test-drb

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

101090 discussions

by trixter＠oldskool.org

Against better judgement, I attempted to low-level format a Plus Hardcard 20 and completely borked it (with the wrong format, the controller won't init and the thing is now a brick). Does anyone have the Plus Hardcard 20 install diskette? The HardCard is shipped in a partitioned and formatted state, with a number of files included on it. The directory of files is as follows: INSTALL EXE 47479 1-01-80 12:06a HCD BAT 30 1-01-80 12:07a HCD1 BAT 128 1-01-80 12:07a HCD2 EXE 54769 1-01-80 12:07a HCD3 DAT 13440 1-01-80 12:07a HCD3 DIF 704 1-01-80 12:07a HCD6 SCR 4224 1-01-80 12:07a PREPARE BAT 235 1-01-80 12:08a SHELL BAT 18 1-01-80 12:07a LIGHT COM 145 1-01-80 12:07a SOUND COM 145 1-01-80 12:07a PATCHFMT EXE 12670 1-01-80 12:08a INSTALL DAT 425 1-01-80 12:06a The original Plus install program creates a floppy diskette containing the Plus files, as above, but also performs several other operations to make it what they refer to as the "REINSTALL" diskette. This Reinstall diskette can later be used for reformatting the HardCard. Anyone have this?? I am killing myself for bricking the card and would really love to get it back. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/

17 years, 8 months

Upgrading early BIOS

by Hollandia＠ccountry.net

Eric J Korpela wrote: >On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 6:16 AM, Al Hartman <alhartman at yahoo.com> wrote: >> Why not try adding a PCI IDE adapter? It will have it's own BIOS that will >> over-ride the internal BIOS. > >With an Award 486 BIOS v1.01, this machine doesn't have PCI slots. In >fact I doubt that it would even have VESA Local Bus (VLB) slots. I >would make a wild assed guess that this is a reworked 386 motherboard >with 7 ISA slots, 3 of which are 16bit and one of which has a >proprietary 32bit ISA extension for use as memory expansion. > >How close did I come, Kurt? > >Eric > > I don't know exactly. This machine was bought used and I am only just starting to learn things about it. I wish I could be of more help.

17 years, 8 months

Upgrading early BIOS

by Hollandia＠ccountry.net

Fred Cisin wrote: > >Does the Packard Bell hardware support cable select? > I honestly don't know. I had thought they all did. >> Can someone suggest a good book that goes into this type of thing? > >Scott Mueller's Repairing and Upgrading PCs >prob'ly 3 or 4 editions before the current one. Try maybe ed 12 or 13 > > > I will look for a copy of it. Thanks.

17 years, 8 months

Upgrading early BIOS

by Hollandia＠ccountry.net

Michael Lee wrote: > >As for books, just an old copy of Upgrading and Repairing PCs is a great >reference in my opinion. > > Thanks, Michael. I'll look for a copy of it.

17 years, 8 months

Upgrading early BIOS

by Hollandia＠ccountry.net

Chuck Guzis wrote: > >Given that this is a 486, I don't think that the BIOS is your >problem. I've used OPTI chipset 486s with two drives with no >problem. > >What kind of IDE cable are you using to hook up the second drive? If >it's an 80-conductor (UDMA) cable, then it's likely that the old IDE >controller can't see the drive. You need the 40-conductor cable. >You may also have to jumper the drive to restrict it to 8GB or less >(some drives can do this). > >FWIW, >Chuck > > The cable is a 40-pin ribbon cable (the old kind).

17 years, 8 months

Z80 CP/M home brew computer project PCBs available

by lynchaj＠yahoo.com

Hi! I am continuing work on the N8VEM project. So far the SBC phase appears to be a success. There are many successful builders. The next phase has started. I just received an order of ECB backplane PCBs. I am assembling my own ECB backplane using standard off-the-shelf-parts. The ECB backplane can be used with the N8VEM SBC for IO expansion. It is intended for the "heavy" IO devices like Disk controllers and video boards. I am presently working on an ECB bus monitor to assist in the development of builder developed ECB peripherals. However, the ECB bus monitor will probably not be available for several weeks. After the ECB bus monitor project, I will continue on with the N8VEM Disk IO peripheral. It will have an IDE and NEC765 based FDC. All hardware and software information is freely available and I will help you the best I can to build your system. Obviously, most builders are highly skilled individuals who choose to highly customize their systems and don't need any of my help. Builders are encouraged to share their experiences on the N8VEM forums to help others. This has been quite successful in identifying and resolving various bugs. If you are interested in either the N8VEM SBC or ECB backplane PCBs to build your own home brew Z80 CP/M computer, please contact me offline. The SBC and the ECB backplane PCBs are available for low cost ($20 each plus shipping). Thank you in advance. Have a nice day! Andrew Lynch PS, you can get additional information here: http://groups.google.com/group/n8vem

17 years, 8 months

Terak 8510 system on eBay

by aek＠bitsavers.org

You can find a Terak emulator here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/bk-terak-emu/ Schematics of the boards would be nice to find. I have pics of the boards on bitsavers. If it ends up you're missing boards, I have a CPU, but no monitor or keyboard, and at this point it seems about as likely to finding a kb/monitor for my PERQ.

17 years, 8 months

Terak 8510 system on eBay

by jeff.kaneko＠juno.com

Geez, that hurts. They're 'investment grade' systems now. Major bummer. I saw a couple, some years ago, rusting away in a scrapyard in the midwest. They used to belong to Boeing. Damaged beyond all repair. Lots of heartache to go around . . . . -- Steven Hirsch <snhirsch at gmail.com> wrote: >> It's listed for $199 plus shipping for the main unit <sigh> I picked up three or four units with disk drives about 12 years ago at University of Vermont's surplus sale. Had no idea what they were and could not find anyone who did. Ended up parting them out and keeping the drive mechanisms. Blast. Steve -- ____________________________________________________________ Click to make millions by owning your own franchise. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/Ioyw6i3m6iRzCLyaA7qgoeQCz0rN6r7…

17 years, 8 months

PCB Artwork for DEC card edge fingers

by chd_1＠nktelco.net

Does anybody have a PC board cad layout of the DEC card edge connector? I was hoping to find it in PCB (http://pcb.sourceforge.net/index.html) format. I would like to have some boards fabricated that were just fingers and connection pads. I will attach the fingers to some Vector boards and do point-to-point wiring. I have some project ideas for OMNIBUS and QBus, but DEC protoboards are rare and/or expensive. I have little experience with layout work and so far have been frustrated by my attempts. -chuck

17 years, 8 months

More ETH Lilith goodies available

by julianskidmore＠yahoo.com

Hi Dave, > I'd love to see something like this happen. Are the Lilith's > internals documented well enough to allow for something like this? They weren't until Jos Dreesen provided the ftp address: ftp://jdreesen.dyndns.org/ftp/lilith What there was effectively user documentation / research papers on the Lilith hardware / software and the Medos operating system and a PC version of the Lilith modula-2 compiler (with an MCode interpreter) in both source and object form. But now we have systems disks, source code, microcode and schematics. So we can emulate lilith at a variety of levels from, say, a simple Linux/X11 software version to a low-level TTL reproduction (thought you'd have to source AMD29xx bit-slice processor parts). Importantly for me the new information contains it's bitmap formats so my MCode interpreter in 'C' can support the missing graphics opcodes. Lilith is really an impressive European graphics workstation, which although not as revolutionary as the Alto was certainly radical for the time even though it predated the Macintosh by only 2 or 3 years. Amongst its many interesting facets: * The display was geared to PAL video standards, hence the 768x594, 50Hz interlaced format (of course this means it can be emulated on any SVGA or higher-resolution display). * MCode is well suited to microcode and cpu emulation making it easily ported to the pdp-11, and 8086. * They used a kind of 8086 segmentation scheme to get around 64kW limits. * It could run Modula-2 about 3x faster than an Alto could run Mesa. * It was a true programmer's machine running Modula-2 from the ground up. In that sense it was an experiment in using the latest GUI ideas for systems development (wheras Alto was primarily an experiment in easy-to-use personal computing for non-technical people). In the end it's the use of MCode which should allow a firmware-level emulation to run original systems disks on a simple Microcontroller and that kinda interests me: A lilith for only a few ?/?/$ :-) So, one day I'll have my own Lilith, and it will fit in my pocket ;-) -cheers from Julz @P

17 years, 8 months

Upgrading early BIOS

by dm561＠torfree.net

---------Original Message(s): Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:24:55 -0700 From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> Subject: Re: Upgrading early BIOS On 14 Aug 2008 at 10:55, M H Stein wrote: > Well, I never knew that just replacing the cable in my 386 and 486 systems > would speed things up; live and learn. I always thought that if the mobo > wasn't pin 34 aware and UDMA capable then the cable wouldn't have much > effect on the transfer mode. AFAIK in order to use UDMA all three items > have to be UDMA capable, the mobo, the cable and the drives, although > I'd say that, assuming it's UDMA aware, the mobo controls the speed > depending on what kind of cable and drives it sees. Semantics? Partly, I suppose. I can speak only from (a pile of) experience. Using a UDMA cable can create some real problems with older systems. And some early supposedly-UDMA-capable systems can't handle the full transfer rate of UDMA-133. IDE's pretty much been a mess from Day One. For example, I've got an early IDE drive that flips the endian-sense on the word pair returned for the total number of sectors on the drive. It was not uncommon for drives from two different manufacturers not to work as master- slave on the same cable. At any rate, for the OP my advice stands. Use a 40-conductor cable and forget about cable select--jumper for master and slave. And cross your fingers and offer up a chicken or two to whatever deity is in charge of IDE operation. Cheers, Chuck ----------Reply: Ah, now those 3 paragraphs I agree with 100% (although I'm not sure that IDE deities care for chicken); anything else was surely just semantics ;-) m

17 years, 8 months

68000 ASM

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

Hi, I am writing a little 68000 ASM code so I can add a few of my own commands to AMOS Basic. Whilst searching online I found this great page: http://www.virtualdub.org/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=84 It mentions a "green-covered" issue of Byte with programming tips for the 68000 (eg. moveq #0 is faster than clr.l 0!). Does anyone have this issue and can I have a copy of it? Or at the very least, the issue number so I can hunt it down, please? Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

17 years, 8 months

PCB Artwork for DEC card edge fingers

by gerhard.kreuzer＠liftoff.at

Hi, I found a program, which converts a .brd file into Protel format. I can import Protel format into my Altium designer system. If you still interested, please send me your files. Thanks. By the way, I used EAGLE more than 20 years ago, but it doesnt meet any of the design creterias of commercial PCB development, so I drop it. Maybe the system is better now, but I can tell you, I dont need a day or a week to create a component, I just need 10 minutes to create components with 20 to 40 Pins, including different packages (Through hole and SMD). And I am not a?professional PCB designer, I only do two or three simple projects a year. Cheers Gerhard

17 years, 8 months

Software for Transtronics/Intronics EPROM programmer

by rf.technologies＠gmail.com

Something over a year ago you posted that you had a backup copy of the software for the Intronics Pocket Programmer. Is this perchance the original parallel printer port version? Due to a calamity of stupid human tricks when the Company I work for sold off one of its product lines the software for the programmer (which we still have) went with the sale and I suddenly have a need to burn some 2764 EPROMS to upgrade the firmware in a old system but I can't get approval for a new burner "because we'll never need it again" (famous last words) so if you still have the software I'd be interested. TIA, Bob Fay Bob Fay Mutualink Mail: rf.technologies at gmail.com

17 years, 8 months

Upgrading early BIOS

by dm561＠torfree.net

----------Original Message(s): Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 09:49:02 -0700 From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> Subject: Re: Upgrading early BIOS On 13 Aug 2008 at 9:12, Eric J Korpela wrote: > The concept of "cable select" hadn't been invented when this machine > was built. Use master/slave. Is not the operation of "cable select" a function of the cable and not the mobo? If the OP is using a "cable select" IDE cable, he can use CS with no problem. That business with him mentioning CS is what made me wonder if he wasn't also using a UDMA cable (which by the standard also supports CS). (It's starting to get pretty hard to find *new* non-UDMA cables nowadays). If that's the case, then any UDMA-capable drives will be operating in that mode, which will not work with his old system. If he's using non-UDMA drives, then the cable won't matter. Cheers, Chuck ---------------Reply: AFAIK cable select has always been an option with Parallel ATA drives, although it was rarely used in pre-UDMA days; the cable was obviously different (40 conductors with standard connectors vs. 80 conductors and unique special connectors) and the order of the drives was usually reversed (i.e. the slave on the end of the cable). It's the motherboard that determines the cable type and mode from pin 34, which is grounded at the mobo end in a UDMA cable, so if the mobo isn't UDMA-aware I don't think the drives would be, and the cable wouldn't matter. Also, not all drives supported CS. Bottom line: don't use CS with pre-UDMA drives, cables and/or motherboards unless you're certain that all three support it, and even master/slave can be problematic with very old IDE drives. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Drive_Electronics m

17 years, 8 months

IBM EGA Programming manual: anyone have a copy?

by jzg22＠drexel.edu

------------------------------ > Message: 3 > Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:02:51 +0100 (BST) > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Subject: Re: IBM EGA Programming manual: anyone have a copy? > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Message-ID: <m1KSnuA-000J1gC at p850ug1> > Content-Type: text/plain > > >> I'm searching for a copy of the official IBM EGA programming >> manual/reference manual. >> If I recall correctly, in order to actually GET that manual you needed >> to have bought the $150? CGA/MDA programming/reference manual (or >> something like that) and have sent in the little registration card, and >> IBM sent you the EGA one in the mail. >> Does anyone have a copy of it? >> > > I assuem this is not the EGA section from the O&A Techref. I have that, > it inculdes the BIOS ROM source listing, schematics, and details of all > the I/O ports used, but no explict programing info with examples. > > >> (a copy of the cga/mda one would be nice too, but isn't nearly as important) >> Contact me off-list (or on-list if you'd like) if you do, I'm quite >> > > Again, I have the apporopriate TechRef sections... > > -tony > > > > ------------------------------ > Yes, it was that. Barry Watzman sent me a scan of his photocopied copy of it. -- Jonathan Gevaryahu jgevaryahu(@t)hotmail(d0t)com jzg22(@t)drexel(d0t)edu

17 years, 8 months

Upgrading early BIOS

by Hollandia＠ccountry.net

Fred Cisin asked >Did you set the CMOS to 2 drives? (1) >Which drive types are supported in the CMOS? (2) (1) Yes I did. (2) The BIOS screens give the following drive selections The following abbreviations are used in the table: Cylinders: CYL Heads: HDS Write Precomp: WP Landing Zone: LZ Sectors: SCT MegaBytes: MB Disk Type CYL HDS WP LZ SCT MB 1 306 4 128 305 17 10 2 615 4 300 615 17 20 3 615 6 300 615 17 30 4 940 8 512 940 17 62 5 940 6 512 940 17 46 6 615 4 -1 615 17 20 7 462 8 256 511 17 30 8 733 5 -1 733 17 30 9 900 15 -1 901 17 112 10 895 15 -1 895 62 406 11 1054 16 -1 1054 63 518 12 855 7 -1 855 17 49 13 306 8 128 319 17 20 14 733 7 -1 733 17 42 15 There is no listing for this drive type 16 987 12 -1 988 35 202 17 977 5 300 977 17 40 18 977 7 -1 977 17 56 19 1024 7 512 1023 17 59 20 880 11 0 0 17 81 21 903 8 0 0 46 162 22 1024 16 0 0 17 136 23 914 14 0 0 17 106 24 1001 15 0 0 17 124 25 977 7 977 977 26 86 26 1024 4 -1 1023 17 34 27 1024 5 -1 1023 17 42 28 1024 8 -1 1023 17 68 29 980 10 980 990 17 81 30 1024 10 0 0 17 85 31 832 6 832 832 33 80 32 1020 15 -1 1024 17 127 33 776 8 0 0 33 100 34 1024 12 0 0 17 102 35 1024 9 1024 1024 17 76 36 1024 5 512 1024 17 42 37 830 10 -1 830 17 68 38 823 10 256 824 17 68 39 980 14 -1 990 30 200 40 615 8 128 664 17 40 41 917 15 -1 918 17 114 42 1023 15 -1 1024 17 127 43 823 10 512 823 17 68 44 820 6 -1 820 17 40 45 1024 8 -1 1024 17 68 The BIOS also allows two User-Defined Types, in which the parameters can have the following ranges: Cylinders: 0-9999 Heads: 0-99 Write Precomp: 0-9999 Landing Zone: 0-9999 Sectors: 0-99 The machine will not recognize ANY second drive. The drives I have tried are all consideraby bewer than the BIOS and I just can't think of any other reason why they would not be recognized. I have tried the "cable select" settings on all of them. I assume that the MASTER/SLAVE methodology is not mandatory. Can someone suggest a good book that goes into this type of thing? Thanks, Kurt

17 years, 8 months

FS: S-100 boards

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

More stuff I'd forgotten I had. I was starting to build an 8080-based S-100 computer in the late 1970's, but lost interest when I bought an Apple IIe system for "only" $2000 (in 1982 dollars!) Anyway, there is: 1) Wameco CPU-1, mostly populated including the 8080A. Looks like the 8224 and 8228 are not there, though. http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=1zef37s&s=4 2) Ithaca Audio 8K 2102 board, fully socketed and populated. http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=29lefr8&s=4 3) Piiceon 8K Program Saver (2708 EPROM programmer). Complete except for the TL497CN switching regulator chip. Includes two 2708's. http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2r7x7jt&s=4 NOTE: The above three boards were never powered up or tested. No idea if they will actually work or not! 4) Solid State Music VB-1B Video Interface. This one was actually working with a different (homebrewed) 8080A board way back in 1979. I think it's 64 characters x 16 lines, monochrome of course. http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2qa6bde&s=4 Please make offer on one or all. Shipping will be from zip 65775 (US). Somewhere I have a Wameco "Little Mother Board" backplane too, but haven't gotten that far down into the junkpile yet. thanks Charles

17 years, 8 months

Upgrading early BIOS

by alhartman＠yahoo.com

Why not try adding a PCI IDE adapter? It will have it's own BIOS that will over-ride the internal BIOS. You can even add a PCI SATA adapter for that matter. Computer Geeks have them pretty cheap. IF your 486 Board has PCI Slots. I know I have an ISA IDE Adapter from Future Domain here that I've never used, but I don't know if it's going to work any better with newer drives. Al

17 years, 8 months

SDS/XDS Sigma systems

by RichA＠vulcan.com

If anyone on the list is aware of Sigma equipment still in existence, please contact me. I am aware that Honeywell forcibly retired the systems as service contracts expired in the early 80s, and that this will be very rare if it does exist at all. Thanks, Rich Rich Alderson RichA at vulcan.com Server Engineer, PDPplanet Project (206) 342-2239 Vulcan, Inc., 505 5th Avenue S, Seattle, WA 98104 (206) 465-2916 cell

17 years, 8 months

Paper Tape Reader

by dm561＠torfree.net

----------Original Message: Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:48:09 -0600 From: "B M" <iamvirtual at gmail.com> Subject: Paper Tape Reader Does anyone know of a source for a [relatively] cheap paper tape reader suitable for reading standard DEC paper tapes? I have several paper tapes from a PDP-11/20 that I would like to read, and of course, share :-). Something like the OP-80 from Oliver Engineering would be suitable. Thanks. --barrym ----------Reply: I've got 4 or 5 different models of PPT readers (and some perfs), but none quite as simple as the OP-80 and they'd all require some custom interfacing; what's [relatively] cheap ??? Contact me off-list if interested; thanks. mike

17 years, 8 months

questbusters

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

Does anyone here have a collection of Questbusters newsletters? I just acquired some from my brother who asked me to sell them. I'd like to see if I can get scans gathered together. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

17 years, 8 months

Intel 4004 from discrete SMD transistors

by wbblair3＠yahoo.com

About the web page I posted the link for yesterday: http://www.4004.com/ I emailed the owner of the site to ask a question and got an interesting response: The right-hand 4004 exhibit photo at the top of the page looks like a 4004 reproduced with surface mount devices on a PC board. Is that what it is? If so, where is it specifically discussed in the text? Thanks, Bill Hi Bill, Those are indeed surface-mount transistors positioned where the original transistors are on the chip, but the photo is of a non-functional prototype currently on exhibit at the Intel Museum. Alas, we are still working on our ultimate goal of building a fully functional reproduction of the 4004, and displaying that in a museum or two. There is no write-up because this ambitious part of the saga is still in-progress, and because we're all busy professionals with "day jobs," there is currently no estimated completion date. Since you expressed an interest, here's where we're at: we have a verified netlist from the schematics, and an unverified netlist we painstakingly extracted from the mask artwork. It contains key geometry information we need for layout and routing, but also some errors we need to find and fix. We ran into a snag reconciling the two netlists (it is an "NP hard" problem), but I think we're getting close to a solution. Then we can move to the PC board layout stage, build another giant prototype, and start debugging... I'm crossing my fingers and praying that we can finish the project by this upcoming 37th anniversary of the 4004 product announcement back on November 15 of 1971. --Tim

17 years, 8 months

Correction - WTD: H742a Power Supply PDP 11/40

by billdeg＠degnanco.com

Correction to earlier post. I am looking for a H742a Power Supply PDP 11/40. Bill

17 years, 8 months

Terak 8510 system on eBay

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> It's listed for $199 plus shipping for the main unit It's being watched. Thanks to sniping, and eBay hiding of the bidder name, there is no incentive to 'tag' anything with a bid any more.

17 years, 8 months

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test-drb