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

8" floppy system needed to recover old game data

by rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com

At 12:07 PM 10/6/05 +0100, you wrote: > >> I'm located in DK > >Is that Dakota? Not likely. More like Denmark! A LONG ways from San Fransisco! Is that a long way? I'm pretty sure the person who has >the disks are not going to be willing to send them by post. They are >very precious - being the only copies of this stuff in existance. That's rather silly. The disks are worthless where they're at now. Find a reliable shipper, such as FedEx, insure the hell out of the package and ship them. I've shipped handreds of pounds (weight) of one of a kind books and disks to Al Kossow and others with no problems. Strong containers, good packing and insurance are the key factors. Joe

20 years, 8 months

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Analyzer was Re: KIM-1 repair advice wanted

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Analyzer was Re: KIM-1 repair advice wanted > From: "Dwight K. Elvey" <dwight.elvey at amd.com> > Date: Fri, 07 Oct 2005 09:29:36 -0700 (PDT) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >>From: "Hans Franke" <Hans.Franke at siemens.com> >---snip--- >> First thing would be >>to connect a logic analyzer to see if the CPU is still running >>a programm in ROM or not. > >Hi > What is it with logic analyzers. Why not just an >oscilloscope. In most cases, one can be farther along >with an 'oscope in finding what is wrong by the >time one can get an analyzer connected and setup. >I've only had one time that I ever needed an analyzer >and even that time, it didn't work well because >of the complexity of the problem ( design not failure ). > I'll admit that I've often thought of making one >of those address compare circuits to trigger the 'scope >but by the time I'd get serious, I'd found the problem. > Am I alone here or does everyone else think that an >analyzer is the ultimate tool? >Dwight Hi, ;) Yes, the analyser is the ultimate tool, biggest hammer and all that. With all that in the case of 'shooting a KIM-1 the first tool I'd grab is the trusty VOM to check power and then the logic probe (you know those things that run off 5V and have three leds for logic levels aka logic dart) and proble around for the simple presence of pulses. If warrented then the O'scope. Last (by a lot) is the big gun logic machine as that also takes the longest time to drag out and set up. The other three live on the bench. One of the things to watch on the KIM-1 is a lot of the signals come to the edge unbuffered. Can you say ESD? I've also lost as much TTL as MOS to ESD as most TTL lives near accessable connections (edge connectors, Keypads and the like). Typical TTL ESD failures are "stuck input syndrome" and threshold shifts. Allison

20 years, 8 months

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Great Shipment Today

by jrkeys＠concentric.net

A Budget rental truck pulled in today a load of items: 22 cases of books, 2 scopes (tube types-Teks), 2 printer/plotters, DATUM disk controller, Inex 6800 microcomputer system, Scientific micro system dual 8" floppy drive and controller, Atari Gravitar Video arcade game, and many other items. Took 3 1/2 hours to unload and store it all. From one of the book boxes I pulled digital logic handbook 1972 and it's a great read. There is a section on the LAB series with great pictures, one on hardware, power supplies, accessory modules, cables, and many other items. It's about 484 pages. Once I get a chance open all the book boxes and test out the hardware I will list the items fully.

20 years, 8 months

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PCs that support only one floppy drive in hardware

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PCs that support only one floppy drive in hardware > From: Roger Merchberger <zmerch at 30below.com> > Date: Sun, 09 Oct 2005 12:47:02 -0400 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Rumor has it that Chuck Guzis may have mentioned these words: >>On 10/9/2005 at 11:04 AM Scott Stevens wrote: >> >> >I've never seen a PCI card that had a floppy interface on it. I'm sure >> >they exist. Not in my junkbox, however, and I don't have the schematic >> >diagram for them. >> >>And there's a good reason for that. The PCI bus has no access to legacy >>8237-type DMA, so legacy driver code would not work on such a beast. > >I've seen several BIOSs can be set up for that - you can set the IRQ & DMA >on a per-slot basis. > >However, I'll admit that it's a crapshoot... you'd want to make sure that >the mobo supports what you want to do. ;-) I'm also *not* going to say that >WindersXP will actually support it, as you *might* have to disable >Plug-N-Pray to get it to work. > >Laterz, >Roger "Merch" Merchberger >-- Roger, you hit the nail on the head. If you want to use XP and the latest PentiumMMV at 200ghz and read old media it'seems there is an incongreuity there. It would appear more reasonable to use an older less underloaded machine and a more flexible version of winders for such a task. For tasks like this where the interface is going to be "unusual" XP, win2000 and NT are likely not the best choice as they are known to poorly or not support untested/certified hardware. Allison

20 years, 8 months

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PCs that support only one floppy drive in hardware

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PCs that support only one floppy drive in hardware > From: Scott Stevens <chenmel at earthlink.net> > Date: Sun, 09 Oct 2005 09:52:22 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >One thing I am wondering is if an 8-bit floppy controller card (the ones >from the PC-XT generation, which didn't have floppy IO on the >motherboard) could be modified (if needed) and contrived to work in a >more modern system that still has the ISA bus. If the particular I/O >locations are being used, simple cuts and adds could re-direct the I/O >ports. This would give the enterprising programmer a 765 controller >with relevant hardware to plug additional drives into. The original >PC-PC/XT controller is fully documented in the TechRef, and even has all >the cabling in place to support four floppies. Gee I posted about doing just that. If the machine has ISA there is no need to mod the card. Just disable (in bios) the mainboard level FDC and plug in the ISA unit and go. Also PCI cards work nice for that. Allison

20 years, 8 months

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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: "Joe R." <rigdonj at cfl.rr.com> > Date: Thu, 06 Oct 2005 09:06:17 +0000 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >>I'm afraid I am not very familiar with CPM systems. Could you please >>tell me why a conversion system is needed? > > It all depends on what system they were written on. There are hundreds >if not thousands of different CPM formats. Some of them are litterally one >of a kind and were only used on one type computer and can not be read on Hundreds but not thousands. It was not as bad as it seems as many systems could handle thir native formats plus a few. >anything else. A good example is the M2FM format that Intel used on their >MDS machines. That was a really breaker. As that could only read it's own. >Some also used hard sectored disks and there's no way that a >modern disk controller can deal with that. OTOH if you're lucky, they used In the 8" world there were fewer formats and most of the systems that were hard sector (altair and some text management systems) didn't run CP/M. Beside in the 8" world CP/M itself had established that 8" SSSD was the interchange format. For 8" stuff the prognosis is not so bad. However the media is so old that may be more of a problem with oxide shedding. Allison

20 years, 8 months

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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: Vintage Computer Festival <vcf at siconic.com> > Date: Sat, 08 Oct 2005 17:39:48 -0700 (PDT) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On Thu, 6 Oct 2005, Allison wrote: > >> For 8" stuff the prognosis is not so bad. However the media is so old that >> may be more of a problem with oxide shedding. > >I haven't yet seen a floppy disk (and I have some probably as old as 30 >years by now) that have shed oxide. I have. It's not common and some vendors were more prone to it and humidity is a big factor. The earlier quality stuff as I said before didn't do it. Bit I do have some crap Nashua stuff from around 84ish that was known for it. Allison

20 years, 8 months

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MPX-16 census

by chenmel＠earthlink.net

Does anybody else on the list have an MPX-16 system? I recently acquired one from a list member and am wondering how many of these systems still exist. I have a large (relatively) collection of diskettes with mine. The MPX-16, for those not familiar with it, was published as a project in Steve Ciarcia's 'Circuit Cellar' column in Byte magazine. It was a three part 'construction' article and the machine was sold by MicroMint for a time. What I've heard is that about 500 machines in total were produced. It's an early 'IBM Compatible' in that they designed it to be similar to the PC, but only to a certain degree. It uses a serial console rather than keyboard/display adapter, and it runs CP/M-86 and supposedly MS-DOS though I don't have DOS diskettes for mine. It has ISA slots and a similar architecture to the IBM-PC, coming out of that early era before there were PC clones from the likes of Compaq. I'm curious of how many other MPX-16 systems have survived to today. There isn't a lot about it online. I can share what information I have, as I have manuals and docs with my system. I'm interested in hearing >from other people with this machine. Scott

20 years, 8 months

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PCs that support only one floppy drive in hardware

by pete＠dunnington.plus.com

On Oct 9 2005, 9:52, Scott Stevens wrote: > One thing I am wondering is if an 8-bit floppy controller card (the ones > from the PC-XT generation, which didn't have floppy IO on the > motherboard) could be modified (if needed) and contrived to work in a > more modern system that still has the ISA bus. If the particular I/O > locations are being used, simple cuts and adds could re-direct the I/O > ports. This would give the enterprising programmer a 765 controller > with relevant hardware to plug additional drives into. The original > PC-PC/XT controller is fully documented in the TechRef, and even has all > the cabling in place to support four floppies. It will work, at least on machines I've tried. I've had exactly the same problem as the restr of you -- only one pin for one drive select on the board, so only one floppy where I need (at least) two. And the BIOS behaved once it saw there were two floppies there. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

20 years, 8 months

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PCs that support only one floppy drive in hardware

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PCs that support only one floppy drive in hardware > From: Patrick Finnegan <pat at computer-refuge.org> > Date: Sun, 09 Oct 2005 11:29:07 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Allison declared on Sunday 09 October 2005 10:39 am: >> >Though, I'll have to say that I've never seen a PCI card with a >> > floppy controller on it (well, um, other than the Catweasel, of >> > course). >> >> I have a few and JDRmicrdevices still sells them. > >They don't list any on their website. They have ISA floppy controllers, >and PCI IDE controllers, but no PCI floppy controllers. Never seen much of what they sell on the website because they list only volume sellers there but the hard copy catalog listed them. >I guess it's possible that they have existed, but I can't find any >reference to anyone actually *selling* them. Can you come up with a >link to one? Not a problem for me. I have spares. Maybe they discontined then since 2004. Next step if ISA is out is a USB to floppy thing. Then again maybe you could just scrounge an older machine that isn't so crippled. Allison

20 years, 8 months

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PCs that support only one floppy drive in hardware

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PCs that support only one floppy drive in hardware > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Date: Sun, 09 Oct 2005 09:12:47 -0700 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On 10/9/2005 at 11:04 AM Scott Stevens wrote: > >>I've never seen a PCI card that had a floppy interface on it. I'm sure >>they exist. Not in my junkbox, however, and I don't have the schematic >>diagram for them. > >And there's a good reason for that. The PCI bus has no access to legacy 8237-type DMA, so legacy driver code would not work on such a beast. Any PCI at the slowest was 33mhz, so PIO will do a floppy no problem. Allison

20 years, 8 months

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PCs that support only one floppy drive in hardware

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PCs that support only one floppy drive in hardware > From: Scott Stevens <chenmel at earthlink.net> > Date: Sun, 09 Oct 2005 11:04:39 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> >> Gee I posted about doing just that. If the machine has ISA there is >> no need to mod the card. Just disable (in bios) the mainboard level >> FDC and plug in the ISA unit and go. >> > >But does that work without digging in further? Does a PC/XT-era floppy >card replicate a PC-AT diskette controller? I am asking, since I've >never tackled such a project. It did for me. Though I had one really old XT class card that was so crippled 1.44 3.5" was out of it's range. Most of the later smaller ISA-8 cards were never a problem. >> Also PCI cards work nice for that. >> > >I've never seen a PCI card that had a floppy interface on it. I'm sure >they exist. Not in my junkbox, however, and I don't have the schematic >diagram for them. I must have a bigger junk box. I have two FDC/IDE (jumpers for disables) and several FDC/IDE/Serial/parallel Combo cards for PCI. They came out of PCI machines that predated the everything_on_one boards. JDRmicrodevices still sells some of them. Even if you can't (never ran into one) disable the on_main_board function many of the older cards can be set up for secondary FDC, IDE and so on. Then you may have to give up using the latest version of XP too. Allison

20 years, 8 months

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PCs that support only one floppy drive in hardware

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PCs that support only one floppy drive in hardware > From: Patrick Finnegan <pat at computer-refuge.org> > Date: Sun, 09 Oct 2005 10:14:31 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On Sunday 09 October 2005 10:00, Scott Stevens wrote: >> On Sun, 09 Oct 2005 09:25:29 -0400 >> >> Allison <ajp166 at bellatlantic.net> wrote: >> > 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 >> >> An even better 'fix' would be to disable just the floppy interface on >> the motherboard and use an ISA SCSI interface (i.e. a 1542) of the >> generation when there were versions with a floppy interface onboard > >This doesn't work well when you have a recent enough machine that it >doesn't have ISA slots. Heck, I've got UNIX boxes from 1996 (getting >nearly on topic now) that have PCI but no ISA slots. > >Though, I'll have to say that I've never seen a PCI card with a floppy >controller on it (well, um, other than the Catweasel, of course). I have a few and JDRmicrdevices still sells them. Most hoever are not plain FDC though I have a few of those too. There are PCI FDC/IDE/serial combo cards that that can have any of all of those functions disabled. Around here it's not hard to find older cards at used computer stores. Allison

20 years, 8 months

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PCs that support only one floppy drive in hardware

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PCs that support only one floppy drive in hardware > From: Scott Stevens <chenmel at earthlink.net> > Date: Sun, 09 Oct 2005 11:00:30 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> >> This doesn't work well when you have a recent enough machine that it >> doesn't have ISA slots. Heck, I've got UNIX boxes from 1996 (getting >> nearly on topic now) that have PCI but no ISA slots. >> >Well, PCI was and is perceived as a 'good thing' and was never >PC-specific. It's no surprise that UNIX vendors adopted PCI but never >touched ISA. (didn't SGI have ISA, or maybe EISA slots, in some of >their workstations?) > >I don't have any machines 'recent' enough that they don't have ISA >slots, for the record. And, in fact, the particular Dell Optiplexes >that I continue to drone on about have a LOT of ISA slots if the >motherboard is installed in the mini-tower case. More, even, than we >had available on a stock PC-AT once you tied up a bunch of the slots >with disk controller, video, network card, etc. I've worked with a few machines that had NO ISA slots and the solution was PCI cards as they were available to do the job. With many of the cheaper all_on_one mainboards it was convenient to disable board level resources like video or sound to use a better or more convenient PCI or even ISA board. In some cases I did that avoid the sound system they used because it was impossible to get a good driver for the OS in question at that time. I never regarded that as a big deal or even difficult. Allison

20 years, 8 months

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LF: MIL MOD8 parts/software/information

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

Hi Guys, Recently acquired most of a MIL MOD8 - this is a Canadian 8008 machine >from 1974. Photos and documentation on my site. I got a complete chassis, as well as unpopulated ROM and RAM cards. What I don't have is the CPU board, Restart/TTYboard, input board or output board. If anyone has some leads on where I can locate these components, please let me know. I do have a copy of the MF8008 applications manual, which includes complete documentaion and schematics of the MOD8 machine. I also have several vector board which fit the backplane and match the form-factor of the MIL boards, so if I cannot find boards by other means, I will build them (which means I would need to find an 8008 CPU). Any parts, documentation or software for this machine would be most welcome - being keenly interested in Canadian vintage computers and their history, I would very much like to see this running someday. 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 ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PCs that support only one floppy drive in hardware > From: Scott Stevens <chenmel at earthlink.net> > Date: Sun, 09 Oct 2005 10:00:52 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On Sun, 09 Oct 2005 09:25:29 -0400 >Allison <ajp166 at bellatlantic.net> wrote: > >> >> 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 >> > >An even better 'fix' would be to disable just the floppy interface on >the motherboard and use an ISA SCSI interface (i.e. a 1542) of the >generation when there were versions with a floppy interface onboard >(from systems that had NO 'AT Hard Disk Controler' hardware in them at >all back in the era when '286 motherboards didn't have onboard disk >I/O.) In fact, I have at least one such a card here and should give >that a try. (added benefit would be having SCSI I/O in the system) Is there are reading problem here? From the second sentence: "and disable the onboard controller" Was that clear enough? I spent five years maintaining PCs (over 40 of them) for a small company and I did a lot of hacking and fixing to keep old hardware going to not bust the budget. I've taken the newest of the new and disabled the onboard (on mainboard) functions to plug in better or prefered interfaces be they FDC, Sound of Video to avoid funky drivers or broken driver support. Why is a simple FDC such a big deal? Allison

20 years, 8 months

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eBay: Alphaserver 8400 (12x 21164@425MHz), VAX 8800, PDP/11-24

by jbglaw＠lug-owl.de

Hi! This is quite a nice collection of hardware: http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=5816476462 Starting bid is 500?, unfortunately the guy selling it is located in Switzerland. From a first view at the images, all parts are in quite good condition. MfG, JBG PS: I'm not affiliated with the seller, I just found that listing. -- Jan-Benedict Glaw jbglaw at lug-owl.de . +49-172-7608481 _ O _ "Eine Freie Meinung in einem Freien Kopf | Gegen Zensur | Gegen Krieg _ _ O f?r einen Freien Staat voll Freier B?rger" | im Internet! | im Irak! O O O ret = do_actions((curr | FREE_SPEECH) & ~(NEW_COPYRIGHT_LAW | DRM | TCPA));

20 years, 8 months

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Univac panel and mystery TTL chips

by pdp11＠saccade.com

Hi, I have a control panel from a Univac mainframe that I hope to re-animate someday. Unfortunately I know very little about Univac mainframes. First I'll go for broke: does anybody recognize this unit and have schematics for it? http://www.saccade.com/writing/projects/UnivacPanel/UnivacPanel.html No? OK, time for plan B, reverse engineering it. Most of the chips on the panel are straightforward 74xxx TTL, however, a number of them appear to have a seven digit part number instead of a regular 74xxx stamp. Is there a translation guide between this seven digit number and regular 74xxx numbers? Most of the 74xxx parts on the board also have these seven digit numbers. Any tips on how to guess the actual function would be most appreciated. Thanks, John Peterson www.saccade.com

20 years, 8 months

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

by cclist＠sydex.com

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 might be able to figure this one out, but if someone's got the wiring diagram (or knows of a source) , I'd be obliged. Thanks, Chuck

20 years, 8 months

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TEC FD-50x drives - known issues?

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: TEC FD-50x drives - known issues? > From: Dave Dunfield <dave04a at dunfield.com> > Date: Sat, 08 Oct 2005 21:51:46 -0400 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >I've found a few Newtronics/Mitsumi HD drives which will fit (Data >connector is on the back left corner when drive faces you) ... one >option I am considering is to see if I can modify the motor control >board to go to 300 rpm (as far as I can tell there is no jumper) and >strap Pin2 to keep the drive in low-density mode - I can regen and >copy the disks to 80 track... But something more original would be >preferable if I can find it... Do the Newtronics DD drive have the >data connector in the position I described? Holding it face down and looking at the top the connector is bottom left side. Connector location is tight locations can be a pain. I've found sometime if it's far enough away (wrong enough) a jumper cable can be used to make ends meet. Space permitting. >Note that it's not so much a size problem, as the fact that there is >a little board directly behind the drive with 1" cables for the data >connectors - you simply can't put in drives with the data connector >on the other side (which is where most of the drives I have put it). Sounds like some of the TRS80 drive boxes. The connector landed just right for SA400 and nothing else. Again if the drive is the mirror opposite flipping the drive may fit IF mounted vertically. For example the FD55BV works in the NS* horizon only if the drive is oriented so that the connector is on the up side rather than down because the added depth for the connector hits the rectifiers. If mounted horizonatly that sorta stinks as most work poorly upside down. One other solution, this is bizzarro. It assumes the media is soft sector. Replace the drive with a 720k compatable 3.5" floppy in a 5.25 adaptor. The problem here is getting software from the 5.25" down to the 3.5" if there is only one drive possible. If there are two drives a simple copy from one to the other works. I hear crowds screaming, sure you will not use the full capacity but, it works. I've done this stunt in many machines (my 4/84 kaypro has two thin 3.5" where one HH 5.25" used to fit.) Allison

20 years, 8 months

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Analyzer was Re: KIM-1 repair advice wanted

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Hans Franke" <Hans.Franke at siemens.com> ---snip--- > First thing would be >to connect a logic analyzer to see if the CPU is still running >a programm in ROM or not. Hi What is it with logic analyzers. Why not just an oscilloscope. In most cases, one can be farther along with an 'oscope in finding what is wrong by the time one can get an analyzer connected and setup. I've only had one time that I ever needed an analyzer and even that time, it didn't work well because of the complexity of the problem ( design not failure ). I'll admit that I've often thought of making one of those address compare circuits to trigger the 'scope but by the time I'd get serious, I'd found the problem. Am I alone here or does everyone else think that an analyzer is the ultimate tool? Dwight

20 years, 8 months

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11/750 Boards

by allanshimer＠aol.com

Do you still have any of the CPU boards. I need an L0001, L0002 and L0008. Sincerely, Allan Shimer

20 years, 8 months

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TEAC FD-55GFR = Quad Density?

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

>>More and more machines are showing up without physical support (ie: >>a select) for drive B: ... I have two Intel P3 board which do not >>drive the B: select (which is very annoying since these are two of >>the best systems for handling oddball formats with Imagedisk). >> >>Floppy drives are disappearing completely from some new machines, >>and I doubt it will be long before the controller disappears along >>with them (if it hasn't started already). >> >> >> >That I suspect will still be built into the support chips since it will >be too much trouble >to remove it. Floppies are now a extra option -- I had to have new >computer built with one. >Everybody is going to R/W DVD's now.. First the drives/cables go, then the connectors (why pay for a connector on the board that "nobody wants") - eventually the FDC itself may go when new chipsets appear (next round of CPU). Me: I hanging on to my stash of P1/P2 full ISA machines...! 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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TEC FD-50x drives - known issues?

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

>Well some comments. I used to have a lot of them, most all ahve died. >I regard that particular drive as junk. Agreed completely. >The size problem.. I've encountered it with NS* Horizon and Advantage. >However I put FD55BVs in the NS* after moving the rectifier as I >prefer them for reliability. > >I found a few PC 360k drives (48tpi) marked Newtronics D503 which are >Mitsumi drives that seem ok and are the shorter length (7-3/8"). >They look like the TEC drives but not quite. > >I have toshiba, FD55xx(B, E, F and Gs) and they are the same length. >Older 286/386 PCs are the source of many of the TEC and mitsumi drives. In this case the attempt is to keep the machine as original as possible. I think replacing the drives is not too bad, however to put in a drive with the data connector in the "wrong" place will require modification to the interface board in the back of the disk enclosure, which I think he would prefer not to do. I've found a few Newtronics/Mitsumi HD drives which will fit (Data connector is on the back left corner when drive faces you) ... one option I am considering is to see if I can modify the motor control board to go to 300 rpm (as far as I can tell there is no jumper) and strap Pin2 to keep the drive in low-density mode - I can regen and copy the disks to 80 track... But something more original would be preferable if I can find it... Do the Newtronics DD drive have the data connector in the position I described? Note that it's not so much a size problem, as the fact that there is a little board directly behind the drive with 1" cables for the data connectors - you simply can't put in drives with the data connector on the other side (which is where most of the drives I have put it). 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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Analyzer was Re: KIM-1 repair advice wanted

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Analyzer was Re: KIM-1 repair advice wanted > From: "Jay West" <jwest at classiccmp.org> > Date: Sat, 08 Oct 2005 19:19:54 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Someone wrote.... >>> I've been watching Ebay for one for over a year and >>> there have been NONE >>> listed. I guess their owner's don't want to part >>> with them. > >Actually, I saw an HP Logic Dart on ebay maybe.... six months ago or so. > >Jay West My use of logic dart was not aimed at the HP device but a lesser but similar varient. That name came from back when in a shop I ran many years ago one of the techs like to call the logic probe a "logic dart". Little did I know then. Tom was bit of a klutz and could trip sitting down so.. The story behind it was that one time he asked for "it" and ended up getting darted (stick) in the inner upper thigh because of a fumble dropping it on his lap. The descriptive name sorta stuck[sticks]. The one we used around the shop for minor logic work in scanners and the like was an Eico product had been modded with a sharp stainless point (aka Dart!). I still remember the look on his face when it happend. Can you say a near miss? He almost did. Now, all the pundits can have fun. Remember _logic dart_. Allison

20 years, 8 months

1
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Big-assed Nerd belt buckle

by vcf＠siconic.com

For the hickish nerds: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8224062317 -- 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 ]

20 years, 8 months

7
9
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TEAC FD-55GFR = Quad Density?

by rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com

I found a pair of these drives and picked them up since my reference said that they were quad density drives AND they had DS-QD disks in them. However I looked on the net and found that everyone including Teac's site says that they are HD (1.2Mb) drives. Which are they? I THINK these have a jumper that chages the speed from 360 RPM to 300RPM. Will this make the drive a QD drive? I thought the heads needed to be differnt since the magnetic media on the disks have different permeability. Joe

20 years, 8 months

4
4
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Datum half inch controller

by james.w.stephens＠gmail.com

This is a really good controller if you want to run a pertec tape deck with a formatter. This puts out the classic 100 pin formatted pertec that can be run by any pertec controller. There is a converter from this 100 pin connection to the dual 50's that became predominate when cipher popularized them. I have one of the pertec adapters somewhere if someone needs the pinout if you don't already have the 100 pin cable :-) Datum Inc. Magnetic Tape Controller 5091 Item number: 5816293974 Jim

20 years, 8 months

1
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8" floppy system needed to recover old game data

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

Re: "Each track (77 tracks per side * 2 sides) can hold about 8 sectors of 1024 bytes each, or about 15 sectors of 512 bytes, or about 28 sectors of 256 bytes." It's not a standard format, but it is actually possible to reliably get nine sectors of 1024 bytes on each track of a double-density 8" disk. I supported such a format in all of the operating systems that I wrote for the Zenith Z-100. It gives you 1,419,264 bytes of formatted storage per diskette.

20 years, 8 months

4
3
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Adding another floppy /

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

pulling the thread further off.... One solution for the floppy problem in the dos/winders world is your run of the mill 486 board with ISA bus. They do not disallow much as it was easily done to install two floppy/ide/serial/parallel cards using all of the available port addresses that were nominally assigned. The result of that is a system with 4 floppies, 4 IDE drives and 4 serial ports and two parallel ports. The motherboard is later 486/DX66 with 24mb and ISA16 bus and a large (256k cache). I was lucky to find a large horizontal case that allowed for a lot of drives and 300W of power. So the result is a 3.5 (720/1.44 floppy), 5.25 (48tpi teac FD55BV) and 5.25 (96tpi teac fd55gfr) and two 3.5" IDE drives at 512mb, IDE CDrom each plus N2000 compatable NIC and a 1mb VGA video card. The box is still not full at this point. With this transfers from any to most is easy, it runs any OS I'd care to use and have on hand (DOS, W3.1, W95b, NT4[WS and server], Linux, OS/2warp3, DRI Concurrent dos386V3). Rather than futz with the latest and greatest hardware and software for doing stuff that is mostly routine and very nontaxing for a 486 and DOS this was the easiest solution. It's proven handy for more than a few tasks and having most needed hardware in the box it is a workhorse. Having at least 500mb per drive is enough for most OSs if not choked with apps and still plenty of space for storage. CDrom makes install easy and fast. The extra parallel port is handy with a kangaroo parallel port to IDE adaptor. The three floppies means nothing common is likely unreadable. It's also a respectably fast enough to run MYz80 CP/M/z80 emulator. That is handy for pulling stuff off CP/M disks and munging it or even development. Allison

20 years, 8 months

2
1
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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: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Date: Sat, 08 Oct 2005 10:30:15 -0700 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On 10/8/2005 at 1:14 PM Barry Watzman wrote: > >>It's not a standard format, but it is actually possible to reliably get >>nine sectors of 1024 bytes on each track of a double-density 8" disk. I >>supported such a format in all of the operating systems that I wrote for >>the Zenith Z-100. It gives you 1,419,264 bytes of formatted storage per >>diskette. That was not a particulary strange format, I'd seen it on a Morrow system and the 765 even supported it. Here's an oddball. 28sectors by 128 bytes single density 8". Seems with minor programming differnces of the 1771 for smaller gaps you could end up with enough space at the end of a track for 2 more sectors or nearly 20k per disk. I had always found that 8" at 256k per side (128/26) single density was a good medium and for DD 512k per side and DDDS at 1mb was clean and easy to live with. The CP/M world had an oddity that people using it may have noticed. At 256k (241k useable) was near the minimum for not feeling terribly cramped. Smaller was painful and always needed more drives and once you hit 512k or bigger life got easier. I found that for 8" DSDD (1meg) and two drives was a good working environment for serious work. When I started with 5.25 floppies life got hard (80k perdisk!) and didn't improve till 320/360k (40track 2sDD). The prefered when I build a CP/M system with floppies these days is not less than 720/780k (either 3.5" or 96tpi 5.25 DSDD) or the minimum equivelent in semiconductor (eeprom,flash or battery backedRAM). Hope this sorta give a clue why people in the CP/M space tended to push for more space per disk. Keep in mind that hard disks and controllers were expensive even past the mid 80s. Allison

20 years, 8 months

1
0
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Adding another floppy (Was: TEAC FD-55GFR = Quad Density?

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Adding another floppy (Was: TEAC FD-55GFR = Quad Density? > From: woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> > Date: Sat, 08 Oct 2005 10:50:09 -0600 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >> >I could never figure why windows only expected 1 drive -- C: ??? winders defaults to C: but I've installed it as other. The gotcha is the default boot in many bios was C: is first hard drive and also default hard drive boot. >When I used dos the problem was pached DOS's to support >more than 32 MEG of data. My gripe with windows it does not >support back of the system, but only what it thinks you need >backed up. DOS you could back up. ??? using W95B I never had problems with backup (aka hackup and destroy) (is was an instal time option). Under win 3.1 There were both backup for dos and winders if properly installed (an option!). Allison

20 years, 8 months

1
0
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CP/M on an Apple II ?

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: CP/M on an Apple II ? > From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> > Date: Sat, 08 Oct 2005 09:46:53 -0700 (PDT) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Did the Quadlink and/or Trackstar 128 cable to Apple drives? I have a trackstar 128 and it did all of the "Apple" disks. It also could access regular PC drives I understand. Strange beast for a non Apple user. Allison

20 years, 8 months

1
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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: Andy Piercy <andy.piercy at gmail.com> > Date: Thu, 06 Oct 2005 18:05:14 +0100 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Kieron, > >I have an operational Z80 CP/M system that has 8" floppy drives which >can read both DSDD, DDSD, SSDD, SSSD disks, and I can push the data >out the serial port to a PC. > >Only problemo is I'm also located in the UK Fleet in Hampshire, but >any good to you? > >Ta, > >Andy. I have a operational z80 8" system here and it's 3000 miles closer to something thats' still 3000miles away. :) Hardly helps though. Ideally someone on the US west coast can handle it and ship the data via internet. Allison > >On 06/10/05, Kieron Wilkinson <Kieron.Wilkinson at paretopartners.com> wrote: >> >> Hi, >> >> I am hoping to help an ex-games developer access some very old game data >> and source code stored on 8" floppy disks from a CPM system, data that >> simply does not exist anywhere else and will otherwise be lost. (It is >> the kind of stuff destined for MAME :)). I personally can possibly get >> access to such a system, however we do not want to risk transporting the >> media any more than necessary, and I am far FAR removed from where the >> disks are located in San Francisco (I live in the UK). >> >> Does anybody near here (or willing to travel there!) have such a system >> and could help us out? As I said this is a one-of-a-kind opportunity >> which should unearth games that were previously thought not to exist >> (though most were not completed AFAIK). There is always the chance that >> they are already lost (corrupted media), but we just won't know until we >> try. >> >> I would be over the moon if somebody could help us out with this! If you >> can help, or know somebody else who can help, please contact me! >> >> Thanks, >> >> 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

9
15
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TEAC FD-55GFR = Quad Density?

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

>> I'm curious about the comment about second drive support missing. I >am curious why the addition of a proper multiheaded cable doesnt >fix this? > >they actually dont drive the drive select in the cable? More and more machines are showing up without physical support (ie: a select) for drive B: ... I have two Intel P3 board which do not drive the B: select (which is very annoying since these are two of the best systems for handling oddball formats with Imagedisk). Floppy drives are disappearing completely from some new machines, and I doubt it will be long before the controller disappears along with them (if it hasn't started already). 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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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: Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> > Date: Sat, 08 Oct 2005 15:35:53 +0100 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Scott Stevens wrote: > >I'm not so sure - I seem to find that 3.5" floppies bought today only >handle a few read/write cycles before they die, whereas floppies from >back in the disks' heyday are *much* more reliable. There seems to have >been a drop in the quality of the physical media itself over time. there has been. However I ran into this problem in a work situation and EVERY failed disk had a radial scratch at teh directory track. So I checked the drives and guess what. The heads had a nasty buildup of oxide. After cleaning new media would last till the problem occured again due to same cause. Some sleuthing found this. In every case the drive was lightly used, maybe once every few days. The inside of the systems were filled with dust and lint. The airpath was usualy PC suck in blow out the back and unfiltered. Changing the direction of the fan, adding a filter and cleaning the dust and lint made the problem go away. Seems one of the paths for air going in was through the floppy drive despite the door and the dust and lint would build up and make the head a good abrasive. This fix reduced the media failure rate for maybe one or two uses to months of reuses. >Funnily enough, storage quality seems to have got *worse* over time. >CDs, DVDs and modern hard drives all seem piss-poor when it comes to Thre are two problems. Media changes for faster writers and also plain poor quality. I've seen worng media for the writer in use give poor results. > >Maybe there is some sense in all these USB storage devices (much as I >dislike USB). At least there are no moving parts or optical shenanigans >to go wrong, so if data written to such a device verifies it presumably >should be good for subsequent reads... The USB flash devices are neat, relaible and can die completely unexpectedly. I friend lost 3-400mb of stuff on one when it just quit after a year of use. Fortunatly it was used for a transfer for backup between non-networked systems. Redundancy: With media and drive being cheap I have no qualms using a 1GB drive as removable media be it SCSI or IDE. Same for smaller or larger stuff. In the IDE arena I use a Parallel to IDE adaptor to utilize a bunch of 200-500mb drives as bulk store, install disks and working backups. Same thing with SCSI drives, I must have near 10 RZ56 (680mb 5" full size SCSI) and those not in systems have copies of those in systems. The safest backup is multiple backups on multiple medias. Here I use two systems where the system has two drives (non raid) and the nominal D: is for storage as any winders messups generally only munges drive C:. then there is a slow p90 with BIG SCSI disks playing catch for backup. Add to that floppies and CDroms(multiple copies) it would take a serious disaster to make the data and applications install sets a total loss. This while PC centric is not limited to PC only, I do same for CP/M via multiple systems and even use the PC systems to save CP/M stuff via emulator then there are the VAX backups. Layers of layers. Allison

20 years, 8 months

1
0
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TEC FD-50x drives - known issues?

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

Hi Guys, I've been trying to get the drives from a Nabu Cable PC working for the museum in Toronto who wants to put a working system on display... The drives are TEC FD-501, single-sided DD drives. Some time ago I posted a request for technical information on the TEC FD-503 drives in one of my Morrows, because one of them had failed - the 501 is the same drive, same board, just without the top head and connector/components on the board. I didn't find any information, and ended up abandoning the drive and installing a panasonic DD drive - unfortunately this isn't an option for this system without a fair bit of work, because the drives are contained in an enclosure just big enough for the drives, and connect to a board located directly behind them with 1" cables for the data connectors. The data connectors are on the oppposide side from all the other DD drives I have (of course - and I have a fairly good selection!). The drives also have a silkscreened "Nabu" faceplate which would be nice to keep for the display. Both drives have failed - It is not a configuration/jumpering issue, because they were working - also, I have the exact same system, disk box and drives, and mine work - they are jumpered exactly the same. I've tried cleaning the heads, checking for other mechanical issues, and replacing all of the electrolitics on the drive boards - I can't do much more without technical information. I did try connecting a panasonic drive (had to hold it out of the case to get the cables to go on), and it worked perfectly - the problem is definately the drives. After some looking, I managed to find another pair of identical TEC FD-501 drives - these came from a MSI disk box which had stopped working, and guess what - both of those drives do not work either (jumpered exactly the same as my working ones). That makes 5 out of 8 TEC FD-50x drives drives that I have come across in the past year which are faulty - does anyone know if there is a known issue with these drives? So, I'm looking for (in this order): - Technical information on the drives which would enable me to repair these ones. - A pair of working FD-501 (or FD-503) drives which I could swap the faceplates with to closely aproximate the "original" drives. - Any DD 5.25" drives which will fit. Only need single sided, but double-sided will work. With the drive sitting on the table facing you (connectors at rear), the data connector must be in the left rear corner with pin2 on top, closest to the centerline of the drive. Can anyone help? 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
0 0

TEC FD-50x drives - known issues?

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: TEC FD-50x drives - known issues? > From: Dave Dunfield <dave04a at dunfield.com> > Date: Fri, 07 Oct 2005 23:38:55 -0400 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >Hi Guys, > >I've been trying to get the drives from a Nabu Cable PC working >for the museum in Toronto who wants to put a working system on >display... > >The drives are TEC FD-501, single-sided DD drives. > >Some time ago I posted a request for technical information on the >TEC FD-503 drives in one of my Morrows, because one of them had >failed - the 501 is the same drive, same board, just without the >top head and connector/components on the board. --------------snip---------- - A pair of working FD-501 (or FD-503) drives which I could swap > the faceplates with to closely aproximate the "original" drives. > >- Any DD 5.25" drives which will fit. Only need single sided, but > double-sided will work. With the drive sitting on the table facing > you (connectors at rear), the data connector must be in the left > rear corner with pin2 on top, closest to the centerline of the > drive. Well some comments. I used to have a lot of them, most all ahve died. I regard that particular drive as junk. Never tried to troubleshoot any and it appears to be in the read or write logic (they select, spin, light the light but no data). For most systems better working drives were easy to fit so no concern was given. The size problem.. I've encountered it with NS* Horizon and Advantage. However I put FD55BVs in the NS* after moving the rectifier as I prefer them for reliability. I found a few PC 360k drives (48tpi) marked Newtronics D503 which are Mitsumi drives that seem ok and are the shorter length (7-3/8"). They look like the TEC drives but not quite. I have toshiba, FD55xx(B, E, F and Gs) and they are the same length. Older 286/386 PCs are the source of many of the TEC and mitsumi drives. Allison

20 years, 8 months

1
0
0 0

CP/M on an Apple II ?

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: CP/M on an Apple II ? > From: jim stephens <jwstephens at msm.umr.edu> > Date: Sat, 08 Oct 2005 03:19:11 -0700 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Brent Hilpert wrote: > >><snip> >> > >>the dead guy's ancient >>Apple II/e. >> >> 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! >> >> >> >> >There of course the card made for the apple ][ which booted and ran >cpm. I think there was (is) >an equivalent for the 2/e. There were a number of Z80 cards for the Apple ][ for the purpose of running cpm and compatable apps. >actually this version is not that uncommon. main problem was getting >data from other cpm's of the >time (early 80's) to this system. If you ran it w/o 80 column support, >the 40 column video of the apple 2 was very annoying. There was also an 80 column card and with a serial card there were two simple problems to move data from other CP/M systems (UP and DOWN). >I would assume there would be dbase or some spreadsheet program he could >be using to keep >data. Also the 5 1/4 disks would be much better than the original cpm >8" for a traveler. Dbase was available for Apple as both native (6502) and CP/M (8080/z80) along with multiplan. Allison

20 years, 8 months

1
0
0 0

CBM 1541 to PC

by ygehrich＠yahoo.com

Does anybody know anything about this or have experience with it or other ways to access a 1541 from a PC ... XM1541 System ... ... Connects your WINDOWS PC to a Commodore 1541 ...

20 years, 8 months

2
1
0 0

Manuals available :

by jos.mar＠bluewin.ch

I have available the folllowing manuals : Plessey PM80 Core Memory manual ( Omnibus core mem boards,, extensive description ) Applied Digital Data Systems "How to use the Consul 520" (Description of an ascii terminal) Calcomp 836 Technische beschreibung ( Manual for early Calcomp plotter, in German ) Calcomp Pen and Paper user guide. DEC OS8 mark sense batch user guide Control Data NOS2 reference set volume 3 "System commands" (For CDC cyber machines) Terms : Free , you pay P&P from Zurich Switzerland. In case of multiple requests i will decide in an utterly undemocrating way who gets what. Jos Dreesen

20 years, 8 months

1
0
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uk.comp.vintage

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

I've not seen anyone else mention it, so for the other UK folks on the list it's worth mentioning that this newsgroup has shown up. So far low-traffic, and seems to be mainly 8-bit fans who are into games, but it might be worth keeping an eye on. I mentioned there that we're all over here on classiccmp :-) cheers Jules

20 years, 8 months

2
1
0 0

TEAC FD-55GFR = Quad Density?

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: TEAC FD-55GFR = Quad Density? > From: "Joe R." <rigdonj at cfl.rr.com> > Date: Fri, 07 Oct 2005 19:15:04 +0000 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > > I found a pair of these drives and picked them up since my reference said >that they were quad density drives AND they had DS-QD disks in them. >However I looked on the net and found that everyone including Teac's site >says that they are HD (1.2Mb) drives. Which are they? I THINK these have a >jumper that chages the speed from 360 RPM to 300RPM. Will this make the >drive a QD drive? I thought the heads needed to be differnt since the >magnetic media on the disks have different permeability. > > Joe TEAC FD-55GFR aka DEC RX33. Quad density/1.2mb PC drive. QD term is appled to any drive that does 96TPI two sided normal rotation speed(300rpm). The Teac can also do the abnormal(360rpm) PC speed and there are both jumpers and pins on the edge connector to control that. Good solid drive that is very flexible. I have a bunch I kept as they cant be beat with a big stick. Allison

20 years, 8 months

2
1
0 0

Two Zenith MiniSports listed at VCM

by chenmel＠earthlink.net

I thought I would try something new, so I just posted two Zenith MiniSport systems I have for auction at Sellam's VCM website. This is my first VCM listing, I thought I should give it a try.

20 years, 8 months

1
0
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The MSCPSCSI project status

by vax9000＠gmail.com

Hi, list, I am happy to let you know that Rev. 1 cought up with Rev. 0 almost surely (a.s.). There is still long way to go, though. cheers, vax, 9000

20 years, 8 months

1
1
0 0

KIM-1 repair advice wanted

by pete＠dunnington.plus.com

As some of you know, I'm helping with an exhibition of classic machines in the Department of Computer Science -- for Open Day tomorrow (Friday), and running conducted tours on Wednesday as well. Well, one of the supposedly-working exhibits is my KIM-1, but it died this afternoon. I can't get it to do more than occasionally display a single zero, on the leftmost 7-segment display. A cursory look with a logic probe (and no docs to hand) shows the clock is running and at least a few address lines are too. I bet it's a memory fault. What are the common faults? I'm hoping it's one of the 2102 RAMs, because I stand a chance of having a suitable replacement. However, I fear it's more likely a 6530, and I assume they're unobtanium. Has anyone ever come up with a kludge to effectively use a 6532 (and are they any easier to find?) with an EPROM? Or anything else? -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

20 years, 8 months

7
7
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Original PDP-8 spares

by prbotha＠hotmail.com

Hi About 10 years ago I obtained what seems to be the entire set of plug-boards, the two wire-wrapped backplanes as well as the complete core memory module from an original PDP-8. I also have the front panel, but I might want to keep that in my collection. I'm thinking of selling these components (possibly on eBay) to somebody who might want to keep them as spares, or who is reviving one of these monsters. The catch is that it is in South Africa, though I don't expect the postage on the cards themselves to be prohibitive. The backplanes might be a quite a bit more (heavy & large) Obviously I cannot say whether they are still working, but what I can say is that I rescued as much of the complete computer as I could from a guy who was going to sell it to a scrap iron place. He had tendered on it at a redundant equipment auction held by a prominent SA scientific institution. I had no storage space at the time so I was forced to let the (very heavy & bulky) frame and power supplies go :^( Do you guys (and gals) expect it to be worth my while listing it ? Maybe at the marketplace ? Would there be import restrictions into the USA on something like this ? Any comments greatly appreciated... Many thanks Pieter Botha ============================ _________________________________________________________________ Get a massive 2 GB e-mail inbox - upgrade to Hotmail Plus today! http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-xe&DI=1054&XAPID=1816

20 years, 8 months

4
3
0 0

TEAC FD-55GFR = Quad Density?

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

At 19:15 07/10/2005, you wrote: > I found a pair of these drives and picked them up since my reference said >that they were quad density drives AND they had DS-QD disks in them. >However I looked on the net and found that everyone including Teac's site >says that they are HD (1.2Mb) drives. Which are they? I THINK these have a >jumper that chages the speed from 360 RPM to 300RPM. Will this make the >drive a QD drive? I thought the heads needed to be differnt since the >magnetic media on the disks have different permeability. > > Joe One of my favorite FDDs. These will do either HD or DD (called QD because it is 80 tracks). The recording density (HD or DD/QD) is defined by interface pin #2. 'LG' strap ON : Pin2 Hi = DD/QD, Pin2 Low = HD 'LG' strap OFF: Pin2 Hi = HD, Pin2 Low = DD/QD You also need to run the drive at 300 RPM in you are using a standard 250khz transfer rate controller - To do this, put strap 'I' ON - this will run at 360 during HD operation, and 300 during DD/QD operation - with 'I' OFF, the drives runs at 360 rpm all the time. NOTE: A PC controller transfers data to HD drives running in DD/QD mode at 300khz, which means that PC drives always run at 360rpm - but for a non PC/HD controller, the data rate will be 250khz, and you need to jumper the drive to run at 300rpm. 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

1
0
0 0

KIM-1 repair advice wanted

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk > >> >> On Oct 6 2005, 22:03, Tony Duell wrote: >> > > fear it's more likely a 6530, and I assume they're unobtanium. Has >> > > anyone ever come up with a kludge to effectively use a 6532 >> >> > My Commodore 8250LP disk drive has an official kludgeboard in what >> seems >> > to be a socket designed for an 6530. It contains a 6532, a ROM, and a >> > simple TTL chip ('04 or something like that). >> >> Sounds like a start. I obviously can't get this fixed for, er, today, > >Argh, I misremembered it :-(. I've found the schematic I traced out. It >contains a 6530 (not a 6532), a 2716, and a 74LS04. > >The 6530 pins are wirrd to corresponding pins on the header, apart from >RS0/, which is tied high (to disable the internal ROM of that chip). The >2716 A0..A9 go to the corresponding header pins, A10 is grounded. D0..D7 >on the 2716 also go to the obvious header pins. OE/ goes to RS0/ on the >header. CS/ is Phi_2, inverted by one of the gates in the '04. > > I don;t know if you could do a similar thing with a 6532, I think you >could. At least this would let you use any 6530 with the appropriate >chip-select polarites, no matter what was in the ROM. Hi Tony This is not totally true. I don't recall just what it was but there are some mask options that are not easily handled from the outside of the part. I just don't recall what it was. I was looking at doing something similar rather than pay about $120 to replace a sound board on my Gottlieb Genie pinball machine. As I recall it was an inversion of one of the data port's outputs as a mask option or something like that. Dwight

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MPX-16 census

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

dont have one, but want one. I hope youll make disk images available. --- cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org <chenmel at earthlink.net> wrote: > Does anybody else on the list have an MPX-16 system? I recently > acquired one from a list member and am wondering how many of these > systems still exist. I have a large (relatively) collection of > diskettes with mine. > > The MPX-16, for those not familiar with it, was published as a project > in Steve Ciarcia's 'Circuit Cellar' column in Byte magazine. It was a > three part 'construction' article and the machine was sold by MicroMint > for a time. What I've heard is that about 500 machines in total were > produced. > > It's an early 'IBM Compatible' in that they designed it to be similar to > the PC, but only to a certain degree. It uses a serial console rather > than keyboard/display adapter, and it runs CP/M-86 and supposedly MS-DOS > though I don't have DOS diskettes for mine. It has ISA slots and a > similar architecture to the IBM-PC, coming out of that early era before > there were PC clones from the likes of Compaq. > > I'm curious of how many other MPX-16 systems have survived to today. > There isn't a lot about it online. I can share what information I have, > as I have manuals and docs with my system. I'm interested in hearing > from other people with this machine. > > Scott __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com

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test-drb October 2005