Hi Jules,
>I probably won't be at Bletchley until this weekend, but we got a
>Compupro 8/16 a few weeks ago with a *lot* of documentation. I could
>have a flick through that assuming nobody's taken it home with them...
Thanks - I do have the technical manual for the 8086/8087 CPU board,
the DISK1A (FDC) and the Interfacer 4 (I/O) - I could use information
on the RAM16, Selector Channel and DISK2 - the latter two are for the
HD system which I have pulled at the moment. Info on the RAM16 would
be especially useful.
If you happen to have a listing for the 8086 boot, that would be REALLY
helpful.
>> The odd thing is that if you put a disk (any disk) in the drive, it immediately stops
>> selecting it - it's as if getting the index pulses from the disk prevents the FDC from
>> proceeding ...
>
>If you're seeing different behaviour occasionally, then this can't be
>it, but I remember our machine did something very similar to this if the
>drive cabling was back to front; the drive LED would pulse but then as
>soon as a disk was put in it'd do nothing.
What do you mean by "back to front" - do you mean the connector reversed?
When I first connected the drives, I put the connector on backwards, which
resulted on both drives coming ON permanently (grounded selects).
>> Sometimes, usually after taking a board out to check something, it will actually try
>> and boot from the disk - If you put Disk-2 of the Compupro CP/M 86 distribution in the
>> drive, you can hear it boot, it seeks a bit and obviously reads a track or two - after
>> the first seek, you can see the RTS+DTR lights come on on all three serial ports, which
>> suggests that it has come up enough to init the serial ports ... but I do not get any
>> output on any of the three ports.
>
>Are the disks known to be good? It does sound like a faulty connection
>though - does moving the boards around to different slots make any
>difference?
I'm pretty sure the disks are go - I've tried most of the slots, as well
as cleaning the sockets and connectors, as well as reseating and cleaning
up any socketed IC's that look at all suspect.
When I first put the system together, it would try to boot fairly consistantly,
but while trying to figure out why the console was not working, I had several
boards in and out, and all of a sudden it stopped accessing the drive when there
is a disk inserted (but still showing the correct attempted accesses when the
disk is out). I thought for a while that I had fried something, but later, after
a bit more shuffling, it began working again ... but 90+% of the time it does
not select the drive if a diskette is is inserted.
Time to pull out the extender cards and scope.
If any one has any ideas as to what would cause this: The system selects the
drive at approx. 1 second intervals when attempting to boot with no disk
inserted (this is exactly as described in the docs), but never loads the head
and stops selecting the drive for as long as any diskette is inserted.
Please let me know - I really can't think of a possible cause which makes it
tough to figure out where to start!
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
Hi Guys,
I've got a Compupro 8086 based S-100 system which has been on the "to do list" for
a while, and yesterday I finally got the CPU reference manual which was the missing
piece ...
I've "almost" got it working, according to the docs, it should flash the drive select
light about once/second with no disk in the drive, as it tries to read --- this it
does.
The odd thing is that if you put a disk (any disk) in the drive, it immediately stops
selecting it - it's as if getting the index pulses from the disk prevents the FDC from
proceeding ...
Sometimes, usually after taking a board out to check something, it will actually try
and boot from the disk - If you put Disk-2 of the Compupro CP/M 86 distribution in the
drive, you can hear it boot, it seeks a bit and obviously reads a track or two - after
the first seek, you can see the RTS+DTR lights come on on all three serial ports, which
suggests that it has come up enough to init the serial ports ... but I do not get any
output on any of the three ports. I have the FDC configured to use User port 7 of the
Interfacer-4 which is how it is configured (standard Compupro setup). (anyone familier
with Compupro have any experience with this?)
But my main problem, is that most of the time, putting a disk in causes the FDC to stop
selecting the drive - it resumes selecting once the disk is removed, however it does not
access the drive while the disk is in - since this is a 765 based controller, you can see
the background polling as a dim glow of the select led.
Anyone have any ideas what would make an FDC behave like this? Since it does get further
infrequently, I believe it is not a component failure ... most likely a dirty socket or
connection - but for the life of me I cannot figure out what would make an FDC stop trying
to access a disk only when it is getting index pulses.
Btw, I have checked the drives on another machine and they appear to work fine.
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
All:
Does anyone have a Mac Iifx ROM image that they can send me? I have
a IIci image for Basilisk II from my machine but I wanted to play with the
fx version too while I'm on travel. I only thought of this now, so I won't
be able to buy an fx on eBay to get the ROMs in time for this trip.
Please contact me off-list. Thanks.
Rich
Rich Cini
Collector of classic computers
Build Master for the Altair32 Emulation Project
Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/
/************************************************************/
Hi,
Does anyone have direct experience replacing the eproms in a M7554-PB?
The top layer says "CPU KDJ11-D". It's s-box and is labeled M7554-PB.
The eproms are 27C256's. I want to replace them with 23-261E5 and
23-262E5 images (16k, or 27C128) to turn the board into (hopefully) a
PDP-11/53.
I managed to erase two 27C128's and burn them this morning but I discovered
that the instructions I found on the web
http://users.safeaccess.com/engdahl/KDJ11.htm
don't match my board (very nice instructions, none the less - thanks!)
I may just try it and see what happens, or reprogram the 27C256's with
the image doubled, just for fun.
-brad
Hi; I've got a working SGI Octane, 250 mhz (I think) with 256MB ram (I
think), and a 4GB hard disk. I got it as a gift from a friend, and
its a nice addition to my SGI collection (SGI Indy and an Indygo that
I actually used during my undergrad years at Florida International
University).
However, the one I really want is an SGI O2. Would there be anyone in
the South Florida area (I'm in Miami and willing to drive) that would
be willing to trade a working Octane for a working O2? I'll ship if
you're interested but you'd have to put up for the shipping cost of
the Octane (heavy 25kg computer).
Kind regards,
Louis
PS: I did the LED lightbar hack so it glows a cool amber when on.I
have additional light bars if you want to use the original lamps or
prefer a different color. More details here
http://www.k-huhn.com/octane_mod/
--
Louis Florit
AIM: lflorit MSN:louis_florit at hotmail.com Y!: indygolunaria
I read this in the Globe* tabloid tonight whilst standing in line at the
grocery store, so take this with a dash of pepper and some cumin perhaps,
but the story is that Charles Simonyi of Xerox PARC and Microsoft fame is
supposedly marrying Martha Stewart**. I've met Mr. Simonyi and, if true,
I can say she couldn't have picked a nicer guy ;)
* a tabloid in the US is generally considered a gossip rag
** for those who may not know, Martha Stewart is the reigning media queen
of home decorating and crap like that.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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>From: "Dave Dunfield" <dave04a at dunfield.com>
>bytes on track" values which are quite different - within a few 100 bytes, but
>you can make them all come out much closer by adjusting the gap length.
Hi Dave
You have to remember that 100 bytes are easily within
the variation in speeds of the drives. As was mentioned,
the gaps between the sector headers and the data need
to be long enough to take up the relock time of the pll's.
The gaps between sectors need to take up this time, along
with the worst case speed difference on different drives.
The last gap is just filled to the index. It also needs to
be big enough to take up any speed differences.
When I did a format for my NC4000 board, it seems
like I got most of my information from looking at the
format code on my PC. I did worst case calculations for
the gaps between sectors and used the same values for
the gaps between sector headers and data as the PC used.
These were relatively fixed for the different densities.
Dwight
Sometime back, a company offered simulaton SW for the ET-3400 at this site : http://www.pilgrimworks.com/trainer.htm. It has been discontinued.
I would like to find a copy of the program and docs. If anyone has a copy that they would part with or copy, please respond. TIA
Don't know if anyone else pursued it....
I emailed the guy and received about 6 very nice pictures of the TI990, disk
drives, and peripherals he has.
In a word, it's simply a gorgeous system. Looks to be mint condition. One
six foot rack with the TI990 cpu and programmers front panel, and four
"dishwasher style" disk drive units with media. The terminals are TI as well
and perfectly retro. Even the racks are original TI racks.
All said, a very very nice machine. However, he seemed a little too key to
inform me that he knew the system cost $250,000.00 USD years ago. My
suspicion is he thinks he can get at least 100K for it ;) Not to mention, I
believe the system is located in the middle east but I'm waiting on
confirmation from him on that. I wont be actively trying to obtain this
system, just felt like asking about it :>
Jay West
