test-drb April 2018

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

128 participants
123 discussions

by barythrin＠gmail.com

Wow. That's unfortunate. Only been in town twice but was definitely part of my scheduled geekdom tour. So any local stores left for that type of thing? Any word on why the closure? I've always seen a lot of folks in the store (well my 2 times) but i don't know how many purchased. null

6 years, 8 months

eBay: Anyone need a DLV11-J?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Bill Gunshannon > Caution!! The DSD board has some broken chips and bent pins and all of > them look like they spent time in muddy water. Thanks for catching that. I looked at it, saw that it was a DLV11-J, which I didn't need, and so didn't look any harder. Noel

6 years, 8 months

ISO: Corvus Concept parts

by derschjo＠gmail.com

I picked up a Corvus Concept CPU unit about a decade ago now, and I've yet to track down any other parts for it. Looking for keyboards, monitors, drives, peripherals software -- anything. If anyone's got any parts, please drop me a line.? Always wanted to see one run... Thanks, Josh

6 years, 8 months

eBay: Anyone need a DLV11-J?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

This is listed under a useless title: https://www.ebay.com/itm/292503681011 But it's (currently) cheap (don't all bid against each other ;-). Noel

6 years, 8 months

RL01/RL02 emulator needed -- (was Many thanks to Glen's Vintage Computer Info)

by Flash688＠flying-disk.com

"peter at rittwage.com" <peter at rittwage.com> wrote: > You don't want to try to repair the controller? There are some custom > IC's on there (it appears) but is largely off-the-shelf TTL... I'm > sure someone on the list has a lot of experience with these and could > repair it or help. Indeed, I DO want to repair it, but that is a project for another day. Right now I need to solve the need for an RL02 emulator, which will let me quickly solve the current problem. Again, does anyone have any experience (good or bad) with any of the RL02 emulators our there? Thanks, Alan Frisbie

6 years, 8 months

Apple B&W CRT monitor popping and clicking

by silvercreekvalley＠yahoo.com

Hi all, Recently booted up my B&W Powermac G3, all came up fine including the 17? CRT monitor. However after a second or so, the monitor gives a ?popping? sound and the image on the screen expands then shrinks. This repeats every few seconds. I?m guessing the monitor is on the way out - but as this is a complete B&W system - I wondered what the likely cause is? Thanks

6 years, 8 months

DEC DEREP repeater PSU

by binarydinosaurs＠gmail.com

Hi folks, Has anyone ever replaced the PSU in a DEREP with a more modern equivalent? The PSU is an ASTEC but as usual doesn?t have any markings for ratings or pinouts. I found the tech ref online but for PSU problems it just says ?replace? as I?d expect. Test LEDs on the unit itself (and the fuses) show +5 and +12 at 2A. This one suffered a bad heat-based death at some point after the fan seized? Cheers, -- adrian/witchy Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest home computer collection? t: @binarydinosaurs f: facebook.com/binarydinosaurs <http://facebook.com/binarydinosaurs> w: www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk <http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/>

6 years, 8 months

DEC 3000 (alpha) faultfinding

by cctalk＠beyondthepale.ie

I've got a DEC 3000 model 300 and a couple of DEC 3000 model 600 alphas which failed some time ago and the recent Alphaservers thread has rekindled my interest in getting them working again. A couple of years ago, there was another thread "AlphaStation 200 NVRAM Problem" where the Alpha SROM mini console and various items of useful documentation were mentioned. I have now made up an adapter (cable and MAX232 line driver / receiver) as described in that thread to allow me to to talk to the the SROM mini console in my alphas and I am please to find they are all responsive at this level. I also found: "DEC 3000 300/400/500/600/700/800/900 AXP Models System Programmer's Manual Order Number: EK-D3SYS-PM. B01" (d3syspmb.pdf) which describes some of the internals of the machines in question. The mini console commands available on the model 300 are very limited compared to those in the documentation which targets a much later machine. However, it does have mt (memory test) which is not present on the model 600 for some reason. Results from this suggests that all 6 SIMMs present are bad in pretty much all locations. This seems a bit unlikely to me. Perhaps there is a failure in logic which causes the memory not to be accessed at all? Unfortunately, the manual does not seem to give any leads on how to diagnose this further. The em (examine memory) and dm (deposit memory) commands only accept 32 bit addresses meaning they cannot to be used to access input/output areas which require at least 33 bit addresses. However, a little experimentation led me to the existance of ei and di commands which can do this on the DEC 3000 machines and I found I can use di to update the diagnostic LEDs on the machines. The DEC 3000 600 machines both (usually) count down to F0 on their diagnostic LEDs and hang without producting any output on the main console. They do however produce output on the mini console - for example: DEC 3000 - M600 SROM 6.1 Powerup Sequence ff.fd.fb.fa.f9.f8.f7.f6.f5.f4.f3.f2.f1.f0. sysROM 00000033.000006f1 ioROM 00000033.00000162 MCRstat 11111111.808011c0 bnkSize 00000300.00000c01 memSize 000000c0.000000c0 However, they do not provide the SROM> prompt or accept mini console commands unless a I engineer another fault condition such as by pulling out one of the memory risers. I wonder if there is a jumper to enable mini console commands to be accepted without doing this? Looking around the system board, I see a pair of jumper pins labelled J9 hidden under the I/O board which looks like it could do this. Unfortunately, while there is legend on the PCB indicating the function of all other jumpers, there is none for J9 and it is not mentioned in the manual either. On the I/O board, there is one three pin jumper labelled simply "Off" and "On" and it is jumpered to the "On" side. It is close to the SCSI connector so I suspect it is more likely to be something to do with termination or termpwr than the mini console. One of the model 600s sometimes generates a machine check, like this: DEC 3000 - M600 SROM 6.1 Powerup Sequence ff.fd.fb.fa.f9.20. MCHK exc_addr 00000000.00001484 biu_stat 00000000.000022d8 dc_stat 00000000.00000007 fill_adr 00000001.f0080050 fill_syn 00000000.00000000 DataExp aaaaaaaa.aaaaaaaa DataRec aaaaaaaa.aaaaaaaa MCRstat 11111111.808011c0 bnkSize 00000300.00000c01 memSize 000000c0.000000c0 SROM> While this can be useful because it gets me to the SROM> prompt, I can't find anything in the manual which helps me diagnose what might be causing this. The meaning of the contents of biu_stat might be a useful start. The 600 machines have a socketed 27C512 EPROM. I assume this must be the SROM (although I can't see what is serial about it) as the machines fail to update the diagnostic LEDs or write to the mini console if it is removed. I dumped the two EPROMs and compared them and they are identical. However, I can't see any ASCII strings in them. Perhaps the bits are not used in the standard order? The manual suggests that there are 8 different 8KB SROM images present and those other than the "standard" one may be used for testing and diagnostics by setting jumpers. Unfortunatly, there is no further information about these images. The manual hints that the System ROM (SYSROM) (actually an FEPROM) is located at 1 E000 0000 to 1 E003 FFFF, however, looking at the beginning of this area with ei suggests it is in fact the IOROM (also an FEPROM). Hunting around some more, it seems that setting bit 9 of the System Support Register at 1 E004 0100 brings in the SYSROM instead (although the manual suggests bit 7 is also involved which seems unlikely as this bit is one of the diagnostic LEDs). The format of the headers in the SYSROM and IOROM do not exactly match the format given in the manual but they are "close". I wonder if this might be my problem or if the manual is incorrect. If anyone else has a 3000 600, could they take a peek at their SYSROM and maybe we could compare notes? It may be possible to map the SYSROM from a running operating system but as none of my 3000 machines run right now, I am not in a position to try this myself. Regards, Peter Coghlan.

6 years, 8 months

RL01/RL02 emulator needed -- (was Many thanks to Glen's Vintage Computer Info)

by Flash688＠flying-disk.com

Several days ago I wrote about my joy of finding a TDL-12 disk controller, emulating four DEC RL02 drives and using a SCSI drive. Sadly, I discovered that the controller is a dead as a doornail. It doesn't respond to any bus address at all. So, I'm back to my original quest: I need a controller that emulates the DEC RLV11/RLV12 and RL01/RL02 drives. From my Google searching, I see a couple that use SD or similar solid state devices. Does anyone here have any direct experience (good or bad) with any of these emulators? I don't mind spending money for a good solution. Thanks, Alan Frisbie

6 years, 8 months

PATA hard disks, anyone?

by decguy＠songdog.eskimo.com

The new sysadmin at work is clearing out closets full of junk^H^H^H^H cool old stuff accumulated by the previous sysadmin. There's a big carton full of PATA hard disks. Most of them are in the 4.3 GB - 20 GB range, a few larger, a few smaller. Anyone have any use for these? You can have them for the cost of shipping, or free for local pickup in Bothell, WA. They're going to be recycled as scrap if I don't find a home for them.

6 years, 8 months

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test-drb April 2018