test-drb August 2007

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

221 participants
459 discussions

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

Hi I am now the owner of a DEC Rainbow 100 Plus. (10mb Hard Drive and all) Its just like the one I had on my desk at DECPark circa 1981 The good news is its got loads of software with it. The bad news is the tube in the VR201 monitor is shot. The screen has mould between the tube and bonded on faceplate. No amount of standard adjustment will make it bright enough to read in normal lighting. So... I need: a) A replacement tube. or b) a Digital VR201-A , -B or -C or d) A colour graphics card for a DEC Rainbow. 100+ Anybody knowing the whereabouts any of the above please contact me. Rod Smallwood

17 years, 4 months

Tandon TM-100-4M curiosity

by cclist＠sydex.com

I was looking at a bunch of Tandon TM100-4M floppy drives that I've had for a (very) long time and saw something that never registered with me before. On the underside of the disk release latch (on the faceplate), a small silver sticker. Most say "100 TPI DSR", but about one in every 4 says "96 TPI DSR". All drives are 100 TPI TM-100-4Ms, BTW as identified on the body sticker. Cheers, Chuck

17 years, 4 months

Burners - was newbie building a scratch-built computer

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

Mike Ford wrote: Look around a bit and I am sure you will still find cheap and cheesy solutions, PC cards or something off the parallel printer connection. --------------- Maybe that is something I can sell at the next VCF. For years, I bought burners when I saw them but never used them. I know I have some of the parallel port types, plus some that plug into PC busses. Even a couple that work on the Apple II. And recently, I bought a spate of Data I/O 19's, a couple of 29B's and several other assorted models. I usually tear them apart for the parts and toss the chassis. Although the Data I/O 100 has the perfect chassis for a project I am working on, so there I kept the chassis and tossed some of the parts. Did the same for some HP 1611 Microsprocessor Logic Analyzers. Maybe I should take them to the VCF to sell? Most flea market buyers don't seem to know what they are. Billy

17 years, 4 months

Tandon TM502/Tandy 2000 problems

by rcini＠optonline.net

All: I?ve been working for a while on resurrecting the hard drive system of my Tandy 2000. The short story is that I have two systems with TM502 hard drives, both of which failed after a few uses (both were donations to me earlier in the year) and were no longer recognized by the system. Running the format program from Tandy DOS (MSDOS 2.21) fails to recognize the drives. I jacked one into a MFM controller on an older PC, re-ran the low-level format and formatted it with DOS 6.22. I then verified that it booted. I moved it to the T2k, where it was not recognized again, but this time, I was able to run the formatting program and now it?s usable from DOS 2.21. So, the hardware is good and I guess running the low-level formatting program >from the ROM (g=c800:5) reinvigorated the drive. Since it seems that the low-level formatting has gone south on these drives, is there a non-destructive low level formatting program that?s good for this? I vaguely remember Spinrite, but I no longer have a copy in my box-o?-disks. I don?t want to destructively format the second hard drive since it has lots of programs on it from the person that sent it to me and I?d like to recover them if possible. I even wonder if the remaining drive can be resurrected at this point with the data intact. Oh, for those interested, the Tandy controller happily uses an ST-225 (20.1mb) drive as an alternate. Thanks for any info. Rich -- Rich Cini Collector of Classic Computers Build Master and lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator http://www.altair32.com http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp

17 years, 4 months

Strange DC-style cartridge ID

by cclist＠sydex.com

I've dug out an old Adic tape drive and thought at first that it used standard DC-300 or DC-600 cartridges. But every time I put a cart in the unit, the tape would spin for a couple of seconds and then the error light and alarm would come on. Poking inside the cabinet, it's very obvious that the DC-600 type of cartridge has the correct form factor, but that this unit doesn not employ optical sensing of BOT/EOT, etc. There are no optical sensors at all. I'm not certain, but I don't even think a conductive foil sensor is used either. It appears that the tape must be preformatted with some sort of prerecorded pattern to identify the beginning of tape. Anyone have any idea of what kind of tape this thing takes? Cheers, Chuck

17 years, 4 months

Modern PC's and old ATA drives?

by jfoust＠threedee.com

At 03:46 PM 8/12/2007, Rob wrote: >I had a drive behave like this once. Rather than trying to get >Windows to recognise it, I recovered most of the data using a prodct >called R-Studio <http://www.r-tt.com/> - looking at their website the >software should identify and cope with pretty much anything, They've >a downloadable demo so you can see if it will work for you.. I used >it on a FreeBSD drive, via a USB-IDE adapter on a WInXP laptop, so a >old Windows drive should be a doddle. Yes, I own R-Studio, too. It can work if and when the drive has fully "come alive" in terms of the IDE bus and/or USB/Fw adapter and the operating system's view of the device. - John

17 years, 4 months

Modern PC's and old ATA drives?

by robert＠irrelevant.com

On 12/08/07, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote: > I'm trying to recover data from an old Conner CFS420A (420MB) Hard > Drive for someone. > http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/specs/ata/cfs420a.html > > I've tried hooking it up to my two IDE-to-USB cables, I can't see it > on my Mac when connected to either. I can see it on my WinXP system > when connected to the older cable (which oddly enough doesn't like > most HD's I've plugged into it). However, I don't see any sign of > partitions. > I had a drive behave like this once. Rather than trying to get Windows to recognise it, I recovered most of the data using a prodct called R-Studio <http://www.r-tt.com/> - looking at their website the software should identify and cope with pretty much anything, They've a downloadable demo so you can see if it will work for you.. I used it on a FreeBSD drive, via a USB-IDE adapter on a WInXP laptop, so a old Windows drive should be a doddle. Rob

17 years, 4 months

FORTRAN T-shirt

by brian＠quarterbyte.com

I was getting on a bus in Playa del Carmen, Mexico yesterday and ran into a guy wearing a T-shirt whose decoration was a bunch of FORTRAN code. The wearer said he didn't know its background or what it meant or came from. Maybe it was something cooked up by a graphic artist who just thought it looked cool, but if it was from a real system, it's something I didn't recognize. It was some sort of interactive system. Here is what it looked like, structurally, more or less, from memory. *READY A = 3+3 *READY A = 6 *READY *READY PROGRAM TEST *READY DIMENSION B(6) *READY READ(3,10) (B(I),I = 1,6) *READY 10 FORMAT(6F10.5) *READY DO 20 I = 1, 20 . . (and so on --- about 30 lines of ordinary fortran code here) . *READY 20 CONTINUE *READY GOAT 2 STATEMENT NOT IN *READY GOTO 2 *READY 30 CALL XPLOT(B,10) *READY STOP74 *READY END Each line started with *READY, except for the blank line, the line with the result 6 and the line with STATEMENT NOT IN. The font looked like standard ASR33 teletype. Does this format look familiar to anyone? The bit about prompting for each line with *READY is something I've never seen. It also appeared to do some preliminary syntax checking, as it flagged the line "GOAT 2" with an error message (which was itself grammatically incomplete). Any recollections on this one? Brian

17 years, 4 months

FTGH: Sun ELC motherboards, odd k/bs, misc cables, portable terminal - UK

by listmailgoeshere＠gmail.com

Hi cctalkers, The following have to go, within ~14days or they get binned. 4 x Sun ELC motherboards. 3 of these are complete with socket board (so form a complete headless Sun machine if you add SCSI disk and run them from a PC PSU - they have stub cables to wire the PSU to), the third (which has no RAM) isn't, so is only good for spares or upgrading an SLC. There are 10base2 AUIs with all of them. Post on these in the UK will probably be ~?2. 1 x k/b marked "MICROCOLOUR Graphics" in top right corner. It has VT220 layout, but the connector is a DE9 with only 5 pins fitted. Brand new, still in wrapper. On the base is a sticker "part no: EK000ZH01, model no: M2220D". UK post probably ~?4. 1 x Liberty "VT220 style" k/b, suitable for the Liberty Freedom One terminals I gave away on this list last year. RJ11 plug, could work on other terminals as well? Brand new in original box. Again, post about ?4ish. Also, one unboxed but good condition used one. 2 x LK411 (VT510) terminal k/b. VT220 style but with a PS/2 connector. Post probably ?4ish each. 1 x k/b for Falco 220 (?) VT220-clone. Ade Vickers may still have the terminal this belongs to, if you fancy it. Postage ?4-ish. 4 x BA35X PSUs for BA356 disk arrays. Standard IEC mains connector, marked 100-240V 50/60Hz so OK anywhere. 3 are grey/green, one is blue. Postage probably ?4 each. And a load of odd cables (all new in mfr's bags), post ~?2ea: 1 x Selectronix "Xtreme" SEL-2276-0100, 2 HD50 females to what looks like an HD100? Male. 4 x Cisco Systems "Cable pair SMB to BNC - female" (3 cables per bag, 4 bags in total) 2 x 15-pin D to what looks like Cisco serial, labelled "CAB X21 MT, 10 METRES". 3 x 15-pin D to 44-pin 3-row D, labelled "BAY 7224 8 METRES" 1 x DB25 M to DE9 F, labelled "38YCN00001SDY 23/01 CTL 83443" oh, and 1 x GR Electronics "Pocket VDU" portable terminal. (Rusty) DB25 F, 2-pos slide switch and 10-way DIP sw on rear. Unit is about 10" tall, about 7" wide @ widest, and about 1.5" high. 2-line LCD. Please mail if you want any. Ed.

17 years, 4 months

wtb: Micronics M54Pe

by bear＠typewritten.org

On the off chance somebody has an M54Pe stashed somewhere, I'm looking for one. Contact me off list, please? This is a PCI/EISA, full-AT dual Pentium mainboard. Some models have PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports; I'd prefer one without but will consider either. Thanks! ok bear

17 years, 4 months

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test-drb August 2007