test-drb October 2005

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

264 participants
655 discussions

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

19 years, 2 months

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

19 years, 2 months

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

19 years, 2 months

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. >> >> >>

19 years, 2 months

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

19 years, 2 months

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

19 years, 2 months

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

19 years, 2 months

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

19 years, 2 months

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

19 years, 2 months

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 ...

19 years, 2 months

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test-drb October 2005