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: "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

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: 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

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: 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

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: 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

18 years, 9 months

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

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: 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

18 years, 9 months

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));

18 years, 9 months

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

18 years, 9 months

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

18 years, 9 months

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

18 years, 9 months

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test-drb October 2005