tests. What *IS* > it with me and hard drives these days anyways? If it's not vintage ones, > it's modern ones! > > Also I thought I'd try throwing this hook out - Does anyone have any 7906 > drives that they are sure are junk and not worth keeping? If so, I would > like to scavenge them for a spare set of cards from the card cage, the PMR > board, and all the heads - especially the servo head. But only if it's > pretty certain the drive isn't worth keeping and refurbing. > > Regards, > > Jay West >

21 years

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test-drb December 2003