test-drb February 2008

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

236 participants
373 discussions

by classiccmp＠philpem.me.uk

Seems pacbell don't like my mail server (funny, just about everyone else does). Anyway, the questions Jim asked are probably ones that other folks want to know the answers to, so I'll post them here instead... Jim Battle wrote: >> It would be nice to have a 50 pin interface as well, for 8" disks. Well the idea is that you have the 40-pin connector, and make up an adapter cable for whatever drive you want to handle, then tell the software that (say) output 1 needs to be high when track_number > 46, or whatever you need. >> One problem is that a handful of the signals are non-standard. Ideally these signals would have a wirewrap header where one could wire them to +5, gnd, or perhaps to I/O pins on the FPGA under software control. Again, 50-pin cable to adapter board, which plugs into the FDR and converts the signals to suit the drive. >> Is this intended as a read-only interface, or read/write? *points at subject line* Read/write. >> For writing hard sectored disks, one has to initiate a given sector write >from the relevant sector hole -- you can't write the whole track starting from sector 0. This would imply some means of counting the sector holes, or at least a way in the data stream of saying: wait until sector 0, data, data, ..., data, wait until next sector marker, data, data, ..., data, etc, stop. Would you believe I've thought of that? :) The writing side of things is controlled by a small microsequencer (think 'special purpose CPU'). The instructions it can handle are: - Timer Load N - wait N clock periods, then write a flux transition - STOP - stop processing further instructions and halt the machine - Set Write Gate State - enable/disable the write amplifier - Wait for hard-sector index mark - Wait for N index pulses So typically you'd do this: WAIT_TRACKMARK ; sector 0 - wait for track start marker WRITE_GATE_ON TIMER_LOAD 123 TIMER_LOAD 42 ... WRITE_GATE_OFF WAIT_INDEX ; sector 1 WRITE_GATE_ON .. more write commands .. WRITE_GATE_OFF STOP 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.

16 years, 10 months

RiscPC 610 PSU - 110 VAC?

by bear＠typewritten.org

Howdy, folks. I just acquired an Acorn Risc PC 610 from a chap in the UK. The PSU in it is labelled as a 220V-only affair. I understand there was an autoranging PSU revision, but this does not appear to be one of them. Does anybody have information on modifying this unit to work with 110V mains? Or a lead on a replacement PSU that has a switchable or autoranging input voltage? ok bear

16 years, 10 months

FS: Bytes and Interface Age mags

by silent700＠gmail.com

Time to unload the last of my duplicates. Here's a handy list: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pwMUKqpaWv1cq2nnM-h0wRA $2/issue for anything 1984 and before. Anything I can get for the later ones :) Bulk purchases encouraged! All costs + shipping by Media Mail rate (or faster if you prefer) from 60074. Of course local pickup is fine, too. Help me clear out some space and save these from the recycler! -- jht

16 years, 10 months

Preserving contents of QIC-150 from (probably) RSX11.

by trasz＠FreeBSD.org

I've got a QIC-150 tape (3M DC6150) with some backup on it, probably >from RSX11. Table of contents (paper one) reads: RSXCTDQ0 RSXCTDQ1 RSXSMDM0 CTDQKIT2 ALISAKIT2 ALISASM I have no idea what it is, I have no experience with RSX11 and I need that tape (physical medium) for other purpose. What's the best way to preserve the contents, preferably using FreeBSD? Is repeated 'dd if=/dev/nsa0 of=output_file1', 'dd if=/dev/nsa0 of=output_file2' until end-of-media enough? Drive is Wangtek 5150ES. -- If you cut off my head, what would I say? Me and my head, or me and my body?

16 years, 10 months

Last call: Wyse WY-55 manual, Introduction to the Sirius 1 Computer - FTGH (UK)

by listmailgoeshere＠gmail.com

Hi list, The above need to find a new home within about a week or they get recycled. Free, but you pay shipping. Will ship to anywhere in the world. Please reply directly to me as list traffic is still a bit funny for me atm. Thanks, Ed.

16 years, 10 months

The "who lives where" map...

by jfoust＠threedee.com

At 10:43 AM 2/12/2008, you wrote: >http://www.frappr.com/?a=constellation_map&mapid=137440346730 > >How's that? Easy enough! Strange that Frappr's address-to-location isn't as accurate as Google Maps, though. It placed me in the wrong place twice and it's still not right. - John

16 years, 10 months

another one missed

by hilpert＠cs.ubc.ca

A fellow I knew years ago just phoned me for some help rejuvenating some old analog instrumentation chart recorders - he collects such stuff apparently. He works as an operator at one of the oil depots in the region (downsized from a refinery a couple of years ago) and is preparing displays for their 50th anniversary. After the instrumentation stuff was discussed, and knowing where he worked, I started telling him the story of the scrapped Foxboro processor at the old refinery closer to me (I told that story on the list a couple of years ago), kind of angling to find out what might be the state of the old computer control system where he worked. He said "Do you know 'Digital' computers? When the refinery was decomm'ed we threw out an 11/70, it was spread across like 4 racks. Boy, I woulda called ya if I knew you were into stuff like that, it was sad to see it scrapped." ho hum. (.. and just checked the 11/40 on ebay to see it hit over $1000.)

16 years, 10 months

Reading Polymorphic hard sectored double density disk

by dkelvey＠hotmail.com

Hi I made good progress today. I got the programmer working again. I'm now doing 2716s on the PB-10 again. I blew some more test code and also figured what the problem was with the controller. Previously, I'd gotten the frequencies change in the crystal and PLL circuits. I got to the point that it appeared to be reading the disk into the USART chip but not getting data into the dual ported RAM. It was still erroring on the header. I wrote code to ignore the header and tried that. It still seemed to be missing the header data. This is when the programmer decided to cause problems. While waiting to get parts I realized what the problem was with the controller. I was running everything from the memory window in the Poly88s monitor. Every time it updates a single byte, it rereads a large block of memory to put into the display. I was pointing to the RAM that was double ported and this stole cycles from the controllers time. This caused missed bytes from the USART. I wrote some simple code in another area of memory and used that to initiate the read command. It was then reading the header and data without missing any of the header or data. I expect I'll soon make greater progress. I need to delay some before reading the double ported RAM or the controller will miss the first few bytes. I need to write my serial transfer and finish the code for reading the sectors. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Shed those extra pounds with MSN and The Biggest Loser! http://biggestloser.msn.com/

16 years, 10 months

MSX Joystick

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

Urgh, apologies for any font issues. Had to copy and paste my reply as Yahoo failed to deliver it to the classiccmp servers twice! Not sure if bounced or not, but here's the error message: Remote host said: 550 5.7.1 time travel between hops [BODY] Classiccmp.org rejected it once, giving this error message:<cctalk at classiccmp.org>: Remote host said: 553 5.3.0 Spam blocked see: http://spamcop.net/bl.shtml?76.13.13.74 [MAIL_FROM] This last (and 4th) attempt at replying, is being done from Outlook Express onmy laptop as opposed to Yahoo's webmail. My reply: Would it work with a Famicom (Japanese SNES) mouse? Since it was compatible with MSX games it might work, but probably doesn't fall into the "easily obtainable" category :( Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Syd Bolton <sbolton at bfree.on.ca> wrote: I see the pinouts online but haven't checked to > see if it's compatible with a standard Atari type joystick. >Sure it is! > Interesting how MSX devices are unknown here...They are so popular in >Brazil! That's just how it goes! OK second part of my question then: what about the mouse? What other more easily obtainable mouse would work on the MSX machine? Commodore made mice with 9-pin connectors for the C64 but I doubt it would work or the Amiga one .... and of course, the "serial" mouse from a PC I would expect won't work as well. Or....I guess more easily does anyone out there have an MSX compatible mouse they'd like to sell me for the museum? Thanks

16 years, 10 months

Test

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

This is a test email to see if it makes it through to the list. The last 3 attempts at replying to a message were bounced (twice by Yahoo and once by Classiccmp servers). If this makes it through please ignore. Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

16 years, 10 months

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test-drb February 2008