test-drb April 2007

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

257 participants
560 discussions

by jvdg＠sparcpark.net

Chuck Guzis wrote: >On 11 Apr 2007 at 23:07, Joost van de Griek wrote: > >> On 4/11/07 9:35 PM, Chris M wrote: >> >>> I really don't think it's realistic to operate a modern computer w/a >>> non-windowed environment these days. Many will disagree, and that's their >>> prerogative, someone said something about eye-candy, but I think it comes down >>> to cheating yourself of functionality. >> >> You give up some functionality, gain other functionality. Like almost >> everything, a GUI is a trade-off. > > Excuse me, but we're talking about two different things, aren't we? > Or is my age showing again? Maybe we are, but I hardly think that's relevant. > Unless I've got my wires crossed (again), "windowing" and "GUI" have > very little to do with another. That is, you can have text-mode > winodws and windowless graphics, no? A windowed environment is a GUI, yes? > So what's meant here? What's meant here is that the Chris M has a point: you *do* cheat yourself of some functionality when using a non-windowed environment "these days". However, you also cheat yourself of functionality exactly by using a windows environment. There are things that are much more efficient if you don't have to wrestle the point-and-click interface. Look at *real* power users, even on windowed systems. They hardly touch the mouse. It's all keyboard shortcuts, and it's *way* faster. The downside is having to master all those cryptic gestures and key combinations. ,xtG tsooJ

17 years, 9 months

DC-600/300XL tape cart observation

by dm561＠torfree.net

I've got a bunch of DC-600/615A & 300XLP tapes that, although I haven't tried to read them lately, look OK, i.e. they move freely and nothing seems to be sticking. Aside from the issue of archiving them, is it better to leave them until needed, or should I run them through a retension occasionally to prevent some of the problems mentioned recently? Any special conditions for storage? Opinions? Experience? mike

17 years, 9 months

VAX 4000-200 and DECserver terminal server.

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

That's most kind of you. I do go up to Coventry and Birmingham from time to time. So could collect. Rod -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dave Caroline Sent: 26 April 2007 11:04 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: VAX 4000-200 and DECserver terminal server. I have some stuff stored in the protacabin outside will check later today or tommorow, in the east midlands free for collection Dave Caroline On 4/25/07, Rod Smallwood <RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk> wrote: > Hi > A while back I aquired a VAX4000-200 (made circa 1990) via the DEC > 'Old boy' network. > Some list members were kind enough to help me get the system password > reset. > It booted, ran and the icing on the cake was it was loaded with VMS > 6.2 and TCPWARE. > That made it compatible with current networks. > A BNC cable and cheap hub got me to 10baseT and with it a connection > to my office network. > > Recently I was given a pile of terminals and printers. I managed to > salvage two VT420's one HP700 and two LA75 Printers. > That brought my system up to three VT420's and an LA75 + Spares. > > As some of you will know I worked for DEC for 10 Years +. The > system I'm building up represents my idea of the 'Golden Age' of DEC > (1980-1990) > > I want to use all DEC kit therefore the HP 700 is surplus. What I need > is a DECServer with four or more DECconnect or RS232 ports on it. > Most of them are BNC 50Ohm thin ethernet or AUI in and DECconnect or > 25Way D out. They look a bit like a hub with a BNC connector in a > depression in the top. > > Rod Smallwood > > > >

17 years, 9 months

Finland

by ploopster＠gmail.com

Is there anyone on the list from Finland? I have a couple of questions. Please respond off-list. Peace... Sridhar

17 years, 9 months

Hand-rolling a CP/M machine

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 17:25:44 -0400 From: Allison <ajp166 at bellatlantic.net> Subject: Re: Hand-rolling a CP/M machine <snip> >>> 8085 (Also makes for simple systems) >> >>Those are somewhat common if you hang around DEC equipment. >As I am. <snip> >Allison ------------ Oh no, Allison, you're not common at all ;-) Quite unique, in fact. m

17 years, 9 months

SCSI drives on Amigas (was Re: XT IDE (was Re: Junkbox CP/M system?))

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 4/26/07, Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: > >> It does have a SCSI connector within the A590 I think, but I'm > >> not sure how picky it is about what drives it'll work with. > > > > Not very picky. > > Ok... so it doesn't need a SCSI drive that's happy with being low level > formatted to something other than a 512 byte sector size, for instance? Nope. You do want 512 bytes per sector. Bog standard. I've attached everything from 20MB up to 4GB drives onto my Amigas from the A1000 up through my A4000, and the only time things were ever fiddly was with pre-capacity-reporting drives or non-SCSI controllers like the A2090. If you have something as modern as an A590 and any embedded SCSI drive, it should work as described in the A590 docs. There's probably a copy of the A590 prep disk running around. I think you might need that for Kickstart/AmigaDOS 1.3, but by 2.0, ISTR, the OS knew about the A590/A2091 from the get-go. If you happen to have a Kickstart 1.2 ROM in your A500, you won't be able to autoboot the hard disk, but you will be able to access it after booting with a boot floppy. > I think many of them are still in service which is why they haven't turned up > used - plus there's more paranoia these days about data security, so I wonder > if more are going to the shredders without being recycled as working units. Perhaps. They could also be left running until they die. We were losing an average of one Seagate 72GB UltraSCSI drive per month at the Pole. All of the 9GB drives through 146GB drives failed at a combined rate of less than one every two months, except for the 73GB drives. It wasn't just that we had more 73GB drives than any anything else - on a per-unit basis, the failure rate was dramatically higher in the same environment. They won't be of much use in your Amiga anyway. ;-) -ethan

17 years, 9 months

Hand-rolling a CP/M machine

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

With all of this recent 8-bit and CP/M talk, it's prompted me to do a little digging on what it would take to put together a CP/'M machine on my own. I already have a couple of commercially-produced boxes. This is about taking a Z-80, some RAM, some ROM and a storage unit and making it run CP/M. I've been reading the various threads, so I have a general idea of what has to happen, but I'm still fuzzy on a few specifics, no doubt due to my lack of deep experience with the Z-80. The point of ROM vs RAM at $0000 has been gone over a few times. Do "standard" CP/M machines use a shadow-ROM technique, or what, to cold-start? We used to use a trick with the 68000 that would map ROM at $000000, _and_ at some higher address, with the first few instructions jumping to the higher ROM image, , and either an I/O pin that toggled the address mapping for the lower ROM image, or just watching for the first pulse from A23, such that the act of jumping up to the higher ROM address itself would remove ROM from the bottom of the memory map, revealing RAM. How did CP/M systems handle 64K of RAM? Was there one primary way it was done, or did every hardware vendor do it differently? I should probably just confine my efforts to 48K of RAM and use the upper 16K for a boot ROM, but if it's easy to support 64K of RAM, why not? To confirm, the minimal I/O system is some flavor of serial interface for console I/O (presumably piped to a display smart enough to handle ANSI codes), and some form of block-addressable storage with a CP/M filesystem, right? (I'm ignoring handy I/O like parallel printer ports and 8255-type GPIO and the like, for the moment) Is it required that the storage unit be writable? Is there a minimum size for the display? That wouldn't matter for hanging a VT100-equivalent off of the console port, but if I were to use some flavor of textual LCD, it would very much matter. To find another way to ask, would the body of extant CP/M apps freak out if you try to run them on a display that's under 40 chars wide or under 24 chars tall? Do they expect 64 chars wide or 80 chars wide? I don't think the OS itself actually cares how wide or tall the display is, but perhaps some of the CUSPs, like DIR, might. Rather than taking a bare Z80, wiring on a Z8530, an SRAM or two and an EPROM, I was contemplating beefing up my 1976 SDS Z-80 Starter Kit to the point where it could run CP/M. I've written about it here before, when I first got it, to remind those that don't know or don't remember what it is, it has a ~2MHz Z80, 1K of 21L02 SRAM, room for one more K, one 2716 with "ZBUG", two empty 2716 sockets (one attached to an EPROM programming circuit), a keypad and 7-segment LEDs, a largish wire-wrap area, and two S-100 slots. Presuming I wire the SRAM, a larger-capacity EPROM, and some serial device into the wire-wrap area, is there anything I should look for in an S-100 card that would be interesting to install? A video card (rather than a serial console), perhaps? I think I have one or two S-100 video cards, but I was never clear on how one attaches a keyboard to that rig - is there an ASCII keyboard port typically provided on an S-100 video card, or is that a separate peripheral? Thanks for any and all answers to my noobish CP/M questions, -ethan

17 years, 9 months

XT IDE (was Re: Junkbox CP/M system?)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 4/26/07, Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > Hmm, I think that's what's in my Amiga A590 enclosure. It's certainly not > SCSI, but I'm sure the connector's not proper IDE either. The A590 (and A2091 ZorroII card) support SCSI on the 50-pin connector, and XT IDE (only) on the 40 pin connector. The 40-pin connector is unpopulated on the A2091, but it's the same controller chip on both, and has the same features in both. I've used it with a WD 40 MB XT IDE drive from a Commodore x86 PC. It works. > > And they were bl**dy unreliable too! :-( > > That worries me about the Amiga one. It does have a SCSI connector within the > A590 I think, but I'm not sure how picky it is about what drives it'll work with. Not very picky. You'll find that with the Kickstart version in your machine, you are limited to 4GB or less for drive size, but other than that, as long the drive answers the packet for drive capacity (ACB4000 MFM bridge wouldn't answer, for example, but every embedded SCSI drive I know of will), the AmigaDOS drivers will be happy. > [1] I don't buy new stuff, not for PCs - not when the price drops so much for > "previous generation". Unfortunately SCSI drives of 36GB and up don't seem to > be readily available. I got a few in 2003, cheap, but I'm not seeing server drives as abundantly as I used to. The ones behind me are loaded with "SAS" (Serial-attached-SCSI, AFAIK), so perhaps the days of SCA-connector UltraWIDE SCSI drives are waning at last. -ethan

17 years, 9 months

VAX 4000-200 and DECserver terminal server.

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

Hi A while back I aquired a VAX4000-200 (made circa 1990) via the DEC 'Old boy' network. Some list members were kind enough to help me get the system password reset. It booted, ran and the icing on the cake was it was loaded with VMS 6.2 and TCPWARE. That made it compatible with current networks. A BNC cable and cheap hub got me to 10baseT and with it a connection to my office network. Recently I was given a pile of terminals and printers. I managed to salvage two VT420's one HP700 and two LA75 Printers. That brought my system up to three VT420's and an LA75 + Spares. As some of you will know I worked for DEC for 10 Years +. The system I'm building up represents my idea of the 'Golden Age' of DEC (1980-1990) I want to use all DEC kit therefore the HP 700 is surplus. What I need is a DECServer with four or more DECconnect or RS232 ports on it. Most of them are BNC 50Ohm thin ethernet or AUI in and DECconnect or 25Way D out. They look a bit like a hub with a BNC connector in a depression in the top. Rod Smallwood

17 years, 9 months

What monitor is this?

by classiccmp＠memory-alpha.org.uk

Hi, > Repair was usually a new floppy, new FDC and new sound chip. Why >the sound chip? Well... no, someone else can tell it. I dimly recall that Atari used one or two signals from the I/O port on the sound chip as part of the disc interface - drive/side select? TTFN - Pete.

17 years, 9 months

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test-drb April 2007