test-drb October 2005

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

264 participants
655 discussions

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: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 14:07:28 +0100 (BST) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> >> >> >F : 80 cylinder double sided >> >> >> >> 300 rpm only >> >> >> >> >G : 80 cylinder double sided, 360RPM, high density (1.2M for PCs) >> >> >> >> Does both 300 and 360. (can replace the E and F with correct jumpers). >> > >> >I am not convinced of that. I think 'G' implies 360RM. The drive in >> >question is a 'GFR', thus having the capabilites of both the 'G' and the >> >'F', in other words both 360 and 300 rpm. >> >> I am certain of the GFR, I have maybe 8 spares and 5 in use to confirm it > >I am also certain about the GFR. I agree with you. The GFR is a dual >speed drive, 360 rpm and 300rpm. > >What I am saying is that the letter 'G' as a suffix indicates a 360rpm >drive. The letter 'F' indicates a 300 rpm drive (both being 80 cylinder >double-sided). So both G and F mean a dual speed drive. No Tony, the 55F in single speed only. Now if you mean 55GF is dual speed you might be right by coincidence. However the second letter and third are for options to the basic drive such as door latch or media ready indicator. Allison

18 years, 9 months

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: Alexey Toptygin <alexeyt at freeshell.org> > Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 22:39:22 +0000 (UTC) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On Wed, 12 Oct 2005, Allison wrote: > >> Another good choice is the 4" tall Dell Pizza boxes such as the 425/np >> though 466/np. Theses are small, use PS2 connectors for keyboard >> and mouse and the board supports most floppies (x2), IDE disks to 500mb >> and S3 VGA video. There is room enough to add a CDrom or 5.25 floppy. > >I have 2 of these, and they're quite nice. You can run 25, 50, 33 and 60 >MHz chips in them with the right rejumpering (so my 425s are running 66Mhz >now). I have done the same thing with 425s. all mine are DX/66. >Dell even had the motherboard docs online, last I checked. There's >only one problem: the BIOS won't boot off any non-FAT formatted floppies, Mine do! There is a bios selection for that. The bios in these either boots the floppy or hard disk but doesn't switch well if HD is selected. Cdroms work well in them too. >though it's happy to boot anything off the HD. This makes putting a >'modern' OS (linux, in my case) on them a bit of a challenge. I've stuffed >one full of ne2k, intel and 3com cards and use it as a firewall. I've run DOS, win3.1, Linux, Win95b, Nt4/server on these with 32m of ram. Not super fast with a 486/66 as there is no external cache but remarkably solid. Drives larger than 500mb must have a 500mb primary boot partition but I have the NT4 system using a 4.3gb as NT4 fits easily in 500mb and handles the remaining partition after boot as "d:". Allison

18 years, 9 months

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: Dan Williams <williams.dan at gmail.com> > Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 09:17:32 +0100 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >> Dan, I don't think I've ever seen a 5.25" PCMCIA drive. Do they exist? There's actually not a huge amount of difference between the PCMCIA bus and ISA. IIRC, you can get PCMCIA-PC104 adapters and PC104 is very close to ISA. >> >> Cheers, >> Chuck >> >These guys made one ten years ago, there might be some around. > >http://www.accurite.com/PR-PC.html > >Dan On the whole I prefer my solution. A simple 486/66 on a board that doesnt have any "chip set" and ISA cards that are easy to find in junkers. Convenient, you bet. The board board I selected uses PS2 keyboard and mouse. I have two spare boards and the nicads have been removed to prevent leakage. Thse have done well for floppy futzing from any 5.25 to any 3.5" (excluding the near unseen 2.88). Another good choice is the 4" tall Dell Pizza boxes such as the 425/np though 466/np. Theses are small, use PS2 connectors for keyboard and mouse and the board supports most floppies (x2), IDE disks to 500mb and S3 VGA video. There is room enough to add a CDrom or 5.25 floppy. A third candidate just a shade larger than the Dell pizza boxes is a AT&T Golbalist 620. That's a P100 box with three ISA or PCI slots, mouse, and keyboard are PS2, video is VGA and room for a IDE disk, CDrom and a 3.5 floppy inside. Beats wailing ones head against the wall with trying to retrofit current solutions. Also solves the how to reuse older hardware that exists for free. Allison

18 years, 9 months

PCs that support only one floppy drive in hardware

by tim＠tim-mann.org

On Sat, 8 Oct 2005 03:25:49 -0500 (CDT), cctech-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > Message: 22 > Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 21:51:09 -0700 > From: jim stephens <james.w.stephens at gmail.com> > Subject: Re: TEAC FD-55GFR = Quad Density? > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Message-ID: > <ae0bc2000510072151o541c0ad3u8dbc114f37216beb at mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > <snip> > > > > > > <snip> > > Actually, I am still slowly getting over my long painful struggle to get > > two floppy drives enabled on a Dell Optiplex system. There's support > > for a second floppy in the BIOS but it appears the hardware support is > > entirely missing. I had to just do away with the 3-1/2" disk to get a > > 5-1/4" disk installed in one of my (many, since I get them for < $5 all > > kitted out with Pentium III processors) beloved (!!??!!) Optiplex boxes. > > Was there THAT much savings in not including hardware support for two > > floppies, DELL? Why not patch settings for the second drive out of the > > BIOS so we don't pound our heads against the wall trying?? > > > > 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? I built a new machine around an EPoX 9NPA nForce 4 motherboard and found out to my surprise that it was only capable of running one floppy drive. In my case the BIOS provides no way to enable a second drive, so at least it's consistent. Having a BIOS that lets you put in settings for a second drive when the hardware doesn't support it would really be a screwup. EPoX makes schematics available, so I downloaded one and studied it to try to confirm whether there really was no way to get a second drive to work. It turns out the super-IO chip they use to run the floppies and several other system functions (fan control, temperature sensors, serial and parallel ports, etc.) has only a limited number of pins. Several have multiple functions, and the motherboard designer has to select which function he wants to use for each pin and do without the others. EPoX chose to use the pins that could have driven the second floppy's motor-on and drive select for other functions (I forget what offhand). So those pins are no-connects on the floppy cable. As a small compensation, it's possible to reconfigure the parallel port as an external floppy connector. If you do that, you can put two drives on it. (Whoopee.) This all is not a huge deal for me since I can pop a Catweasel card into the machine if I really want more floppies in it, but it's a bit annoying. -- Tim Mann tim at tim-mann.org http://tim-mann.org/

18 years, 9 months

A few items for sale

by Gary.Messick＠ngc.com

> > > Some of these items may interest folks. > > > > http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQfgtpZ1QQfrppZ25QQsassZjcwren > > Or Not? > > How about a clue as to what they are before making us go and look... > One of the items is a pretty nice collection of early 8-bit computers w/software. I do have to point out that his "Z-100" is an H/Z-89/90 Z-80 system though! For pick-up only near Atlanta

18 years, 9 months

So I been looking for an 8 inch floppy drive...

by tlindner＠ix.netcom.com

But it needs to be double sided. Does anyone know if this is a double sided floppy drive: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8708388143&ssPageName =ADME:B:SS:US:1 I have about 150 8 inch disks to image and I am also hoping someone can help me wire such a drive to a catweasel. -- tim lindner tlindner at ix.netcom.com Bright

18 years, 9 months

Need a driver: Intel PCMCIA Flash card

by r_a_feldman＠hotmail.com

Type I cards are thinner than Type II which are thinner than Type III. If you look at at Type II card, you will notice that it is thinner on three sides than in the middle. The thin part, which acts as the card guide, retains the Type I size specifications. Thus, you can use a Type I card in a Type II slot. The types should not be confused with the PCMCIA electrical standards, which used a different (arabic) numbering system. Most "current" PCMCIA cards (such as an XJack modem or 3Com network card) are Type II and PCMCIA 2.0. Type I came out first, so many SRAM cards are Type I. For example, the first Poqet SRAM cards are Type I in size, but used a pre-PCMCIA 1.0 protocol. Later Poqets were PCMCIA 1.0 compliant. The HPLX 95 palmtop is PCMCIA 1.0 compliant (IIRC) and can read either Type I or Type II SRAM cards, but needs a driver for using Flash cards -- it came out a little later than the Poqet and is more compliant with the early PCMCIA standards. Windows through Win 98 can handle SRAM cards with a couple of device drivers (CARDDRV.SYS is one) installed. I forget the exact drivers needed, but just search in the Windows Help for SRAM to find the information. Win XP seems to have dropped support for SRAM cards. At least some Intel flash cards used a different format than other flash cards, such as SunDisk/SanDisk, so the two types are not compatible. Bob Message: 18 Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 20:24:36 -0400 From: Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> Subject: Re: Need a driver: Intel PCMCIA Flash card To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <434DA944.30707 at gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Ethan Dicks wrote: >On 10/12/05, Simon Fryer <fryers at gmail.com> wrote: > >>I am guessing, by looking at the size of the card, this is a Type II >>card. Most PCMCIA card readers fitted to laptops and PCs will only >>read Type III PCMCIA memory cards. > > >Perhaps you have an off-by-one error? > >Most recent laptops only have a single Type II slot, but many Pentium >laptops have a "dual Type II/Type III socket" meaning you can use two >Type II cards simultaneously or one Type III (the thickness of the >card blocks the upper slot) > >Type I cards were strange and most semi-modern stuff doesn't support >them, AFAIK. But aren't most of those Intel Series 2b cards Type I? I mean the ones that hold IOS images in slightly older Ciscos. As far as I can tell, they're just a bit thinner than your average ethernet/wireless/etc card. Peace... Sridhar

18 years, 9 months

Looking for ancient FreeBSD

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

The oldest set I have is 2.2.6 the 4cd set. It's solid enough and useful that I never tried later. I keep the set as my backup case the system needs a new drive. Allison > >Subject: Re: Looking for ancient FreeBSD > From: William Pechter <pechter at gmail.com> > Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 09:35:47 -0400 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >I've got a set back to 1.0.2 if anyone needs it... IIRC I also rolled >out a 1.1.5.1 or was it 1.5.1 set just before the mandatory move to 2.0 >and the removal of the AT&T embargo'd files. > >Bill > >Jay West wrote: > >> if you can't find it... I'm sure I have the cd here somewhere. I think >> I have a complete set of freebsd distro cd's back to 2.0. >> >> Jay >> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Sokolov" >> <msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG> >> To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org> >> Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2005 3:37 PM >> Subject: Looking for ancient FreeBSD >> >> >>> Hello fellow ClassicCmp'ers, >>> >>> This is almost Classic - I'm looking for a place to download an old >>> version of FreeBSD, specifically the last release of the 2.2.x branch, >>> which I think was 2.2.8. However, it seems to have totally vanished off >>> the net, including of course ftp.FreeBSD.ORG, apparently removed by the >>> dark forces of the evil reptilian conspiracy who want to force everyone >>> to run the modern crap. Has anyone saved a copy of the FreeBSD 2.2.8 >>> distribution or some nearby version? TIA, >>> >>> MS >>> >> >>

18 years, 9 months

PC Collection on eBay

by john_boffemmyer_iv＠boff-net.dhs.org

He also appears to be full of B.S. as he claims he packed everything meticulously in anticipation of long term storage. No freaking way. The picture alone shows that he just threw stuff in there and did not box a lot of the important stuff (as you can see several computer items jumbled up in the mess out in the open and a bike that's obviously shoved into the mess. I don't know if anything is salvageable from the pile outside of using them as props and displays. =/ Would be nice if at least a few things worked well and were valuable enough to make it worth taking the rest of the mountain that didn't work. -John Boffemmyer IV At 06:23 AM 10/13/2005, you wrote: >I sent a message asking to go look next week if possible. We will see what >they say. It doesn't seem anyone I know. > >Paxton > > >-- >Paxton Hoag >Astoria, OR >USA > > >-- >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. >Version: 7.0.344 / Virus Database: 267.11.14/131 - Release Date: 10/12/2005 > > > > > >-- >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. >Version: 7.0.344 / Virus Database: 267.11.14/131 - Release Date: 10/12/2005 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.344 / Virus Database: 267.11.14/131 - Release Date: 10/12/2005

18 years, 9 months

Original PDP-8 spares

by prbotha＠hotmail.com

As promised, here's the list: 1 x Faceplace w/ circuit board & functional toggle switches. Unfortunately no key. 42 x double-width logic boards 93 x single-width logic boards 6 x ribbon cables w/ connectors 1 x Ferroxcube core module complete w/ connectors 2 x Marginal Power strips 2 x Wired backplanes 3 x nameplates (one bent, one nicked, one perfect) >From the nameplates it seems to have had a serial number in the late 700's. I would appreciate some advice as to how I should go about selling this. Obviously eBay would command the greatest exposure in terms of interested parties, but I would really like it to go to somebody who will really be able to restore it (or maybe who needs spares to complete an existing one). Any suggestions ? Many thanks ! Pieter Botha ============================ _________________________________________________________________ Upgrade to MSN Hotmail Plus - your e-mail, your way! http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-xe&DI=1054&XAPID=1816

18 years, 9 months

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test-drb October 2005