test-drb February 2012

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

158 participants
158 discussions

DiscFerret: It just keeps getting better...!

by classiccmp＠philpem.me.uk

Hello, folks! Hope you all had a very merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, or whatever you celebrated! Also, best wishes for the New Year, which will be... in around two and a quarter hours in my neck of the woods :) It's been a while since I posted anything related to DiscFerret. Rest assured, I have not been resting on my laurels (Balrog and Lord Nightmare have made certain of that!). In fact, I've just released a shiny new toy for all you DiscFerret owners... Well, two actually! Microcode Release 0026 and C-API 1.3! New in these releases...: - Microcode: - Added a clock divider to the Data Acquisition core. Now you can specify how much timing resolution you need -- 80ns (12.5MHz), 40ns (25MHz), 20ns (50MHz) or the full 10ns (100MHz). When set to 40ns, the DiscFerret matches the Kryoflux for read speed (84 tracks double-sided in one minute and 45 seconds). At full resolution, it still only takes three minutes and 25 seconds to image the same disc. - Completely rewrote the data sync-word detector. All the ripple clocks and clock-domain crossings are gone, and the data separator is FAR more reliable. The capture and lock range is about 20% of the nominal data rate (!), which is more than adequate for most disc drives. The sync word may be up to 16 bits long, and can also include "don't care" bits! - Miscellaneous fixes to the data separator configuration (it was set for a 16MHz clock, but provided with a 20MHz clock. Despite this, it still worked fine!) - C/C++ API - Support added for the new clock divider register. Files are all downloadable from the usual place -- http://www.discferret.com/ (or more specifically:) http://www.discferret.com/wiki/DiscFerret:Downloads And you can, as always, browse the source code here -- http://hg.discferret.com/ On the cards for the New Year -- - Work has started on a new, simplified API. This will make its grand d?but some time in the new year. - I'm working on improving the accuracy of the INDEX pulse storage logic. When finished, this will improve the accuracy of INDEX timing measurements to match the data timing measurements! (This is a minimum of a factor of 8 improvement over the KryoFlux analyser, and a factor of 128 improvement over the current microcode release!) Special thanks for this release are due to: Rich Thomson, Karsten Scheibler, Sarayan, Balrog, Lord_Nightmare, ... and anyone else I've forgotten! Thanks! -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/

10 years, 6 months

Compaq SLT/286

by aw288＠osfn.org

Like the Sanyo just yesterday, I have a Compaq SLT/286 portable computer taking up space. Very nice condition, with power unit, dock, and bag. Any interest CHEAP? I am located in New York, zip 10512. Unlike the Sanyo, if there is no interest, I suppose I will just chop this up. I am desperately trying to clear out a bedroom to work on it - the bedroom that ends up being the junk overflow containment chamber. It would actually be nice to sleep in it sometime. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org

10 years, 7 months

Starting a PDP 11/03

by kelly＠catcorner.org

I have a PDP 11/03 that used to be part of the startup for an 11/780 at the University of Arkansas at Fayettville. The 780 has long ago been scrapped. So, the 11/03 has the following boards: M8017-AA : DLV11-E/EC Single-line async control module (Replaces M8017,M8017-YB) Renamed DLVE1 M7940 : DLV11 Serial Line Unit (SLU, Async) M7944 : MSV11-B 4-Kword 16-bit MOS RAM M7946 : RXV11 RX01 8" floppy disk controller M9400-YE : Bootstrap terminator I also have the RX01 drive. So, other than media, what other options do I need to get this running as an 11/03? Where is the best place to get some basic media images? Is it possible to create boot media on the 8" drives I have connected to my PC using IMAGEDISK, 22DISK or the catweasel? I know a lot of these questions are answered out there, but I've not seen (yet) a simple step by step to get one of these running. I have the opportunity to get a couple of memory boards also: M8044-DB 32K, 16-BIT RAM for LSI-11 M8044-DE 32K, 16-BIT RAM for LSI-11 So, will these work with this 11/03? It seems they will, but I was looking for verification. Thanks for any help, and of course the associated "have you tried googling..." responses. Kelly

10 years, 8 months

FDOS for Fluke 1720A

by geoffb＠vigilan.com

Does anyone have the O/S, Applications, and Diagnostice disks for this ancient IEEE 488 bus controller (Fluke 1720A)? It used a TI 9900 processor if I remember correctly. The operating system was called FDOS- a custom effort too I think, distributed on three 5 1/4" floppies. This is no longer available from anywhere or anyone, including Fluke. Thanks for any help and/or leads. Geoff

10 years, 10 months

Kaypro System disks?

by brain＠jbrain.com

I have been fortunate to acquire a Kaypro system that appears to be in great condition and looks to work. It looks exactly like this: http://www.computermuseum.li/Testpage/Kaypro-I-Micro.htm Thus, it says Kaypro 1 on the artwork Still, the sticker on the rear says Kaypro 2, so I'm confused. In any event, I have no system disks for it (There is a slight possibility they are part of the stash with which the Kaypro was bundled, but it's 100 sq ft of stuff). Thus, I'm wondering if there is a kind soul who might be able to ship me a set of disks. (I'll pay shipping, of course). I also am the proud owner of 2 Obsorne machines (one works, the other seems to have drive issues. They are the redesigned units, but (as I suspected) the systems disks won't work on the Kaypro. Jim -- Jim Brain, Brain Innovations (X) brain at jbrain.com Dabbling in WWW, Embedded Systems, Old CBM computers, and Good Times! Home: http://www.jbrain.com

10 years, 11 months

CMD CQD-220 ROM fixes

by fraveydank＠gmail.com

A while back, I mentioned that I'd found and potentially fixed the "bricking" problem with the CQD-220. To recap, for those that werent following, the problem lies in the code for the on-board 8086 when you set the number of both disks and tapes to zero. The 8086, during its routine to load the values from the EEPROM, loads the total number of disks and tapes and executes a loop with a counter predecrement; if the counter is loaded as 0, it effectively runs through the loop 256 times instead of 7 (the max), which spins out of control and blows away some RAM somewhere before crashing. Fortunately, through a compiler bug or some such, there are 5 bytes available from a totally redundant instruction (loading a value into a register where the same value is already loaded) in just the right place to test the total number of devices and jump to the "uninitialized device table in EEPROM" section of the routine if it is zero. With one byte to spare! (good thing NOP is only a byte in 8086) This applies to the A7A revision of the ROM, anyway; I haven't gotten to the A8 version yet, though I know it exhibits the same bug. Hopefully it also has the same redundant instruction. In any case, I should be able to find and fix it quickly once I have the time, because I know where to look. So, here's the thing; I've finally gotten the time to test the fixed ROM image (was temporarily short of 27256 chips, but that's been resolved) and I'd like to get the fixed images somewhere they'll be easy to find if anyone else runs into the same problem (this took me over a year of sporadic attention to fix). Does anyone know where I should post this? There's my own website, which is really not a thing anymore, but there are probably lots of places Google is more likely to find. Also, are there copyright implications to consider? I know CMD is long gone, but I still worry about these things. Last thing: does anyone know the difference between the A7A ROM and the A8? I've not found anything different; I assume it's probably an obscure bugfix. The images are only 64K total, so I shouldn't imagine they'll be bandwidth intensive. - Dave

10 years, 11 months

A Complete History Of Mainframe Computing

by lproven＠gmail.com

Tom's Hardware - a popular site for PC hardware tweakers and overclockers - has done an ambitious article on the development of the mainframe: http://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/508-mainframe-computer-history.html It's a little American-centric but it's not at all bad. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508

10 years, 12 months

PCjr Telnet Server Test

by mbbrutman-cctalk＠brutman.com

It's running! Telnet to 97.86.233.68 to take a look and help me test it. You can use the standard Windows telnet program, Putty, Linux, or whatever you have handy. Around 10 users can be on at the same time. When you sign on (no password required) there will be a little menu to help you waste some time. Some things you can do are see who else is on the server, view the machine type, ROM BIOS date and DOS version, check the TCP/IP statistics to see how much traffic it is handling, etc. There are some upgrades since the last time I ran this test (in Dec 2007): - The TCP/IP stack is much better - I'm doing 'telnet' negotiation to figure out the terminal type, turn echoing on, etc - Crude line editing has been added Right now it is running on my PCjr using a Xircom PE3 10BT. I plan to leave it up as long as it runs, or three days, whichever comes first. It is a PCjr so if there is a momentary delay, don't panic - it's probably just doing disk I/O. Backspace is a little dodgy .. it really wants ASCII 8 and a lot of terminals and emulators do ASCII 127 instead. Try variations with the shift and control keys if it doesn't work. Thanks, Mike

11 years

Wait! There's more including MS-DOS 1.25!!!! was Sanyo MBC-550 (Yuck!) software available

by rigdonj＠intellistar.net

I'm still digging. I found more 550 stuff. I think this is everything that came with the 550. Here's a chance for you 550 owner's to get the whole set at one shot! Original DS-DOS box and invoice. Original Sanyo Easywriter ver 1.3 disk Original Sanyo disk box with 550 dos ver 2.11 and BASIC 1.25, two original Sanyo disk for InfoStar (set B disk 2 and 3 of 4; disks 1 and 4 are below), original Sanyo disk for DOS 1.25 and BASIC ver 1.1 Original Sanyo disk box with all three original disk of set A, WordStar and CalcStar and a backup copy of DS-DOS. Two card board dummy disks used to protect the floppy drives duing shipment. Joe > >A few weeks ago we were talking about the Sanyo 550 series and someone mentioned one of the alternates operating systems that supported 80 track drives in the 550. I said that was DS-DOS by Michtron. > > Today I found an old Sanyo disk package with four disks for the 550. One of them is DS DOS 2.11, one is InfoStar, one is MailMerge/SpellStar and the other is a disk of misc utilities. The first three are original disks. In additon, the InfoStar, MailMerge/SpellStar are Sanyo labeled disks that came with the 550. If anyone wants them, trade me something I can use and they're all your's. > > Joe

11 years, 3 months

IBM 5151 green phosphor monitors for sale

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

I have a limited number of IBM 5151 monitors for sale. This is the classic green screen monitor that shipped with the basic IBM PC 5150. Condition is adequate. They are dirty but I will clean them up before shipping out. Will test for basic functionality. No burn-in or other problems, but no warranty either. The price is $30 each plus shipping. First come, first served. Please contact me directly via e-mail. Thanks! -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

11 years, 4 months

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test-drb February 2012