Hi folks,
For the last few weeks I?ve been helping the owner of a PPG2.2 synthesizer get the ?computer? side of it, a Waveterm A, running.
The Waveterm is a 6809-based single board computer running FLEX that was designed to use 8? drives, then at some point they modified it slightly to use 5.25? HD drives instead but changed very little - to connect up to the main board they made a 34-50pin adapter. The drives are YE-Data YD380 with a Shugart interface so without some sort of signal bender like a DBit FDADAP I couldn?t just plug them into a PC.
However, the YE-Data YD380B has an IBM interface so we used one of those, same mechanism so we figured it should work.
All the disk images for the Waveterm have been created using programs written by PPG users. For some reason any disk we wrote with them wouldn?t read correctly in the machine itself UNTIL we made a new image of that disk using Teledisk 2.15 then re-wrote it back to the same floppy. My question is why should that make so much of a difference between working and non-working disks?
Trivia: for anyone aware of the 80s UK Music industry this very machine was used for the hit ?You spin me round (like a record)? by Dead Or Alive.
--
adrian/witchy
Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest home computer collection?
t: @binarydinosaurs f: facebook.com/binarydinosaurs
w: www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk
Hi folks,
A friend of mine has said ADM-3A and is baffled by the tiny board it contains, not the usual ?covering entire base? discrete logic board they normally have. Centre of this board is the Nat Semi NS405 ?display processor on a chip? which is obviously why the board is so small but neither of us have seen this before in a 3A.
Anyone else? Pic at http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/tonyADM3a.jpg <http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/tonyADM3a.jpg>
cheers!
--
adrian/witchy
Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest home computer collection?
t: @binarydinosaurs f: facebook.com/binarydinosaurs
w: www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk
Well, not really.
CHM only wants my punched card collection (4000+ cards) which they are
getting when I croak. Did not want the other stuff.
Livingcomputers only interested in miniatures.
I will swear I sent a note to Al Kossow about manuals. No reply.
I would like to have a couple more DEC Mice for some Vaxestations I
have, but they seem to be pretty rare.? At present I only have one mouse
and I move it from machine to machine.
The protocols for the DEC mice and the standard PS/2 mice don't seem to
be that much different.
Is it possible to use an arduino to translate? PS/2 mouse output and
then send it to the vaxstation so that will it mimic a classic DEC mouse?
I was successfull at capturing all the files from a 4051 Graphics T1 tape
last weekend.
Here is the link to a couple of photos of the process:
Capturing Tektronix 4051 Graphics T1 tape files to laptop
<https://drive.google.com/open?id=18hROXB28PD9Z_GYDNNSXGPK4Pv7GQD8w>
First I replaced the disintegrated drive belt with one from a NOS 3M DC6250
cartridge.
I used my 4051 to PC serial transfer program on my recently repaired and
upgraded 4054A.
I set the comm speed of the 4054 serial interface to the maximum 9600 baud,
but as it is 7-bit, my program changes all 32 Tektronix control characters
to "~X~" where X is the ASCII character corresponding to that control
character.
This way I don't lose any of the Tektronix 405x text formatting in the
transfer.
I was using ExtraPutty on the laptop to capture the program text strings,
then copied the statements into Notepad++ and saved each file.
I am also working on a Tektronix 4051/52/54 compatible GPIB MicroSD flash
drive that will emulate the Tektronix 4924 tape drive - for all of us with
these computers to use - since both the tapes and drives are very
problematic after all these years.
This flash drive contains an Arduino with my code - based on the GPIB
flowcharts and info in a 4051 and 4052 GPIB manual.
You will be able to use the existing 405x program statements with @Y for
the drive GPIB address - since I don't know how to write a ROMPACK for any
of the series :)
I plan to organize the different captured tapes in directories on the flash
- and that may mean using a non-4924 GPIB secondary address for that
command. It also likely means I need to change any tape commands in each
program to use the flash drive GPIB address.
That's why I wanted to capture one of the Tektronix tapes with a menu - is
to ensure I could get those files to work on my flash drive design.
Monty McGraw
