test-drb April 2009

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

204 participants
261 discussions

How can one test a DEC M9313 "Unibus Exerciser and Terminator" (UET)?

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

Hi, all, Also in the same box with the DELQA was an M9313 UET module. It reminds me that I have a loooongstanding problem with my VAX8300... the Unibus interface (DWBUA) has been a problem since I moved the 8300 to my house 15 years ago. The machine works perfectly sans Unibus. It worked in its former location with Unibus. When I first got it home, I fried the DWBUA module - literally. There was a cracked IC and a burned trace. Some sort of cabling problem. I have replaced the cables, replaced the module (so except for the paddle card, pretty much a new system), and the last time I fired it up, I didn't get smoke, but it didn't come up as a Unibus. I have all the standard install docs and such. The normal arrangement is to have either some sort of DD-11 Unibus backplane in your BA32 CPU chassis *or* have long cables off the back of the VAXBI backplane to an external BA-11 with a standard DD-11DK or DD-11CK. I have the external BA11, the same one that was used with the 8300 in its former home. The "Unibus in" spot is filled with a paddle card that accepts the 4 cables from the user-defined area under the DWBUA module. The Unibus terminator *must* be a UET. The firmware on the DWBUA looks for it. I can tell from inspecting the BIIC registers on the DWBUA that my module is unhappy somehow with the UET. I have, now, 4 UETs. I think the last time I tested things, one or two gave me different BIIC-register results than the rest, suggesting that there are actual hardware problems with one or more of my UETs. The one I found tonight has probably not ever been plugged into a backplane by me, given what else I found in the box (*nothing* in the box has been plugged in since the box came home). What would help me increase my confidence about my testing procedure is how to actually *test* a UET. I have enough different sorts of hardware that I don't think I would have to get anything new to set up any sort of software test. I have close at hand an 11/04 and an 11/750, and can lay hands on various Unibus PDP-11s and an 11/750 without leaving town. The piece of the puzzle that I'm missing (and always have) is how to test it. AFAIK, it's a terminator and several loopback registers, but the specific nature of them is unknown to me. I presume that the termination is likely to be robust and probably not faulty - it's probably a problem with a bus driver/receiver or perhaps with some sort of internal register that the DWBUA firmware is writing to or reading back. There are a number of DEC-specific ICs, a lot of 74LS parts, some Nat'l Semi and AMD parts, and a few DIP resistor packs. There's one empty 24-pin 0.6" socket (which is empty on all the UETs I've seen, so it's either some sort of option or a test plug for some other use), and no jumpers what so ever. There are nine 8641 Unibus interface chips, but fortunately, I have a stack of those from COMBOARD spares. There are five DC013s, but I have those from COMBOARDs, too (two per board, socketed, thankfully). Before anyone suggests grant jumpers, I used to make dual-height grant modules. I always populate every slot with one so I don't have to worry about NPR (and because they are easier to remove than genuine G727 knucklebusters). I could probably figure out whatever I needed to from the UET maintenance printset (which I don't have handy, unfortunately), but I'm hoping that someone on the list has some experience that goes beyond just plugging one in and seeing no errors from the system. Perhaps someone has read a Field Service bulletin that talks about this module and perhaps they remember some useful fragment of the title or has a copy of it handy. I don't *think* either the primary or secondary Unibus adapters for the 11/750 care if there's a UET or even if they can directly tell there's a UET, and that's the system I have the most experience with. There may be some simple sort of ODT sequence that I could tickle the Unibus with and see clearly that "bit 4 is stuck" or something like that. If not, reading diagnostic source could be revealing about how it interacts with the UET registers. Thanks for any helpful tips and pointers. I miss having the Unibus on the 8300 - I can run and test COMBOARDs on it, which is one of the reasons I want to get it working - so I can go through the pile of stuff in the basement and scrap out the boards that didn't work then and aren't likely to work now. I have a few VAXBI COMBOARDs still, so one "fun" thing one can do is hook any two boards back-to-back through a (synchronous) modem eliminator (one board is told to be the "central", the other is the "remote") and move files around and exercise the software by pumping bytes from one process to another - you don't "need" a second machine to demonstrate HASP or 3780 (though it can be easier to explain when data are actually *moving* from one CPU to another). -ethan

15 years, 8 months

Looking for Radius Rocket software <ahem> key...

by derschjo＠mail.msu.edu

I picked up a Radius "Stage II" Rocket, which appears to be a rather nifty "accelerator" of sorts which is more or less a second 68040 mac on a nubus card. I've found the necessary software to drive it, RocketShare 1.3.1, but it wants a serial number from me before it'll start up... I don't have the original software disks, but I'd like to think owning the physical card would grant me rights to it, since they were only sold together. Anyone out there have a serial for this they can share? (Why would software that requires possession of a $3500 card in order to do anything require a serial number? Gah...) Thanks, Josh

15 years, 8 months

vintage ads

by legalize＠xmission.com

<http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/What-the-Ad.aspx> -- "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/>

15 years, 8 months

Looking for manual/schematics for Microangelo MA520 S-100 card

by ragooman＠comcast.net

Anyone have a manual/schematics for Microangelo MA520 S-100 card ? All the sites that I bookmarked come up empty. I'm trying to fix the one I have here. It's also missing a chip at U5 I don't have a photo of the card either to determine the part#, just the early revision model. thanks ! =Dan -- [ = http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/ ]

15 years, 8 months

tractor feed supplies

by brianlanning＠gmail.com

While picking over the remains of a local office depot that was going out of business, I managed to get a 500 sheet box of tractor feed printer paper for $3 (last one). I'm surprised they stocked it. Although they had box upon box of 2, 3, and 4 part tractor feed paper, so I guess that's the target audience. All I need now are tractor feed labels for 3.5" floppy disks. Does anyone know of a good source? brian

15 years, 8 months

Keyboard Kache in Kalifornia

by marvin＠west.net

> From: s shumaker <shumaker at att.net> > What's the location for this stuff? Oxnard is about 45 minutes south of where I live. If someone REALLY wants this stuff, I could stop by to pick up the stuff and drop it off somewhere to be packed and shipped (I just don't have the time to pack and ship that much "stuff".)

15 years, 8 months

Looking for PLM86 compiiler

by jefferwin＠gmail.com

I have added an 8088 to my Imsai 8080 (using the CompuPro/Godbout 8085/88 dual processor card). I have been all over the internet and have not been able to find a copy of PL/M86 and associated linker and locator. I know they must be out there, but none of the CPM86 sites have the tools. As an alternative, I could use a C86 compiler, but the C language overhead is huge. The AZTEC C86 compiler creates about 5K of 'stuff' for a main() with no #includes that simply returns. I suspect there is a ton of DOS support stuff that gets dragged in. PLM86 is designed more for creating PROM code, which is what I really need. Can anyone out there point me in the right direction? PLM86 or a C compiler that understands the concept of PROMable code? Jeff Erwin

15 years, 8 months

I [don't] hate E-Bay (was Cromemco 68000 on ebay)

by trag＠io.com

> > Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:05:08 +0100 (BST) > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > I don;t understnad this. How come if I put in my high bid several days > before the end of the auction does it make others bid higher? Because many of the buyers on Ebay are not rational--or at least, not what you and I would consider rational. Rather than deciding ahead of time on their maximum bid, they check the item over an over again during the auction and if they've been outbid, they enter a higher bid--usually $2 at a time, until theirs is the highest bid. If you come along and outbid them, they will do this again. If there are two of them, they'll do it to each other in a rather comical fashion (not so comical if you want the item in question). The only way to defeat these jokers is to not bid until the last moment, depriving them of the chance to come nickel and dime you to death. Even if they don't outbid you, several of their little increments will drive your price up. Remember, you don't pay your bid amount, you pay a fixed increment higher than the second highest bid amount. Of course, from a seller's point of view, these folks are (maybe) useful. Jeff Walther

15 years, 8 months

Looking for manual/schematics for Microangelo MA520 S-100 card

by ragooman＠comcast.net

15 years, 9 months

C=64 looking for a home (Montreal)

by mouse＠Rodents-Montreal.ORG

A friend-of-a-friend who's leaving not just the city, not just the country, but the continent, dropped a C=64 system on me. But I am not really into the 8-bitters; to me it would be just an amusing toy, and I daresay there are plenty of people here to whom it would be a lot more than that. It seems moderately complete, to me, and in fairly good shape for a system that old. (Going by the pictures Dave Dunfield has up on www.classiccmp.org, this is definitely the original C=64, not a C64C.) There's the keyboard/CPU unit, one 1541 disk drive (ie, 5?" floppy), a Commodore-branded monitor, two joysticks, power brick, at least a few disks of software, a bag of cables - I can go through and do a complete inventory if it matters. I haven't tried plugging it all together and testing it, though I certainly can if it might make the difference to anyone. Cosmetic condition is pretty good for a computer its age - not NIB-level pristine, of course, but it's obviously spent a lot of time either being well cared for or sitting protected on a shelf. :-) Yours for picking up in downtown Montreal. I can probably bring it to Ottawa if that would help; most months see me do at least three round trips. I could probably be persuaded to ship if necessary, but I'd naturally enough prefer to avoid that. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

15 years, 9 months

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test-drb April 2009