test-drb March 2007

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

239 participants
488 discussions

Using DECmateI RX02 drives in the pedestal

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 3/13/07, Francesca Smith <fsmith at ladylinux.com> wrote: > The funny thing is that I have RX02's here. But they are part of > a semi mint Decmate I have. I really did not want to pull them out to do this > work rather leaving them in the cart as they are. You don't have to pull the drives - the DB25 connector on the back of your pedestal is a DEC-standard way of externally cabling RX02s - it was done the same way with the table-top RX02 shell for the MINC-11. If you get your 11/73 together, you could aquire or make a cable to go >from the RXV21 to a DB25, then use a DB25-to-DB25 cable from the 11/73 to the back of your DECmate pedestal. No removal required. > And RX02's drove me nuts > when they were new. I always prefered the DSD440's and Shugart drives. Can't help you there. I've used DSD drives, Heathkit drives, and, on a Dataram PDP-11 clone, a Shugart drive with a 3rd-party controller that emulated the RXV21 at the register level (no bizarre drivers, at least). I don't have anything really bad to say about the RX02s except they are somewhat physically large compared to other offerings. > Same thing goes for the Rainbows I have. I really am loathe to pull out the RX > drives in them either. You don't have to. > I suppose that I could archive the RX50 stuff using the Rainbows. ?? You could, but then you need a way to get the files off the Rainbows. We've been discussing RX50s recently here - with the right PC-compatible drive, you can just read RX50 media in a modernish box (one old enough have proper floppy support, so, _in general_, something with a Pentium-I or older is probably a safe bet, but the only way to know for certain is to know the capabilities of your hardware and most likely to run a few quick tests) Personally, I maintain an older box with a 5.25" floppy that reads and writes RX50s just fine. Haven't had occasion to fire it up lately, so I should probably do that to see if the heads have glued down to the platters or if the CMOS battery as died. It's an old 486DX2/66 VLB box - too old to run a modern OS, but powerful enough to run an OS capable of capturing diskette images and squirting them over an Ethernet card to something "modern" for burning and archiving. You can use a Rainbow if you want, but that way would seem to me to be adding difficulty to the task without a corresponding payback, especially given how sloppy the tolerances are with real RX50 drives. -ethan

18 years, 1 month

cctalk Digest, Vol 43, Issue 31

by fsmith＠ladylinux.com

On Tuesday 13 March 2007 12:26:16 am cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: Dwight wrote .. > Although, I'm not the one to help you read your disk, there > are others here that are setup to handle DEC media. > I thought I'd write to ask why you were looking for a SA900 > disk drive? Most applications use SA800/801's. Not being a > DEC person, I'd not know about DEC applications. > Still, a SA800 can be wired to look like a SA900. It is just > a different connector. > I have a machine that does use SA900's and I've been watching > for one for some time. Ahh well I was trying to get two of the 851's that were up at the Vintage Computer Market recently. The rest of my E-bay Thrashing has been of the same variety and knowing I can hack them up to do my archiving. I really messed up a year ago and did not buy two perfectly working DSD440's when I could had them cheap. The funny thing is that I have RX02's here. But they are part of a semi mint Decmate I have. I really did not want to pull them out to do this work rather leaving them in the cart as they are. And RX02's drove me nuts when they were new. I always prefered the DSD440's and Shugart drives. Same thing goes for the Rainbows I have. I really am loathe to pull out the RX drives in them either. I suppose that I could archive the RX50 stuff using the Rainbows. ?? Thats another thing I have a pile of stuff for .. Rainbows since I have a weird affinity for them. Maybe its unlike my 11/70 or 11/45 wanting .. They don't take up 1/2 a basement. :-) I am rambling. Sorry for the "Winded" posts. -- Kindest Regards, Francesca Smith "No Problems Only Solutions" Lady Linux Internet Services Baltimore, Maryland 21217

18 years, 1 month

PDP-11/40 videos

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

>> I have loaded MPEG-4 videos to my site. I have also added a "Videos" >> link on the left-hand nav. >So, since MP4 isn't a valid standard file association, any chance you could >make those files .mpg or .mpeg ? > >Jay Jay, I've added .mpg versions. They are quite a bit larger than the mp4 files. Ashley

18 years, 1 month

Reconstructing Fastback Plus Backups from floppies

by GaryDFisher＠shaw.ca

Hi everybody, I haven't posted for a long while but I have a nasty little problem to submit to you. I recently got a bunch of diskettes that I believe contain Fastback Plus archives as they are called (for example) 881123_B.005 which I believe to be the fifth disk of a backup on drive B taken Nov 23, 1988. I poked around in the files and the last disk has directories of the original drive backed up and there is a \FASTBACK subdirectory with the FB.exe of Feb 4, 1988 so I think it is version 2.xx I do have a Fastback Plus version 2.11 and for the life of me I can't find a way of reconstructing the catalog for those disks. It keeps looking for a .FUL file for the catalog. Unlike MSBACKUP of DOS 6.22 vintage (and probably before) there doesn't seem to be a re-construct catalog option. Damn, it seems pretty silly that the .FUL file isn't with the diskettes or no way to get the catalog back. Of course the files are mostly compressed but there is enough ASCII to see some of the directories and text. Can anybody give me some sage advice as there seems to be no info that I can get through a pretty exhaustive Google search so far. Thanks, GF This was a message from Gary Fisher GaryDFisher at shaw.ca

18 years, 1 month

Introduction And Questions About Media Preservation "Mostly Dec Stuff"

by fsmith＠ladylinux.com

Hello, I been lurking here for a while and figure I come out of my shell to say hi and say how much I love reading most all the posts here. Now as to my question/questions and or dilemma. I have a bunch of old media. RK05's , RK06's, RL02's, RL01's , 8 Inch Floppies, RX50 Floppies , 9 track tapes among other things. Now before I run off and do something real stupid (Like damage the media by not properly handling it when archiving off) I figured I ask some advice. I know all about Bitsavers "Al Kassow I am so sorry but I bid up against you a few times and now that I have gotten to know you by lurking here It won't happen again." Bitsavers is a awesome resource and yours and others efforts there are VERY much appreciated and admired from my lil corner of the world. I have some sentimental attachment to some of this media as in its from my "PDP" days of the late 70's and 80's. But most of this stuff I just rescued. Lots of it has actual Dec Labels indicating multiple versions of RT11, RSX11, Older Vms etc. To get this stuff out there for all of you. What should I do ?? Put up a list with my best guess of the contents and see if anyone will help me and all of you out by getting the bits off the platters/media for people for years and years to enjoy ?? Or is this stuff so garden variety that I should just hook up my 11/34 , 11/73 and Microvax and get busy pulling off the bits and bytes before they become star dust or whatever old magnetic bits and bytes go to when they vanish from the media. ?? I don't have everything in place to read off all this stuff yet. I am having a dickens of a time getting someone to send me a BA23 I won on E-Pay so I can put together franken pdp (11/73 from many parts :-)) And I certainly don't have a RK06 laying around and or controller for example. All I ask is that anyone taking any of this media understand that some of it I want back after analysis and in every case if anything valuable turns up that it be posted publically. Sorry for the long winded post. Had a lot to say I been holding back now for months. I won't even touch on my piles of documentation that I need to start scanning in this post. Perhaps in the future :-) -- Kindest Regards, Francesca Smith "No Problems Only Solutions" Lady Linux Internet Services Baltimore, Maryland 21217

18 years, 1 month

ftp archives disappearing?

by aek＠bitsavers.org

>> The web as subsumed all of this, in an inferior fashion, IMHO. > Yeah, but I think of the things I used to easily find with archie and > now I can't find them at all with google even with targetted searches > for specific filenames. Google doesn't spider for filenames, just content. If a list of filenames doesn't show up on a web page, Google won't see it. As an example, I just did a search for "adsMstr_6-76.log" which can be found at http://bitsavers.org/bits/Datapoint/cassetteDumps/ and there were no hits from google, yahoo, altavista, or google code search. It is odd, though that Google doesn't find the page from http://bitsavers.org/bits/Datapoint/cassetteDumps/, so apparently it won't index content that is a directory. It would be interesting to know if there is a search engine that can in fact find a file by name. There are several files I have been searching for that I know the name of, but not where they might exist on the web.

18 years, 1 month

PDP-11/40 videos

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

>> MPEG is good. I don't think anyone will have objections to that. > >MPEG seconded. > I have loaded MPEG-4 videos to my site. I have also added a "Videos" link on the left-hand nav. The sound of the 11/40 fans running is pretty loud on the videos, but you can hear the hardcopy terminals as they are printing. You can see short videos (with sound) of the following: * 11/40 front panel lights blinking while running RSTS/E * SYSTAT on VT05 * SYSTAT on LA120 * SYSTAT on LA36 * SYSTAT on ASR33 * SYSTAT on VT52 I will do some better quality stuff later. These were done yesterday in a hurry while I had my digital camera in my hand. If anyone has anything they would like to see, I will try to handle your requests. Ashley http://www.woffordwitch.com

18 years, 1 month

PDP-11/40 videos

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

>Tom Peters said: >Can't *.MP4 be dropped into Quicktime for playback? Yes, it's not always >associated to QT, but I think it worked on everything I tried. .MP4 files play on my QuickTime player. They also were the smallest files of any format I've tried so far, except maybe the 5:36 wmv file that I just added from our Wofford Witch reunion back in 2005 when I got many of the old college crew and our professor together for a cookout and to play with the PDP-11/40 and talk about the "old days" 30 years ago.

18 years, 1 month

Components & Tools (Was: Re: baud modifier)

by stimpy.u.idiot＠gmail.com

On 12/03/07, Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > > Rob wrote: > >> [1] Maplin, the company, are still going, but their range of components > >> is a joke. They now mostly sell electornic toys, Lo-Fi, etc. > > I totally agree with you - if the stores exist to sell the same gimmicky > junk > that can be had cheaper elsewhere, then I'm not sure why they have the > stores > at all and can't put the huge rental / staffing costs to better use. These days, they seems to be dedicated to the (seemingly) infinite number of young men who want to put blue lights on and under their cars :) H. Gee's in Cambridge is a real blessing in comparison - wide range of > components and still staffed by people who know what they're talking about You lucky fellow, nothing like that in northwest UK that I know of About the best I seem to be able to do is CPC (ex Farnell), but as Tony commented the other day, the website is a disaster area for finding anything. I've had to resort to buying from Futurelec (Singapore?) for some ICs, mainly due to RoHS making some lines unavailable while the replacements haven't appeared yet. Hmm, which makes me wonder if we shouldn't have a section on the classiccmp > website for recommended places to get spares/components from? That's a cracking idea. Anyone know of good suppliers in the UK? RS seem to be useless these days too. -- Pete Edwards "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future" - Niels Bohr

18 years, 1 month

Future Domain docs?

by doc＠mdrconsult.com

Does anyone have documentation for Future Domain TMC-870 and TMC-885 ISA SCSI adapters? They both have 2 floppy headers, which I find extremely interesting. Unfortunately, they both have a lot of jumpers/DIP switches, which I'd like to ID. Adaptec has drivers and tools, but no info. Doc

18 years, 1 month

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test-drb March 2007