> Does anyone have any service manuals or technical documentation on it?
Eric and I retreived a rather complete collection of documentation and
software from person who ran the Sphere User's group about a month ago.
It was promised to the Computer Museum, but it is in the queue to be
scanned and the cassettes duplicated.
Hi All
I have just acquired a System 80 MkII (distributed in Australasia by
Dick Smith Electronics).
On power up I get the LED power light ok but a screen full of random
characters, the reset switch does nothing. I've had it apart and there
are no loose connections or chips on the two main boards and no sign of
any burnt or expired components.
Has anyone had similar problems and / or knows what the problem is?
Thanks
Alan
Does anyone follow or collect Digital Group equipment? This company, based
in Colorado, had some nice equipment that let users plug in various CPU
boards, yet the same basic memory, I/O, and peripheral controllers worked
for all the CPUs. Data storage used Phi Deck cassette recorders, although
in its later stages, someone may have offered a disk-drive controller. The
Digital Group computers were quite popular with amateur-radio operators.
Jon
Jon Titus
36 Sunset Drive
Milford, MA 01757-1362 USA
Phone: +1-508-478-8040
E-mail: jontitus(a)attbi.com
Member, National Association of Science Writers
>From: "Cini, Richard" <RCini(a)congressfinancial.com>
>
>Dwight:
>
> I have a working N* Horizon system (dual drive, 56k RAM, monitor in
>ROM) and would be happy to lend my testing services.
>
> From time to time, I've wrestled with the same disk image
>manipulation issues for the Altair32 emulator, i.e., manipulating the disk
>image outside of the emulation environment itself. My conclusion was that
>there's no substitute for using the original OS for maniuplating the images.
>So, we developed several methods to move program files into and out of the
>emulator by using some home-grown and CP/M-native utilities and the file
>transfer functions of the terminal program on the PC.
>
> I really want to do an external "image management" program but
>haven't found a clean/easy way without essentially re-implementing portions
>of the base OS.
Hi Rich
I've found that it is usually not all that difficult to
do. I've written code to handle DOS files on a non-PC
machine. I have a friend in Germany that has written
code to manipulate files from a Olivetti M20 ( Z8000 machine )
image file on a PC. This is using PCOS ( Olivetti's OS ).
I wrote code to build disk images for the CPM8000 that I got
up and running on the M20 as well. I've always felt that
such activities, although time consuming, pay off later
in the ability to handle new problems.
Dwight
>
>Rich
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Dwight K. Elvey [mailto:dwightk.elvey@amd.com]
>Sent: Monday, May 05, 2003 5:23 PM
>To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
>Subject: Re: Northstar File Transfer from PC
>
>
>Hi Marvin
> Maybe this isn't exactly what you are looking for
>but I'm currently working on some software to transfer
>entire disk images through the serial port of a H89
>to a PC. I have another friend checking out my first
>version, now. I hope to do a similar things for the
>N*'s as soon as I get one of these machines up and
>running ( on my list of things to do ).
> I suppose that once the image is on the PC, one can
>modify the image to include any new files, one wants
>and then transfer it back to the N*. It isn't a nice
>direct method but my main intent is to get some way
>to send disk images over the net and not specifically
>individual files.
> I haven't fiddled with the N* at all and don't
>know a lot about it. The H89 has a simple monitor that
>I use to hand enter a simple bootstrap program. With
>this, I bring in the rest of the code to run the disk
>drive. Does the N* have a ROM based monitor?
> I also have a similar setup for my Poly88 but that is
>setup for getting code into the Poly88 and tape from the PC.
>I used this to create code to do the various tape
>copying functions. I can read code from a cassette
>tape, transfer it through the serial to the PC and
>later feed it back through the serial to the Poly88
>to write back onto tape. I use a similar bootstrapping
>code to get things started, through the Poly's monitor.
>Dwight
>
>
>>From: "Marvin Johnston" <marvin(a)rain.org>
>>
>>What is the procedure for transfering files to and from a PC using N*
>>DOS? For text from the N* to the PC, no problem, just print it out to
>>the terminal (a DOS machine) and capture it. But what about going the
>>other way, wanting to get information back to the N*? Any information
>>appreciated!
>>
>>-------------------------------------------
>>ebaY's Security Breach and Coverup
>>http://www.auctionguild.com/generic110.html
I got my hands on a Sphere 6800 and would like to get it working again.
Does anyone have any service manuals or technical documentation on it?
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
>10/100 NuBus? Never seen one
I'm pretty sure Farallon made one.
I've seen people requesting them on the LEM Swap list, but I don't know
what kind of a price they get. I would imagine at least $20 or so, if for
no other reason than they aren't all that common (unlike 10Mb Nubus cards
which can be had for just a few $ each... I think I paid $10 for a box of
12 assorted on ebay about a year ago)
>> Apple IIgs scsi cards available there for non ebay prices?
>
>Sometimes. Kinda rare, though. Best bet is a IIgs that has one
>inside that nobody knows what it is.
I'm still waiting for one of those as well. <sigh> eventually I'll find
one.
-chris
<http://www.mythtech.net>
I will be going to an auction on Wednesday that has 24 SPARCstation 2's; 2
SPARCstation 10's; 9 SPARCstation 20's and 6 IBM 7204-114's. Plus several
Sun external drives of different types tape's, CD's, and HD's. If anyone
wants any let me know before Wednesday (5/7/03) at 8AM? There are also some
IBM external drives for sale.
>The MIT flea is in less than 2 weeks, is close enough in Boston,
>and is very Mac friendly BTW. I go for the DEC (still strong
>there) and even odder stuff, like airplane gyros and optical
>devices. Definitely something for everyone and less than 5%
>non-tech nailclippers kind of sellers.
>video, Hp, Tek, C64, Sun, parts, test equipment, radio, ?,
>all good there.
This I might go to. At least if I go to Boston, its only 4 hours each
way, and I have other excuses to go that direction (finally stop by Dave
W's in CT to swap some stuff with him, and I can visit my cousin who
lives in Boston, or a suburb of it... humm... actually I'm not really
sure WHERE she is these days... somewhere up that direction)
-chris
<http://www.mythtech.net>
>>When and where is the Hamvention?
>
>Dayton, OH,
Ugh, no, too far. Dayton is probably about a 12 hour drive for me (I'm in
the north east corner of NJ). I like old computers... but I would have to
be guarentteed something good and dirt cheap to be willing to drive 24
hours round trip (Humm... I'd do it for a Lisa, but I doubt there will be
any there... much less for cheap)
-chris
<http://www.mythtech.net>
>Best I've done so far was a ROM 03 IIgs with a 1MB RAM card (1/4 full, but
>I have lots of 256Kx1 DRAMs) for about $10. No SCSI. :-(
Someone just sold a working fully populated 8 MB ram card for the IIgs on
the LEM Swap list... he asked $5... SHIPPED!
Naturally I dove on the offer... but I was too late... by about 70 people
>from what he told me :-)
I actually directed him to this list, as he said he had a whole mess of
older Apple 2 stuff that was pulled from schools, and he didn't really
feel like going thru it so he was planning on dumpstering most of it. He
didn't tell me where he was, but I told him he should post a note to this
list as I'm sure someone would drive to him and take it all off his hands.
-chris
<http://www.mythtech.net>
