Anybody here interested in a bunch of Digital VAX Rdb/VMS books ?
Quite a few are still sealed. I prefer to sell them because I need the
space and could use any extra money but I am willing to swap them for
something else or perhaps even give them to someone for just the postage.
Cheers,
Stefan.
Replying to a bundle of posts:
> IBM used a twisted cable with their hard disks - in order to avoid having
> to explain "Drive Select" jumpers to their [Computerland level] dealers.
>
> The hard drive cable twist is NOT the same twist as for floppies!
Oops. See, I saw a mention of a twisted cable in the Miniscribe manual
which came from Hard Drives International, so I thought I was okay
there.
Anyway, I switched to a straight through connection. I tried the
Miniscribe drives with the 27X and the ST-238R with both the 27X and the
WD1002SV-SR2. With the 27X I get no POST/BIOS complaints, but the
system tries to go to ROM BASIC, so I guess it is ignoring the connected
drive. With the WD1002SV with BIOS disabled and 615/4/26 entered, then
I just get Drive C: error from the BIOS.
> If you are trying to recover files you are probably wasting your time, the
> XT controllers used unique formatting and you will never read the data off
> of the drives without using controllers indentical with ones used
> originally. It is not good enough to use the same brand or even chipset.
Is that true for MFM drives too? I know RLL setups were picky about
controller/drive compatibility but I didn't think MFM would be also.
> Another problem I had with early MFM hard drives was they needed to be
> read with the same model of controller that formatted them.
... I guess so.
> For the ST225 look for a DTC 5150 or a western digital 1002-WX1 HD
> controller. These were two of the most common HD controllers for XTs.
Thanks. I'll ask the owners if these models ring any bells.
> I doubt that you can read them with any of the 16 bit cards.
Are drives formatted with 16 bit cards generally compatible with each
other?
> When I put away any XT drives that I wanted the data off I kept the
> cables and controller card with the drive.
Yup. I certainly wish that were the case here.
> I have docs for the WD cards. The 27X sounds (without looking) like an RLL
> controller.
It is.
> Wrong 34-pin cable. Also check the markings on the controllers and the
> drives very carefully for the pin 1 identification. Perhaps all the solder
> pads are round, except for one which is deliberately square, (that's pin 1)
> or maybe it's silk screened on the board/drive.
It is actually silk screened on all these boards. No problems there.
--
Ryan Underwood, <nemesis at icequake.net>
This is on topic, since 9.1 will run on any Power Mac. Apple has now offered
OS 9.1 for free download. And no, it's not a joke.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75103
--
---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- Never trust a computer you can't lift. -- Mac rollout, 24 January 1984 -----
I have two RX01 drives ...
the two boards *inside* an RX01 drive have an Mxxxx number too!
They are listed in the Field Guide: M7726 and M7727.
- Henk, PA8PDP.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Sent: 5-4-2005 20:50
Subject: Re: rx01 w/o controller board
Brad wrote:
I bid on an RX01 on ebay, hoping it had a controller card. Naturally
it's
> just the drive. [...] where can I get a controller card [...]
Naturally
> I have an unibus rx01 controller card, so all I need is a controller
card
> for this drive, right?
I'm completely confused. You have a controller card? Or you don't? If
you have one, surely you don't need one? Or are you saying that you
need
one for a different bus? Or is your drive missing the drive
electronics,
which is the real controller (vs. the Mxxxx "controllers", which are
really just host adapters)?
The "controllers" (host adapters) are:
Unibus Qbus Omnibus
----------- ----------- ----------
RX01 RX11 M7846 RXV11 M7946 RX8E M8357
RX02 RX211 M8256 RXV21 M8029 RX28 M8357
(Note that the RX8E and RX28 are exactly the same module.)
Eric
Appreciate a little bit of advice from the list please.
I started getting my shed full of gear in order on the weekend.
Following a renno of the kitchen the plan is to rebuild the kitchen
cupboards in the shed to provide additional storage.
I noted when moving stuff around on the weekend that some corrosion has
set into DB plugs and PS2 connectors etc. Fortunately its on a couple of
AT machines of which I have about a zillion so its not a big drama but
I'm more concerned about the longer term effects on my more precious
assets.
Storing stuff in the house would be great but that also equates to
divorce :-)
How do people store their computer stuff medium to long term.
++++++++++
Kevin Parker
Web Services Consultant
WorkCover Corporation
p: 08 8233 2548
m: 0418 806 166
e: kparker at workcover.com
w: www.workcover.com
++++++++++
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Replying to a bundle of posts again:
> If you have an MFM drive used on an AT or better you have a good chance of
> reading it on any AT or better system with most any controller.
> RLL or 8 bit based systems have no such "standard".
I think this is the best summary of the situation I've seen yet.
> A terminator is also required at the last drive in the chain. Assuming
> you are using just one drive, not having the terminator installed would
> probably cause the drive not to work properly.
Yeah, both drives have terminators. One of the Miniscribe drives
doesn't have a terminator but I remembered to move it when I tried that
drive.
> If you are using a HD that originally had a twist, the jumper select
> will most likely be set to drive 1. Using a straight cable will cause
> the drive to appear as drive D instead of C ... I don't remember what
> problems that will cause. So if using a straight cable, make sure the
> drive select is at 0 (of 0-3) or 1 (of 1-4).
That's where it appears to be on both Seagate drives.
> If you are using an 8-bit card with the bios enabled, make sure in the
> 386 setup that there is NO HD installed (the bios will take care of it.)
Yup, did that.
> If you are trying to save files on the HD AND it was installed with an
> 8-bit controller, you don't have any choices but to use the 8-bit card
> bios to access the data AND an identical controller to the one that was
> used to low level format the drive. Fred can probably comment on whether
> it has to be the same type of controller, or the same controller for
> this to work. If you have any idea of what the original machine it came
> out of was, that would help :).
Here is the machine that the MFM drive came out of:
http://docs.van-diepen.com/th99/m/I-L/30739.htm
Intelligent Data Systems PC-88
> Finally, the clicking you hear on the drive is not a good sign. I would
> power up the drive with no cables connected (except of course the power
> cable) and if the clicking still continues, the drive is probably bad.
Clicking only happens when I've connected it to one of the 16-bit
controllers and the BIOS is attempting to find the disk. Otherwise the
drives sound fine.
> If it is important enough, you could also send the drive to a data
> recovery service and leave it to them to deal with it.
Not really important, but the drives used to be in BBS systems in the
early 90's and we are quite interested in the files and messages that
are on there for archival purposes.
> A few times I've seen different PC controllers from the same manufacturer
> (i.e. WD or whatever) work from one model to another but not be able to boot
> without a low-level formatting (booting from a floppy allows access).
Now *this* is interesting. I was assuming that if the drive was going
to work at all, it would be bootable too. Why is is that you wouldn't
be able to boot from the drive, yet you'd be able to read it if you
booted from some other media?
> As was pointed out if you know the drives were formatted on a 8 bit
> controller just set the BIOS to no hard drive and don't even try the 16 bit
> controllers, they would just be a waste of time. Your best bet would be to
> try different 8 bit cards and boot to a floppy then do a "dir c:", repeat
> until you've tried all cards.
Okay, will do.
> Does the controller require a real 8 bit machine, yes not all 8 bit
> controllers even worked in 16 bit computers.
Any examples of problem controllers in this area?
> Is the drive bad.
> Has the drive formatting been messed up.
Hoping not :(
> Is the drive terminated properly.
> Is the drive jumpered properly.
As far as I can tell, yes.
> On IDE all of the truly low level stuff is 100% hidden so the only
> compatibility problems with IDE tended to be drive geometry (early problems
> when the same drive could be addressed by different geometries) .
Yeah, I had a Fujitsu IDE drive die on me recently. I was able to get
the data by swapping the drive PCB with that of another drive which was
the same model, but not identical (6 months newer, different stuff on
the label). I was surprised that it actually worked.
--
Ryan Underwood, <nemesis at icequake.net>
> I've removed a few ISA and PCI slots using a hot-air gun.
> My success rate for ISA was quite good but PCI was less good:
I've found using the wide flat nozzle helps, it's easier to
heat the length of the connector evenly.
> I was doing this "just because I could" (I was scrounging
> other bits at the time) so I don't know whether the
> salvaged ISA or PCI slots would have worked again.
Likewise, I do know the ISA slots will work again though as
I use them for things like this ..
http://www.themotionstore.com/leeedavison/6502/vic20/isa/index.html
Cheers,
Lee.
.
Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
Two rolls, 4.25" x 400', of HP thermal paper for HP85
printer or similar.
Anyone want/need these?
Collect or postage from UK.
Lee.
.
Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
I was just looking through the reprint of the Radio-Electronic magazines
articles that describe the Simon computer. For those of you who haven't
seen them and have thought about building one, they are NOT a
construction or kit article per se, but rather they give a description
of how the computer works. As such, I don't consider it "light reading"
material to just read and build!
It doesn't look like it would be too difficult to build once the wiring
was laid out. The 120 or so relays used were war surplus, 24 VDC, 4PDT
according to the article. The only perhaps hard to find items would be
the stepper switch with make-before-break contacts, and a paper tape
reader.
One perverted thought I've had to make things a lot simpler to build is
to use a PLC :).
I started to gather the parts some time ago including 150 NOS DPDT 12
VDC relays and some NOS pilot light housings, but just don't have the
time for YAP (Yet Another Project.) So, the parts I've gathered along
with a CD containing scans of the Radio-Electronics Simon reprint have
been listed on VCM.
>Subject: Re: The SC/MP is finally alive!
> From: Wai-Sun Chia <waisun.chia at gmail.com>
>After having looked it up, the literature says that one of the unique
>feature of the SC/MP was/is the ability to share the system bus with
>other peers, therefore was designed for multiprocessing embedded
>system.
Yes. I used one of the later 8073 (SC/MP-II in Nmos) running Nibble
Basic and used a second SC/MP-I (oldest pmos part) in an arrangement
so the basic one did IO via the second using a shared bit of ram.
It was impressive then (1980).
>The site further acknowledged that this feature alone makes th SC/MP
>II one of the most advanced design of its time.
it was a little used but unique feature. However, it was also over
rated as it took trivial TTL logic to get the same functionality
when using 8085 or Z80s in multiples.
>So anybody is planning to build a cluster of these babies? :-)
Not likely. As micros go it was slow and if that much cpu was
needed to share/multiprocessor an application people move up to
Z80 or 8088.
>p.s. do you have pics of your SC/MP system? I would love to have a
>look at them...
Yes, slides really. I only just got a digital camera so I have to dig
stuff out and take pics, someday.
Allison
[keeper of old compuers, SBCs, S100, DEC PDP-8, PDP-11 and VAX]
