I have connected a 1.2M 5.25" floppy to my computer. After a bit of jumper
learning and setting, it's recognized and reads my old DD and HD floppies
fine. But for the life of me I cannot write to it. Not under DOS, Win98, or
WindowsXP. Which all read fine.
But can't add a file. It goes through to the motions and makes the noise,
heads moves as if everything went fine, but if I take the disk out and put
it back in, the file is not there.
I can't format either. Fails after a while on the above OS'es with different
error messages without the head moving past track 0, suggesting it can't
even read back the first track it's trying to format. Formatting from
ImageDisk or OmniDisk looks like it works (head goes through the motions
over the whole disk). But nothing seems to be written on the disk: neither
utility can read the formatting back. Both HD and DD.
On the same cable there is a 3.5" A: drive which reads and writes fine.
Can't be the controller since it works on the 3.5" drive? The cable maybe? I
tried several. Anyone has had this happened ever? Time to bring out the
o'scope?
Would anyone have a surplus-to-needs, or know of a source for, a VT100 keyboard?
This would actually be for the DECmateI/VT278 I mentioned on the list a couple weeks ago, Rob and I are looking into doing something with it.
Alternatively, does anyone know if there is any degree of signalling compatibility between the VT100 and VT220/320 keyboards?
Those RX floppies in the pedestal on ebay mentioned a week or two ago were just what was needed to complete it, as they actually looked like they were part of a 278, but the listing was removed from ebay.
In Realtime: We are barely halfway done
http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4711
They are still looking for volunteers tomorrow (Tuesday, August 18).
Anyone in or near Baltimore might want to go help.
Hello all - I thought they did this weeks ago but the VCFMW hotel has
informed me that they still have the special rooms pricing block open.
It will close "for real this time" at the end of the day this Friday
the 21st. A rather humbling number of rooms have been reserved so far
- well beyond our expectations - but there is room for a few more.
Follow the link at http://vcfmw.org for details.
See you next weekend!
-j
On Wed, Aug 19, 2015 at 5:48 PM, Brent Hilpert <hilpert at cs.ubc.ca> wrote:
> Thanks, that was a question I had been intending to ask, but to confirm:
> If one obtained (as appropriate) bare RX01/2 floppy drive(s), it would
> just be a matter of power supply for the floppies, and passive cabling
> to interface the drives to the CPU/display?
Yes.
There's a board that goes under the wooden "top" that has a DB25 on
one side, a Berg 40 on the other, and some wires and ferrite beads in
between. It should be the identical board that's in the RX01
enclosure for the MINC-11 and/or WT78. The pinouts should be the same
even if those use a different part number for the board.
> I actually have the DB25-to-DC37 cable that goes between the disk unit and the DC37 connector on the CPU/display unit.
Right. Well documented and easy enough to make, but good you have
one. What I need to make (since I've never seen one) is the
DC37-dual-DB25 cable to hang all the drives off of the DECmate I.
100% passive and just a few dozen solder joints.
> If we move this along we may be asking for system software in the future,
> I haven't looked at what may be readily available (i.e. bitsavers) as yet.
I think mine came with WPS-8, but it should run OS-278. You just need
to find a way to write RX02 floppies. I need to come up with a
semi-portable PDP-11 rig with RX02s and 256K of RAM so I can cut
floppies with vtserver (and probably some RL01 and RL02s while I'm at
it)
-ethan
From: Paul Koning <paulkoning at comcast.net>
>> ...
> Ok. RSTS does indeed check for duplicate vectors. It also checks for
> devices interrupting at too high a priority.
> It?s pretty neat code. Back in 1977 or so when that came out, it may
> have been one of the first autoconfig systems, at least in DEC. It
> could probe almost all devices supported by RSTS (and some not
> supported); the exceptions being card readers and the DT07 bus switch.
> But it would do hairy things like the KMC-11 and DMC-11, for example.
Wait? What was tricky about KMCs and DMCs? They used the same
algorithms, I had it down cold at the time.
Speaking of which, I have one copy of the KMC-11A Programmer's Guide if
anyone needs it or would like to scan it?
Dave (KMC-11 Tools Developer, RSX and VMS)
PS: I used ALGOLW on MTS in one of my ECE classes because we could
represent processor registers and operations using bit arrays/vectors
and boolean operations. Thus building working models of systems in
code.
I have a number of laboratory instruments that are from the 1990 time
frame. They produce digital data that is the digitized signal from a
detector, the data can be from 512 to 65K samples long. The ADC used in
these instruments is a 16bit 100ksample/sec design. The ADC is in a 3
by 4 inch metal box with a row of pins on each long edge.
I think some of them are failing because I get the full 16 bit
resolution from one machine, but not the others. This was determined by
taking the digital samples and sorting the values and computing the
increments between the adjacent values. In some cases the output looked
like 14 bit resolution and in one case 6 bit resolution.
Does anyone have any experience with technology?
Who was the manufacturer? (There is no id on the outside)
What is inside the box? Is it a hybrid circuit?
Doug
Hi guys,
I'm fiddeling around for hours now to get an M3119-YA CXY08
Multiplexer to work in my VAX4000/300 on VMS7.3.
The Card is properly detected it seems..
Device Device Error
Name Status Count
FTA0: Offline 0
OPA0: Online 0
TNA0: Offline 0
TNA2: Online 0
TXA0: Online 4
TXA1: Online 0
TXA2: Online 0
TXA3: Online 7
TXA4: Online 0
TXA5: Online 0
TXA6: Online 0
TXA7: Online 0
VTA0: Offline 0
.
SYSGEN> SH/CONF
System CSR and Vectors on 17-AUG-2015 19:17:01.69
Name: PAA Units: 1 Nexus:0 (CI )
Name: PAB Units: 1 Nexus:1 (CI )
Name: EZA Units: 4 Nexus:2 (NI )
Name: PUA Units: 1 Nexus:3 (UBA) CSR: 772150 Vector1: 154 Vector2: 000
Name: PTA Units: 1 Nexus:3 (UBA) CSR: 774500 Vector1: 260 Vector2: 000
Name: PTB Units: 1 Nexus:3 (UBA) CSR: 760404 Vector1: 300 Vector2: 000
Name: TXA Units: 8 Nexus:3 (UBA) CSR: 760440 Vector1: 310 Vector2: 314
SYSGEN>
..and it is the first card left of the CPU in the QBUS Backplane followed
>from an working CQD200/TM.
AThe DIP Switches are set like the standard in some CXY08 Manual, the MUX
is set to DHU11 programming model.
I've first tried to connect a serial line pronter with no luck so I've
tried to connect a 2nd VT420 and have no luck again. I know of the meaning
of the several modem control signals and how they should be wired, have
connected such a "null modem RS232 device" that shorts 4 to 5 and 6+8 to
20. I've tried to copy data from a file to the lines and I have shorted 2+3
of the Muxer Pins from the line and done a SET HOST/DTE/ESC=E TXA0:,allt
that ends with an timeout writing to the lines and the lines acting
identically, regardles which one I try to use.
$ copy SYSTARTUP_VMS.COM txa3:
%COPY-E-WRITEERR, error writing TXA3:[]SYSTARTUP_VMS.COM;5
-RMS-F-WER, file write error
-SYSTEM-F-TIMEOUT, device timeout
%COPY-W-NOTCMPLT, SYS$COMMON:[SYSMGR]SYSTARTUP_VMS.COM;5 not completely
copied
$ sh term txa3
Terminal: _TXA3: Device_Type: Unknown Owner: No Owner
Input: 9600 LFfill: 0 Width: 80 Parity: None
Output: 9600 CRfill: 0 Page: 24
Terminal Characteristics:
Interactive Echo Type_ahead No Escape
No Hostsync TTsync Lowercase No Tab
Wrap Scope No Remote No Eightbit
Broadcast No Readsync No Form Fulldup
Modem No Local_echo Autobaud No Hangup
No Brdcstmbx No DMA No Altypeahd Set_speed
No Commsync Line Editing Overstrike editing No Fallback
No Dialup No Secure server No Disconnect No Pasthru
No Syspassword No SIXEL Graphics No Soft Characters No Printer Port
Numeric Keypad No ANSI_CRT No Regis No Block_mode
No Advanced_video No Edit_mode No DEC_CRT No DEC_CRT2
No DEC_CRT3 No DEC_CRT4 No DEC_CRT5 No Ansi_Color
VMS Style Input
$
Depending on set term/modem or set term/printer the modem control lines are
changing the level, that's ok. But I can't get a single character printed
to the terminal which I have verified with an USB to serial cable already,
the terminal is ok and I have an LED-Analyzer for RS232 between the RS232
Plugs..
Since I'm a total VMS Noob I now have some Questions:
.. have I missed something?
.. is the CXY08 bad?
.. what could I try next?
...is there some diagnosting software for the CXY08 existing for VMS
and if yes, where can I get it?
Thanks in advance,
Holm
--
Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe,
Freiberger Stra?e 42, 09600 Obersch?na, USt-Id: DE253710583
www.tsht.de, info at tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741
> IA saturates the channel. Jason and IA are deliberately working to redirect all search
> traffic to IA from the original mirrors by constantly creating useless 'new' content that
> Google thinks is real.
>
> I have watched over time as the volume of Google top search hits have migrated to IA hosted
> content from the mirrors.
I have occasionally stumbled into the bitsavers stuff on IA and was just confused and perplexed about what the IA guys are trying to do. Bitsavers has a perfectly obvious and navigable layout; IA makes no sense at all.
(Of course I'm a little biased!!!)
Tim N3QE
Try Imagedisk for DOS (with actually somewhat of an interface). Great
software, superb manual.
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img/index.htm
Also Omnidisk for DOS (command line)
http://www.shlock.co.uk/Utils/OmniDisk/OmniDisk.htm#Downloads
And Omniflop for WinXP with a GUI
http://www.shlock.co.uk/Utils/OmniFlop/OmniFlop.htm#Downloads
All of them can read and write a particular sector.
With Imagedisk you can image the original disk to a file image, and view the
image data in a nice hex editor by sector, make your changes, and write back
the modified version to a disk. All with a simple and efficient DOS GUI.
Marc
-----------------------------
jwsmobile <jws at jwsss.com> wrote:
I wonder if someone can help with a bit of a problem I have.
I have a compaq portable 3 system which has a working Pick (Non dos)
system on it.
It has the 5 1/4" floppy drives on it. I am looking for a bootable
floppy or 2 with something like dos 6.x on it and some utility that can
read and write disk sectors. Preferably the latter is a nice gui
program, but beggers can't be choosers.
I need to boot it up from the floppy drive and modify the pick system
dictionary to remove the main password. So the change to the system
will be surgical, just one sector.
If anyone can help, can you send me a note and let me know how I can
compensate you for your help.
If I really move crap around I may be able to find a system with the 5
1/4" floppies on it, but I'm not sure I could get a program onto the
system then out to the 5 1/4" drive and am also looking for suggestions
about what disk utility / editor might be useful if anyone has
suggestions on that. I'll go ahead and dredge up something soon if I
can't get help from somewhere.
thanks
Jim Stephens
-----------------------------
