--- On Thu 08/04, Joe R. < rigdonj at cfl.rr.com > wrote:
From: Joe R. [mailto: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com]
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2005 21:39:32
Subject: Re: Disk drive parts
At 12:27 AM 8/5/05 +0100, you wrote:<br>>> The RK05 uses a DEC backplane<br>>> >block internally, with genuine Unibus cables (RK11D) or a DEC-style<br>>> >paddle connector and 40-pin ribbon cables (RKV11D, RK8E). <br>>> >_Electrically_ the Diablo 30 should be the same as a real RK05, but<br>>> >mechanically, the cables are entirely different.<br>>> <br>>> Yeah that was an unplesant surprise! <br>><br>>Althoguh if you get a real Diablo cable, it has the connector mounted on <br>>a little PCB, with a trasnistion connector and then a length of ribbon <br>>cable on that. If you take off one end, the wires are in almost the right <br>>ordser to solder to a DEC 'unibus' cable board to link to the RK11-C or <br>>whatever. I wonder why :-)<br>><br>>> <br>>> BTW I found out that the d30 uses an external power supply. Does anyone<br>>> have the specs or pinout for it or even an extra PSU?<br>><br>>I thought the manuals were on bitsavers. The PSU pinout should be in
<br>>there.<br><br> Yes, the manuals are on Bit-savers but IIRC they don't recall them<br>giving any details about the PSU.<br><br> There were 2 PSUs from Diablo, one using a transsitorised <br>>regulator, the other using a ferroresonant trasnformer. DEC also made <br>>their own PSU (H734 or something) for these drives.<br><br> Can you check and make sure that that's the correct PN? If it is, I'll<br>go hunt for one. There are piles of DEC PSUs in Melbourne.<br><br><br><br>>> <br>>> ><br>>> >The drive chain also needs to be terminated. In the case of an RK05,<br>>> >it's an M930 Unibus terminator in the last drive. Not sure about a<br>>> >Diablo 30, unless you hang a real M930 off of one of those cable<br>><br>>The Diablo terminator is a PCB stuffed with resistors soldered to the <br>>connector. There's a +5V pin on the connector to power the terminator, of <br>>course. I have _one_ of them, I also have 2 drives and the <br>>interconnecting cables, so it's not up for
grabs.<br><br> Do you have schematics for any of those?<br><br> Joe<br><br>><br>>-tony<br>><br>><br><br>
I don't know if this will be helpful or not, but offer it anyway.
I have a pdp-8i with two RK8 drive (really RK03s). The power supply
is a Pertec unit (at least the manual I have for it says Pertec).
It's labelled Model 9000. If desires I could try to get copies of
specific pages for you.
Tim Radde
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Paul
Hi long time ago in DEC I had a friend who was the RSTE product manager
left sometime in 80's and works for Bally's
Gaming Systems can't recall his name but he authored RSTE and I am sure
his first name was Dave but he was on of the original
RSTE engineers in DEC
Have any history on or source code for RSTE laying around a we used to
add our names to the code we wrote
Thanks
Ex DECie 1979-1999
Pat McMichael
Account Manager
Avnet Enterprise Solutions
5114 Brandywine Drive
Eagleville PA 19403
email: patrick.mcmichael at avnet.com
phone: (610) 203-9829
fax: (480) 794-9765
www.es.avnet.com
Cisco IP Communications Partner of the Year - 2004
<<Pat McMichael (patrick.mcmichael at avnet.com).vcf>>
>
>Subject: Re: Grrr - !%#*^@# Kaypro!
> From: Dave Dunfield <dave04a at dunfield.com>
> Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2005 22:58:25 -0400
> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>
>>>> ???! The value for R must be a valid sector number. For floppies
>>>> that is never zero.
>>>There are a lot of floppies with sector numbers starting with 0.
>>>765 can read them and write them.
>>
>>Maybe... there are caveats on that. Technically a sector number of 0
>>should not be used.
>>
>>Did a lot of work at "NEC" (US arm then was NEC Micromputers USA, then later
>>NEC Electronics USA.) in the early years when they were developing and
>>marketing that and a HDC. I was on the hardware/technical side.
>
>When I designed the 765 based disk system in my D6809/CUBIX system, I "didn't
>know better" and numbered the sectors within a track from zero - this would
>have been early to mid 80's.
>
>Never changed it, as it has never caused a problem - versions of this system
>were built with both NEC and Intel (8272) controllers, and used for many years.
>
>ImageDisk reads and recreates CUBIX disks with no problems.
>
>I cannot find any information in the NEC data sheet which describes any
>restriction on the sector number (other than that it is one byte) - can you
>provide a reference to these caveats? this is the first I've heard of them.
Yes, NEC never guarenteed that it would work or continue to work. There were
a few chips used in PCs (Not fully 765 compatable) that were questionable
around this.
I also tried it and found it worked. However IBM 3740 and later Floppy specs
had reasons for not using 0th sector. As they say by spec it's wrong
otherwise it works.
Allison
Does anyone have a copy of the NRI 832 documentation?
It was sold as part of a correspondence course, and
was presumably quite well documented by the course
materials.
--Bill
At 21:13 02/08/2005 -0500, you wrote:
>On 8/2/05, Dave Dunfield <dave04a at dunfield.com> wrote:
>> I've posted the latest version of ImageDisk and some 8" images that
>> I have archived with it on my classic collection page:
>>
>> http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html
>>
>> Look under "Disks/Software images" near the bottom of the page.
>
>Nice. Any chance you have some RX01 disks to try? They are SSSD,
>unlike the hybrid-density RX02 format. I have a Tandon TM848 in a
>Dataram Qbus chassis that would look great attached to a PC. I only
>have a couple of S100 boxes, and CP/M isn't really my thing, but I
>have lots of RX01-based machines (and disks I could archive).
Sorry, I don't have any DEC 8" material to try. The only DEC disks I
have are VT-180 and Rainbow (RX50) - both of which backup and restore
with no problems - but they are 5.25" format - almost but not quite
completely unlike what you are asking about.
I've done most of the 8" system masters that I have here, and so far I
have not encountered an 8" disk that I can't read or recreate - this
includes a number of mixed FM/MFM disks. I'm using a QUME QUMETRAK 242
attached with the adapter cable described in my help screens.
As long as the format can be read and written by the PC controller (which
does have some limitations), it should (may) work - please let me know.
One weakness - the program currently cannot handle disks which have different
sector sizes within the same track ... so far I have encountered only one disk
type which *MAY* do this, BMC if800 - TeleDisk reports that the sector size
changes within the track ... however I have never been able to get TeleDisk to
restore a workable disk, so I am not convinced that it handles it either - it
also reports sectors missing and "no data" in sectors, as well as really odd
sector numbers - I have a feeling that it is an incompatible format and it is
getting "garbage". Still, it's an option I could provide if there proves to be
a need.
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
I have a Diablo 30 and I need cables for it. I've been told that it
can
be used with the PDP-8 but I need to find out which interface it
requires.
--
2.5 mb Diablos are RK02's. You'll find the adapter schematic in the
RK11-C
engineering drawings. It has a Winchester brand connector on one side
and
a Unibus paddle on the other. Either a Diablo or DEC Unibus terminator
in
one of the adapters can be used for termination.
The difficult cable to find will be the one from the RK8E to the drive
DEC PN in the RK8E drawing set.
>The IDE interface is very simple (the IDE card in this computer is about
>10 TTL chips and a PAL). It should be possible to link an IDE drive to
>just about any old computer, as the drive (AFAIK) includes a data buffer
>RAM, it shouldn't matter if the host can't keep up with the data rate.
>
>I will admit I've not tried it, though.
A couple of years back I implemented an MP3 player using an AVR and IDE
interface - I controlled the IDE through simple parallel ports. The design
didn't even have enough memory to buffer a sector, so it took advantage
of the drive buffer, reading the data directly from the drive's buffer as
it needed it. Writing (which it could do in download mode) was a bit more
interesting...
IIRC the drive was quite easy to talk to.
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
>Read diagnostic command will read sectors with bad CRC or other problems.
>That may help with unreadable sectors.
>
>Keep cranking, you have a very useful tool there.
>
>Allison
Hi Allison,
Humm... the NEC databook that I have makes no mention of a "READ DIAGNSTIC" command
is this an undocumented feature or later version enhancement? If I can read "bad sectors",
even with errors, I can add another Sector Data Block flag byte value which means "data
but with errors".
Can you give me details or point me at a reference which documents this and any other
features not in the NEC data sheet?
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
Gee, I looked at the picture and there isn't anything to indicate it's an Apple I, it looks like several homebuilt keyboards I've got sitting around the graveyard. (Keytronics perhaps?) Unless the seller sent out pictures of the guts to select people, how would they know what was in the box (it was described as boards, I thought the Apple I just had one PCB and no expansion cards).
Or was there some mass hysteria going on here?
Gary Fisher
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ORIGINAL MESSAGE BELOW:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]
>On Behalf Of William Maddox
>Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2005 1:15 AM
>To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
>Subject: RE: Kenbak-1 on Ebay
>
>--- 'Computer Collector Newsletter'
><news at computercollector.com> wrote:
>
>> Instead, BM meant our friend Dennis Komisky again.
>> Dennis, please, check in
>> with us here on cctalk!!
>
>No, no, no! Not Dennis. This was "collectrhc".
>Here's the ersataz "Apple-1" auction I was referring to:
>
>http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=80286&item=5213140640
>
>--Bill
Hi chris.
Did you get any manual for the printer server j2382. ?
I have 2 unit and can't get them to recive a ip in the bootp procedure at
start up.
Mybe I have to bye some new one. :-(
Allan
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