test-drb May 2003

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

284 participants
500 discussions

by nick＠4realworld.com

CCTech folks, Does anyone know the whereabouts of any working 8" floppy drives? I have a client who needs a few to allow a legacy system to keep on working while I revamp their whole system. Regards, Nick Garnett

21 years, 1 month

Need Data Sheet: CRT5027 CRT controller

by patrick＠evocative.com

Does anyone have a datasheet for the (very discontinued) CRT5027 controller (SMSC) that they would be willing to scan/send to me? Many thanks! Patrick

21 years, 1 month

Altair version differences

by classiccmp＠vintage-computer.com

> One difference was the use of flat vs round toggle switch handles. The > round handles cut into your fingers and made them SORE after toggling in > long programs. My first Altair was a 8800 but had the flat handles as used > on the A model. Steve Gabley (sp?) was tracking Altair serial numbers and > differences. He said that my Altair was the highest known SN for an 8800 > and one of very few 8800s with the flat handles. You should check with him, > I'm sure that he could tell you a lot more about the differences. At least some 8800a systems had the round switches. . . like mine. Erik S. Klein The Vintage Computer Forum www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum

21 years, 1 month

Working 8" Floppy drives???

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On May 8, 11:09, Ethan Dicks wrote: > --- "Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" <cisin(a)xenosoft.com> wrote: > > On Wed, 7 May 2003, Nick Garnett wrote: > > > Does anyone know the whereabouts of any working 8" floppy > > > drives? > > Have you considered substituting 1.2M 5.25" drives? > > Once you make the appropriate cables and jumpering, they will usually > > work as a drop-in replacement, with NO software changes. > > Serious question (not meant to merely contradict Fred), what would it > take to do that for an RX01 or RX02? The drive mechanism itself in > a DEC 8" drive has no electronics - it's a motor, a head loading relay > (the drive motors spin whenever the unit is powered on, unlike modern > equipment), a couple of sensors and a head cable. All of the "work" is > done on the board above the drives. There might be issues around matching the head's impedances etc to the preamps and drivers on the RX01/2 electronics, and possibly even around the step angle of the positioner, but nothing inssurmountable, I suspect. > Even getting past electrical issues, one trick would be how to low-level > format the disks. Not too hard. An RX01 floppy is a standard format; you could do it on any CP/M machine that exepcted 8" drives but actually had a suitable 5.25" drive, or on a PC with a suitable FDC and suitable version of DOS (or Linux, probably), or indeed on many other systems. Once formatted to single density (RX01) most DEC system can then "reformat" the disk as RX02 (modified double density). > Among other reasons for doing it is that I have an RX01 that came from > a client with a siezed rotation motor on one drive and a siezed head > positioner motor (with attendant incinerated head motor driver > transistors) on the other drive. Yes, I can repair the transistors and > move one good motor to the other mechanism, but it means that I have 1/2 > of a full RX01. I had a drive motor seize on my RX02. It wasn't all that hard to free the spindle, clean the bearings, and re-lubricate them. It's running fine now. It's certainly worth a try. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

21 years, 1 month

Altair version differences

by classiccmp＠vintage-computer.com

The only significant differences, aside from the logo, were a somewhat beefier power supply in the 8800a and a standard 18 slot motherboard. The 8800 had 4 slot motherboards that were chained together. The 8800a had the 18 slot board with options for how many connectors and card guides you could buy. Earlier 8800a models had the short round switches shared with the 8800, later versions seem to have had the flat 8800b switches. Typically the 8800a had later rev boards, but some 8800s did too. Erik www.vintage-computer.com > Hi: > > Someone asked me what the difference between the 8800 and 8800a > models. I know that some significant changes but I couldn't enumerate them. > > Can someone help here? Thanks. > > Rich > > ========================== > Richard A. Cini, Jr. > First Vice President > Congress Financial Corporation > 1133 Avenue of the Americas > 30th Floor > New York, NY 10036 > (212) 545-4402 > (212) 840-6259 (facsimile) > > --

21 years, 1 month

Tektronix 8560 with PDP-11/23 CPU running TNIX (UINX)

by jkunz＠unixag-kl.fh-kl.de

Hi. I got a "Tektronix 8560 Multi-User Software Development Unit" together with a Tektronix 8540 in system 68k CPU emulator. The 8560 is based on the DEC M8186 PDP-11/23 CPU module but that card is the one and only DEC part in the machine. Everything else is from Tektronix. There is a 35 MB 8" disk and a 8" floppy in the 8560 and it runs some flavor of UNIX called TNIX. I am trying to break into it currently, as I have no passwords. I can't get it to single user mode and I have no distribution media nor no stand alone tools. Has someone heared from this machine bevore? Has someone distribution media or stand alone tools? -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/

21 years, 1 month

Tektronix 8560 with PDP-11/23 CPU running TNIX (UINX)

by aek＠spies.com

> Has someone heared from this machine bevore? yes, I have several 8" disks that were created by the fbu program on that system that I need to recover and asked around a few months ago with no replies.

21 years, 1 month

Working 8" Floppy drives???

by dwightk.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" <cisin(a)xenosoft.com> > >On Wed, 7 May 2003, Nick Garnett wrote: >> Does anyone know the whereabouts of any working 8" floppy >> drives? I have a client who needs a few to allow a legacy >> system to keep on working while I revamp their whole >> system. > >Have you considered substituting 1.2M 5.25" drives? >Once you make the appropriate cables and jumpering, they will usually work >as a drop-in replacement, with NO software changes. > Hi I suspect that you'll need to transfer the files and such to the 5.25" disk. I've tried folding a 8 inch disk into a 5.25" drive with little success. Dwight

21 years, 1 month

Working 8" Floppy drives???

by dwightk.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" <cisin(a)xenosoft.com> > >On Wed, 7 May 2003, Nick Garnett wrote: >> Does anyone know the whereabouts of any working 8" floppy >> drives? I have a client who needs a few to allow a legacy >> system to keep on working while I revamp their whole >> system. > >Have you considered substituting 1.2M 5.25" drives? >Once you make the appropriate cables and jumpering, they will usually work >as a drop-in replacement, with NO software changes. > Hi One other thing that Fred didn't mention is that some of the older systems use the data separator on the 8 inch drives and not the raw data. I don't recall any 1.2M drives with data separators. Dwight

21 years, 1 month

Qualstar 1260

by allanh＠kallisti.com

Joe <rigdonj(a)cfl.rr.com> wrote: > I just picked up a Qualstar 1260. Can anyone tell me anything about it? > What kind of interface/controller does it need? It has an interface cable > with a male D-subminiture connector with 62 pins in three rows. I have a 1260 also; it is a 1600/6250bpi drive. They're not exactly fast, but are nice and compact. It has a Pertec formatted interface. The cable on it was probably for an Overland Data controller; if you remove the cover plate the cable goes through you'll see that it terminates at two 50 (I think) pin connectors in the drive. Those use the standard Pertec pinout. allan -- Allan N. Hessenflow allanh(a)kallisti.com

21 years, 1 month

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test-drb May 2003