In this discussion I kept waiting for someone to talk about the "Micro
Firmware ATA Pro Flash" Did someone mention it and I missed it?
They were http://www.firmware.com but they seem to be gone, sadly.
It's a little ISA bus card which has code on it; The code seems to run
as part of the bios bring up and it has allowed me to run newer, modern
drives in old machines, "fixing" the bios problem.
Or at least I thought it did. Maybe I'm on the wrong track.
Every time I've used one I've been happy. I've bought 3-4 of them now.
Perhaps they are not available anymore.
-brad
Hi
I have two (2x) 9-track tape units I no longer need. These are rack
mounted units, not currently in racks. One is brand new. I'm pretty
sure both have pertec interfaces and could be driven from most any
pertec interface.
I believe both will read 800 bpi & 1600 tapes. Not sure if they will go
beyond that. The are physically clean and in good shape.
Anyone want them?
If you do, these need to be picked up. They are way too heavy for
shipping.
ps: if someone take them *both* I will offer to throw in a 19" rack on
wheels. it's clean and in good shape with a dec power module on the
bottom.
-brad
Brad Parker
Heeltoe Consulting
+1-781-483-3101
http://www.heeltoe.com
Does anyone in the northeast have a working Xerox 820-II system they'd
like to part with? I have a line on one out West, but the shipping is
going to be murderous.
Steve
--
Hi,
I've just got my two LPFKs -- one of which is now sitting out on the bench.
The stuff on the codeninja page about the LPFK protocol seems to be
inaccurate; my LPFK is completely mute.
I can set the switch on the back to Loopback, which makes the light for
whatever keys I press light up, but in "live" mode nothing happens at all.
I've got a scope probe on the TX output of the MAX232 (pin 14), which connects
straight to the serial connector, but all I've got is a steady -10V (negative
ten volts) level.
The crystal is oscillating and the 8051 appears to be running code.
If I ground the RXD line (serial break?) and then release it, the LPFK resets
and does its startup dance. Still no output after this, though.
I suspect it's expecting some form of init sequence. Does anyone have an LPFK,
the PC connection kit and the relevant software to hand? A serial trace would
be tremendously useful.
Has anyone managed to get one of these things working?
I did spot a thread in the archive started by Michael Brutman --
<http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctech/2007-July/082612.html>. Nothing
after that until Paxton Hoag's LPFK bulk-order earlier this year though.
Thanks,
--
Phil.
classiccmp at philpem.me.uk
http://www.philpem.me.uk/
> Just in case anyone's interested, a new and significantly improved
> PERQemu v0.2 is available
Would you be willing to make the sources available at some point to help
document the hardware, and make it possible to put it on something other
than Windows?
Just in case anyone's interested, a new and significantly improved
PERQemu v0.2 is available at:
http://yahozna.dyndns.org/computers/perq/emulator/v0.2/
I would consider this a fairly usable release (v0.1 was very buggy).
Improvements include:
- A 25% or so speed increase (yay!)
- A more or less complete and accurate Z80 simulation, which makes many,
many more things work correctly.
- Kriz Tablet support - now you can actually USE those graphical
applications!
- RS232 support (yes, now YOU can use a VT100 emulator running inside of
a PERQ emulator to talk to your VAX!)
- (Nearly) complete Floppy and Hard Disk support. Enough works to allow
bringing up a completely fresh installation
of POS on a new hard disk, from floppy.
Next up on the list of things to do: Real RasterOp emulation, followed
by 16K CPU support. Can't wait to run Accent on this thing...
If any of you get a chance to try this out, I'd love to hear some feedback.
If anyone out there has any PERQ1/1A compatible software that hasn't
already been archived on Bitsavers (I know, it's unlikely...), please
drop me a line. Much of the software that's been archived is for the
PERQ2, which is incompatible in tiny (but annoying) ways. In
particular, versions of POS G.x or any release of Accent that can run on
the PERQ1A would be wonderful to have.
(As an aside: Al Kossow - thank you so much for Bitsavers...)
Additionally, if any of you have working PERQ1's and are willing to run
it for a few hours to dump an image of your hard disk, let me know. It
would be nice to have some other "real" hard disk images to work with.
Thanks,
Josh
Yep. price > $1,000 == investment grade
AT this point I would usually remark about how
rare machines didn't used to be about big bucks,
but that horse died long, long ago.
I'll return to my coffin now . . . .
-- Richard <legalize at xmission.com> wrote:
Got it! Actually I got it for less than I expected -- $1275. Still,
its the single most expensive item I've bought to date. However, I'd
say this is going to be one of the most important items in my
collection of graphics gear.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
____________________________________________________________
Fast Computer Training. Click here.
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/Ioyw6i3mAUC2eSzWdxFOW3XKWiahm67…
Against better judgement, I attempted to low-level format a Plus
Hardcard 20 and completely borked it (with the wrong format, the
controller won't init and the thing is now a brick). Does anyone have
the Plus Hardcard 20 install diskette?
The HardCard is shipped in a partitioned and formatted state, with a
number of files included on it. The directory of files is as follows:
INSTALL EXE 47479 1-01-80 12:06a
HCD BAT 30 1-01-80 12:07a
HCD1 BAT 128 1-01-80 12:07a
HCD2 EXE 54769 1-01-80 12:07a
HCD3 DAT 13440 1-01-80 12:07a
HCD3 DIF 704 1-01-80 12:07a
HCD6 SCR 4224 1-01-80 12:07a
PREPARE BAT 235 1-01-80 12:08a
SHELL BAT 18 1-01-80 12:07a
LIGHT COM 145 1-01-80 12:07a
SOUND COM 145 1-01-80 12:07a
PATCHFMT EXE 12670 1-01-80 12:08a
INSTALL DAT 425 1-01-80 12:06a
The original Plus install program creates a floppy diskette containing
the Plus files, as above, but also performs several other operations to
make it what they refer to as the "REINSTALL" diskette. This Reinstall
diskette can later be used for reformatting the HardCard.
Anyone have this?? I am killing myself for bricking the card and would
really love to get it back.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
Eric J Korpela wrote:
>On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 6:16 AM, Al Hartman <alhartman at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Why not try adding a PCI IDE adapter? It will have it's own BIOS that will
>> over-ride the internal BIOS.
>
>With an Award 486 BIOS v1.01, this machine doesn't have PCI slots. In
>fact I doubt that it would even have VESA Local Bus (VLB) slots. I
>would make a wild assed guess that this is a reworked 386 motherboard
>with 7 ISA slots, 3 of which are 16bit and one of which has a
>proprietary 32bit ISA extension for use as memory expansion.
>
>How close did I come, Kurt?
>
>Eric
>
>
I don't know exactly. This machine was bought used and I am only just
starting to learn things about it. I wish I could be of more help.
Fred Cisin wrote:
>
>Does the Packard Bell hardware support cable select?
>
I honestly don't know. I had thought they all did.
>> Can someone suggest a good book that goes into this type of thing?
>
>Scott Mueller's Repairing and Upgrading PCs
>prob'ly 3 or 4 editions before the current one. Try maybe ed 12 or 13
>
>
>
I will look for a copy of it. Thanks.