test-drb May 2009

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

204 participants
322 discussions

by legalize＠xmission.com

Anyone got some? I've got 4 Intergraph Clipper RISC based workstations, but no docs. Wikipedia says that the systems used CLIX, a Un*x SysV variant. I'm looking for user manuals, hardware manuals, OS manuals, etc. -- "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, 11 months

SGI, the name lives on

by christian_liendo＠yahoo.com

Those who are into SGI may like this... http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/11/sgi-lives-or-at-least-its-name-doe…

15 years, 11 months

8 bit SBC with floppy controller for disk archiving [was Xerox820system disks in Teledisk format]

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: RE: 8 bit SBC with floppy controller for disk archiving [was Xerox820system disks in Teledisk format] > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 20:12:32 -0700 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On 11 May 2009 at 22:26, Andrew Lynch wrote: > >> Hi Chuck! Thanks! By extensions, I mean the Disk IO has a regular >> Shugart mini-disk interface with all the usual signals and options. >> It also has the "feature" interface which imports/exports the rest of >> the NEC765/i8272 signals necessary for 8" and other drive support. An >> 8" drive cable with what signals are needed for that drive could be >> fabricated using the Shugart mini-disk interface plus whatever >> signals/options are needed from the feature connector. The 8" drive >> cable would be custom to Disk IO and that drive but there are multiple >> 8" drive interfaces so that seemed to me to be the most flexible way >> to provide support in a limited PCB space format. > >Hi Andrew, > >Good work! > >I did check out your schematic (I think)--FDC_A.jpg and FDC_B.jpg and >I don't see the "special feature" connector anywhere. > >Here are my comments on what I see, they're only speculation and >opinion, so please don't take them for anything more than that. I'm >certain that you had good reasons for doing what you did the way you >did it! > >One of the problems with using a 4MHz Z80 on a raw data stream is >that the Z80A isn't fast enough to handle it. While a uC might do >that, the simplest seems to be the Catweasel's use of a 128K time- >domain memory. Leave it to the host processor to crunch the data >later. One could well more easily hook up a uC to the raw disk >interface, don't you think? To do NS*, Victor and Heath hard sector and other odd formats would be outside the range of Z80 even at 10mhz. Most of those had unique external hardware to assist. >How does one derive the RWC/TG43 signal that some 8" drives require? >If there's an 8" connector, why is HDL not brought to it? The 765 does support that its' implmentation that determines if its brought to a connector. >One thing that I'm not certain of is the use of the US0 and US1 pins >for select. The PC uses a separate register for select and leaves >US0 and US1 NC. I suspect that this bears on some aspect of 5.25" >operation and the 765's polling mode, but I'm not certain. 765 has unit select and head select. Typically when it's polling unit select is active for the four drive poll (ready line). When a drive is selected for read or wrie head (HDL) is enabled with internal timers and a read or write will take place. The PC uses a seperate register for that and side steps that feature. >Would it be better to multiplex the READY signal to a set of jumpers >that allows one to select either the drive's own ready (all 8" drives >and most 5.25" have this) or a tied-high READY? The full out designs for 765 do that but most simplify to cust chip/cost and usually that is the first to go. >FWIW, the Victor 9000 disk format is variable datarate (or CLV, >depending on how you want to look at it). It's also very unique to Victor and even when a new thing like so many other non portable formats caused the user great pain in importing new software available to those that had more generic formats. Allison >Best regards as always, >Chuck > > >

15 years, 11 months

list of nordisk data books and floppy disks

by bert＠brothom.nl

If you need access to one of these, contact me an urge me to make a deal. Keep pushing, as pushing raises priority with me. Books: NOTIS-BG User Guide NOTIS-RG New functions in the E-version NOTIS-DS User's guide Introduction to ND Office Systems The SPRINT User Guide Documentation Catalogue SINTRAN III Real Time Loader Dialogue-UNIQUE-II User Guide Operator Environment User Guide NOTIS-WP Brief Introduction User Environment Reference Manual NOTIS-WP Reference Manual COSMOS User Guide User Environment Reference Manual SINTRAN III Utilities Manual (3x) ND-110 Instruction Set The Database System SIBAS II ND User Manual SIBAS II Operator Manual NOTIS-DS Introduction (2x) Sintran III Real Time Guide NOTIS-DS Supervisor Guide (2x) ACCESS User Guide File Manager Introduction (2x, one in shrink-wrap) NOMIS Norwegian Medical Information System SINTRAN III COMMANDS Reference Manual SINTRAN III Monitor Calls (2x) Symbolic Debugger User Guide Examples for NOTIS-RG Version B SINTRAN-III Release Information K-version NOTIS-TF Macro Guide (new in shrink wrap) BACKUP User Guide (3x) SINTRAN III System Supervisor Operator Environment User Guide ND-110 COMPACT Operator Guide (contains several quick reference cards) SINTRAN III User Guide BRF-Linker User Manual NOTIS-TF User Guide User Environment Library Routines NOTIS-RG Reference Manual Test Program Description for ND-100/ND-110 ordner with following description: course program the supervisor's responsibility Handbook of Useful information examples of LOAD-MODE etc. telefix customer information miscellaneous materials MEDITEBS (in dutch) bunch of unknown listings a document with information on SCSI on ND ACCESS DBA manual NOTIS-TF text formatter reference manual partly dutch presentation with general user info SINTRAN III Timesharing/Batch guide some dutch documentation on MEDITEBS datasheets of several ND products, such as software packages, computers and accessoiries Floppies: (each floppy or set of floppies contains a few pages of information) SINTRAN III K GENERATION 312 CONF.D VSX, 2 disks (2 sets) PATCH-SIN-K-5400 (2 sets) SINTRAN III Configuration Program SUBSYSTEM PACKAGE 32 BITS FLOATING FORMAT SINTRAN III VSE/VSX Utility Programs ACCOUNTING System for SINTRAN III BACKUP-SYSTEM X-MESSAGE TELEFIX FILES FOR USER SITES SUBSYSTEM PACKAGE II VTM terminal tables USER ENVIRONMENT (3 disks) TEST PROGRAMS FOR ND-100/110 TEST PROGRAMS FOR ND-100/110/120 (2 disks) JEC job execution control ND-10634A MEMORY TO FLOPPY NOTIS-WP FOR ND-100 (4 disks) SIBAS-II for ND-100 (2 disks with pretty much the same label) ACCESS FOR ND-100 (dito) NOTIS-RG for ND-100 norwegian NOTIS-DS for ND-100 (3 disks) NOTIS-DS for ND-100 48-bit floating point (3 disks with pretty much the same label) NOTIS-BG-for ND-100 norwegian version 32 bits fl NOTIS-BG-for ND-100 32 bits fl NOTIS-BG-for ND-100 (business grafics) 32 bits fl PR for ND-100 (Norwegian version) BRF-Linker for ND-100 SINTRAN III MONITOR CALL Pack. SPRINT Spooling System (3 disks) MEDITEBS specials Mass Storage Utilities OPERATOR ENVIRONMENT (4 disks) Disk Restore (3 disks) TESTPROGRAMS FOR ND-100/110/120 (2 disks, both labeled PART 1 OF 2) UNIQUE-II SIBAS for ND-100 UNIQUE TEXT SYSTEM UNIQUE-II SIBAS ND-100 (hand-written label) SOFTWARE KEY DISCETTE

15 years, 11 months

List behavior (spinoff from Re: Xerox 820 system disks in Teledisk format?)

by dm561＠torfree.net

-------------Original Message: Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 13:37:14 -0400 From: Patrick Finnegan <pat at computer-refuge.org> Subject: Re: List behavior (spinoff from Re: Xerox 820 system disks in Teledisk format?) Wow, I wish I had as much time to waste complaining about pointless issues as you guys. Then I'd actually have time to work on my hobbies... Pat --------------Reply: LOL! Good one! Considering that *you*'re the one that wasted your time writing the original *complaint* that I replied to, why *don't* you in fact just work on your hobbies instead of wasting even more of your valuable time with rude and pointless notes like that one and blaming me/us for it? What *is* it about the suggestion that a little politeness and appreciation might be a good idea when asking for help that bothers you enough to take the time to object? I don't care if the OP is offended and leaves the list, or if his attitude causes some folks to make a mental note to not lift a finger to help him next time; that's his choice. The *point* is that enough criticism and lack of appreciation etc. might prompt folks like Dave to leave the list or stop sharing his contributions with us; that concerns me, even if OP doesn't care now that his problem has been solved. I know that Dave at least has already asked himself a few times why the hell he bothered, especially with IMD... m

15 years, 11 months

Xerox 820 system disks in Teledisk format?

by snhirsch＠gmail.com

Title says it. I can only find them in Imagedisk format, but IMD does not recognize my Compaticard IV (why on earth does it restrict you to drives A-D??). Can someone help me out here? Steve --

15 years, 11 months

Available PDP-11/35

by quapla＠xs4all.nl

Forgot to tell that the machine is not for free, make an offer off-list. Hate to part it out, but can be done if needed. Box serialno on paper label and metal adhesive label match. Shipping is possible, but machine is wired for 220V single phase and is heavy!. If to be shipped, it will be boxed in a plywood box for transport. Pickup is possible of course. Ed > Hello All, > > I have available one PDP 11/35 in BA-23 box configuration. > Processor comes with base CPU, MMU & stacklimit register. > No EIS, FIS or RTC is included. > This machine is the last spare we had for a customer. > 2 others have already found a good home and are well cared for. > > Contact me off list for more details if needed. > > Pictures to be seen at www.groenenberg.net/download/junk > > > -- > Certified : VCP 3.x, SCSI 3.x SCSA S10, SCNA S10 > > -- Certified : VCP 3.x, SCSI 3.x SCSA S10, SCNA S10

15 years, 11 months

Casio AI-1000 info...

by derschjo＠mail.msu.edu

Does anyone have any detailed information on the Casio AI-1000? This is (was) a pocket-sized computer in the vein of those old BASIC handhelds, except it's programmable in Lisp, of all things... I'm interested in what it's capable of, it just looks like a neat little device but there's not a lot of detail out there other than basic hardware specs. And of course if anyone has one they're just gonna throw away, drop me a line :). Josh

15 years, 11 months

8 bit SBC with floppy controller for disk archiving [was Xerox 820 system disks in Teledisk format]

by lynchaj＠yahoo.com

Andrew Lynch wrote: > Hi! I sent this message earlier but it seems to have gotten drowned in all > the unpleasantness. Sometimes, this list is weird. > Hopefully we can move on to something more > constructive. If anyone would like to discuss disk archiving legacy formats> with an existing low cost home brew Z80 CP/M SBC and Disk IO board I think > the N8VEM project would make a great starting point. I was wondering about it too, and waiting for you to come up ;-) Anyway, I hope you don't mind if I post the links to two pictures which hopefully show how it could work: a.) the cpu board http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/f/IMG_5762.jpg b.) the fdc http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/f/IMG_8632.JPG So, if you use a right angled power-connector on the cpu, you could probably just stack those two board on top of each other, without the need of the bus backplane. My thoughts to all of this: 1.) I don't care about the sd-flash, Not sure if it really helps. After all, we still talk about floppies, so a decent V24 should be good enough to send /receive data from a floppy. 2.) The board is missing the 8" floppy connector, which is bad. Would make it easier to get the people playing with it. I know, you can wire it up easily, but you probably like to get the software people on board too ? ;-) Cheers STANDARD DISCLAIMER : (SORRY, I'M NOT INVOLVED IN THIS PROJECT AT ALL, BUT I'M WATCHING IT FOR A WHILE. LIKED TO PLAY WITH CP/M AND Z80 BEFORE) -----REPLY----- Hi! Some N8VEM builders have skipped the ECB backplane connectors and just direct connected the boards together as you suggest. That certainly is possible. Alternatively you could make a small ECB bus using IDC DIN 41612 connectors and 64 conductor ribbon cable. Some N8VEM builders have done that too. Although the Disk IO board does not have an explicit 8" connector all the signals are present for one. The Disk IO has a Shugart mini-disk interface 5.25"/3.5" and with the "feature" connector it has all the signals necessary. The builder can make a special cable for 8" drives if they are needed. There are different kinds of 8" drive interfaces with different signal requirements. They can be selected as options to make the signals present or not for the drives. In addition, the feature connector has signals normally buried in the FDC such as RAWREAD, /INDEX, and the MFM/FM decoded data stream straight from the FDC9229 data separator chip. These signals could be fed to an external uC or PC for direct sampling or processing similar to how a Catweasel works. The SBC and Disk IO would still be in the loop as a controller if not doing direct reads. Right now most of the software for the Disk IO board is focused on the IDE section. That supports quite a number of devices including CF adapters and regular IDE hard drives, ATAPI devices and the like. I have some very crude floppy drive "disk monitor" software available but that is as far as I got with it. I was able to read and write sectors, format tracks, move the heads, manipulate the i8272 registers and latch, etc all the things necessary for writing a CP/M CBIOS or disk utility. Some of the N8VEM builders are taking what I've done and are extending it but as you can imagine the floppy drive CBIOS is the most complex part. The software source code is available and open source as is all the hardware and software design information. Everything is publically available on wiki and mailing list. Some builders have proposed that the Disk 1A CBIOS could be modified to support this controller since they are somewhat similar. They are not exact though so it would be some work to make it happen. Even though the N8VEM SBC + Disk IO board is an incomplete solution it does have all the basic pieces necessary for this project. The PCBs and parts all exist and are obtainable fairly easily. There is quite a bit of software already in existence such as updated ROMs, CP/M archives, development tools, etc. However, the application software does not exist and would need to be written to make this practical. Obviously I am biased towards the N8VEM project as it is my own home brew system released in to the world. I think it could do this job if there were interested builders. I am now working on other projects such as completing the N8VEM 6809 host processor, the S-100 backplane, S-100 prototype board, the XT-IDE controller, and some other side projects. I hope this helps! Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch PS, you are welcome to join us on the mailing list and wiki regardless of this project. Feel free to stop by and join up!

15 years, 11 months

non-DEC-compat HW to read RX02's?

by shoppa＠trailing-edge.com

What non-DEC-compatible stuff out there can read RX02's? Obviously the original RX02 drive can read RX02's... as can all the DSD, Sigma, etc. Q-bus, Unibus, Omnibus compatible controllers. But what can read RX02's using a generic SA801-type drive and a PC-clone? Several years back I built a doohickey that plugged into a PC's parallel port and allowed me to step floppy drives and read bit-timing-information, a track at a time, into a RAM buffer, which I then dumped into the parallel port and wrote some software to analyze arbitrary disk formats. I wired the index/sector hole detector to the MSB RAM line and used it with great success to analyze and read several 8" and 5.25" hard-sector floppy formats and eventually pumped a few thousand disks through the scheme. Not bad for something thrown together on a solderless breadboard using random TTL chips I had lying around the basement :-). Obviously similar devices have been discussed here in the past decade or two. Is there anything available off the shelf that can plug into a USB port and let me do similar? Right now the thought of traveling with a 8" HH floppy drive and a laptop has a certain appeal as opposed to hauling around a BA23 and a DSD440 :-). Tim.

15 years, 11 months

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test-drb May 2009