October 2005 - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

by RMeenaks＠olf.com

And here: http://www.softhut.com/cgi-bin/test/Web_store/web_store.cgi?page=catalog /hardware/accelerators/catweaselmkiv.html&cart_id=5987695_891 Ram > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Ram > Meenakshisundaram > Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2005 1:20 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: RE: PCI Floppy controller wanted > > > maybe this can help: > > http://www.jschoenfeld.de/products/cwmk3_e.htm > > > Ram > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Barry Watzman > > Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2005 12:22 PM > > To: cctech at classiccmp.org > > Subject: PCI Floppy controller wanted > > > > > > Ok, anyone know where I can get a PCI floppy controller that > > will work on a modern PC (Pentium 4 with Hyperthreading)? > > The Asus P4T533 only supports a single floppy drive (it's > > sister board, the P4T533-C, supported two). > > > > Barry Watzman > > Watzman at neo.rr.com > > > > > > > > > >

20 years, 8 months

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PCI Floppy controller wanted

by RMeenaks＠olf.com

maybe this can help: http://www.jschoenfeld.de/products/cwmk3_e.htm Ram > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Barry Watzman > Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2005 12:22 PM > To: cctech at classiccmp.org > Subject: PCI Floppy controller wanted > > > Ok, anyone know where I can get a PCI floppy controller that > will work on a modern PC (Pentium 4 with Hyperthreading)? > The Asus P4T533 only supports a single floppy drive (it's > sister board, the P4T533-C, supported two). > > Barry Watzman > Watzman at neo.rr.com > > > >

20 years, 8 months

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PCI Floppy controller wanted

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

Ok, anyone know where I can get a PCI floppy controller that will work on a modern PC (Pentium 4 with Hyperthreading)? The Asus P4T533 only supports a single floppy drive (it's sister board, the P4T533-C, supported two). Barry Watzman Watzman at neo.rr.com

20 years, 8 months

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Ringout on Overland Data TX-8/TX-16 cable?

by allanh-cctalk＠kallisti.com

"Nico de Jong" <nico at FARUMDATA.DK> wrote: > Fra: "Allan Hessenflow" <allanh-cctalk at kallisti.com> > > Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote: > > > > > Does anyone have the wiring details for the Pertec-to-Overland Data > > > TX-8 or TX-16 cable used on OD's non-SCSI 9-track equipment? It's > > > got a D-sub 62-pin male connector on one end and two 50 conductor female > > > edge connectors on the other labeled P1 and P2. > > > > I rung one out, here is my documentation: > > > <snip data > > > IS this data for the TX8/TXi16 ? Your answer is not completely clear in this > respect (anyway, the way I read it= Yes, that is for the cable provided with an Overland Data TX-8. What's the "blue" adapter? I've never heard of any Overland Data Pertec controllers besides the TX-8 and the TXi-16 before. Did the same company really use the same connector for the same purpose but a different pinout? allan -- Allan N. Hessenflow allanh at kallisti.com

20 years, 8 months

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Archival storage

by James＠jdfogg.com

> Back when small printers were hard to come by, there was at > least one technology that used a "paper' made of a black > layer on a paper substrate covered by a very thin layer of > aluminum. The printer burned through the aluminum, leaving > the black spots exposed. Oddly enough, this sounds like a > fiarly permanent process. Was the stuff called > "electrographic" paper? This might be Readex Microprint technology. I've never seen an example of Readex output, although the company is a few miles from me and used to be a microfiche customer. I do know they got significant storage reduction compared to paper.

20 years, 8 months

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Archiving the Freeman Computer Museum

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

Sorry... just wanted to make Sellam and William D puke... ;)

20 years, 8 months

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Snoopy calendars/ASCII art

by James＠jdfogg.com

> There's a listing on eBay for ASCII art TTY printouts > (#8707360741) and it raised an interesting question. I > remember as a kid going to my father's office (he worked for > New York Telephone in New York City) at Christmas and they > had various computer systems that they let the kids play on. > One of them (I don't remember which) had a program to print calendars. > In the eBay listing, there's a Snoopy Red Barron calendar, > which I distinctly remember printing out. I remember these! I made a printout too. I also remember taking typing classes in high school (1977) and the teacher had training books that would create a text picture if you followed the directions correctly. I wish I had them as I'd like to do some ASCII art.

20 years, 8 months

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New stuff (HP9000)

by jondjohnston＠hotmail.com

Pete, I saw your posting on Classic Computers. Do you still have your HP 9040 and/or 9050? Would you be interested in selling or trading? Thank you for your consideration. Regards, Jon Johnston HP Computer Museum http://www.hpmuseum.net

20 years, 8 months

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PCs that support only one floppy drive in hardware

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

A simpler way to beat the only one floppy problem. Find a PCI floppy/IDE card and disable the onboard controller. Simple fix. I used that fix at work to solve a problem mother board that lost all floppy control due to lightining/power transient. Since everything else worked and I needed to get to other problem systems that was a good fix. Allison

20 years, 8 months

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System 23 Data Master information

by wayne.smith＠charter.net

There were two varieties of System 23/Datamaster: (i) the all-in-one model - the frequently seen 5322; and (ii) the seldom seen tower model, the 5324. The 5324 came in three or four pieces: a CPU unit, with our without floppy drive, a monitor, a keyboard and external floppy drive unit (if the CPU unit lacked a floppy drive). Both units could also be coupled with a 5347 hard drive, which came in either 23 or 37 MB sizes housed in a heavy (110 lb.) cabinet. I have never owned a complete 5324, but I once had a monitor unit from the 5324 from which I removed the display module to replace a burned out one in my 5322, which was basically the same except for the connector. I displayed my 5322 at VCF 5 and 6. (http://www.vintage.org/pictures/VCF%206.0%20-%20Wayne%20Smith%20Exhibit .jpg) Although I don't have a 5324, I have full documentation on it, the necessary disks to get it to work, etc. The yellow user binders that Al Kossow sent you the pictures of were essentially the same for the 5322 and 5324 except that Volume 1 varied slightly depending on which unit you owned. I have both versions. -W > Date: Sun, 09 Oct 2005 07:45:16 -0500 > From: Shannon Spurling <shannon068 at centurytel.net> > Subject: System 23 Data Master information > To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only <cctech at classiccmp.org> > Message-ID: <434910DC.9020206 at centurytel.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > Hi, I'm new to the list, but not new to classic computers. > I picked up a rare beast (Apparently) years ago when I bought > a System > 23 tower system at a thrift shop years ago, and it's been > sitting in my > basement for a few years after a rough life in makeshift > storage. I want > to see if I can get this thing cleaned up and running, but there's no > system 23 docs, much less even any acknowledgment of there being a > tower format for that system. Any help would be appreciated, but > schematics would be the best. > > Thanks

20 years, 8 months

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Didn't we decide this was a hoax?

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Scott Stevens" <chenmel at earthlink.net> > >On Tue, 11 Oct 2005 16:06:11 -0700 (PDT) >steven stengel <tosteve at yahoo.com> wrote: > >> Maybe he should split it up a little - 3 tons of >> computers is a lot for anyone to take... >> >> > >Perhaps his 'ego' is wrapped up in it remaining a collection. It isn't >unusual for somebody to spend a lifetime putting together what they >consider 'the ultimate collecton' and despairing at the idea of it being >split apart into fragments, undoing the thing the collector worked long >and hard to accomplish. It isn't unusual for collectors of various >things to want to bestow them, complete, to an institution that will >keep it together as a collection. > > Hi There is also the issue of putting together the documentation. Often times one piece of documentation or even a piece of software is really relevant to several items. Figuring what goes with what is not straight forward in all cases. Splitting these items into the smallest pieces detracts from the value of the hole group. To make things a little more difficult is that the overlap many not make nice partitioning either. It is difficult to say to what level he should split things. If he splits things into categories, like all the AppleII's in one pile, he may make the package less desirable to someone that already has most of the pieces. If he splits it down to the smallest piece, it loses value as a collection. On top of it all, he may not be physically or mentally able to handle splitting it up because of a medical condition. All that being said, it would be unlikely that he'd find a buyer for the entire lot that would compare with the individual values of the items. He needs to find a way to partition it into reasonable blocks. Dwight

20 years, 8 months

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Dying PCjr drive; options?

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

>Ironically, I have a 5150 with the full-length FDC with a very long port on it >(something like 40-pin female?) that I assume I could connect drives to... but >I have no idea what the pinout is or where to obtain a cable. I am not the >soldering type (watch me duck as the flying tomatoes come from the peanut gallery) If I recall correctly, the 37-pin 'D' connector on the back of early XT controllers is 1:1 with the 34 pin ribbon cable, and you can use a ribbon cable 'D' connector to make up a nice tidy cable (check position on pin-1). Btw, I made some changes to ImageDisks Align/Test function this morning which may be useful to you. I added a real-time display of the following bits from status register 3 at the top of the screen: F - Fault W - write protect R - Ready Z - Track 0 D - Two sided In this case, 'Z' would let you see exactly when the track-0 sensor comes on and off (as you adjust it's position). I also added commands to Format and to Write individual tracks "on the fly" >from the test function (there was already a function to read tracks). So now you can do pretty much anything the drive is capable of under manual control. I should have it posted in a day or two. Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html

20 years, 8 months

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PCs that support only one floppy drive in hardware

by pete＠dunnington.plus.com

On Oct 11 2005, 12:03, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > On 10/11/2005 at 9:24 AM Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > > > >>How about SCSI floppy drives? > > > > The problem with SCSI floppies is essentially the same--addressing is on a sector number basis, not CHS. So the drives have limited format recognition capabilities. I've never seen a 5.25' SCSI floppy I have a couple, from SGI equipment IIRC. They're basically a standard floppy with a bridge board fitted, and so are 3.5" TEAC floppies from SGI workstations. The Insite flopticals, though, are made as a native SCSI device. > But a DECstation 2100/3100 comes with a floppy drive hooked to a board > with a 34-pin floppy header, and then the SCSI bus from the motherboard > plugs into the translator board. Could something like this be used? Up to a point. You can certainly put either a 5.25" or a 3.5" drive on those boards, but as far as I remember, they still only recognise fairly standard (read "IBM PC/MS-DOS style") formats -- certainly that's true of the floptical and SGI devices. Anything with sector numbers starting at zero is hard to handle, for example. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

20 years, 8 months

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CP/M on an Apple II ?

by hilpert＠cs.ubc.ca

So I was listenting to a radio play (a police investigation/drama) on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp.) today in which the plot centred around recovering data (the offshore bank account #, how cliche) from the dead guy's ancient Apple II/e. (The dead guy was apparently like a lot of people on this list: still used an old machine for his main/daily computing ...just so you all know you're actually getting portrayal in the popular arts :/ ) Well, that went by me OK, then they threw in the plot twist: the guy wasn't using the standard OS, he was using an oddball system which was going to make the data recovery more problematic, that system being CP/M. At this point my pedantic-critic bells went off. So somebody either confirm my pedanticism or show me up as the ignorant one: nobody ever bothered to rewrite CP/M (which to my understanding was all targeted to Intel procs) for the Apple II did they? ... maybe the scriptwriting 'computing consultant' figured it would be a good inside joke, ... maybe it's somebody on this list!

20 years, 8 months

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9-track round-reel tapes available

by George.Wallace＠po.state.ct.us

Any chance that these tapes are still available? Yea, somebody is still using them !! I don't know about coming to Nebraska but we'll pay the shipping if they're in decent shape. Thanks, George Wallace CONNDOT

20 years, 8 months

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Electronics recycling (Now OT)

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

On Sun, 9 Oct 2005 Sellam wrote: On Sun, 9 Oct 2005, Chuck Guzis wrote: On 10/9/2005 at 1:03 PM Vintage Computer Festival wrote: Whatever the case, we have enough problems to solve domestically that we shouldn't concern ourselves with what's going on 8,000 miles away. ...and neither should we export our problems to far-flung lands. :) If they didn't want it, they wouldn't be taking it in at the rate of thousands of tons per day ;) and creating toxic dust that blows back to us . . . In the US, companies are liable for cleanup expenses if their contractors dispose of hazardous waste improperly. Do we not have an ethical obligation to ensure that our potentially toxic waste does not harm others, even if they are 8,000 miles away? I may not be able to control what others do, but I have an ethical obligation to not become complicit in evil/wrongdoing.

20 years, 8 months

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Archival storage

by mamcfadden＠cmh.edu

Fred Cisin wrote: >>I would suspect yes ... I think too the computer could be kept at just >>above zero >>in a dark place in a light vacuum too. > > > How much would it cost to move Sellam's collection > to the dark side of the moon? Actually the other half of Sellam's collection is already there waiting for indexing after Google finishes indexing the net. :) Mike

20 years, 8 months

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VINTAGE COMPUTER FESTIVAL 8.0 - November 5-6

by brain＠jbrain.com

As part of the 20th anniversary celebration of Quantumlink and the formal introducation of QuantumLink RELOADED, the system will be displayed and available for use at the VINTAGE COMPUTER FESTIVAL. Keith Henrickson, the genius behind the reverse engineering of the Q-Link protocol, will be on hand to demonstrate the new system and answer questions about his work and the new system. There will be live connections for attendees to chat with Q-Linkers or play games on the system. Jim -- Jim Brain, Brain Innovations brain at jbrain.com http://www.jbrain.com Dabbling in WWW, Embedded Systems, Old CBM computers, and Good Times!

20 years, 8 months

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Kaypro help desperately needed in Ohio...

by news＠computercollector.com

Got this message today; a guy in the Columbus, Ohio area needs help reading his father's will which was made 20 years ago on a Kaypro 2x. Do not contact me, contact the guy directly at gpgammon at sbcglobal.net. ----------------------------------------- Hi Evan - I got your name from David Weil at the Computer Museum of America in San Diego. I have a unique situation and he suggested you may be able to help or provide some direction. I would appreciate any assistance. Here it is, briefly: I have a 5.25" DS/DD diskette that contains my deceased father's will (he died in April). It was created on a Kaypro 2x in 1986. I am desperately trying to locate a Kaypro 2x that will read the diskette. I have the Kaypro that it was written on in my possession, and I have had no luck in reading the diskette - I have a CP/M diskette for a Kaypro 2, and each time I put it in Drive A:, the message "No operating system is present on this disk" appears. I have tried swapping Drive A: and Drive B: - no luck. I have tried reading the diskette using a DD drive hooked up to a PC running Windows - no luck. The only success I have had is using EnCase Forensic software to read the data sector by sector. Of course, that produces unformatted text, so it hasn't been helpful. Any thoughts? If you would like, I would be willing to call you to discuss this over the phone. Thank you. Greg Gammon Westerville, OH ----------------------------------------- Evan Koblentz's personal homepage: http://www.snarc.net Computer Collector Newsletter: http://news.computercollector.com Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists & Museum: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/midatlanticretro/

20 years, 8 months

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Archival storage

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Archival storage > From: Patrick Finnegan <pat at computer-refuge.org> > Date: Sun, 09 Oct 2005 15:39:22 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Vintage Computer Festival declared on Sunday 09 October 2005 03:12 pm: >> On Sun, 9 Oct 2005, James Fogg wrote: >> > Does anyone know if there are optical formats that can reliably >> > deliver 10 year shelf-life? How does one achieve it (different types >> > of cd-r chemistry, using cd-rom, etc)? >> >> Just use hard drives. Cheap, high capacity, and reliable. > >And make sure you keep them spinning, so that you can tell when they >fail, along with a redundant copy on another machine which you mirror to >periodically (even automatically once every N days is fine). Migrate to >newer media when the old stuff is pretty much obsolete. > >If you manage to do that, your data will long outlast any CDRs that you >store in a filing cabinet next to the computer(s). I've done that exactly. The oldest of the lot is a ST506 from 1982 that still runs CP/M and still has stiction since day one! Other than the need to give it a manual twist it's been relaible. Of course that data is backed up to a newer Quantum 31mb (AKA RD52) and thats been backed up to a newer 45MB SCSI and a newer still 52mb SCSI and so on. Along with 8", 5.25, and 3.5" floppy copies and those on the PCs where that process sorta repeats itself it would be hard to create a total loss. The key is many copies, in many places and at lest a few on current or reasonably current media. Allison

20 years, 8 months

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HP terminal question

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

Ok, I give. I'm afraid to try harder for fear of breaking it.... Just exactly how does one get the cover off an HP 262X terminal? I can't seem to find any service information. I have a few in poor condition I'm trying to consolidate into two good working ones. There may be leftover parts to offer to the list. Jay

20 years, 8 months

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IBM System/34 with diskettes & documentation available in Iowa (JP Hindin)

by ceby2＠csc.com

Jay, & All, Dude I am seriously jealous. An S/34 and media!? Pity I just moved to England. I'm in the same straight, anyway. I have a 5360 I've been paying storage on. I offer it to the group, but for pickup only. It's in Hartford, CT. Lemme tell you, the S/34 is a beast, but this 5360 is an out and out monster. There are two tape drives, two line printers four hard disks, extended main cabinet, as well as a magazine style 8" floppy. I'd love to elimanate the bill for that, and the flat does have 220 (though of course nowhere near the amperage required). If you can get Jay's S/34 because your a Yank without the four days to do an Iowa run, be tempted by the S/36, please. Jay, keep me posted, I'll do what little I can to facilitate. That machine MUST be preserved. Thanks, Colin Eby -- ceby2 at csc.com CSC - EMEA Northern Region - C&SI -Technology Architect ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a PRIVATE message. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete without copying and kindly advise us by e-mail of the mistake in delivery. NOTE: Regardless of content, this e-mail shall not operate to bind CSC to any order or other contract unless pursuant to explicit written agreement or government initiative expressly permitting the use of e-mail for such purpose. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

20 years, 8 months

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Original PDP-8 spares

by prbotha＠hotmail.com

Apologies, I've been off-the-air for a couple of days. Judging by the replies I got, there does seem to be some interest in the straight-8 spares I'd like to sell. I guess the first step would be for me to catalogue everything and publish the list here. Maybe some kind soul can then suggest a sensible way to bunch the stuff together. There are several options I can think of: The whole lot in one go, sets of a variety of cards, sets of the same cards together, one card at a time (shudder) By the way, I also have two metal strips with a lot of slide switches on them, ISTR they were at the bottom of the frame, and by the looks of them they could have something to do with tweaking voltages ? I might be persuaded to get rid of the front panel as well. There is a little bit of damage to the paint at the back of the glass, but as near as I can tell the bulbs and certainly the switches are still eminently usable. I'll go make a list and get back to the list ;^) Pieter Botha ============================ _________________________________________________________________ We've overhauled MSN Search Toolbar - FREE download! http://toolbar.msn.co.za?DI=1054&XAPID=2083

20 years, 8 months

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UNIX on BBC micro with 16032 coprocessor

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

Not sure about BBC XENIX, but SCO XENIX 386 release 2.3.4 (1991) requires 1 MB RAM (20MB disk space, though)

20 years, 8 months

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E&L Instruments Fox 1 Z80 Trainer chip questions

by leeedavison＠yahoo.co.uk

> Schematics for the original MPF-1 board can be found here: > http://themotionstore.com/leeedavison/z80/mpf1/index.html Hmmmm, that looks familiar. 8^)= > The monitor EPROM in the MT-80Z I have is slightly different > than the monitor EPROM in the MPF-1, but I think the changes > are very minor. How about a dump of it for the site? Lee. . ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

20 years, 8 months

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Fwd: questions about Sanyo MBC 55x collectors

by jfoust＠threedee.com

>Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2005 23:57:02 -0400 >From: Stuart Pomerantz <stuartpomerantz at gmail.com> >To: jfoust at threedee.com >Subject: questions about Sanyo MBC 55x collectors > >Dear Mr. Foust, > >I came across your website and your interest in old computers. I have a Sanyo MBC-555 computer in perfect condition with both color and amber monitors, all the old documentation/packing and several years worth of SoftSector, a Sanyo MBC 55x enthusiast magazine. Is there anyone in the world interested in this hardware/material or is it time to add to the world's landfills? Hope you can be of help (and can have first dibs, if interested). > >Sincerely, > >Stuart Pomerantz

20 years, 8 months

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Intel 80C186/80C188 Evaluation Board? Re: Single Board Computers

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

Hi These usually are not very complicated. I have one of these from AMD. You might hunt around by using the search engine on the Intel site. I found quite a bit of information for mine by doing that with the AMD site. Mine has some flash and RAM with a few I/O's. I've put a simple Forth on mine that was adapted >from fpc ( A Forth for the PC ). The only tricky thing about these is the resetting of the special registers. These you can understand by looking at the data books for the C186/C188 version you have. These registers are slightly differnt for each letter version so make sure you are looking at the same one. The AMD had a special monitor on board to upgrade the flash. I'd suspect that the Intel board might be the same. If you should fiddle with the flash, make sure and save a copy. I found some information on an upgrade for the monitor but it required having the previous monitor loaded. Mine was an even earlier version. I did some fiddle faddle by loading the monitor at another location, as an application program and then using that to upgrade to the current version. It was tricky but it did work :) It now still has the monitor and the Forth as one of the applications. Dwight >From: "jim stephens" <jwstephens at msm.umr.edu> > >Joe R. wrote: > >>Speaking of SBCs. Does anyone know anything about an Intel 80C186/80C188 >>Evaluation Board? It's NOT Multibus. >> >> Joe >> >> >>At 02:25 PM 10/10/05 -0500, you wrote: >> >> >>>A while back >>> >intel still produces sample boards for all processors to send out. If >you get one of >the older eval boards, it probably has some support for expansion, but >more importantly, >it would have connections (or should have) to bring out run control and >processor bus to >be hooked to trace devices. This can require an interposer for a lot of >systems, and >is nice if you want to play with a processor and see what it does w/o >having to do such >a thing. > >A lot of these used to be on the intel site, but are no longer there. >jim >

20 years, 8 months

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Dying PCjr drive; options?

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

Re: "Yes, doing the 'radial alignment' is not that hard. I've never had any success with the 'digital alignment disks', I prefer a 'catseye disk' and an oscilloscope conencted to the differential outputs of the read amplifier." The digital alignment disks are intended for checking alignment to see if it needs to be done. It's not practical to use them for actually doing the alignment. It's not impossible, absolutely, but it's not a good way to go about it, nor was it really the intent of the digital disks.

20 years, 8 months

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Archival storage

by James＠jdfogg.com

> Back in the late '60s I remember seeing a unit from IBM that > used film storage. The film was a small rectangle, maybe 1" x > 2-1/2". These were stored in magazines of some sort, IIRC. > They could be individually selected randomly. > > I have one of the film rectangles somewhere. When I run > across it again I will post a link to an image. In the mean > time, does this ring a bell with anyone? Aperture cards. An IBM punch card with a square of film in it. The punch coding was a filing system serial number. There were variations that looked like 35mm slides with a bigger than normal cardboard mount too. I used to work for the Terminal Data Corp, and along with Kodak we made 90% of the microfiche/microfilm cameras in the American market. Many other manufacturers, esp. COM systems (Computer Output to Microfilm) used our cameras.

20 years, 8 months

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Resources for archiving

by news＠computercollector.com

...Thought this might be of interest to some people: http://www.archivists.org/prof-education/seasonal_schedule.asp ----------------------------------------- Evan Koblentz's personal homepage: http://www.snarc.net Computer Collector Newsletter: http://news.computercollector.com Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists & Museum: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/midatlanticretro/

20 years, 8 months

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Snoopy calendars/ASCII art

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

>>Do you need me to give you a copy of anything? My calendar program >>actually reads compressed versions of the picture files, since our system >>ran from RK05 disks (2.5 megabytes) back in the 1970s. The version of >>the program that I have was developed at Wofford College around 1976 >>and was based on another calendar program. > >Hmmm, wonder if it's Y2K-compliant? :) Surprisingly, I think the answer is YES. Actually, I seem to recall that our version would print calendars into the 21st century and beyond. I remember using the same calendar / day of week routines to do a computer programming assignment that calculated the date of Easter from the years 1500 to 2500. We did not use the built-in date functions of RSTS and Basic-Plus. I'll have to take a look at the code to verify this. Ashley

20 years, 8 months

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Snoopy calendars/ASCII art

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

> What program would have made this calendar and is one still > available, somewhere, that I could run on Windows or through something like > SIMH? > > Rich I have a program on my PDP-11/40 that will print these calendars. This program is from around 1977-78 and is written in Basic-Plus. I'll have to check to see which pictures I have on my system. I have printed several, including Snoopy, the USS Starship Enterprise, and a couple more. They print ok on my LA120 DecWriter III or LA36 DecWriter II as long as I have a fresh ribbon on the DecWriters. Do you need me to give you a copy of anything? My calendar program actually reads compressed versions of the picture files, since our system ran from RK05 disks (2.5 megabytes) back in the 1970s. The version of the program that I have was developed at Wofford College around 1976 and was based on another calendar program. Thanks, Ashley

20 years, 8 months

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Archival storage

by mamcfadden＠cmh.edu

I know aperture cards have a long life. In one of my previous work lives, 1973-1975, I copied X-ray film from 14" X 17" film to aperture cards. They were the size of computer punch cards and had a line of text typed along the top. There was a 1" X 1" film embedded in the card. We were the beta test site for Kodak for a medical image archive based on them. Retnar was the product name I think. I tried scanning them with a Vidicon camera attached to the bioengineering lab's PDP-11/20. The camera was only 256 X 256 by 8 bits per pixel, not enough resolution to recover an image. The display on the system was a RAMTEK display with 256 X 256 by 8 bits, 3 bits red, 3 bits green and 2 bits blue. I think the display system was about $50K. I still have some intact 30 years later. I am also scanning old family slides that are at least 40 years old. I think the storage conditions are the key to good longevity of film. Cool and dry is essential. I'm partial to film. My family has 16mm and 8mm film originals of family events from the last 40 years, copies on VHS tape and copies on VCD. The magnetic tape is beginning to fade. The VCD's are copies of the VHS version. The film is a pain to thread into the projector but it's still great quality. I've heard that pen on paper is very good because the ink is embedded/absorbed into the paper. This is unlike a laser printer where the plastic toner is melted onto the surface of the paper. Maybe an archival quality ink on a pen plotter on vellum is what you want. I think that's what the local plat and land documents are created on. Mike

20 years, 8 months

1
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FA: DEC MINC disks, Optical PT reader, HP 2100 manual

by rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com

<http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZrigdonjQQhtZ-1>. I'll be posting more neat stuff tomorrow. Joe

20 years, 8 months

1
0
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PDP-8/A bus levels?

by charlesmorris＠direcway.com

I am trying to figure out the voltages on my PDP-8/A (Omnibus) logic lines. DEC's documentation, as usual, is confusing at best on this (and other) subjects, and sometimes apparently self-contradictory... DEC used suffixes -L and -H to mean active-low and -high respectively (that is, a logical assertion). They also say when interfacing to the Omnibus that standard TTL levels are used. But elsewhere in the manual it says Logic 1 levels are near 0 volts and logic 0 is near 5 volts! So does this statement apply only to the bus signals that are already active-low? Am I correct or not in interpreting, for example, an address line named "MA 11 L" to be a logic 1/true/asserted when 0-0.8 volts and logic 0/false when 2.0+ volts (TTL levels)? thanks for any assistance. -Charles

20 years, 8 months

2
1
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Fwd: questions about Sanyo MBC 55x collectors

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Fwd: questions about Sanyo MBC 55x collectors > From: Chris M <chrism3667 at yahoo.com> > Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2005 12:25:37 -0700 (PDT) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org> > >> The Sanyo ran at 3.58MHz (8088) >> so that they could use >> CHEAP color burst crsytals for the oscillator. > > Almost all the pc's used a crystal that was some >multiple of color burst frequency. Did the Sanyo >actually use a 3.58mhz crystal? The PC had a crystal >that was 4x that, and divided it by 3 to get 4.77mhz. the IBM PC used the 8284A clock generator to pump the 8088 and that chip generates the 30% duty cycle required by dividing a higher frequency (14.31818mhz) to 4.77mhz. That higher frequency was high enough for Video clock generation as well. The IBM PC also another osc for the baud rate clocks and the Video had it's own clock. Many other machines used 3.58 (3.57545mhz) as it was easy to find and cheap, almost 4mhz and related to US video color burst. However the primary reason it was cheap crystal. In some cases the cpu was also limited to 4mhz or lower and that factored into the clock used. Allison

20 years, 8 months

2
1
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Dying PCjr drive; options?

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

At 20:16 09/10/2005 -0500, you wrote: >Dave Dunfield wrote: >> - Run ImageDisk, select the drive etc. and execute the A)lign/Test function. > >Sadly, the drive is so far off that I can't get the thing to boot at all to run >ImageDisk :-( But thanks for the instructions; I will clip'n'save them. Actually, it never occured to me that anyone would try to do this by booting >from the drive. I was thinking that you would pull the drive and drop it onto a working system. One thing I have on my bench which is very handy, is the PC has modified drive cable which brings drive 'B' out to a 37-pin 'D' connector on the back, and a plug-in cable to allow me to easily connect external drives. I use this both for testing drives, and for imaging from/to 5.25" and 8" drives. I have details/photos on how to make the cables and adapters posted to my site. Look at "Disks/Software images" near the bottom, and then "notes on connecting an 8" drive. Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html

20 years, 8 months

4
4
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Dying PCjr drive; options?

by trixter＠oldskool.org

As the subject implies, I've got a PCjr with a floppy drive that is having trouble reading disks and fails the internal CTRL-ALT-INS diagnostics. Symptoms include a very loud/bad noise at first seek (rest of seeks sound ok), and a "B" ("have drive serviced") result of the diags. The diskette I used for diags was tested in a 5150 and found to be good. This drive was working a week ago but has declined steadily until it can't successfully boot the machine. (I bought some time by formatting disks 8 sectors per track instead of 9, but that no longers works :-) I've already cleaned it using a cleaning diskette and alcohol. What are my options? Is the floppy drive in a PCjr as goofy/proprietary as the rest of the machine? If so, should I even attempt to repair it? By the bad clunk/buzz noise, I am assuming the head is slamming into the side of the drive or something equally heinous. Another related question: When I was first getting started with personal computers 25 years ago, I seem to recall that track alignment was a common problem and could be fixed by using a calibration diskette and special software that you could monitor as you turned the alignment screw. Without one of those factory calibration diskettes, is it even possible to align/calibrate a floppy drive for track alignment? -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/

20 years, 8 months

3
4
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System 23 Data Master information

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> Hi, I'm new to the list, but not new to classic computers. > I picked up a rare beast (Apparently) years ago when I bought a System > 23 tower system at a thrift shop years ago, and it's been > sitting in my basement for a few years after a rough life in > makeshift storage. I want to see if I can get this thing > cleaned up and running I just picked up a set of manuals for one. The same person has a system, and software also. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5812578529

20 years, 8 months

1
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TEC FD-50x drives - known issues?

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

>A disk drive performs several different functions. In particular, it >rotates the disk, it detects the index hole and write protect notch, it >moves the heads between cylinders and detects the track0 position, and it >actually does the reading and writing. This much I actually know :-) >Do you know which, if any, of these systems are working? Can you get the >disk to spin? Do you get an index pulse? Can you get the head to move? >And so on. All functions appear to work (Motor, Index, Step) - problem in all cases is in the read/write circuitry. Drive goes through all the motions, it just can't read/write. >A drive exerciser is handy for this, but by no means essential. Imagedisk's "Align/Test" function lets me excercise the drive with a fair bit of manual control. >You can >often get away with just pulling pins on the interface connector low with >bits of wire connected to the 0V line. And look at the outputs with a >logic probe. Remembr there output drivers are open-collector, so you need >to add terminating/pullup resistors (traditionally 150 ohms to +5V) for >tssting. > >Note that some drives with a big ASIC or microcontroller on them do some >kind of power-on initialisation. In particular, a few drives do odd >things if inputs are held active (low) at power-on. Other drives will >ignore all inputs if the power-on seek-to-track-0 fails. > >If you have one of the latter units, you should be able to see >transitions on the stepper motor drive outputs just after power-on. And >you can check the track0 sensor by hand, of course. All of this works. >I can't believe it would be that hard to trace out a schematic. Even if >there's a big ASIC in the middle of the board (likely on half-height >drives), you can often figure out what it's doing from the surrounding >circuitry. You can at least check if things like senosr inputs do the >right things as you move a bit of card in and out of the sensor, etc. It may come to this - At least I do have a couple of working drives that I can compare signals with - but I asked in case a) someone has the technical documentation or b) someone might say "oh yeah, thats a common problem caused by xxx...", either of which could save me a lot of time. I think I agree with Allison however that these drives are crap, and I'm not sure I want to spend a lot of time on them if suitable substitutes can be found - in this case, the physical constraints make this a but more challenging. Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html

20 years, 8 months

3
3
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8" floppy system needed to recover old game data

by Kieron.Wilkinson＠paretopartners.com

Wow. Thanks to the 10's (!!) of people who have offered to help me with this! I still need to wade my way though all the replies :) Anyway, I have had an offer for somebody who can go round there personally. Hopefully the disks are not already stuffed so we can get a copy of this previously-thought-lost game! I'll post an update on this list when I know more. I very much appreciate the great response! Kieron Wilkinson ============================ Pareto Investment Management Limited is a Mellon Financial Company. Pareto Investment Management Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority (Firm Ref. No. 416024), and registered in England and Wales with Number 03169281. Registered Office: Mellon Financial Centre, 160 Queen Victoria Street, London EC4V 4LA, United Kingdom. Pareto is the registered trademark of Pareto Investment Management Limited. This message may contain confidential and privileged information and is intended solely for the use of the named addressee. Access, copying or re-use of the e-mail or any information contained therein by any other person is not authorised. If you are not the intended recipient please notify us immediately by returning the e-mail to the originator and then immediately delete this message.

20 years, 8 months

1
0
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8" floppy system needed to recover old game data

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: RE: 8" floppy system needed to recover old game data > From: "Kieron Wilkinson" <Kieron.Wilkinson at paretopartners.com> > Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2005 14:33:53 +0100 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > > >Not sure if I repled to this... But anyway, I founf somebody who can do >it, but thanks anyway! > >Kieron > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org >> [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chuck Guzis >> Sent: 06 October 2005 16:53 >> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts >> Subject: RE: 8" floppy system needed to recover old game data >> >> If your customer will ship the media up the coast to Eugene, >> OR, we'll do the conversion, no matter what the format is, >> even if it isn't CP/M. Our fee depends on the number of diskettes. >> >> We've had a little experience at this. :) >> >> Cheers, >> Chuck >> >> >> >> > >============================ >Pareto Investment Management Limited is a Mellon Financial Company. Pareto Investment Management Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority (Firm Ref. No. 416024), and registered in England and Wales with Number 03169281. Registered Office: Mellon Financial Centre, 160 Queen Victoria Street, London EC4V 4LA, United Kingdom. Pareto is the registered trademark of Pareto Investment Management Limited. This message may contain confidential and privileged information and is intended solely for the use of the named addressee. Access, copying or re-use of the e-mail or any information contained therein by any other person is not authorised. If you are not the intended recipient please notify us immediately by returning the e-mail to the originator and then immediately delete this message. >

20 years, 8 months

1
0
0 0

8" floppy system needed to recover old game data

by Kieron.Wilkinson＠paretopartners.com

Not sure if I repled to this... But anyway, I founf somebody who can do it, but thanks anyway! Kieron > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chuck Guzis > Sent: 06 October 2005 16:53 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: RE: 8" floppy system needed to recover old game data > > If your customer will ship the media up the coast to Eugene, > OR, we'll do the conversion, no matter what the format is, > even if it isn't CP/M. Our fee depends on the number of diskettes. > > We've had a little experience at this. :) > > Cheers, > Chuck > > > > ============================ Pareto Investment Management Limited is a Mellon Financial Company. Pareto Investment Management Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority (Firm Ref. No. 416024), and registered in England and Wales with Number 03169281. Registered Office: Mellon Financial Centre, 160 Queen Victoria Street, London EC4V 4LA, United Kingdom. Pareto is the registered trademark of Pareto Investment Management Limited. This message may contain confidential and privileged information and is intended solely for the use of the named addressee. Access, copying or re-use of the e-mail or any information contained therein by any other person is not authorised. If you are not the intended recipient please notify us immediately by returning the e-mail to the originator and then immediately delete this message.

20 years, 8 months

1
0
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ACMS: Dispersal Day at Homebush. (fwd)

by vcf＠siconic.com

FYI to all you Aussies...see below. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2005 17:49:07 +1000 From: "John Geremin, Computer Engineer." <geremin at iprimus.com.au> Reply-To: VCF-OZ at yahoogroups.com To: VCF-OZ at yahoogroups.com Subject: [VCF-OZ] ACMS: Dispersal Day at Homebush. Greetings friends, The President has decided that there is to be a Dispersal Day at the Australian Computer Museum Society storage shed at Homebush (due to lack of financial support from State or Federal governments). Items - include Hardware, Software, Media, Documentation, Furniture. Place - Rear, 6 Parramatta Road, HOMEBUSH, 2140. Entry via Columbia Lane, [next to Kennards Self Storage] Time - approx 9am to 4pm, Date - Sunday, 16th October, 2005 Prices - starting at $1 - all reasonable offers considered. Bring - your own transport and muscle power for moving items. Regards, John G. John GEREMIN, Ph 02-9758 5686 or 0427 10 20 60 note: new E-MAIL address geremin at iprimus.com.au ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Australian COMPUTER MUSEUM Society Inc. ABN 89 972 080 502. Looking for a site for 'A Working Australian Computing Museum'. http://www.acms.org.au/ my mobile: 0427 10 20 60 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ My web page http://home.iprimus.com.au/geremin/ -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.344 / Virus Database: 267.11.13 - Release Date: 09-Oct-05 ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/S_NqlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VCF-OZ/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: VCF-OZ-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

20 years, 8 months

1
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8 old computers to go, and vaxstation stands. Dallas TX

by recycler＠swbell.net

where else ya gonna get 8 PCs for $1 ? compaq luggables and deskpros, XT to 386 types, all for one deal. ebay Item number: 8707188867 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8707188867 and if you want stands for your 4000 series vaxstations, http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8707191662 PJ

20 years, 8 months

1
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identifying PC Simms

by trag＠io.com

>Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 23:53:00 -0400 >From: "Joe Stevenson" <ikvsabre at comcast.net> >I have 16 30-pin simms left over from various past incarnations of >my PCs, and I'm > trying to figure out what I've got. > I no longer have a motherboard to test them, so I have no idea what is what. > >Is there any not-to-painless way to figure out what I've got? Not all that painless, but the only way I know that works... Take a SIMM. Count the number of chips. Find the model markings on one of the chips. There are usually two or three lines of writing on a chip. One of these will be a date or batch code and is irrelevant. The line you want will start with a one, two or three (usually two) character manufacturer code (e.g., K or KM for Samsung, TC for Toshiba, M(numeral)M for Mitsubishi, HM or HN for Hitachi, etc.), followed by some longish, about four to eight, alphanumeric code which is mostly numerals, then a dash or space and a speed number in nanoseconds, which may or may not have the trailing zero truncated. For example: HM5116400BS-8, MSM511000C-7, KM44C16100B-5, TC514400AJ-6. Then go to a datasheet archive such as <http://www.datasheetarchive.com/> and enter the part number in the search field. It often helps to truncate the trailing characters back to the first number in the body. E.g. HM5116400, MSM511000, KM44C16100, etc. The datasheet will tell you the capacity and organization of the chip. For example, a 1 MB 30 pin SIMM with eight chips on it will be composed of 1M X 1 chips. These have one million addresses with 1 bit at each address. Eight of them working in parallel provide 1 million addresses with eight bits at each address or 1 megabyte. Multiply the total capacity of the chip by the number of chips on the SIMM. Remember that you're working with bits here, not bytes. Divide by 8 and you've got the capacity in megabytes--except... Some SIMMs are parity SIMM and they are based on 9 bits of data rather than 8 bits of data, so you'll need to divide that capacity by 9, not by eight for a parity SIMM. A 30 pin parity SIMM will have nine or three chips instead of eight or two, so they're fairly easy to identify. However, a three chip 30 pin SIMM will have two chips with a certain capacity and a third chip with 1/4 the capacity or either of the other two. In this case, calculate the total capacity of the two larger chips and divide by eight. Or find the capacity in bits of one big chip and divide by four. In most cases, if the SIMM has eight or nine chips, then the capacity in bytes is equal to the number of addresses any of the chips supports (see the datasheet). If the SIMM has three chips, then the capacity in bytes is still equal to the number of address which any of the three chips supports. For example, you find a three chip SIMM with two 4M X 4 chips and one 4M X 1 chip on board. The capacity of this SIMM is 4MB or 4 Megabytes. You find a SIMM with eight or nine 4M X 1 chips on board, its capacity is also 4MB. The real trick is figureing out the capacity of the chips from the markings on them. Google searches sometimes help, but often (almost always) just lead you to chip distributers spamming the search engine space with part numbers to lead part searches to their sites. They often don't even have the chip in question, and rarely have any useful information available on their website. SIMMs that can steer you wrong are composite SIMMs where groups of smaller capacity chips are used to build a higher capacity SIMM. For example, building a 16 MB 30 pin SIMM out of eight 4M X 4 chips. These are rare and should be easily identified because there should be a non-memory chip on board to handle the address translations. Jeff Walther

20 years, 8 months

9
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OT for a sec: US wiring sources of info

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

One for the US members... any idea of a good usenet resource for questions relating to US wiring / electrics? (I'm thinking an equivalent to uk.d-i-y) We've got a cable decoder box here that trips out the house breakers when plugged into certain outlets - irrespective of whether it's via a surge protector (probably not surprising there) or of what other loads might be sharing the same wiring to that outlet. It works fine in other outlets though, which seems like a strange problem - but I have no idea how US houses are wired (and the wiring in this place is ancient anyway!) Be nice to get it sorted out as the cable box currently requires a cable trailing across the lounge from an outlet in another room! cheers Jules

20 years, 8 months

20
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Unix on BBC micro with 16032 coprocessor

by ken＠seefried.com

From: Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> >Would Xenix likely even run in the 1MB of the BBC Micro's 32016 copro? I >can believe it'd be usable on the 4MB of the ACW, but might be pushing >it a bit in 1MB. Xenix would certainly run in 1MB of memory. That is...at least on the i286 (512K was the minimum when I was subjected to Xenix). As I recall, it ran in even less on the 8086. On the Tandy 16 (68000), I *think* it ran in 256K, but please don't hold me to that. I understand that it also ran on the z8000, but I never saw that. I don't recall ever seeing that Xenix was ported to the 32016 for any machine. BSD4 was, of course, among other Unixen of dubious lineage. Considering the bugs, it's amazing any of them worked. Of course...why you would want to run Xenix on something other than a PoS system, other than to say you did, is a bit beyond me...;-)

20 years, 8 months

1
0
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Dying PCjr drive; options?

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

>As the subject implies, I've got a PCjr with a floppy drive that is having >trouble reading disks and fails the internal CTRL-ALT-INS diagnostics. >Symptoms include a very loud/bad noise at first seek (rest of seeks sound ok), A failed track-0 detector can cause a drive to make loud noises at first seek, and to misalign on subsequent track accesses - if the drive hits the physical stop before the track-0 sensor trips, then the head will "rattle" against the stop until the controller gives up trying (usually around 77-80 steps). If the physical setup of the drive is such that the stepper is able to "make a step" past track-0 in this case, the alignment for subsequent accesses will be off as well. >Another related question: When I was first getting started with personal >computers 25 years ago, I seem to recall that track alignment was a common >problem and could be fixed by using a calibration diskette and special software >that you could monitor as you turned the alignment screw. Without one of those >factory calibration diskettes, is it even possible to align/calibrate a floppy >drive for track alignment? You can't do a proper job of drive alignment without an alignment disk and a scope. As with most things, there are fine to not-so-fine lines between "proper" and "passable". I've built a Align/Test function into ImageDisk which will let you do a reasonable job of track-to-track alignment of the drive to a known good disk (alignment is at best only as good as the disk you are using). With a known good disk in the drive (I would suggest using a factory original diskette from a high-profile software vendor, or a disk freshly formatted on a NEW high-quality drive): - Run ImageDisk, select the drive etc. and execute the A)lign/Test function. - Step out the middle of the disk. 'S2' will step to track 20. - Execute 'A'nalyze. This will identify the format of the track, which will be displayed at the top of the screen. - ImageDisk will continue reading the track, and will beep at about a 2hz rate, with a tone which is 500hz + 100hz for every unique sector which it reads that matches the cylinder id of the track you have stepped to. It will also show counts of matching and non-matching cylinder sectors. - If your disk is far out of alignment, you may need to start at the inside or outside edge to get matching sectors. In really bad cases you may need to fiddle with the drive alignment in order to get to this point. - Once you are reading sectors, listing to the audible tones while slowly adjusting the position of the head will allow you to determine the limits of where the head can read the track without taking your eyes off of it. Set the position to the 1/2 way point between these limits. - Repeat on inner and outer tracks, working toward the best compromise that you can achieve. - To adjust the track-0 switch, use 'Z'ero (recalibrate) and '+' (step out) to move the head back and forth between track-0 and track-1 at each track ImageDisk will beep as described above, and display a running count of the matching and non-matching sectors read from the tracks. When the sensor is set correctly, the counts will be correct (all matching, no non-matching) and the head will perform a single step in each direction, without banging against the stop. - If the head "rattles" against the stop on 'Z', move the track-0 sensor slightly toward the center of the disk. - If the head does not step out to track-0 on 'Z', then move the track-0 sensor slightly away from the center of the disk. The adjustments are interrelated, in that the drive has to find track-0 before it can reliably seek to any track - some going back and forth is to be expected (you get MUCH better at it after having done it a few times). Nowhere near as good as using a proper alignment disk, however I have used variations of this technique a number of times on drives that have worked reliably for many years afterward. As always, your mileage may vary. Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html

20 years, 8 months

2
1
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Unix on BBC micro with 16032 coprocessor

by gtoal＠gtoal.com

> On Sat, October 8, 2005 6:32 pm, Pete Hollobon said: >> Does anyone know if Xenix / Unix were ever available on the NS 16032 >> second >> processor for the BBC micro? I remember reading that it was intended to be >> made available in the user's guide years ago. > It was supposed to be an option for the Cambridge Workstation since that > also had a 16032/32016 2nd processor but I don't know if it ever made it > into the wild. Graham Toal's the man who'll know I suspect, also Paul > Williams (if he's around) and Jules R. To the best of my recollection this was only ever talked about but never implemented by anyone at Acorn. If it was done externally I have no knowlege of it. I was one of the 3 or 4 people who argued in favour of us selling the systems with Unix but Acorn was very much a 'not invented here' company. I think way back then there were also significant costs associatated with licensing Unix, plus there were few ports to archiectures other than Vax and 68000. While we're on the subject of the NS processor... A couple of years ago I got in touch with Peter Robertson, the author of Acorn's compilers for that system (Pascal, C and Imp77) in the hope of getting the source of the compiler from him. Unfortunately he had not kept a copy of that code generator. I vaguely remember that there were sources escrowed somewhere at the time. Obviously the escrow will be long gone, but on the vague offchance that someone from Acorn retained a copy... does anyone have the source code for that compiler? (Really just the back-end Icode to binary Pass3, but _anything_ anyone has is wanted for the Edinburgh Computer History Project!) By the way I have copies of quite a few binaries for this platform. Has anyone ever written an emulator for this architecture? I haven't found one. It ought to be an easy one to write, it was a very regular instruction set. My guess for why there isn't one is that it was never a very popular chip, but that hasn't stopped emulators being written for lots of other obscure architectures! I can imagine that it wouldn't take much more than just a basic instruction set emulator to make Panos live again, as the I/O could be done by emulating an I/O processor Beeb and the tube chip. There must be several Beeb emulators around that can handle second processors to which we could graft a NS emulator? I think somewhere I have a paper listing of Mark Taunton's linker for Panos. It was a very well written piece of code. I think it was Acorn's only piece of Panos code (except for the compilers themselves) that was written in Imp77. Everything else was in Modula II. I also recently discovered Keith Rautenbach's & my editor for Panos, the one which was a sort of EMACS-alike written in ModII with a built-in mock LISP. I have all the sources *except* the LISP init files needed to start it up :-( Also, the editor shot some code over to the IO processor when it was invoked, which did some extended keystroke handling - that part I do have... A small aside: when I built my 6809 second processor for the Beeb, while I was waiting for the chips to arrive I wrote a 6809 emulator that ran on the 16032, written in Imp77. It was faster than the real chip! Also it was my first emulator. I wrote it on a 32016 2nd proc that was on a Beeb with one of the early experimental Winchester disks. Of course the disk died, - about 2 days after I finished the emulator - and the backup floppy was corrupt and the only source I had was on paper. I was too depressed to key it all in again (and the paper listing was about a week from the final version) and what's worse I lost the paper listing along with *all* my historical computing papers when I emigrated from the UK to the US 10 years ago :-/ Anyway, moral of this story was that it was a very early wake-up call for me on the value of backups :-) Ever since then I have always had two hard drives containing everything I've ever written, with one of them offline so they don't both get taken out by the same lightning strike! I am so glad that disk drives are getting bigger faster than I can fill them - I've always been able to keep everything I've ever done and just move it over to the latest biggest drive when it becomes cheap enough to afford. I saw 500Gb hitachi drives at $260 today so I'm thinking it's time to migrate again :-) Graham PS Joe Rigdon, the US Beeb you loaned me will be sent out in tomorrow's mail. Thanks very much for letting me use it!

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test-drb October 2005