test-drb August 2008

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

202 participants
323 discussions

Software for Transtronics/Intronics EPROM programmer

by rf.technologies＠gmail.com

Something over a year ago you posted that you had a backup copy of the software for the Intronics Pocket Programmer. Is this perchance the original parallel printer port version? Due to a calamity of stupid human tricks when the Company I work for sold off one of its product lines the software for the programmer (which we still have) went with the sale and I suddenly have a need to burn some 2764 EPROMS to upgrade the firmware in a old system but I can't get approval for a new burner "because we'll never need it again" (famous last words) so if you still have the software I'd be interested. TIA, Bob Fay Bob Fay Mutualink Mail: rf.technologies at gmail.com

16 years, 1 month

Upgrading early BIOS

by dm561＠torfree.net

----------Original Message(s): Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 09:49:02 -0700 From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> Subject: Re: Upgrading early BIOS On 13 Aug 2008 at 9:12, Eric J Korpela wrote: > The concept of "cable select" hadn't been invented when this machine > was built. Use master/slave. Is not the operation of "cable select" a function of the cable and not the mobo? If the OP is using a "cable select" IDE cable, he can use CS with no problem. That business with him mentioning CS is what made me wonder if he wasn't also using a UDMA cable (which by the standard also supports CS). (It's starting to get pretty hard to find *new* non-UDMA cables nowadays). If that's the case, then any UDMA-capable drives will be operating in that mode, which will not work with his old system. If he's using non-UDMA drives, then the cable won't matter. Cheers, Chuck ---------------Reply: AFAIK cable select has always been an option with Parallel ATA drives, although it was rarely used in pre-UDMA days; the cable was obviously different (40 conductors with standard connectors vs. 80 conductors and unique special connectors) and the order of the drives was usually reversed (i.e. the slave on the end of the cable). It's the motherboard that determines the cable type and mode from pin 34, which is grounded at the mobo end in a UDMA cable, so if the mobo isn't UDMA-aware I don't think the drives would be, and the cable wouldn't matter. Also, not all drives supported CS. Bottom line: don't use CS with pre-UDMA drives, cables and/or motherboards unless you're certain that all three support it, and even master/slave can be problematic with very old IDE drives. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Drive_Electronics m

16 years, 1 month

IBM EGA Programming manual: anyone have a copy?

by jzg22＠drexel.edu

------------------------------ > Message: 3 > Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:02:51 +0100 (BST) > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Subject: Re: IBM EGA Programming manual: anyone have a copy? > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Message-ID: <m1KSnuA-000J1gC at p850ug1> > Content-Type: text/plain > > >> I'm searching for a copy of the official IBM EGA programming >> manual/reference manual. >> If I recall correctly, in order to actually GET that manual you needed >> to have bought the $150? CGA/MDA programming/reference manual (or >> something like that) and have sent in the little registration card, and >> IBM sent you the EGA one in the mail. >> Does anyone have a copy of it? >> > > I assuem this is not the EGA section from the O&A Techref. I have that, > it inculdes the BIOS ROM source listing, schematics, and details of all > the I/O ports used, but no explict programing info with examples. > > >> (a copy of the cga/mda one would be nice too, but isn't nearly as important) >> Contact me off-list (or on-list if you'd like) if you do, I'm quite >> > > Again, I have the apporopriate TechRef sections... > > -tony > > > > ------------------------------ > Yes, it was that. Barry Watzman sent me a scan of his photocopied copy of it. -- Jonathan Gevaryahu jgevaryahu(@t)hotmail(d0t)com jzg22(@t)drexel(d0t)edu

16 years, 1 month

Upgrading early BIOS

by Hollandia＠ccountry.net

Fred Cisin asked >Did you set the CMOS to 2 drives? (1) >Which drive types are supported in the CMOS? (2) (1) Yes I did. (2) The BIOS screens give the following drive selections The following abbreviations are used in the table: Cylinders: CYL Heads: HDS Write Precomp: WP Landing Zone: LZ Sectors: SCT MegaBytes: MB Disk Type CYL HDS WP LZ SCT MB 1 306 4 128 305 17 10 2 615 4 300 615 17 20 3 615 6 300 615 17 30 4 940 8 512 940 17 62 5 940 6 512 940 17 46 6 615 4 -1 615 17 20 7 462 8 256 511 17 30 8 733 5 -1 733 17 30 9 900 15 -1 901 17 112 10 895 15 -1 895 62 406 11 1054 16 -1 1054 63 518 12 855 7 -1 855 17 49 13 306 8 128 319 17 20 14 733 7 -1 733 17 42 15 There is no listing for this drive type 16 987 12 -1 988 35 202 17 977 5 300 977 17 40 18 977 7 -1 977 17 56 19 1024 7 512 1023 17 59 20 880 11 0 0 17 81 21 903 8 0 0 46 162 22 1024 16 0 0 17 136 23 914 14 0 0 17 106 24 1001 15 0 0 17 124 25 977 7 977 977 26 86 26 1024 4 -1 1023 17 34 27 1024 5 -1 1023 17 42 28 1024 8 -1 1023 17 68 29 980 10 980 990 17 81 30 1024 10 0 0 17 85 31 832 6 832 832 33 80 32 1020 15 -1 1024 17 127 33 776 8 0 0 33 100 34 1024 12 0 0 17 102 35 1024 9 1024 1024 17 76 36 1024 5 512 1024 17 42 37 830 10 -1 830 17 68 38 823 10 256 824 17 68 39 980 14 -1 990 30 200 40 615 8 128 664 17 40 41 917 15 -1 918 17 114 42 1023 15 -1 1024 17 127 43 823 10 512 823 17 68 44 820 6 -1 820 17 40 45 1024 8 -1 1024 17 68 The BIOS also allows two User-Defined Types, in which the parameters can have the following ranges: Cylinders: 0-9999 Heads: 0-99 Write Precomp: 0-9999 Landing Zone: 0-9999 Sectors: 0-99 The machine will not recognize ANY second drive. The drives I have tried are all consideraby bewer than the BIOS and I just can't think of any other reason why they would not be recognized. I have tried the "cable select" settings on all of them. I assume that the MASTER/SLAVE methodology is not mandatory. Can someone suggest a good book that goes into this type of thing? Thanks, Kurt

16 years, 1 month

FS: S-100 boards

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

More stuff I'd forgotten I had. I was starting to build an 8080-based S-100 computer in the late 1970's, but lost interest when I bought an Apple IIe system for "only" $2000 (in 1982 dollars!) Anyway, there is: 1) Wameco CPU-1, mostly populated including the 8080A. Looks like the 8224 and 8228 are not there, though. http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=1zef37s&s=4 2) Ithaca Audio 8K 2102 board, fully socketed and populated. http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=29lefr8&s=4 3) Piiceon 8K Program Saver (2708 EPROM programmer). Complete except for the TL497CN switching regulator chip. Includes two 2708's. http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2r7x7jt&s=4 NOTE: The above three boards were never powered up or tested. No idea if they will actually work or not! 4) Solid State Music VB-1B Video Interface. This one was actually working with a different (homebrewed) 8080A board way back in 1979. I think it's 64 characters x 16 lines, monochrome of course. http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2qa6bde&s=4 Please make offer on one or all. Shipping will be from zip 65775 (US). Somewhere I have a Wameco "Little Mother Board" backplane too, but haven't gotten that far down into the junkpile yet. thanks Charles

16 years, 1 month

Upgrading early BIOS

by alhartman＠yahoo.com

Why not try adding a PCI IDE adapter? It will have it's own BIOS that will over-ride the internal BIOS. You can even add a PCI SATA adapter for that matter. Computer Geeks have them pretty cheap. IF your 486 Board has PCI Slots. I know I have an ISA IDE Adapter from Future Domain here that I've never used, but I don't know if it's going to work any better with newer drives. Al

16 years, 1 month

SDS/XDS Sigma systems

by RichA＠vulcan.com

If anyone on the list is aware of Sigma equipment still in existence, please contact me. I am aware that Honeywell forcibly retired the systems as service contracts expired in the early 80s, and that this will be very rare if it does exist at all. Thanks, Rich Rich Alderson RichA at vulcan.com Server Engineer, PDPplanet Project (206) 342-2239 Vulcan, Inc., 505 5th Avenue S, Seattle, WA 98104 (206) 465-2916 cell

16 years, 1 month

Paper Tape Reader

by dm561＠torfree.net

----------Original Message: Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:48:09 -0600 From: "B M" <iamvirtual at gmail.com> Subject: Paper Tape Reader Does anyone know of a source for a [relatively] cheap paper tape reader suitable for reading standard DEC paper tapes? I have several paper tapes from a PDP-11/20 that I would like to read, and of course, share :-). Something like the OP-80 from Oliver Engineering would be suitable. Thanks. --barrym ----------Reply: I've got 4 or 5 different models of PPT readers (and some perfs), but none quite as simple as the OP-80 and they'd all require some custom interfacing; what's [relatively] cheap ??? Contact me off-list if interested; thanks. mike

16 years, 1 month

questbusters

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

Does anyone here have a collection of Questbusters newsletters? I just acquired some from my brother who asked me to sell them. I'd like to see if I can get scans gathered together. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

16 years, 1 month

Intel 4004 from discrete SMD transistors

by wbblair3＠yahoo.com

About the web page I posted the link for yesterday: http://www.4004.com/ I emailed the owner of the site to ask a question and got an interesting response: The right-hand 4004 exhibit photo at the top of the page looks like a 4004 reproduced with surface mount devices on a PC board. Is that what it is? If so, where is it specifically discussed in the text? Thanks, Bill Hi Bill, Those are indeed surface-mount transistors positioned where the original transistors are on the chip, but the photo is of a non-functional prototype currently on exhibit at the Intel Museum. Alas, we are still working on our ultimate goal of building a fully functional reproduction of the 4004, and displaying that in a museum or two. There is no write-up because this ambitious part of the saga is still in-progress, and because we're all busy professionals with "day jobs," there is currently no estimated completion date. Since you expressed an interest, here's where we're at: we have a verified netlist from the schematics, and an unverified netlist we painstakingly extracted from the mask artwork. It contains key geometry information we need for layout and routing, but also some errors we need to find and fix. We ran into a snag reconciling the two netlists (it is an "NP hard" problem), but I think we're getting close to a solution. Then we can move to the PC board layout stage, build another giant prototype, and start debugging... I'm crossing my fingers and praying that we can finish the project by this upcoming 37th anniversary of the 4004 product announcement back on November 15 of 1971. --Tim

16 years, 1 month

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test-drb August 2008