test-drb August 2016

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

175 participants
281 discussions

8 inch disks - help needed identifying format

by denise.devries＠flinders.edu.au

Thanks Rik I also should have asked what does 148 mean? NAME PRO TYPE REC/FILE BYTES/REC ADDRESS H8,0,1 148 ALT-A DATA 1 1188 0/1/0 Denise

7 years, 9 months

MicroVax II

by glen.slick＠gmail.com

On Aug 3, 2016 3:10 AM, "Peter Coghlan" <cctalk at beyondthepale.ie> wrote: > > > > > Also, the built in SCSI on a VAX 3100 doesn't support drives over 1GB. > > > > That's not quite correct. > Yeah, more details than I could be 100% accurate about off the top of my head and had the patience to type with one thumb. The only point was to mention that if some systems have issues with SCSI drives due to their capacity alone you can usually soft resize the drive smaller. No need to pay a premium for older SCSI drives of 1GB native capacity or smaller.

7 years, 9 months

Differences between the PDP-11/15 and PDP-11/20

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Steven Malikoff > I'm wondering if there are any more differences apart from the lack of > the two high address switches? According to the -11/15-20 processor manual (pg. 2), the differences between the two are i) the -15 has only one hardware interrupt level, not four (the latter is optional), and ii) power-fail restart is an option, not standard. > Presumably the /15 could not run one of those KT-11 paging units I'm not sure how the KT11-B works, but my _suspicion_ (going from the pictures of that one that sold on eBay) is that it's not part of the CPU, but a UNIBUS device, which maps part of the UNIBUS which the CPU _can_ see (i.e. in the 0-56KB range) up to higher addresses, where the 'extra' memory is configured. If that supposition is correct, it would work equally well on any -11 (without built-in memory mapping in the CPU). Noel

7 years, 9 months

Differences between the PDP-11/15 and PDP-11/20

by steven＠malikoff.com

A few months back you might recall the road trip I did to recover a Foxboro FOX-2, a rebadged PDP-11 that ran the furnace oxygenation plant at the BHP steel mill at Port Kembla here in Oz during the 1970s. I had thought the machine was an 11/20 with a custom FOX front panel that (apart from the Foxboro lime green colour trim) had only 16 address switches instead of the 18 found on that machine, and that there might be two more vacant switch locations on the front panel PCB to be found lurking underneath when it came time to disassembling. But having just seen the PDP-11/15 up on eBay, I now believe that is what the FOX-2 really is. This page (http://gunkies.org/wiki/PDP-11/20) reckons the /15 is just an OEM version of the /20 but I'm wondering if there are any more differences apart from the lack of the two high address switches? (Presumably the /15 could not run one of those KT-11 paging units as was seen on that recent eBay 11/20) Steve.

7 years, 9 months

PDP-8 _Introduction_to_Programming_ & _Programming_Languages_(Scanned) Covers Needed

by bobvines00＠gmail.com

Does anyone have DEC's PDP-8 _Introduction_to_Programming_, Editions 3 and/or 4 and/or the PDP-8 _Programming_Languages_ handbooks? If you're not willing to part with your copy, could you scan the front covers of these handbooks and tell me which Edition(s) they are from? I'm especially looking for the front cover that had the "format generator program" printed on it in the background. I'm also looking for DEC's PDP-8 _Programming_Languages_. If you are not willing to part with them, could you scan the front cover and tell me which Edition(s) it/they are from? Thanks, Bob

7 years, 9 months

MicroVax II

by dj.taylor4＠comcast.net

I just got a MicroVax II in the BA123 world box chassis. I has a TK50, RX50, RXDQ2, but no DEQNA. I'd like to get it running an OS. The DU disks don't work, but I have a couple of Qbus SCSI controllers that might come in handy. Can you use those SD to SCSI convertors in this type of configuration? Anyone have experience with this? What OS's can I use with this hardware? NetBSD? Are versions of VMS available? How do you get an OS onto this system?

7 years, 9 months

HP 2100A Restoration

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

yes we used to at computer exchange inc... we had a bunch of blank I/o boards with the i/o special chips traces on the corner of board we would populate that portion then built out the rest..... rest of board was like a prototype board I scored a stack of them at a san jose computer junk show one time. we have voice synth that would plug into ho using natl. digitaker chip set built onto one of these i/o proto boards.... they were all gold plated etc.... which I still have some... we do have the first talker we built though ... if you score some of these boards most of the startup of the project is taken care of! ed# _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org) In a message dated 8/2/2016 2:10:16 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, perlpowers at gmail.com writes: On another note, has anyone ever tried making their own I/O boards for any of the 2100 series computers? The closest I found was http://newton.freehostia.com/hp/ where he makes a paper tape emulator and disk interface. However both of those are designed to connect to an existing I/O board like the "microcircuit interface". I haven't seen anything yet on how to interface to the I/O bus, but then again there are thousands of pages of manuals still to browse through.

7 years, 9 months

RX02 Debugging

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

yea these are nasty sounding drives when they load! ---Ed# Re: You'll hear a serious "clunk" when they load. In a message dated 8/2/2016 10:49:06 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, lbickley at bickleywest.com writes: On Tue, 02 Aug 2016 21:43:03 -0700 Kirk Davis <kirkbdavis at me.com> wrote: > Thanks for the suggestions. I?m in Sunnyvale, CA. > > I actually got the rx02 from another hobbyist that > used it with the 44 in 2008 so I suspect it is configured correctly. > The other drive doesn?t have a belt so I?m unable to test with it. > I?ve verified the cable direction. It?s a sweet 44 - super clean, > runs great and is like a tank. > > One of the problems is I don?t know normal behavior of the drive. The > motor is aways spinning for unit 0. When I try booting I don?t hear > the heads load or seek. I?m new to the 44 monitor commands & boot > process etc so I?m learning as I go. The motors always spin. The heads should engage whenever selected. You;ll hear a serious "clunk" when they load. If you're coming to the VCF this coming weekend, Bob Rosenblum and I will have a running RX02 attached to a PDP-8/M. You can hear all of it's "sounds" there. You'll also be able to play "Spacewar!" with our VC8/E and XY monitor, etc. BTW: Make sure you have the correct switch settings on the RX02 mainboard for your PDP-11... > I?m also making one of these to help isolate if it?s a > drive/cable/controller problem: > > http://www.torok.info/computing/pdp11/rx02/index.htm That looks like a cool project. Would like to see it when you've got it running!!! Lyle > > On Aug 2, 2016, at 3:24 PM, Paul Anderson <useddec at gmail.com> wrote: > > > > Hi KIrk, > > > > The H771 is a rock solid power supply. I never saw one go bad while > > in field service, but they are getting old. Checking the output > > voltage and ripple is not a bad idea. > > > > forgive me for asking, but where are you located? The RX02 had 4 > > different power hanesses for i20, 220, 50 hz and 60 hz. Also > > different belts amd pulleys. if any of this is wrong you cn see > > weird problems. A lot of RX02s and replacement drives were soul > > through brokers who never asked or were never told where the unit > > was going. if you aren'y useing 120/60 that would be my first > > thought. > > > > Is the problem the same when booting off either drive? Also check > > the switches and the resistors on the head cables. > > > > Good luck, Paul > > > Jerry Weiss wrote: > > > >If you haven?t already, check the cable seating, orientation and for > >bent pins. > > On the RX211 board J1 - TT is the location of the AC LO - Active > > Low signal. > > > > On Tue, Aug 2, 2016 at 4:06 PM, Kirk Davis <kirkbdavis at me.com> > > wrote: > >> I?m a noob using RX02?s but thought I?d run this past people that > >> may have debugged them in the past and see if they agree with what > >> I?m finding: > >> > >> I?m trying to get a RX02 + RX211 + 11/44 going. The RX02 appears > >> to power up OK (fan and motor spinning). I verified I have the DY > >> boot rom in the 44. Attempt booting from the console: > >> > >>>>> b dy > >> > >> S > >> 17777707 173436 > >> > >> Which halts in the DY boot rom. I look at the base RX211 register: > >> > >>>>> e 17777170 > >> 17777170 104040 > >> > >> From the manual this like the controller is present but the high > >> order bit is set indicating an error > >> > >> Looking at the status register; > >> > >>>>> e 17777172 > >> 17777172 000010 > >> > >> Bit 3 == RX AC LO - This bit is set by the interface to indicate a > >> power failure in the RX02 sub- system. > >> > >> So start looking at the RX02 power supply? > >> > >> > >> > -- 73 AF6WS Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

7 years, 9 months

Is MS-DOS, PC DOS and DR-DOS vintage enough to count?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Chuck Guzis > I routinely use Win98SE for my DOS tasks--it boots into DOS quite > nicely if you edit the MSDOS.SYS file to say BootGUI=0. That's considerably more elegant than the way I use, to get my 98SE boxes to boot into DOS to start with (which I prefer, in case I want to do anything that requires Windows not to be running, e.g. disk repairs); I just re-named 'WIN.COM' to 'LOSE.COM'. So I get an error message grumbling that it can't find WIN.COM, and then it falls into DOS. Of course, my way, I do get the ineffable pleasure of saying "LOSE" to start Windows, every time I boot the machines. Never gets old. Noel

7 years, 9 months

Transitional Technology SCSI controller

by glen.slick＠gmail.com

On Aug 2, 2016 4:39 PM, "Glen Slick" <glen.slick at gmail.com> wrote: > > On Aug 2, 2016 4:31 PM, "Douglas Taylor" <dj.taylor4 at comcast.net> wrote: > > > > I have an S-Box Q-bus SCSI controller made by Transitional Technology, it is missing two socketed chips; the PROM and what I think is a static RAM chip, both 28 pins. Does anyone have the HEX file of the PROM? Does anyone know what the RAM chip is? I curious to take a shot and see if this thing works. > > > > The board doesn't have jumpers, is it hardwired to some CSR? Thanks. > > > > Doug > > > > I have a TTi QTS-30 which is TMSCP tape only. No MSCP disk support. If there are no jumpers (I don't have it front of me to check at the moment) then it must be soft configurable through the 10-pin serial port interface. > > Post a picture of your board or send me one direct and I'll see if it looks the same as my board. If it is I can dump the EPROM firmware in mine for you. Maybe two EPROMs for 16-bit wide firmware. Responding to my own previous post. First, it is a TTi QTS-3, not QTS-30. The plain dual wide version without the S-Box handles is the QTS-1. Second, I can confirm that the CSR address is configured through the 10-pin serial port. Last, there is a single firmware EPROM. The other 28-pin socket is an 8KB SRAM. A Fujitsu 8464A on one of my boards and an Inmos IMS1630P on the other. Any standard 8KB SRAM of same or better speed (didn't check the speed grade) would likely be fine.

7 years, 9 months

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test-drb August 2016