test-drb November 2019

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

147 participants
137 discussions

Got it: RD54 formatting write protect solved

by cz＠alembic.crystel.com

Figured it out at last. On a BA23, the RD54 needs to be jumpered at the disk as UNIT 3, and I had it as unit 4. Thus the jumper needed to be between 3 and C, I had it one stake over between 4 and C. Fixed that, did the format where you do not select Autoformat, and downline load UIT and you get the disk going tick, tick, tick as the sectors are formatted. Here is Terry Kennedy's instructions updated to a BA23 instead of a BA123: DR> STA CHANGE HW (L) ? Y # UNITS (D) ? 1 UNIT 0 Enter controller IP address (O) 172150 ? What unit do you want to format [0-255] (D) 0 ? 0 Would you like to revector a single LBN only [Y/N] (L) N ? Do you want to use the "AUTOFORMAT" Mode [Y/N] (L) Y ? N Would you like to use the RCT - Revector known bad blocks [Y/N] (L) N ? **** WARNING **** [text about don't proceed if you're just kidding deleted] Do you wish to continue [Y/N] (L) Y ? MSCP Controller Model: 19 Microcode Version: 4 Do you want to use manufacturing bad block information [Y/N] (A) N ? Downline load UIT [Y/N] (A) Y ? UIT Drive Name ------------------------------------------------------- 0 RD51 1 RD52 part # 30-21721-02 (1 light on front panel) 2 RD52 part # 30-23227-02 (2 lights on front panel) 3 RD53 4 RD31 5 RD54 6 RD32 Enter Unit Identifier Table (UIT) [0-7] (D) ? 5 Continue if bad block information is inaccessible [Y/N] (A) N ? Y Please type in the serial number [8-10 digits] (A) ? 013284212 (use whatever you want) Formatting of Drive 1 Begin. [a long sequences of messages is displayed here, 1 per minute, showing the progress of formatting and what step is in progress on which block number.] Format Completed. And Bob's your uncle!

4 years, 5 months

Meantime, fixing RX50's.

by cz＠alembic.crystel.com

So while trying to figure out this XXDP format error (the FCT Write protect enabled one that's stopping me from formatting an RD54) I spent a bit of time copying the floppy to a backup disk. My RX50 was *very* flakey, throwing errors so I pulled it to see what was up. Opened the unit and sure enough: The disk head could use a cleaning, and more important the little pad on the other side came off when I touched it. Apparently the glue holding it in has decayed in the past 30 years. Drat. Used isopropyl and q tips to clean the heads, then broke a Q tip in half and put a bit of cyanacryllic glue on the tip, then transferred it to the pad holder, then put the pad back on. Pressed down and breathed on it to give the glue some moisture and waited an hour. Did same to other head. RX50 now works perfectly, and I was able to make and boot a backup. So if your RX50 is flakey check to see if the pads are still on the head assembly, it's possible it is loose or fell off (if fell off look around in the RX50 for it, probably in there somewhere) Never dull. Now to figure out this write protection issue: I have set the drive to unit 4 (well 3 in the 0-3 world), set the RQDX3 to pins 1 and 2 on the write precomp jumper, and it still comes up but thinks the drive is write protected. Drat.

4 years, 5 months

Houston Computer Museum Warehouse Liquidation

by tsraguso＠gmail.com

I have seen multiple posts over time speculating about flooding in the warehouse. I would like to assure everyone that the warehouse has never flooded, and that any posts to the contrary are inaccurate or greatly exaggerated. I have cleared a significant area inside the warehouse and have not seen any indications at all of floodwaters entering the building. Additionally, the landlord has also confirmed that the building has never flooded. The only moisture-related damage that has occurred at all happened to paper articles in direct contact with the cement floor (The floor is bare cement, and gets moist during heavy rains). Such items have all been discarded. The computers, even those that touched the ground, are undamaged. If I were to find a computer with water damage, it would be clearly labeled as such when being sold. If you have any questions, please email me directly, and I will gladly answer them to the best of my knowledge. Thomas Raguso

4 years, 5 months

cctalk Digest, Vol 62, Issue 19

by athornton＠gmail.com

I might have had something to do with https://www.sinenomine.net/products/vm/njeip And as far as I remember, at least some of it was BSD licensed, so if that's what floats your boat...knock yerself out.

4 years, 5 months

TRS-80 Model III and IV parts needed (keycaps, keyboard switch, ribbon cable, floppy drive parts)

by rescue＠hawkmountain.net

So, on this Model III I'm working on the following keycaps are missing: 1/! key right shift key Looks like keycaps from a Model III, and possibly a model I would work. Probably a Model IV keycap for 1/! would work, but I think the right shift key would be different between a Model III and Model IV. I also need one of the ALPS switches as the '+' part of the stem is broken off. In addition, on the drive (Texas Peripherals), there is a plastic component that screws onto the aluminum arm with the diskette retaining hub with 2 screws.... it then accepts two plastic pins that connect this piece to the drive door. I am missing on of the plastic pins and the plastic piece is cracking. Anyone have any of these parts kicking around. On a Model III upgraded to a Model IV I have, the ribbon cable to the serial/com board has 'self destructed' as the glue failed, so once removed it could not be reconnected. Interestingly the cable for the floppy controller did not deteriorate ????? Sadly on the upgraded Model III someone converted it to 3 drives, using an original full height drive for the 1st drive (at the bottom), and put 2 HH drives in the top bay. To make room for the eject control on the top drive, the upper case has been notched. It would be nice to find an upper case for a Model III and do away with that notch.... or alternately an empty Model IV case (top and bottom). Thanks to anyone with any TRS-80 'parts vault' that may have these parts available.... It has been a long time since I have touched a Model I/III (last time was probably 1983 :-) ). Looking forward to getting the 3 systems I have up and running (Model I with Expansion, Model III, and a Model III upgraded to a Model IV). Thanks in advance, -- Curt

4 years, 5 months

3270 controller simulation

by aek＠bitsavers.org

https://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=21558&p=442092#p442092 if you look at the pictures from april, they have an arduino talking to a 3278 any ideas who 'ajk' in austin might be?

4 years, 5 months

UniBone: Linux-to-DEC-UNIBUS-bridge, year #1

by j_hoppe＠t-online.de

Daniel, >> >> Yes, can (get a kit with SMT work done) > > OK, that?s the answer I needed; > If I want to put one of these in a KS10, can the parity lines be hacked from the software > (the KS10 uses them as two extra data bits) or are they hard-wired to parity? Several people asked to make UniBone PDP-10able, it should be not problem. UNIBUS PA,PB are (like all other signals) just pins on a GPIO multiplier, no interpretation is done in hardware. On software side the PRU must sample 18bit instead of 16bit for DATA, then lots of "uint16_t" must be changed to "uint32_t" in the whole software stack. Not clear what to do with existing device emulators: did DEC construct 18bit mutants for a few PDP-11 peripherals to run them in KS10? UNIBUS on a PDP-10 makes only sense to me if the big pool of PDP-11 peripherals can be used directly. regards, Joerg

4 years, 5 months

message from andrew (was 3270 controller simulation)

by aek＠bitsavers.org

-------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: 3270 controller simulation Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2019 19:43:24 -0600 From: Andrew Kay To: aek at bitsavers.org Hi Al, I'm waiting for approval to join the cctalk mailing list but I heard on IRC you were interested in my project so hope you don't mind me reaching out to you directly. Unfortunately I don't have much in the way of useful documentation other than the code itself right now - I am planning on putting some documentation on the protocol together as well as a basic write-up on what I've discovered. Anyway - everything I've built so far can be found at https://github.com/lowobservable/oec and the linked projects (for the coax interface and TN3270 library). It's still pretty basic at this point but can do enough TN3270 and VT100 emulation to be usable. Here is a more recent photograph showing it connected to the Master the Mainframe server - https://i.redd.it/1kpbe3muvbz31.jpg. For the coax interface I'm using two obsolete ICs from National Semiconductor - the DP8340 and DP8341 and using an Arduino to connect these to a PC. I was really excited to see somebody on the mailing list mention they were working on an FPGA interface - building an interface that didn't depend on obsolete components is my plan for next year but I have to learn some electronics first. Please feel free to copy the above to the mailing list - I definitely want to join (do you know if it is possible to join with a GMail account, the last I heard was I was waiting to be approved), I had no idea there were so many people interested in 3270 things :-) Andrew

4 years, 5 months

Question about "Distributed" in the DFT name.

by cctalk＠gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net

On 11/18/19 11:10 AM, Paul Koning wrote: > Open systems may be distributed, distributed systems may be open, but > they are not synonyms. Okay. Fair enough. I don't think the people using "Open Systems" as in Mainframe vs Open Systems vs Wintel were differentiating between "open" vs "distributed". > For example, I'm not sure anyone would call VMS an open system, yet > clearly it's distributed (VAXcluster). What is "open" in this context? Is it open source? Is it open communications protocols? (As in OSI / POSIX.) Is it something else? I suspect that OpenVMS qualifies as the OSI / POSIX meaning of "open". ;-) But OpenVMS is decidedly not open source. OpenMVS (a.k.a. USS) on the mainframe comes to mind too. }:) -- Grant. . . . unix || die

4 years, 5 months

Conitec GRIP and GRIP-Color

by holm＠freibergnet.de

Hi all, Some time ago I've got from a friend a defective ECB Bus Card named GRIP-4, that's a ancient Z80 based graphic display controller Card using the MC6845/HD6345 CRT Controller made by the (still existing) german Company Conitec in the 80s. Additional I've got an empty extension PCB called Grip-Color..the for color needed Memory, shift and palette registers. I've phoned the CEO from Conitec in the meantime and he will send the paperwork regarding the GRIP-4 that he still could find to me for scanning, unfortunately he couldn't find anything for the Grip-Color card. I have a running ECB bus system with an REH-CPU280, an Z280 based System that could run CP/M-3 and UZI280, has an FDC on board and an IDE Interface with an 128MB Flash disk, I whish to extend that with the GRIP Cards.. Is here someone that could please provide some Information related to the Grip-Color Card? I think I've repaired the GRIP-4 in the meantime (still have to connect an CRT, just replaced the FBT [different Model and Make] in the Monitor that I want to connect), but the oscillograms are looking good. I whish complete the Grip-Color card, any helpful information is welcome, even a picture where I can see which ICs are soldered in. https://www.z80cpu.eu/mirrors/oldcomputers.dyndns.org/public/pub/rechner/co… Thanks in Advance, Holm -- Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, Freiberger Stra?e 42, 09600 Obersch?na, USt-Id: DE253710583 info at tsht.de Fax +49 3731 74200 Tel +49 3731 74222 Mobil: 0172 8790 741

4 years, 5 months

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test-drb November 2019