test-drb May 2007

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

235 participants
483 discussions

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> But if you want to give a try, why not a formal > letter bringing the stuff up to the knowledge of mentec's owners/directors Read the discussions on this subject in alt.sys.pdp11 It sounds like Zane (maybe Tim Shoppa) have been in contact with them recently, so there is no need for yet another set of people to be involved. As I understand it, they have no interest in offering a low cost license no matter how many people ask about it.

17 years, 2 months

IMI HDs (was Micropolis Disk Drives)

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Thu, 3 May 2007 21:33:54 -0700 From: "Rick Bensene" <rickb at bensene.com> Subject: Re: Micropolis Disk Drives (Was TNIX) >Tony wrote: >> There are 2 possible interfaces for the Micropolis 1203. >> The bare drive has a 50 pin connector, which is somewhat similar in >> concept to the SMD interface. There's an 8 bit parallel data bus with >> strobe lines, etc, to do things like head postiioning, and a raw data >> stream. ----------- Speaking of unusual HD I/Fs, did anyone other than IMI ever use their 34-pin interface? mike

17 years, 2 months

WTD: Catweasel raw track dumps

by classiccmp＠philpem.me.uk

Hi, A few of you have probably heard about my little project - the portable floppy disc raw-reader/writer. Through a bit of spare-time coding I've got all the basic elements of the reading side of the interface done. That is to say, according to the simulator, my hardware design can detect MFM sync markers, index pulses and track index sequences on hard-sectored floppies. Unfortunately I'm not going to have time to do the PCB layouts and such for another few weeks at the least, which leads me to my next problem... Rather than halt all development due to lack of time, I'd like to take a look at some of the software side of things. What I need are some raw data dumps i.e. if you're using a Catweasel, the data in the CW's RAM after the track read command completed. The 'testhist' utility from Tim Mann's CW2DMK pack can do this, with the command: testhist port drive track side clock [file] The documentation for testhist explains how to use it - port is the I/O port for ISA Catweasels or card ID number (starting at 0) for PCI Catweasels. Drive is the drive number (starting at 0), track and side are equally obvious, clock is the clock rate (0 for SD/DD, 1 for HD). The 'file' parameter is the name of the output file that What I'm after are the raw files (and testhist output if possible) for: - FM encoding, IBM format (PC or similar) - MFM encoding, uPD765 (PC format), 3.5" DD - MFM encoding, uPD765 (PC format), 3.5" HD - MFM encoding, Amiga format, 3.5" What I'm wanting to do is try out a neat little read-compensation algorithm I found that seems to make it easier to decode discs where the FM/MFM timing thresholds are a little ambiguous (the histogram shows a lot of bleed/smear along the bottom). An image of the whole disc would be useful, else a few random tracks would be just as good (and probably easier to FTP/email). Are there any kind souls out there with a Catweasel card and CW2DMK (or a similar tool) that can provide this data? Thanks, -- Phil. | (\_/) This is Bunny. Copy and paste Bunny classiccmp at philpem.me.uk | (='.'=) into your signature to help him gain http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | (")_(") world domination.

17 years, 2 months

Magnolia memories was Re: Micropolis Disk Drives (Was TNIX)

by innfoclassics＠gmail.com

> The 8" Micropolis drive was also used in the Tektronix Magnolia...a very > early prototype workstation-class machine that used a bitmap display, > and was based on Smalltalk as the native operating system. Tek (to my > knowledge) never sold any of these machines, but quite a few of them > were built as prototypes, and used in various areas of Tek as > engineering workstations. The Magnolia was way ahead of its time. Had > Tek had the marketing and sales skills to sell this thing as a computer, > they could have grabbed the engineering computing workstation market > before it even really existed. This was long before Sun or PERQ. It > was more in the timeframe of the early Xerox PARC machines. In fact, > some of the software engineers that developed the working environment > for the Magnolia came from Xerox PARC. I had my hands on a Tek Magnolia once and even recognized it for what it was. Unfortunitely long before I knew of the list. And long before I realized that you wanted to save the very first models. I didn't get to play with it very long. We got it in with a mother load of Intel (from Intel) about 1992 at 911 NW Hoyt in PDX. the Magnolia looked like an engineering prototype, ugly box with no covers, cables all over.... A little squater than the Xerox 8010s it came in with. What I didn't recognise was the Alto that came in with the group. It was several years later that I saw a picture. It was such a funny Xerox. >From Intel were many of every early development systems, 800, 8000, II, III, & IV. What I would give for that mother load now...... > ago, I had occasion to run into the 6130 while unpacking stuff from a > storage unit, and I brought it home, hooked it up to a trusty Heathkit > H19 terminal, and powered it up. It booted up right away. Not even a > fsck required. I even remembered the root password! Did a full "dd" of > the disk to /dev/null, and no read errors at all. I think I still have > a couple of these drives stored away. One of the few Tek computers I never got my hands on, the 6130. Is there a museum or timeline of Tektronix Computers / test equiipment / video equipment in physical space or on the Web? I don't think Paul Pierce is collecting much Tektronix? Paxton -- Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA

17 years, 2 months

Computer floor tiles available in beautiful and exciting Bakersfield, Californa

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

Bakersfield, the armpit of California! Also, the location where about 1000 square feet of computer floor tiles are available from this guy: Greg Williams Barry Petroleum ggw at bry.com Concrete filled(!) tiles and support structure. If anyone's interested, contact him directly. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

17 years, 2 months

Can disks be copied using only one RL02 drive?

by oldcpu＠rogerwilco.org

[excuse this second copy of my reply; worried that my first went into the Great Bit Bucket In The Sky] Charles said: >I've got a PDP-11/23+ with 4 Mb RAM, but only one RL02 and no software >except an XXDP pack. Henk Gooijen helpfully made for me a (RT-11) >bootable pack that is on the way (if the post offices between Europe >and the US don't lose or destroy it). So I definitely want to make a >backup copy. > >Is this possible to do with only one drive? Apparently you can't swap >disks back and forth like the old DOS or CP/M systems. Henk thinks >creating a RAM disk would work, and copy files but I don't know >anything about RT-11. > You will have very good success using Will Kranz' TU58 emulation on a PC as an intermediate store: http://www.fpns.net/willy/pdp11/tu58-emu.htm He has a MSDOS flavor and a Linux flavor. I've used the MSDOS flavor as a way to image RL01s and RL02s for archival on other media (CDROM). Be sure to read his documentation about patching the DD.SYS driver (renaming it to DW.SYS) to allow the emulated TU58 to have the same capacity as your RL02 cartridge. Don't worry, it's not difficult and when I first did this myself I had sub-zero DEC / PDP-11 / RT-11 experience. While fairly slow (it is RS-232 serial, after all), the extra benefit your will enjoy using this method, is that you automatically will have a backup of the installation that Henk made for you and that you no doubt suffered some small expense to get. If you have any more questions about using Will's TU58 emulator, feel free to contact me directly. - Jared

17 years, 2 months

Unix disk copy using dd

by dm561＠torfree.net

--------Original Messages: From: Doc Shipley <doc at mdrconsult.com> Subject: Re: Unix disk copy using dd ? To: General at mdrconsult.com, "Discussion at mdrconsult.com":On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <463A0C40.6020707 at mdrconsult.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Andy Piercy wrote: > More disk copy questions.. > > Can you copy an entire disk using the UNIX dd command from a smaller > disc to > a larger one and retain the capacity of the larger drive? > > i.e. maybe create a partition on the larger drive which matches the smaller > drive? Not without other tools, at least on any OS I work with. dd overwrites the filesystem's index, superblock, etc, so even if the partition is bigger than the filesystem, you can't use it. Doc ------------Reply: Assuming you have a third disk or a spare partition on the larger drive, can't you tar the small disk > to a file there and then untar to the final disk/partition? m

17 years, 2 months

Talking of floor tiles...

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

We could use such a floor in the UK at Bletchley should anyone have a line on one [1] that might become available. The ICL mainframe's going to have to sit on *something* and we're not quite sure what yet! [1] needs to be vaguely around 4m by 12m, but there's a bit of flexibility either way. I think 30cm high is about the max we can cope with though as we'd like to leave the suspended ceiling in place (and the ICL's I/O cabinets are full height racks) Have asked over on uk.comp.vintage, but I'm not sure how much readership overlap there is between there and here... cheers Jules

17 years, 2 months

Hawthorne 68000 SBC

by paulrsm＠buckeye-express.com

Rich, nice job with the Hawthorne SBC page. I have one request: please provide not just disk images, but a ZIP archive containing the files from the disks. I also encourage you to scan and post any Hawthorne articles from The Computer Journal. In return, I have an issue (or issues) of the 68-KNEWS newsletter. I won't be back home for a few weeks, but when I find them they are yours. -- Paul Santa-Maria

17 years, 2 months

Texas Instruments 960B

by aek＠bitsavers.org

I just checked the CHM archives, and we have a pretty complete set of 960B hardware docs. I'll see about getting it scanned.

17 years, 2 months

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test-drb May 2007