test-drb March 2005

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

291 participants
840 discussions

Pinout/Replacement for Floppy Drive on HP 9133

by bernd＠kopriva.de

Hi, i have a HP 9133 floppy/hard drive unit where the floppy disk drive doesn't operate anymore (it returns read errors only) ... ... my first idea was to use a replacement drive from a 9122C/D unit, but those, that i own, have another pinout; the 9122 have only one 34 ? pin connector whereas the 9133 floppy has two connectors, one standard power supply and another one having 26 pins. Are those somehow interchangeable ? Thanks Bernd

19 years, 8 months

Needed: HiRes scans of an Altair 8800b front panel

by billdeg＠degnanco.com

Here are some digital pictures of my 8800b, they are not perfect, but I hope they will do. The camera lens creates a slight fish-eye effect unfortunately. http://www.vintagecomputer.net/altair8800b/pic1.jpg (taken by earlier owner) http://www.vintagecomputer.net/altair8800b/hi-res_front1.gif http://www.vintagecomputer.net/altair8800b/hi-res_front.jpg http://www.vintagecomputer.net/altair8800b/hi_res_front2.jpg http://www.vintagecomputer.net/altair8800b/hi-res_front_withdrive.gif Bill

19 years, 8 months

Universal floppy disk controller

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

Ok, so we've been discussing various ideas for a universal floppy disk controller. I bought (E-Bay) a used Microsolutions "Backpack" external parallel port floppy disk drive, it's a 3.5" 1.44MB drive. Internally, it is a standard drive (with a 34-pin standard interface) and a floppy to parallel port interface card. The question is -- and it's really a software question -- If I connect a 5.25" drive to the interface (using the standard 34-pin interface) will the device (or, perhaps more to the point, will it's drivers) work? I believe that they actually made a 5.25" model (with a 1.2 meg drive), but I have not been able to find one. The Format program that comes in the software packet has documentation suggesting that it can format a 1.2 meg and even a 360k drive, and I'm guessing that the interface card is the same for the 5.25" and 3.5" models. This might be the answer to being able to access 5.25" drives on a "modern" PC. It would be really cool if 22Disk would work with a drive connected to this thing. I plan to do some testing in the next week or so. It still doesn't solve the eight-inch problem, however. [I know, there's a chance that the controller could be made to work with 8" drives using a funky cable -- but first things first, 5.25" drives.]

19 years, 8 months

using a DRV11 to run an IDE drive?

by GOOI＠oce.nl

Yes, it is possible to connect a DRV11 to an IDE disk drive. However, you must compromise. I connected a IDE disk drive to some simple parallel ports of the I/O Board. But it is PIO mode only, no DMA, so not really fast but it works. The lowest level software is fairly easy. Check www.pdp-11.nl and click on the link "Home-brew PDP-8". You can download the 6809 source code which even resembles (a little) PDP-11 mnemonics. I thought to get it working with 8 bits, but it is a lot easier if you have a 16-bit data path. That means 16 inport bits and 16 outport bits. Further you need a few (6?) extra output lines for control. So perhaps one DRV11 is just not sufficient, but I would say: yes, you can connect an IDE drive to one (or two) DRV11's. BTW, if an IDE hard disk works, I found out that a Compact Flash Card with IDE adapter works just fine too. Solid state disk on your PDP-11! - Henk, PA8PDP. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Sent: 30-3-2005 20:18 Subject: using a DRV11 to run an IDE drive? I've seen an old PC trick that uses the printer port and custom cable to bit-bash interface an IDE hard drive or cdrom using a dos .sys driver. Anyone think it's possible to do the same with a DRV-11 for the pdp11? Features: built in BAR/WCR/CSR circuits, 16 bits in, 16 out. 6 function bits, Attention/Ready/Cycle Request/Bust handshake bits etc Perhaps a small pld or fpga could use the spare handshake or function bits to latch the 3 address bits for the IDE and generate the chip select/read-write etc while the 16 bit input and output busses could be joined via tri-state buffers... I'ts not a replacement for a scsi controller, but it beats hunting down the hard to find bus interface chips and provides a proven already working basic interface. I've got a dozen of the QBUS (and a few UNIBUS) DRx11 boards if someone is interested in fooling with the idea. As a side note - I recall UW's CCNG CE dept fashioned an early MP cluster called using DRV11s to connect LSI11-2s in the 80's. regards -h

19 years, 8 months

Commodore 128 Easter Egg

by billdeg＠degnanco.com

I believe you mean: SYS 32800,123,45,6 The text is (note the "herdware" is intentional): Brought to you by... Software: Fred Bowen Terry Ryan Von Ertwine Herdware: Bil Herd Dave Haynie Frank Palaia Link arms, don't make them. I took a quick picture and posted it ... http://vintagecomputer.net/commodore/128/easter_egg.jpg -Bill > > Does anybody have a Commodore 128 or a VICE emulator to try this ? > > > > 1. Boot machine > > 2. Type: SYS 32400,123,45,6 > > 3. A list of system programmers is displayed

19 years, 8 months

program to print out ASCII renderings of punch cards and/or papertape?

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Mar 30 2005, 5:26, Ethan Dicks wrote: > I've been wracking my brains and googling for most of an hour... ISTR > there _used_ to be a program that shipped with UNIX (at least > BSD-flavors, if nothing else) that could take a string as a command > line arg, and print either a punch card image or papertape renderings > to stdout. > > Does anyone remember the _name_ of this program? ppt(6) for paper tape form, bcd(6) for punch cards. In Seventh Edition, BSD, SunOS 4, and some Linux distros. I think I have the Seventh Edition source here somewhere if you want it :-) -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

19 years, 8 months

formatting an RD54 with on a pdp11/73

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Mar 29 2005, 16:32, Eric Josephson wrote: > On Wed, 30 Mar 2005, Pete Turnbull wrote: > > > I've never run ZRQC (or indeed most XXDPv2 diagnostics) the way you're > > doing it. Are you sure that works? > > I used the same method to format an rd54 a few weeks ago. > It worked fine for me. > > Thanks to Jonathan Engdahl for providing the details at: > http://users.safeaccess.com/engdahl/xxdp.htm Yes, I remembered Jonathan's page just about the moment I hit "send" :-) -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

19 years, 8 months

Sun 4/330 with faulty serial interface...

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

We've got a Sun 4/330 which has bit 6 stuck high in every character output on the console. I don't suppose anyone has schematics for these boards or know how the serial hardware works, do they? The machine looks to be booting OK, so it appears address & data buses are fine - but at the point where characters must be loaded into a parallel register and converted to serial for output it's falling over... I suspect the machine's hard-wired to use only serial port A as console, but either way I couldn't get hold of the right cable to see if the other three serial ports are OK (the latter three being 9-pin male, whilst port A is 25 pin male) I can't think of any line settings, faulty voltage rails etc. that'd cause bit 6 to be stuck high, so I'm assuming it's a hardware fault... cheers Jules

19 years, 8 months

origins of "kludge"

by bpettit＠ix.netcom.com

> From _ENCYCLOPEDIA OF COMPUTER SCIENCE_(Van Nostrand), 1976: > > KLUDGE > > The word "kludge" is a term coined by Jackson Granholm in an > article "How to design a kludge" in _DATAMATION_ (February 1962). > The definition is given as "an ill-sorted collection of poorly > matched parts, forming a distressing whole". The design of every > computer contains some anomalies that prove to be annoying to the > users and wghich the designer wishes he had done differently. If > there are enough of these, the machine is called a "kludge". > > By extention, the term has come to be applied to programs, > documentation, and even computer centers, so that the definition > is not "an ill-conceiverd and hence unreliable system that has > accumulated through patchwork, expediancy, and poor planning". As others have mentioned, the origin much older. There was a long thread on this someplace, maybe in Datamation, about the origin. It was certainly in use before WWII by maintainers of the punched card devices. It showed up in writing in a few articles during the '50's. > The first kludge article triggered five others ("How to maintain a > kludge", etc) in subsequent issues of _DATAMATION_. Four of the > articles may be found in the book _FAITH, HOPE AND PARITY_ edited > by Josh Moshman, Thompson Book Company, 1966. > > -- F. Gruenberger I shall certainly try to find the book. I loved those articles. Read all of them when they came out. I still have two of them that I tore out of Datamation. Scans of them would be perfect for the readers of this list. I especially remember "How To Maintain A Kludge" subtitled "Craftily!" Paraphrasing, they had a hall of fame maintenance engineer who talked a customer into using a Kludge Komputer for 6 months even though it had a broken power on switch. Billy

19 years, 8 months

RTP IO controllers (Computer Products, Fort Lauderdale)

by hofmanwb＠worldonline.nl

RTP makes very reliable IO equipment for use in plants and laboratories. The Universal controller can be connected to a wide variety of computers using a module that plugs into the bus of the computer. One can also use an ethernet module or a module with a serial line (DIOC) I did a number of projects where I used DIOCs to couple it with PDP-11 computers, a Foxboro SMS computer and a GE Mark V. The great advantage being that when you change the type of computer you use, the plant wiring can be left unchanged. The great reliability of the RTP stuff ment that even when the computer is worn out, you can leave the RTP in place. Factory experience was that maintenance people completely forgot the RTP gear because it practically never stopped working and bewilderment set in when it once in a while failed. Very convenient is also that after 10 or more years it was perfectly possible to get spare parts. RTP is not for planned obsolescence I would not be surprised at all if spare parts still could be obtained for your stuff. Philipp Hachtmann wrote: > Hello, > > I am looking for information about IO controllers made by "Computer > Products Inc., Fort Lauderdale". > > The controllers are normally named "RTP XXXX/XX" where X are numbers. > The company who produced these controllers (now RTP corp. > www.rtpcorp.com) is still around and uses its "RTP BUS". But they don't > give me any information about the bus. > > Who has this kind of hardware in one of his old minicomputers (exept Tom > Jennings who will send me over his controller)? > Who has ANY documentation for these controllers? > Who knows someone who could have... etc. > > Pictures of my controllers can be found here: > > http://h316.hachti.de/img/rtp1.jpg - My two devices > http://h316.hachti.de/img/rtp2.jpg - A label > http://h316.hachti.de/img/rtp3.jpg - first device's cards > http://h316.hachti.de/img/rtp4.jpg - second device's cards > > Thank you very much, > > Philipp :-) > >

19 years, 8 months

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test-drb March 2005