test-drb January 2006

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

240 participants
511 discussions

by henk.gooijen＠oce.com

> No, it's not 'just like the RL01'. The RL's have embedded > servo bursts -- tht is there are servo signals in the sector > header regions of each data surface. The same head reads the > servo signals and the data. Correct again Tony :-) My mistake. > The RK07 has a seperate servo surface. There are 4 surfaces > (2 platters) in the pack. One surface and its head is just > servo signals. The other 3 surfaces are just user data (and > sector headers, etc). That's what I've read too. Just a stupid mistake to compare the RK07 with the RL02. > Ah, right.... Remember I am a hardware person and deal with > gates and op-amps :-) Yep, I know! > OK. It sounds like your drive is basically working. What I'd > do at this point is look at the prints to see what should > drive the ready lamp. And then check back from the output > stage until you can find out why it's not being turned on. I > can dig out my prints and take a look too. That's exactly what I intend to do :-) but I will first have a look on the behaviour of the other two drives, while I'm at it. thanks, - Henk. This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation.

18 years, 11 months

MASM 6.1 vs 6.11

by mbbrutman-cctalk＠brutman.com

I've been on a little purchasing kick lately and I finally have MS MASM 6.1 with paper docs. I'd like to know what was fixed between 6.1 and the later versions, such as 6.11 and 6.14. Can any of you who have those later versions send me the 'readme' or scan any paper sheets that might have described the differences? When I grow up, I'm going to create BIOS ROM extensions for ancient hardware ... Thanks, Mike

18 years, 11 months

M4 9914 tape loading questions

by jfoust＠threedee.com

I'm tinkering with the first of the three 9-track units I acquired recently. This is the M4 9914, a seemingly very nice unit in that it was clean, powers up and acts from the front panel buttons, and that it handles 800 BPI as well as 1600 and 6250. Mind you, I'm old enough to still have a stack of tapes that I used in college in the early 80s, but I'm not old enough to have worked behind the counter with the big VAXes and UNIVAC. I might've written a tape or two in person under PDP Unix, but I probably did it under the watchful eyes of someone more experienced. The first time I tried to load a tape, the vacuum fed the tape correctly back to the takeup reel but it was not picked up on the reel. The notched leader on the tape is in good shape, but it did not engage. I unscrewed the top of the takeup reel and was puzzled. I expected to see a mechanism to hook the leader (as you see inside a DLT, for example.) The takeup reel hub is smooth. It does have openings on the lower half, and the hub is certainly part of the vacuum path. Is vacuum alone supposed to grab the tape and hold it to the takeup reel? Most other times I loaded a tape, the tape didn't move smoothly back to the take reel. It bunched up after hitting obstacles along the path. I do not yet have the user or service manuals for the M4 9914. I did find several manuals for similar units (HP 88780) on Bitsavers. I googled quite a bit to find the definitive 9-track history and preservation site but I haven't found it yet... - John

18 years, 11 months

Ebay Northstar Horizon

by marvin＠rain.org

I was just checking out some stuff on ebay (hanging my head) and ran across a Northstar Horizon that sold for $551.00. In it, the (fiction?) writer says: "Originally, the cases were wooden, but the company soon switched to a blue metal cover. Hence, those computers with original wooden cases are more highly sought after than those with the more common metal cases." Also: "The only known computer to be sold in a wooden case, this collector's item features its original, walnut-stained wooden case." Looks like some just plain wrong information, but ... 1) Were there more metal case Horizons sold than wooden case and did they "soon" switch to a metal case? 2) What other computers were sold in a "wooden case"? The Sol-20 comes instantly to mind as well as the Polymorphic 8010 and 8013 series of computers. How many others were there?

18 years, 11 months

Ebay Northstar Horizon

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Marvin Johnston" <marvin at rain.org> > > >I was just checking out some stuff on ebay (hanging my head) and ran >across a Northstar Horizon that sold for $551.00. In it, the (fiction?) >writer says: > >"Originally, the cases were wooden, but the company soon switched to a >blue metal cover. Hence, those computers with original wooden cases are >more highly sought after than those with the more common metal cases." Hi I suspect that there were more metal case unit sold. Most of these were used in rack mounted applications and were crunched up when the machines they were in were destroyed. I don't think that the RFI was an issue when N* was making the wooden cased units. I think that came on later. The wooden cases were just to make desk units look pretty. I believe they sold both the metal cased and wooden cased units at the same time. Dwight > >Also: > >"The only known computer to be sold in a wooden case, this collector's >item features its original, walnut-stained wooden case." > >Looks like some just plain wrong information, but ... > >1) Were there more metal case Horizons sold than wooden case and did >they "soon" switch to a metal case? > >2) What other computers were sold in a "wooden case"? The Sol-20 comes >instantly to mind as well as the Polymorphic 8010 and 8013 series of >computers. How many others were there?

18 years, 11 months

Panasonic HHC (Moto 68764) chips & carriers

by zmerch＠30below.com

Just in case anyone was wondering what the Panasonic HHC chips w/ carriers (Motorol a 68764 / 68766 EPROMS) looked like, I took a few pictures this morning and put 'em in a subdirectory on the web. I tried to get you as many angles & whatnot as I can, and my camera's a "lo-end pro" 6MP (Nikon D70) but with no macro lens, I had to crop the pix some. If you need more detail, lemme know and I can take more pix tonite. The cropped .jpgs are around 500K each. The resolution is around 2000x700 pixels or so. http://www.30below.com/~zmerch/classics/chips/ These chips are indicative of what I have "straight outta da bag" - they'll need to be cleaned (some still have labels) before being erased but if I see any physical defects I throw 'em away. Anywho, as always, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask! Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Bugs of a feather flock together." sysadmin, Iceberg Computers | Russell Nelson zmerch at 30below.com |

18 years, 11 months

Color keytops

by jack.rubin＠ameritech.net

Gene, Check out www.arkayengravers.com/ Jack ************************************ Message: 9 Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 17:59:38 -0800 (PST) From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> Subject: Re: Color keytops... To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20060117175830.Q22969 at shell.lmi.net> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 17 Jan 2006, Gene Buckle wrote: > Is there any place to purchase colored keytops for a Model M keyboard? > I recall seeing in the distant past colored keytops for the ALT, > SHIFT, CTRL, etc. keys. Google hasn't been much help either. tnx! There used to be third party ones specifically for use with Word-Pervert; try including WordPerfect in your searches

18 years, 11 months

looking for RX01 device IOTs for the PDP8/e

by Bob.Adamson＠sli-institute.ac.uk

Hmmm! - did you think that you'd find an RX01 in a 1970 data book? Bob tpeters at mixcom.com wrote: > I have the PDP-8e Intro to Programming (1970). I'm not exactly sure what > you're looking for. If you think it's in there, I'd be happy to look for > you. However, all I see here are IOTs for TU58, drum disks, scopes, > recording voltmeters, TTY's, and etc. Nothing that explicitly says RX01. > > At 10:55 AM 1/13/2006 +0100, you wrote: >> Great! Thanks Vince. >> IIRC, I have also gotten the IOTs for the RF08 from Dough's >> site, (and the 'tricky' ones like GTF and RTF), but somehow >> I did not see this RX01 page! >> I have printed those pages already to study them! >> >> - Henk, PA8PDP.

18 years, 11 months

Sort of OT; new eBay phish

by doc＠mdrconsult.com

A quick warning because I know a lot of y'all deal extensively on eBay, and I obviously hadn't seen this one before. I just got a phished "My Messages" eBay email from "a potential buyer". It purported to be a question about a listed item, and the links to the listing took me to a fake login page. It's very slick, I wasn't paying attention and I fell for it. What's really ugly is that the phishing site actually *does* bounce you into your own account and log you in. And hell yes I just changed my password. And my Paypal password. Doc

18 years, 11 months

RK07 questions

by henk.gooijen＠oce.com

I will first describe the results that I saw with looking at the LEDs on the boards in the small rack inside the RK07 drive. A small LED on the outer board (M9016) is always ON. In the stand-by condition the UNLD HDS LED is ON. When I load a pack, and push the LOAD button, the LEDs SPEED OK and BRUSH go ON after approx 15 seconds. A number of seconds later the LEDs BRUSH and UNLD HDS go OFF. At that same time the LEDs LD HDS en FWD go ON and the heads move toward the centre of the spindle. When the head has reached that position, the LEDs LD HDS and FWD go OFF, and RTZ and REV go ON. The head moves back, and when the heads are on "track 0" (this is an assumption) those two LEDs go OFF too. Only the SPEED OK LED is still ON. --- I will have to boot RT11 to tell the error message. AFAIK, you can not format the pack, only do an INIT. I did not check the cable to the controller and to the next drive, but I am pretty sure they are in the port A connections. As the second drive is OFF (and has the terminator), and the controller is OFF, I guess that this does not interfere with the load sequence getting to the READY lamp ON state. I can see the motor that drives the spindle runs, and the belt is OK. It must be driving the platters, otherwise I think the SPEED OK LED would not turn ON. Indeed, there are 4 heads. The wires from one is clearly connected to a different board, so that must be the servo data. I will do your experiment, Tony. And no, I will not blame you if the heads crash :-) Good to hear that no FAULT light ON is OK. I can also try the second drive this weekend, but I must remove the brushes from that drive first. I have a third drive (!) but then I must move stuff around to get to it ... thanks, - Henk. ________________________________ Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org namens Tony Duell Verzonden: di 17-01-2006 21:46 Aan: cctalk at classiccmp.org Onderwerp: Re: RK07 questions > > Hi all, > > I am working on the last peripheral device connected to > my 11/34, two RK07s. This will be my first experience > with RK07 drives, so I have a few questions. > > I installed the RK611 in the system (in an expansion box) > and made sure that the UNIBUS is OK. The 11/34 starts, and > I can boot RT11 from DL0:. ".SH DEV" shows that the DM.SYS > driver is installed. However, after loading a pack the RT11 > commands ".DIR DM0:" or ".INIT DM0:" report an error. What error do you get. IIRC the RK07 pack can be formatted (this does a low-level format of the data surfaces). You need to do that before INITing in most cases. > I must say that the READY light did not turn ON on the drive. > I switched the 11/34 OFF, because I think I need to take a > closer look at the RK07 drive itself first. > Here is what I did and saw. > > I removed the metal cover at the top-rear side. Now you can > see the big magnet and the head assembly. I first checked You can also swing the card cage assembly twards the rear of the drive. Make sure you have the cables connected correnctly (IN and OUT are not the same on these drives -- the controller must connect to an 'IN' connector, the terminator to an OUT connector. Unless you have a dual-ported drive, use the 'A' connectors, make sure you have the interface card in the right slot of the cardcage, and press the 'A' button on the front). On the top of some of the boards are LEDs. The plastic cover over the boards identifies them. What do they do at spin-up? > the "emergency retract" mechanism. When you push down the > lever that locks the heads, and gently push the head assembly > forward toward the cartridge compartment, the heads are pulled > back as soon as the little microswitch is (dis)engaged. OK so the 9.6V NiCd under the chassis is still good. > Then I loaded a pack and pushed the LOAD button. > After some 20 seconds the disk has spun up (I assume), because > the heads start to move. You should hear the spindle motor start running. Mind you, if it wasn't, you'd get some very nasty noises when the heads moved. > The heads first move at a moderate speed toward the centre of > the cartridge (I would say a full travel), stop, and then move > back at that same speed, but not completely to the home position. I think that is correct. The heads do a full seek to the inner guard band, then return to cylinder 0. > Again, I *assume* that the heads detected track 0 and stay there. > However, the READY lamp does not go ON. It could not, because > the lamp was defective :-) After replacing the lamp with a > checked-good lamp, I repeated the exercise. The heads show the > same movement, but the READY light stays OFF. > > 1. Is that head movement behaviour correct? I think so. > I will try to make a movie of the movement this weekend ... > 2. What would the head movement be if the pack was bulk-erased? I would think they'd go towards the spindle and then return to the unloaded position as the drive wouldn't find any servo information at all. I've not tried this, so don't blame me if the heads run into the spindle or something horrible, but you could unplug the servo head from the servo preamplifer and try again. With no servo signals at all, you'd be simulating a bulk-erased pack. Look for a change in behaviour. IIRC there are 4 heads in the RK07. All 4 head cables plug into the read/write board, but one of them has another connector coming from it. That's the servo head. The 'connector' on that head on the R/W board is just to anchor the cable, it's the end-of-cable connector that plugs into the servo preamplifier that you might disocnnect. > 3. Should the READY lamp go ON? I think so, but it's been a long time. > > An other thing I noticed. > As the 11/34 is OFF, there is no controller connected to the > RK07 drive. OK, it is, but not powered. > With the RL drives the FAULT lamp will be ON if the controller > is not powered. Is this the same for the RK07? No, an RK07 will spin up and load the heads without a controller. No FAULT lamp. -tony This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation.

18 years, 11 months

← Newer
1
...
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
...
52
Older →

Jump to page:

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

test-drb January 2006