test-drb August 2014

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

213 participants
244 discussions

Data General Nova 3/12 and 6026 Tape Drive on craigslist

by tommie＠fox.se

Data General Nova 3/12 and 6026 Tape Drive in Tucson, AZ on Craigslist https://tucson.craigslist.org/sys/4591315871.html /Tommie My Data General stuff: http://www.datageneral.org/

8 years, 12 months

Source for IBM logic probe tips

by h.j.stegeman＠hccnet.nl

Hi, Who can help me with a source (not IBM) for logic probe tips used with IBM MST and SLT backplanes. See: http://home.hccnet.nl/h.j.stegeman/IBM_logic_probes.jpg Prefably the lower one (P/N 453826). Thanks for your replies. Regards Henk

9 years, 1 month

ab20 archive

by jfoust＠threedee.com

At 08:56 AM 8/11/2014, Jason Scott wrote: >I'll work on finding and getting them on archive.org! > > >On Mon, Aug 11, 2014 at 4:59 AM, Jacob Dahl Pind <rachael at telefisk.org> >wrote: > >> >> Does anyone by change have either of the following walnut creek cdrom, >> >> AB20 Amiga CD-ROM >> Aminet CD-ROM disc, 6/93 , ( note this is not part of the aminet cds from >> Urban D. Mueller) I bet I have them both; the trick would be finding them. - John

9 years, 2 months

Replacement for Google's broken Usenet group search

by aek＠bitsavers.org

They seem to have broken it sufficiently now that nothing is returned after the end of October. Is there anyone indexing Usenet that has a clue? It seems like all that is left is for-pay services for searching alt.binaries.

9 years, 2 months

AS/400

by jon＠jonworld.com

Are there any AS/400 emulators out there? Alternately, any baby AS/400 systems in the Columbus, OH area? I'm asking for a friend. -- -Jon Jonathan Katz, Indianapolis, IN.

9 years, 5 months

TD Systems Inc Viking QTO / QDO conversion. QBUS.

by mattislind＠gmail.com

On Thu Jun 19 10:28:44 CDT 2014, Zane Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote: >On Jun 19, 2014, at 8:14 AM, Glen Slick <glen.slick at gmail.com> wrote: > >> On Thu, Jun 19, 2014 at 7:53 AM, Zane Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote: >>> >>> Yes, yes, and yes. I did this 15+ years ago, you're making me feel old. :-( >>> >>> You need the following: >>> 1. A high enough version of the EPROM >>> 2. A PAL Fuse Map for burning a PAL that will allow the board to act as a QDT controller (Disk and Tape) >>> 3. A special cable that allows you to connect a Serial Terminal >>> 4. Instructions on how to get into the hidden menu to configure the board >>> >>> I should have #4, but I have no clue as to where it is. The person I knew that had #2 lost that data in a fire years ago. I seem to recall hearing about someone jury-rigging #3, I used the pr\ oper cable and bulkhead plate. >>> >> >> If you burned your own PAL yourself and you didn't secure the PAL (or >> does a PAL16L8 even have a security fuse?) then even if the known PAL >> Fuse Map was lost I would assume that it could just be read back from >> the PALs on the boards you have, along with dumping the firmware >> EPROMs as well. >> >> -Glen > >The person that burned the PAL's is the person that had the fire. > >Zane I have had some progress in this matter: I got a reply to the letter I sent to folks at tdsys.com. The gentleman had forwarded to the designer of the Viking series of adapter boards and to the lady that was working with configuration of products. He had not yet go a reply from them. I also checked how the address decoding PAL is connected and I now understand that it has two outputs, connected to another PAL chip and then 16 inputs. These 16 inputs are the 4 jumpers and also BDAL02-BDAL12 and also the BBS7 signal. Looks quite reasonable being an address decoding chip. I more or less presume that the reason for two outputs is that one is for disk and one is for tape. I have to verify that by reverse engineer the actual content of the PAL using a small arduino board. You mention that there is a special way of accessing the configuration menu. It make sense since when I examine the board more carefully I discover a small serial EEPROM that might be used for storing the configuration. It would be really interesting to get more info about how to access this secret menu! Anyone else out there that knows about this? I have the cab kit for it. It has a DB25 connector as well as a 50 pin male IDC connector. But there is also pads for a 10 pin connector that seems to be for the second serial port. What is the use for this second serial port? The board has a Signetics SCN2681 DUART chip so it definitely has two serial ports. Regarding versions of the firmware. My firmware is 4.0 : https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/96935524/Datormusuem/Viking_Q_B_A4.0.bin Zane, Pontus: What is your version? Mattis Lind

9 years, 7 months

3M cart band tension

by aek＠bitsavers.org

I just thought of a really simple way to tell if the band in your 3M cart is shot if you don't happen to have a tension meter handy. Take off the cover of a known good cart, set it on a table with the capstan roller facing away from you and pull the band at the edge closest to you with your index finger. The cart will move towards you on the table after about one row of dots (for example) on the baseplate of belt deflection. Good belts will provide quite a bit of tension by the time you reach the edge of the cart. Obviously, the exact values vary with the friction on the surface you're using, but you get the idea. Bad belts have significantly less tension and require a lot more deflection to produce enough force to overcome the friction of the table.

9 years, 7 months

Questions - Setting up a SRAM board in S-100 / Altair system? Banks vs. Blocks?

by drlegendre＠gmail.com

I've been trying to familiarize myself with the soon-to-arrive SRAM board, reading through the documentation, googling this & that, etc. But I'm having trouble understanding a couple of concepts.. (You can d/l the manual for the board at http://nerp.net/~legendre/altair/ - "California Computer Systems 2016B". There's a pic there as well.) I get that the S-100 memory space is organized into 16 blocks of 4096 (8-bit) bytes, with the high-order digit in the memory address denoting the block number (0XXX-FXXX). This would correspond to address lines A12-A15. Likewise, I get that the SRAM board is organized into 4 blocks of 4096 bytes per block, and that with the corresponding DIP switches, I can individually map each 4K block into any of the 16 blocks in the memory space. Great, I know how to configure the memory blocks.. But now what is this about 'banks'? On p.33, section 3.3 the manual states "The 2016B is bank-selectable by bank port address and bank byte. Thus it is fully compatible with Cromemco, Alpha Micro and other port-bank-select systems. IT IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH ADDRESS-SELECT SYSTEMS SUCH AS IMSAI." So what does that mean to me? There are apparently two parameters, Bank Byte and Bank Port Address - and I just can't get what they're about. How does a bank differ from a block, and why do I need to configure those settings? And is this card even compatible with the Altair - I don't know if it uses the former or latter (IMSAI) scheme.. As ever, thanks for your help!

9 years, 7 months

Alphastation 300 questions.

by wlewisiii＠gmail.com

I turned to set up a new to me toy my friend gave me yesterday, a DEC Alphastation 300 4/266. 1 ST12400N, 1 ST31230N, floppy, CD, 1 gb ram. Unknown video. I've plugged in both a VGA & my DEC VRC16 monitors, PS/2 keyboard & mouse and I get no video out on either monitor, only a "keyboard error" on the LEDs on the back of the computer. I've also tried a USB keyboard that is known good via a usb/ps2 adaptor with no joy as well. Any other troubleshooting ideas? Thanks! -- Live like you will never die, love like you've never been hurt, dance like no-one is watching. Alex White

9 years, 7 months

M4 Data 9914 tach roller fix

by aek＠bitsavers.org

I was working on 1/2" tape recovery this week, and wanted to see if the M4 that I got from Guy worked any better that the Qualstar I was using, so I dug the 9914 back out after a rather frustrating experience earlier this year trying to get the tach roller resurfaced (it's the only rubber part in the whole tape path). It turns out 1/2" ID surgical tubing works just fine stretched over the tach roller. It's a bit of a challenge getting it over the lip of the roller but once it's in place it fills in the gap where the original rubber was just fine. I was able to recover the one bad block on the 1990 MSDP tape I had, so that's been updated on bitsavers, along with a bunch of other random tapes that were in the to do pile.

9 years, 8 months

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test-drb August 2014