>Would you mind privately e-mailing me and telling me who the heck Elmer
Keith was?
Elmer Keith was a well known gunsmith and magazine writer (was it Guns &
Ammo?). Among other things he's credited with inventing the .44 magnum
pistol round (IIRC) in 1955.
Jack Peacock
O'Toole's Rule states that Murphy (re: Murphy's Law) was an optimist.
I'd do a regular backup in anticipation of the inevitable. I had a Mac
SE with a stiction prone drive that finally died after a couple months
of nudging. The heads can only take so much before they are hopelessly
out of alignmnent.
Marty
______________________________ Reply Separator
_________________________________
Subject: Re: Re[2]: I'm Back!
Author: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu at internet
Date: 8/26/98 3:51 PM
Well, mine still works. It just needs a nudge once in a while at
boot up. Is it going to get worse or can I use it for a while?
> I agree that there is no cure for stiction but on the older 3 1/2" FF
> HDD's I used to gently nudge the spindle flywheel under the drive
> board. This would free the head of the platter goo and typically the
> drive would spin up and boot at which point a complete backup was
> made.
>
>
>
>______________________________ Reply Separator
>_________________________________
>Subject: Re: I'm Back!
>Author: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu at internet
>Date: 8/23/98 1:25 PM
>
>
> > certain hard drive of mine won't spin up unless whacked firmly
> > against a table? Is there anything I can do? This is a laptop
drive. >>
> >
> > stiction. nothing you can do about it.
> >
> Actually an ex-friend of mine had a technique to 'sticky' drives. The
> theory goes if it's hosed anyway and you need to get data off it, you
can
> do things to it that you wouldn't ordinarily do and what do you have
to lose?
>
> At any rate, I've used it before and it seems to work on X percent of
> drives that are totally stuck (especially ones that won't start up
even
> when whacked). You put the drive top-down (circuit side up) on top of
a
> nice toasty monitor and just leave it there for several days or weeks.
I
> don't know if this loosens up some lubricant, expands whatever's
sticky
> or what but if you take the drive off the monitor and hook it up
> immediately and start it up immediately...occasionally you can get it
to
> spin up and give you your data.
>
> The opposite of this is a drive I had (old Miniscribe 20 meg SCSI)
that
> would run for about 2 hours, overheat and 'shut down' (it wouldn't
spin
> down...it'd just start giving errors and was generally useless). I
knew
> it was heat because I could extend the time-till-shutdown to about 3
> hours by pointing a small muffin fan at it. I had NO money at the
> time...except for rent money I was flat broke...and couldn't afford to
> replace the drive and...seeing how it was 1991 and I live in the
> backwater state of Iowa, nobody would loan me a replacement. The Mac
SE
> it was in was also out of warranty.
>
> At any rate, since it was winter it was cold outside so I wrapped the
> drive in a plastic bag, sealed it up with duct tape around the SCSI
> cable, set it on the ledge outside the window, closed the window
without
> squishing the cable and sealed up the crack with duct tape. Left the
> machine and the drive on for something like 2 months that way (though
my
> memory is a bit rusty there) until I could save enough money for a
> replacement. I was worried about condensation inside the bag but it
> never caused a problem. At one point, the drive slid off the ledge
and
> was dangling by the SCSI cable and power cable but the duct tape held
it
> firm. It ran like that for several days until I noticed it wasn't on
the
> ledge.
>
> On a related subject, I've seen and had several Syquest 40 meg drives
> that wouldn't work and wouldn't work and wouldn't work until you
flipped
> them upside and then they'd work just fine. Not the cartridge...the
> whole drive.
>
> Which reminds me...I worked at a typesetting shop once and a guy from
> another department walks in and tells me he's accidentally formatted
his
> syquest cartridge and is there any way to get the data back? So, with
a
> room full of people who knew better I told him, "Oh yeah...if you just
> flip the cartridge over, that'll run it backwards so that if you
format
> it again, that'll do the reverse of formatting it and you data will be
> back." I figured he'd know I was kidding but he DIDN'T and starting
> walking away to DO IT! I stopped him fortunately and recovered his
data
> with proper tools. Of course, a couple months later he thrashed the
> innards of a $1500 magneto-optical drive by jamming an 80 meg syquest
> cartridge into it REAL HARD. I patiently explained to him that when
you
> hear snapping sounds and grinding metal you're generally doing
something
> wrong.
>
> Anthony Clifton - Wirehead
>
>
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______________________________________________________
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From: "Max Eskin" <maxeskin(a)hotmail.com>
To: "Discussion re-collecting of classic computers"
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Re[2]: I'm Back!
Content-Type: text/plain
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--
On Wed, 26 Aug 1998 14:33:01 Jeff Kaneko wrote:
>At 10:26 AM 8/26/98 -0500, you wrote:
>>On Wed, 26 Aug 1998, Jeff Kaneko wrote:
>>
>>> You know, one of the truly cool S-100 8086 boxes that was available
>>> for a long time was the H/Z-100. You could get the all-in-one or
>>> separate monitor configuration, color, 8', 5.25" floppies, etc. etc.
>>> It ran Mess-DOS as well as H-dos (dual processors).
>>
>>Yeah, that is a really cool box. I have one with the documentation and
>>some software.
>>
>>> I lusted for one when I was a kid. The other day I found a pair of
>>> them smashed to bits at a local surplus dealer.
>>
>>I was offered one locally (California) a couple weeks ago but the buyer
>>wasn't interested in selling it at the price I wanted to buy. If you want
>>I can hook you up with him. Perhaps he's interested in going through the
>>trouble of shipping it for the right price.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>Well that's just it, isn't it? I mean, if I had showed up two days before
>I could have gotten them (in working condition) for *NOTHING*. It's not
>the kind of thing I'd pay serious money for (even if I had it), but I'd
>surely grab one if it were going to be junked.
>
>The same junk yard also has a Vector and a distressed N* Horizon.
>
D'oh! I'd almost give my left nut for a N* Horizon. As it is, I know this guy named Ken. I'll gladly give his left nut for one.
Tony
-----== Sent via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/ Easy access to 50,000+ discussion forums
At 10:26 AM 8/26/98 -0500, you wrote:
>On Wed, 26 Aug 1998, Jeff Kaneko wrote:
>
>> You know, one of the truly cool S-100 8086 boxes that was available
>> for a long time was the H/Z-100. You could get the all-in-one or
>> separate monitor configuration, color, 8', 5.25" floppies, etc. etc.
>> It ran Mess-DOS as well as H-dos (dual processors).
>
>Yeah, that is a really cool box. I have one with the documentation and
>some software.
>
>> I lusted for one when I was a kid. The other day I found a pair of
>> them smashed to bits at a local surplus dealer.
>
>I was offered one locally (California) a couple weeks ago but the buyer
>wasn't interested in selling it at the price I wanted to buy. If you want
>I can hook you up with him. Perhaps he's interested in going through the
>trouble of shipping it for the right price.
^^^^^^^^^^^
Well that's just it, isn't it? I mean, if I had showed up two days before
I could have gotten them (in working condition) for *NOTHING*. It's not
the kind of thing I'd pay serious money for (even if I had it), but I'd
surely grab one if it were going to be junked.
The same junk yard also has a Vector and a distressed N* Horizon.
Jeff
Well, mine still works. It just needs a nudge once in a while at
boot up. Is it going to get worse or can I use it for a while?
> I agree that there is no cure for stiction but on the older 3 1/2" FF
> HDD's I used to gently nudge the spindle flywheel under the drive
> board. This would free the head of the platter goo and typically the
> drive would spin up and boot at which point a complete backup was
> made.
>
>
>
>______________________________ Reply Separator
>_________________________________
>Subject: Re: I'm Back!
>Author: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu at internet
>Date: 8/23/98 1:25 PM
>
>
> > certain hard drive of mine won't spin up unless whacked firmly
> > against a table? Is there anything I can do? This is a laptop
drive. >>
> >
> > stiction. nothing you can do about it.
> >
> Actually an ex-friend of mine had a technique to 'sticky' drives. The
> theory goes if it's hosed anyway and you need to get data off it, you
can
> do things to it that you wouldn't ordinarily do and what do you have
to lose?
>
> At any rate, I've used it before and it seems to work on X percent of
> drives that are totally stuck (especially ones that won't start up
even
> when whacked). You put the drive top-down (circuit side up) on top of
a
> nice toasty monitor and just leave it there for several days or weeks.
I
> don't know if this loosens up some lubricant, expands whatever's
sticky
> or what but if you take the drive off the monitor and hook it up
> immediately and start it up immediately...occasionally you can get it
to
> spin up and give you your data.
>
> The opposite of this is a drive I had (old Miniscribe 20 meg SCSI)
that
> would run for about 2 hours, overheat and 'shut down' (it wouldn't
spin
> down...it'd just start giving errors and was generally useless). I
knew
> it was heat because I could extend the time-till-shutdown to about 3
> hours by pointing a small muffin fan at it. I had NO money at the
> time...except for rent money I was flat broke...and couldn't afford to
> replace the drive and...seeing how it was 1991 and I live in the
> backwater state of Iowa, nobody would loan me a replacement. The Mac
SE
> it was in was also out of warranty.
>
> At any rate, since it was winter it was cold outside so I wrapped the
> drive in a plastic bag, sealed it up with duct tape around the SCSI
> cable, set it on the ledge outside the window, closed the window
without
> squishing the cable and sealed up the crack with duct tape. Left the
> machine and the drive on for something like 2 months that way (though
my
> memory is a bit rusty there) until I could save enough money for a
> replacement. I was worried about condensation inside the bag but it
> never caused a problem. At one point, the drive slid off the ledge
and
> was dangling by the SCSI cable and power cable but the duct tape held
it
> firm. It ran like that for several days until I noticed it wasn't on
the
> ledge.
>
> On a related subject, I've seen and had several Syquest 40 meg drives
> that wouldn't work and wouldn't work and wouldn't work until you
flipped
> them upside and then they'd work just fine. Not the cartridge...the
> whole drive.
>
> Which reminds me...I worked at a typesetting shop once and a guy from
> another department walks in and tells me he's accidentally formatted
his
> syquest cartridge and is there any way to get the data back? So, with
a
> room full of people who knew better I told him, "Oh yeah...if you just
> flip the cartridge over, that'll run it backwards so that if you
format
> it again, that'll do the reverse of formatting it and you data will be
> back." I figured he'd know I was kidding but he DIDN'T and starting
> walking away to DO IT! I stopped him fortunately and recovered his
data
> with proper tools. Of course, a couple months later he thrashed the
> innards of a $1500 magneto-optical drive by jamming an 80 meg syquest
> cartridge into it REAL HARD. I patiently explained to him that when
you
> hear snapping sounds and grinding metal you're generally doing
something
> wrong.
>
> Anthony Clifton - Wirehead
>
>
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> Subject: Re: I'm Back!
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______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Dual processors? Another I've never heard of. My 8086 databook says
that up to four can be wired together, but I've never heard of anyone
doing it. Did this particular one work well?
>>> < Someone posted saying that there in fact was a 2.11 which I've not
been
>>> < able to find reference to. By any chance was that what came with
a PCjr
>>
>>> I've seen it on PC xts, DEC VAXmates and S100 8086 boxen.
>>
>>S100 8086 boxes ?
>>Are there still some left ?
>>I never thought they had shown up in a big mass.
>
>You know, one of the truly cool S-100 8086 boxes that was available
>for a long time was the H/Z-100. You could get the all-in-one or
>separate monitor configuration, color, 8', 5.25" floppies, etc. etc.
>It ran Mess-DOS as well as H-dos (dual processors).
>
>I lusted for one when I was a kid. The other day I found a pair of
>them smashed to bits at a local surplus dealer.
>
>It was truly depressing. Timing is definitely everything in this
>game.
>
>Jeff
>
>>
>>Gruss
>>H.
>>
>>--
>>Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
>>HRK
>>
>
>
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
> At 05:15 PM 8/26/98 -0500, you wrote:
>>> Okay, everyone with a spare IMSAI, let's all get together and have a few
>>> "auctions" on e-bay. How about a reserve of $50K, starting bid at $15K,
>>> $1K increments. That's just for a box, cards are extra.
>>> Jack Peacock
>>I think I should realy try to evaluate the value of
>>one of my Pascal Micro Engines (btw: Has anyone out
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Now *that's* historic! Western Digitals first (and last) CPU effort, the
> first HLL ever implemented as an instruction set on a chip (afaik, anyway),
> rare as hen's teeth (I'll bet it's scarcity is on the order of the Apple I),
> not to mention that it was a *very* early 16-bit system that was actually
> available to mere mortals.
:) - I think there have been a lot of other 16 Bit MPs before.
I'm realy happy that s.o. at least know a Bit about this beast.
in fact, since 12 years (thats when I was glad to aquire my fist
one - it was a kind of dream machine) I just met two people
knowing the name. They are my pride, and no matter who is
visiting my backyard, they always go whoop on ordinary PETs
or Trash's, but when I tell them that these are my number
one items, I get only blank stupid looks :(
Gruss
H.
P.S.: They are two komplete sets (CPU, dual 8" floppy
and terminal) and 2 spare units.
--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK
>> Now *that's* historic! Western Digitals first (and last) CPU effort, the
>> first HLL ever implemented as an instruction set on a chip (afaik, anyway),
>> rare as hen's teeth (I'll bet it's scarcity is on the order of the Apple I),
>> not to mention that it was a *very* early 16-bit system that was actually
>> available to mere mortals.
> I thought the DEC LSI11 (PDP11/03) used a variety of this chip with different
> microcode roms.
Shure, bur the PMS (*G*) utilizes the p-code engine as native
Code - at one time the UCSD p-System was a kind of a ruling
cross platform and cross language standard. The 'p' of p-System
was 'pseudo' not 'Pascal' as most people belive - they had
compilers for Pascal, Fortran, Cobol and Basic - all using
the same p-code engine to run ans all using the same 'OS'.
So to get the system on a new nmachine you just had to write
some low level parts of drivers, and, if the new system had a
different microprocessor, a new p-code interpreter - whoops,
and everything was running.
Cross platform development was an easy thing - write one
application and let it run on PETs, Tandys, CPM/systems,
of coure on APPLE ][s and even on IBM-PCs - oh, did someone
say Java ? *grins*.
Gruss
H.
--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK
Don Maslin wrote:
>On the other hand, one of the outer tracks - the one that contains the
>directory - is accessed much more frequently than any other. It is there
>that I have experienced the greatest number of failures.
This is true for many operating systems on many computers. Often
in the 70's and early 80's drive manufacturers would put circuitry
in the drives that would randomly move the heads off the directory
tracks after a certain period of time of non-access. (I have
several Kennedy 14" SMD drives that will do this. They have the
nice feature of a clear enclosure so that you can see what exactly
the heads are doing at any point in time!)
Tim.
< > IIRC, you were about to write some code to hook up one of thes
< > parallel-IDE HD kits to a CP/M machine with an EPP. Could this be mad
< Problem is that most of the older 8-bit systems don't have any way
< to read information coming back on the parallel port -- at best, it
< would involve using some of the status lines instead of data lines,
As I may have said off list.
Not all parallel ports on CP/M systems are useable. There are many that
could be configured to be usable, NS* horison, Compupro interfacer
series and even the AMPROLB come to mind for this kind of hack. But
the printerports as they stand on ALL CPM machines are configured very
different from PCs.
< manufacturer to another. It would probably be easier to build a
< ST-506 (or SASI) hardware (with firmware) adapter to IDE than to
ST506 to IDE???? Nah! Direct to IDE has been done already, see TCJ
GIDE project. Some CPM systems can hang SCSI already, my ampro and
SB180 do.
< (Then again, Allison's a lot smarter than I am and possibly a bit
< more stubborn -- I tend to stop banging my head against a brick wall
< when I've barely reached the empty space in the cinderblock).
No, I just know where the hammer and chisel are. ;)
it was a speculative hack to see if I could find the data for how one of
the PP adaptors actually talk... it's a big secret!
Just remember a hacker never bangs their head against the wall. That's
for some one in corperate to do.
Allison
