Received a post from a fellow in New York with a machine to give away.
> I have access to an Apollo Domain series 3000 machine, actually was
> told to throw it out, and googled the make and model, just for fun.
If you are interested email me and I'll forward the replies.
Tony and others -
The head load pad looks visually fine. The head load spring tension
appears pretty normal , and the solenoid pulls in nicely.
The drive consistently reads the first 10 or so tracks, then tosses
various number of errors as it goes further out.
I've cleaned the head, and cleaned/lubed the spindle. The track 0
sensor appears fine.
It is indeed possible that the alignment is off - that would probably
explain the poor performance as it steps out.
I guess a worn out head would have the same symptoms.
I the 70's I had a neat Dysan digital alignment disk that I used to
realign a few SA901 and SA801 drives.
Unfortunately I no longer have it. I suppose I could mark the position
of the stepper and slightly rotate it in each direction to see if it
improves things.
If someone can point me to an actual alignment procedure I'm game - I
have reasonable scopes etc here.
I'm not anxious to replace the entire drive, but I would love to get
this up and running!
Any help/suggestions greatly appreciated.
- Gary
Other faults that I've had were a mis-aligned track 0 sensor (causing it
to step out beyond the outermost formatted track on the disk), and a
low-tension head load pad spring. In the latter case, taking the thing a
aper and bending the torsion spring by hand got it going again. The only
problem was reassembling it, I found it necessary to make a dummy pin to
hold the spring inside the load arm that was then pushed out when the
real pin was inserted through the head mouting.
In any case, before replacing something as large as a drive unit, I'd
want to know which of the various parts was the problem. Do you know, for
example, that the head load solenoid works and pulls in correctly? That
you can get a signal from the track 0 sensor? That the spindle is
turning? and so on...
-tony
Hi - I have an opportunity to pick up a large collection of vintage
computers located in Oregon. I have been told that one would need a truck
to get it all in one shot. If there is anyone who lives in or near the
"541" area code and is interested in helping, contact me directly and I can
give you the details.
Thanks.
Bill Degnan
Hi,
I've decided after many years of accumulating PDP-11s that the time has
come to restore a few of them to operational condition. I've decided to
start with some QBUS machines as they give me the best chance of a warm
fuzzy feeling of success.
The first thing I've decided to do was to retrieve all of my RD series
harddisks and establish which ones are still operational. I've initially
started with 4 RD53s and 4 RD54s which I've connected upto an 11/73 and
used XXDP to format.
All RD54s have formatted perfectly, confirming their reputation for
reliability. However none of the RD53s would format, which I guess also
backs up their reputation. I had hoped at least a few of the RD53s would
have still been usable (I have about 6 more I've not tested yet).
Does anyone have a RD53 still in working condition? Is there any point in
keeping the duff drives or should I consign them to the skip?
Toby
--
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I was wondering if there's anyone else out there interested in someday
building a Magic-1 and/or D16 homebrewed CPU computers. If so, I'd like
to organize a group buy for some of the harder to source parts.
Specifically, the 74F382 and probably 74F381. My favorite chip broker has
a $50 minimum order.
--
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
I received this request recently by email:
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I have and I'm tired of storing an old S-100 box, probably home-made in a
formed and machined aluminum enclosure. The whole thing is a tank of
impressive proportions and weight. I saved it from the trash years ago, as
S-100 systems were common when I first started using computers (Osborne 1
era).
Originally, it had 2 8" floppy drives. One of the drives is missing,
although I have the door for it.
Inside, there's a CPU/IO card, a 64 K DRAM card, an analog data acquisition
card, and I don't remember what else. One of the cards says MicroByte. The
front panel had a key switch, which is still there, but pulled back from the
panel.
I have no idea if this works, but at least the major parts appear to be on
hand.
Are you interested in this beast? Do you want pictures? I don't want any
money other than the cost of getting it into better hands. I'm in Eugene,
Oregon, by the way.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Too far/heavy/big for me to get it shipped here, however if there is someone
on the list who would like to give it a home, please contact me and I'll connect
the two of you.
Regards.
Dave
--
dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com Collector of vintage computing equipment:
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html
moochiss grassyass amigos
__________________________________________________
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I have an RD54 with a working RSTS system (V10.?) on it.
The RD54 was installed in the microPDP-11/93 that I had.
I have a microPDP-11/53 with RQDX3 and got a few days ago
an Emulex UC07 QBUS SCSI interface with a 1 Gb SCSI disk.
Before I mess up the RSTS (because I don't know anything
about RSTS yet), I would like to make a copy (dump?) of
the complete RD54 to the SCSI disk, so I can restore the
whole RD54 to an other RD54 if this one dies ... or is
messed up completely by me :-)
I think the following steps are a starter (?):
1) install the UC07 and connect the SCSI disk
2) connect the RD54 to the RQDX3
3) start the system till the RSTS "Option" prompt
Then what?
First, I need to know the device names. Is there some
command like RT-11 ".SH DEV" available in RSTS?
Then I probably need to initialise the SCSI disk?
Then I need some sort of command to get *everything*
>from the RD54 to the SCSI disk ...
Any help is appreciated!
TIA,
- Henk, PA8PDP
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