test-drb

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

101090 discussions

by dm561＠torfree.net

--------------Original Message: Date: Mon, 5 May 2008 21:21:49 +0000 From: Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at usap.gov> Subject: Re: Minimal CP-M SBC design On Mon, May 05, 2008 at 12:10:39AM -0700, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Hi Andrew, > > Just sitting here wondering why you're not using one of the enhanced- > functioning Z80 chips. Even going with the 64180 or Z180 would give > you 2 UARTS and an MMU, in addtion to 2 DMA channels and a timer. I can't speak for Andrew, but for me, I already have this SBC with CPU, some RAM, enough ROM, and a peripheral bus with 5 or 6 PIO chips, all in a package a little smaller than an Apple II PSU. -------------Reply: You might ask on comp.os.cpm; at least one person there claims to have installed CP/M on a printer buffer/sharer. m

17 years, 11 months

Interconnecting classic computers

by dm561＠torfree.net

-----------Original Message: Date: Tue, 06 May 2008 11:14:08 -0400 From: Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> Subject: Re: Interconnecting classic computers To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <482075C0.7020507 at gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed M H Stein wrote: > Has anybody ever tried interfacing a modem to a cordless phone handset? > It shouldn't be too hard to use a C/L phone as the wireless link between two > modems. With an acoustic coupler, or with a direct connection? Do cordless handsets carry the entire spectrum of sounds a corded phone does? Peace... Sridhar ---------Reply:----------- I was thinking direct connect; seems to me all you'd need is a small matching transformer and some attenuation. Bandwidth ought to be good for 1200 bd absolute worst case, but I'd be surprised if you couldn't go faster. More research is needed... m

17 years, 11 months

FS: SGI Iris Crimson

by silent700＠gmail.com

The time has come to move the big red box from my hallway (to make room for other big boxes, of course.) I was going to go straight to ebay but thought I'd offer it up here first. It's marked as a "Server" model but as been upgraded to "Elan" gfx, and I've got the replacement case badge for Elan. I've got one hard drive in there now which boots IRIX but fails looking for other volumes, so consider it ready to reload the OS. RAM is at 256mb. A few pics here: http://flickr.com/photos/chiclassiccomp/sets/72157604070207238/ Pickup only on this one, unless you're *really* serious about owning a Crimson :) I'm in 60074, NW of Chicago. -- j

17 years, 11 months

duh.... Tektronix 4010 has no microprocessor!

by djg＠pdp8.net

> I can probably coalesce them into a single PDF. How good are the > scans? > I think the scans are pretty good. The combining isn't the issue, I can easily do that. The last step of my scans is to flip though the document checking to make sure the scans are ok for each page, in the right order, remove scanning artifacts etc. Since you have the manual if you want you can do that. If not I will see if I can fit it in this weekend. > I am not sure if my scanner will get some of the larger diagrams all > in one image. > The one I scanned on can do 11x17 which I think fitted the foldout pages.

17 years, 11 months

Minimal CP/M SBC design?

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

Ethan asks: >From some recent reading of various materials I've been finding >as I do my research, it does seem that a lot of post-S-100 systems >had 56K or 62K of RAM and 2K or 4K of ROM, still. Since I don't >know specifics, let me ask a general question in the hopes that >someone can figure out what machines and answer accordingly... for >those 2K/4K ROM systems, did any portion of those ROMs get accessed >once CP/M was up, or were they vestigal at that point? I can imagine >some sort of monitor program or such being mapped in for when the >OS got lost in the weeds, but what was that ROM space still good for? You mention boot ROM's, but there's more uses that chew up "useful" address space too: A certain fraction of CP/M machines had memory-mapped video and this stopped them (or only through mapping trickery they got there) from having all 64K of RAM available to the user. For example, 24x80 of character-cell video will take up 2kbytes - add some video attribute bits (flash, blink, underline, bold for common video chips), and then the software (which has to be in either RAM or ROM, doesn't matter which because it will eat up some memory space in either event) to drive the memory-mapped graphics and you can have 4K or more taken up by the overhead of memory-mapped video. That 2K or 4K bytes doesn't have to actually eat up user RAM if it is accessed only via I/O space mapping. Some systems made good use of shadow-mapped ROM that was mapped in to do the actual BIOS (disk and terminal I/O) work and then mapped itself back out to give the user more RAM. This only affects a fraction of the "middle-aged" CP/M systems because the oldest assume a real video or hardcopy terminal at an I/O port, and the newest assume that a PC-clone is doing all that work for them, again at an I/O port :-). Tim.

17 years, 11 months

RM600 mainframe issues

by zampala0＠yahoo.it

Hi, I got a Siemens-Nixdorf Sinix RM600 mainframe consisting of a terminal and two cabinets, the SY53 (Zentraleinheit) and the BG54 (I/O Beisteller). For ease of transport I had to cut a 50-wire cable that was connecting the two cabinets, but now the cable has been put together again. Well, I fire it up and I see on the screen that it's going through a number of tests (cpu, memory, adapters). All is ok till it comes to the booting point. There it fails with the following complains Warning 51763 ios0/scon00 Poll fails. Command response block not valid Warning 33243 ios0/scon00 Controller initialization fails. Command response B SASH error: unable to access SASH root device ios0/sdisk000s0 /stand and it returns a limited SASH shell. Since I am assuming that the ios0/sdisk000s0 device is the hard disk on the I/O cabinet, I guessed that there was something wrong with my home-made replacement of the 50-wire cable. I power it down, go to lunch and get back to find out that, when turned on, random weird characters and symbols are displayed on the screen. It looks like that it entered a sort of editor mode, as it shows a top line in which rows and columns are counted. This top line reads ON LINE | FDXA | R=10 | C=5 | AUX=NONE After a while it hangs. I didn't touch a thing since my almost-ok first boot, I only remember to have played a bit with the console keyboard. Any ideas? shall I call the assistance number at the back of the unit? :-) thanks mirko

17 years, 11 months

C64 Cartridge disassembly (using MMC Replay w/RR-Net)

by billdeg＠degnanco.com

> >Strange question, but does anyone know how to get a C64 cartridge >case apart without breaking it? I have a bad "Epyx Fast Load" >cartridge, and need a case for my "MMC Replay" w/RR-Net. > >I still haven't really had time to do much with the MMC Replay, I >have managed to get a few things to run from it (the C1541 emulation >is pretty bad). I have managed to successfully get a DHCP lease for >the RR-Net, but haven't gotten it to talk to anything. I finally got >some of my floppies back out of storage (put them up on accident just >before I bought the MMC Replay, and I want to see about making and >writing out D64 images. Zane, If you heat the cart in the oven at a temperature less than that which will melt the case, but enough to melt the glue? I have had considerable adventures with this combo of hardware, here is a link that spells out the steps I took to interface my C128 (in c64 mode) using MMC Replay and RR-Net with the second Ethernet card in a PC formatted with WinXT. I can make a D64 image of a disk in less than 30 seconds. I prefer the c128 because after each image, I get better performance if I restart the C128 using the reset button (rather than have to power cycle the c64). I have a lot of the files you need on my web site, directions and links for the files you'll need are here: http://www.vintagecomputer.net/browse_thread.cfm?id=85 -Bill

17 years, 11 months

DECserver 90TL...

by ms＠vaxcluster.de

Hello, i found two DECserver 90TL last week at the local flea market. They seem to be in good shape, but i can't find the boot software for them - the file MNENG1.SYS should be all i need... The Digital Networks web site is no more, and after one week of googling and researching i give up: Does anybody where i can find this file? Greetings ms -- Michael Schneider email: ms at vaxcluster.de Germany http://www.vaxcluster.de "Man hat Gedanken, die bleiben ewig d?mlich..." (Campino)

17 years, 11 months

pdp-8/l supply

by brad＠heeltoe.com

Hi all, I recently obtained an old PDP-8/L in reasonable shape (why does this sound like an AA meeting? :-) Anyway, it doesn't work. So I'm happy debugging. The supplies on the back plane are not right so I decided to pull the main supply. I finally broken down and ordered an ESR meter. Is it smart to check all the caps? I've never used an ESR meter but it seems like a good idea to try it on all the big caps just to see what sort of shape they are in. I assume I need to open the little caps which are in parallel to get a good reading (my experience, limited, is that the little axial electrolytics tend to open/short much more often than the big cans). One of the unregulated supplies (-6) coming off the main transformer was a volt low when loaded and I thought I'd check the caps and the diodes. Unloaded it shows -33v (but looking at the schematic, that may be actually correct. Loaded the +5 was low (like 4.5), unloaded it's perfect (5.01). The lights do light, and run sets the run light, stop stops but load address does not. Worse, it seems to toggle the MA, which is ringing a bell about a common fault. I figured I'd get the supplies all cleaned up first... -brad

17 years, 11 months

PC Tech Journals to go

by dave＠mitton.com

I offered these once before, but arrangements fell through. I have the following collection of magazines to give for the cost of shipping. USPS Media Mail works best (source zip code 01845) PC Tech Journal 1984 - 1988 1984 V1 n: 8/May,9/Jun 1984 V2 n: 1/Jul,6/Dec 1985 V3 n: 1,2,2,3,3,4,4,5,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 1986 V4 n: 1-13 1987 V5 n: 1-13 1988 V6 n: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,10,11,12 1989 V7 n: 1,2,3,4 Extras: PC Products: Jan 84, Jan 85, Feb 85, Jul 85 ---- Dave.

17 years, 11 months

Minimal CP/M SBC design?

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

Ethan asks: > I am a little unclear, though, about how traditional CP/M systems > were set up for ROM and RAM. Was it common to use a "shadow ROM" > in low mem at reset, then have the BIOS live at the top of memory? > How did 64K RAM CP/M machines handle the BIOS? The most traditional CP/M system has a toggle-in front panel and 16K of RAM, Ethan :-). The much later CP/M systems that had boot ROM's either had them consuming a small amount of high memory permanently with some hardware hackery to jump there on a cold reset, or lived in low mem at reset and had a later stage of the boot process map them out. And I am perplexed by your BIOS question. I think you are using that acronym in a non-CP/M context. If you want to read the "CP/M 2.0 System Alteration Guide" and rephrase your question I think we could make some progress. Tim.

17 years, 11 months

Minimal CP-M SBC design

by cclist＠sydex.com

Hi Andrew, Just sitting here wondering why you're not using one of the enhanced- functioning Z80 chips. Even going with the 64180 or Z180 would give you 2 UARTS and an MMU, in addtion to 2 DMA channels and a timer. Later version of this product line, will of course, give you more instructions and functionality. But the MMU can make the whole process of bootup very easy. Simply use the MMU to map the ROM out after the system's been started (you've got a 1MB physical address space). Duck soup. But if you want to stick with the "real" Z80, I've seen two methods of getting around the reset to 0000. The first is to simply force three bytes onto the system bus to perform a jump to whatever address you desire after a reset. You'll only do this once per reset, so the circuitry's pretty simple. Another way to is to start out with an EPROM mapped in and then disable it using an I/O instruction. You can leave RAM mapped in for write cycles, so that only reads will come from the ROM and writes will go directly to RAM. That way, you can set up locations starting at 0000 from a ROM. In any case, the ROM needn't be very big. I think Don Tarbell used a little bipolar 82S123 PROM. Gives you 32 bytes to do what you need, which, in Don's case was enough to get the first sector of an 8" floppy read. CP/M BIOSes for 2.2 and below are easy--they're poll-mode with clearly described inputs and outputs. About the only thing you may find confusing is the IOBYTE convention, but that's optional and fairly well documented. I've written a CP/M BIOS without resorting to assembly, doing the whole thing in machine code. It's not a big thing and you can start with the basic set of disk and console I/O routines. There are two boot entry points in the BIOS jump vector--the "cold start" entered by a jump to 0000 that (re)loads the entire CP/M BDOS and CCP, and the "warm start" that simply reloads the CCP. Disk I/O is done in 128 byte "sectors", so if your physical sectors are longer than that, you'll need to set up blocking and deblocking routines. All of this is covered in the CP/M System Alteration guide in pretty fair detail, along with a couple of samples. CP/M 3.0 or MP/M is more involved, taking advantage of bankswitching. Interrupt-driven I/O is required for MP/M--and the I/O system is more elaborate. Cheers, Chuck

17 years, 11 months

Unable to read unused QIC-40 tapes

by ball.of.john＠gmail.com

A few days ago I finally managed to find and fit a perfect replacement for the pinch roller in my apple 40Mb tape drive. The old roller, like most these days had become a sticky mess and fitting the new one took a half hour with a dremel and a bit of magic with a freezer so that the replacement slipped on and would never come off once it warmed up. Well after watching the thing properly retension a spare QIC-80 tape I had (I have loads of QIC-80 tapes but only a few QIC-40 tapes) I then grabbed an unopened copy of A/UX 1.1 I had been wanting to backup and popped it into the drive and carefully watched it do it's initial retension (like it does whenever a tape is inserted). After a few moments I started to see the tape was not properly spooling back up (it was starting to move up and down on the spool) and I pulled the tape before it ate itself (or at least mashed up the sides of the tape). I fed it another QIC-40 tape and it did it again so I tried the QIC-80 tape again and it didn't happen. The only difference between my QIC-40 tapes and that QIC-80 tape is that the QIC-40 tapes have never been used. Could it be that the drive belts in the tapes are not enjoying me trying to use them after at least 20 years of no use? I won't even risk backing the tape up until I can properly get it to run through the retension cycle properly. More info on the Apple Tape Backup 40SC can be found here: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=704&coll=ap John.

17 years, 11 months

HPIB Stuff - some capture stuff

by steerex＠ccvn.com

> Thanks for your work on this Steve, I need to find the one or two I > spotted again, but yours was cleaner than mine. > > I tested the PCI NI-Analyser card again on the HP150 - which is the > working HP-IB machine I have. Since I didn't know better I captured > everything again - including timings. For someone writing an emulator, > this could be helpful, but I don't know if you want another huge capture > file of boring Amigo protocol stuff. I've attached what I did and > captures of the analyser interface - I'd welcome your advice on what I > should be capturing that would be useful for protocol understanding. > > Hope all's well and thanks again, > Rodney Brown > Hey Rodney, Hope you don't mind but, I'm gonna post this to the classiccmp list. Someone there may want to follow the discussion. What kind of system are you running the PCI Analyzer on? Windows? Linux? I have FINALLY made some more progress with the ISA GPIB card in my Linux box. Unfortunately, it uses the NEC7210 chip which has been a pain in the rear to program. I found a few snippets of code online but really didn't find anything that directly addressed my needs. I have been able to read and write small data packets to the HP7980 but that's about all. With the tape drive, you have to worry about block sizes, file and record markers, rewind, readahead... Blah... Blah... Blah... As of now, I have not yet figured out how to handle all that stuff. So, I decided to take a break from the tape drive and concentrate on the HPIB CS80 disks. I suspect the HP150 is using the "Cold Load" command to read the tape on bootup. I have not been able to read a tape using that method on my PC (yet). I was already familiar with the CS80 protocol so, I just had to learn to program the 7210 chip. It took a while but, I can finally, with some confidence, program the 7210 to do what I need. I was also able to write some code to support a couple of HP instruments (multimeter / frequency counter) over HPIB. Programming the CS80 disk was fairly easy and, at this point, I can read or write a raw binary file to any partition (including boot) of the HPIB disk from my PC (linux). That disk is then bootable from the HP1000 with a CS80 ROM. I have created a small "library" of sorts with the common CS80 methods and another with the HPIB methods in another. I'm not a "C" programmer so, anyone looking at the code would probably think it's sloppy. But, it works (sorta) :-) The question is: What exactly are your goals at this point? If you're still trying to boot the HP150 off the HP7980, I can probably provide some additional insight into the tape protocol although, I cannot provide any specific info for programming the HP150. One of the problems with programming the tape drive is that you cannot slow down the data interchange to see exactly what it is doing. With the disk there is no "timeout" for any of the transactions. You can slow down (or halt) the bus and watch the interaction between the disk and the computer without causing any errors. You cannot do this with the tape drive. It'll throw an error :-( Furthermore, when the computer boots there is a large chunk of data that is passed across the bus this bloats your analyzer's capture and makes it much harder to pick out the important bits. You might try to capture only the transactions where the ATN is asserted. This will filter out the "data" and only leave the commands to wade through. If you have a HPIB card with the 7210 or 9914 I can perhaps provide some insight into register level programming with those chips. I have not given up on the AMIGO tape protocol. I just have been focused on other stuff :-) There is a steep learning curve when tackling all these protocols at the same time. My suggestion would be to break up the project into smaller chunks. The first thing is to figure out how to do the register level programming on the HPIB card. You will need to know how to send and receive "commands" and "data", how to conduct a "parallel poll", and how to change "states" on the card. The tape and disk protocols are not simple, I would also suggest using a simple device (HPIB meter etc...) to refine you programming. Use the analyzer card to watch the bus to see exactly what happens when a certain chunk of code is executed. Once you get predictable results, it'll be easier to tackle a more complex protocol. Talk to me about the HP150. What HPIB chip does it use? Does your version of DOS/UNIX have the tools that you need to do register level programming? I have HPUX 10.20 on a HP9000/800 that has HPIB support built in. Does the 150 have this kinda support? See ya, SteveRob steerex at ccvn.com

17 years, 11 months

Whistle Interjet 200(s) available...

by rescue＠hawkmountain.net

These were popular in the day to connect small offices to the net... it combined a mini file server, served as the wan link, mail, etc... These particular 2 units have the sync card and cable for an external CSU/DSU. If there is any interest, fire over an offer... I won't be doing anything with them and they are taking up space... I have one new unit and one demo unit both in their original box with docs and csu/dsu cable. -- Curt

17 years, 11 months

duh.... Tektronix 4010 has no microprocessor!

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

Richard writes: > I don't know why I never realized this before, but the Tektronix 4010 > graphics terminal is implemented enitrely in SSI TTL logic and > contains no microprocessor. I guess that makes sense with it being > introduced in 1971, but it just suddenly hit me like a brick. My favorite parts of the 4010 are not even SSI TTL. There's a pot you turn up (I seem to recall a Unijunction oscillator) and down to change the baud rate for example :-). > PS: anyone need a 4010 service manual online? I have one and just > noticed it hasn't been scanned on the net anywhere. There was something pretty spastic related to Tektronix and archives of their scope documentation a couple years back, but what you need seems to be online at bitsavers.org right now. You might have to look under "401x" instead of "4010". Wow, 101 Mbytes for what I'm looking at right now! Tim.

17 years, 11 months

duh.... Tektronix 4010 has no microprocessor!

by djg＠pdp8.net

>> PS: anyone need a 4010 service manual online? I have one and just >> noticed it hasn't been scanned on the net anywhere. > >I think they are somewhere on pdp8.net > ftp://ftp.pdp8.net/misc/4010/ Forgot about them. That was a quick scan for someone who needed it and was going to do some cleanup and put them somewhere better. Looks like that is way overdue.

17 years, 11 months

Cray2 Construction queries (utterly random)

by jplist2007＠kiwigeek.com

Hey guys; So I'm staring at various pictures of Cray2s and I'm trying to work out what the lower covers are made from. I'm referring to the covers that are coloured, apparently, depending on the install - usually red or blue, but images.google has one with a rather garish yellow/green combination. I'm guessing, for what you paid for a Cray2, you got to pick the colours to match your institute. At any rate, they LOOK like they're puffy, like a vinyl covered foam cushion of sorts, perhaps a nod to the Cray-1 power supply seat covers. Is this the case? Also, are the transparent covers on the inner and outer faces perspex/plexiglass or something different? (I can't imagine real glass, but perhaps polycarbonate? Lexan?) I suppose replies should probably be off-list, given the inanity of the question. Thanks all! - JP

17 years, 11 months

New to VAX (4000/200)

by rescue＠hawkmountain.net

I am the 'proud' owner of a VAX 4000/200. I have not tried to do much with it yet, first I'll indicate it's config, then my questions (as I'm 'new' to VAX (I admin'd one for a bit 14 years ago... but I deferred to several folk on campus as I was new to admin'ing VMS and I didn't stay in the role long enough to really pick much up)). M9715-AA VAX 4000 internal card (terminates DSSI and SCSI busses) M7626-AA KA660 CPU M7622-AT 16M Memory M7622-BF 8M Memory M3108-PA DSV11-S 2 Line Sync Comm SI-SC 1000 System Industries SCSI card M3118-YA CXA16-M 16 Async Line M3118-YA CXA16-M 16 Async Line M3119-YA CXA08-M 8 Async Line M3118-YA CXA16-M 16 Async Line M7559-00 TQK70 Tape controller are the cards present (from slot 0? (rightmost slot)) And it has 3 DSSI drives, 2 5.25" RF31 (381M) and 1 3.5" RF36 (in one of the 'rail' sets that will support 2 3.5" drives) (1.6G). the 2 RF31s are ID 0 and 1 the RF36 is ID 2 It also has a TK70. Now onto the questions: 1. How is 24M of RAM ? Should I be on the lookout for more ? 2. What releases of VMS, Vax Ultrix, etc should I limit myself to based on 24M and KA660 ? 3. Was there a DSSI version of TK70 ? 4. 4000/200 does not have SCSI, correct ? (other than someone added an SI SC-1000) 5. any idea if a SCSI CD can be booted via the SI SC-1000 ? (boot cmds would be ?) 6. This is supposed to have some version of VMS on it... I have no PW... pointers to 'break in' procedure and password reset ? What is the default sysadmin account as well ? 7. There is what looks like a 50 pin scsi terminator (small size like Sun 411 case) that I've identified as DSSI terminator., What is the 50 pin centronics style connector above that ? 8. What is a DSV11-S good for ? 9. Not that I plan to, but how do you make use of the async cards (they have 50 pin centronics style connectors) 10. Anyone got any more of the 2 3.5" drive mounting assemblies ? 11. Anyone got any RF36 or higher density DSSI drives available ? 12. Can the DSSI drive 'bus' be converted to SCSI ? 13. What is the largest drive/partitions supported on 4000/200 (DSSI or otherwise) ? 14. Have I asked enough questions ? (What have I forgotten to ask :-) ? ) How are the 4000/200 machines ? (Other VAXen I have is VAXStation 2000 and VAXStation 3100, neither of which is running (driveless))... I find the enclosure design pretty cool... and for a large box, has nice design (visually)... (I know it is no SGI... and that it is DEC beige.... but I like the design (doors, badge, etc)). Any drop in cpu/memory upgrades that are worthwhile (in the free to cheap territory of course :-) ). Thanks in advance for any cool info/pointers/etc... -- Curt

17 years, 11 months

Atari score!

by snhirsch＠gmail.com

I returned from a hamfest yesterday with a mountain of Atari 8bit gear: Atari 800 w/ dust-cover (slight yellowing) (2) 810 diskette drives (2) 1020 Printer/Plotters (1 new in wrapping) 410 Cassette Deck 835 Modem 850 Interface Adapter All original Atari manuals for the above in great condition! All power adapters for the above in working condition. 6 Serial cables Box of assorted joysticks and input devices Huge box of photocopied development tool manuals Still to come as soon as owner unearths them from his basement: Several hundred diskettes SWP ATR8000 CP/M extension system w/ all manuals and software Looks to be a lot of fun getting this stuff up and learning about it. I'm thinking of buying one of the SIO2PC interfaces and the APE software package so I can transfer images from the internet to workable Atari diskettes. Would appreciate any advice or opinions on this. Also, if the owner cannot locate the diskettes, what is the best way to go about bootstrapping things? Where can the various images be found on the net and is APE the best way to do this? Steve --

17 years, 11 months

by austin＠ozpass.co.uk

For my birthday I received a copy of "The Supercomputer Era" by Sidney Karin and Norris Parker Smith. It's a little hard to track down (my copy is ex. Coleman College Library, La Mesa, California - never checked out!) but provides an interesting, nostalgic look at the state of the supercomputer industry c. 1987. The framework for the book is the (then) shiny new San Diego Supercomputer Centre (SDSC). Much is made of the bleeding edge technology implemented at that site, including dual 50Mbit HYPERnet networking to link their Cray X-MP/48 and SCS-40 to the "Common File System" based around an IBM4381 with a whopping 35GB of online storage (20 GB IBM3380 and a 15GB STC8380 disk drives). With 21 years of hindsight whilst enjoying the book, it's quite sad to read some of the predictions. When written, the Cray 3 with its gallium arsenide seniconductors was tipped for great things, and the ETA-10 at the Von Neumann Centre was expected to conquer all. Knowing the eventual direction the supercomputing field took with massive parallel arrays (and clusters) of scalar processors, I really miss the exotic cool of the old-school vector beasts. Reminds me of the famous Seymour Cray quote: "I'd rather have two bulls pulling my plough than 1000 chickens". It's a great read, anyway, if you can get hold of a copy. As an aside (and to provide a little more meat to this rambling post), whilst reading the above and stopping every 5 minutes to follow something up on the interweb I came across a really interesting website detailing "Great Microprocessors of the Past and Present". Apologies if it's common knowledge or has been discussed at length before, but much of it was new and interesting to me. http://jbayko.sasktelwebsite.net/cpu.html -Austin.

17 years, 11 months

Minimal CP-M SBC design

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Minimal CP-M SBC design > From: "Joachim Thiemann" <joachim.thiemann at gmail.com> > Date: Sun, 04 May 2008 22:27:36 -0400 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On a tangent, I am curious: how difficult is it to make some form of >CP/M-68k work on a bare-bones 68000 or 68008 system? Long ago, I did >wire up a 68008 system with leftover chips; but my memory is fuzzy. >Can't even remember if the DTACK grounded trick works on the 68008, or >if I forced access times somehow... > >What does CP/M-68k expect in RAM, ROM and I/O locations? > >Joe. NO idea, the sources are on Gaby's site and likely manuals too. Allison

17 years, 11 months

Minimal CP-M SBC design

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Minimal CP-M SBC design > From: Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at usap.gov> > Date: Mon, 05 May 2008 01:25:47 +0000 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On Sun, May 04, 2008 at 09:03:03PM -0400, Andrew Lynch wrote: >> Hi Ethan, I reread your email and thought I'd try to answer some of your >> questions regarding a simple do it yourself CP/M computer. > >Thanks. > >> My first piece of advice is to ask Allison ;-) since she has done this >> dozens of times and can boot CP/M blind folded on a spark gap radio. > >Sure. I was hoping she would chime in. My experience over the years >with CP/M has been somewhat tangental (I've worked on Kapros at work >back in 1980s, I own a couple of Kaypros still, and I've done a little >bit with 22disk and such under MS-DOS), but everytime Allison posts >on CP/M, I learn something. > >> Your basic hardware certainly sounds CP/M capable. I assume that it can >> swap RAM in to the lower pages though, right? CP/M requires RAM at $0000 >> through some address (depends). > >Right. As it stands, the hardware probable cannot do that, but the ace >up my sleeve is that there is a 16V8 GAL that is already wired to important >bus signals so that it can act as the chip select circuit. I was >planning on using one of the output flops as the bootstrap-ROM-enable. >I've done similar sorts of things with MC68000 designs in the past. > >> It likes RAM all the way to $FFFF but can >> live with ROM in the $F000 range. Less RAM than 48K makes things difficult >> though, IMO. > >That's what I was unsure about - but RAM to $EFFF and ROM from $F000 on >up is easy to implement. CP/M doesnt "require" 64K as it's entirely possible to boot and get a prompt with less than 16k. If you wish to run any application with a hint of usefulness you need at least 48k and 56K would be fine so ram to 0f000h serves. I presume the F000h block is rom/Eprom which can be very useful. >> How I implemented my machine was to use a memory configuration latch >> (74LS273)... The schematics are all on my N8VEM page. > >I'll check those out when the sats rise here. > >> A pair of 62256's would work but I prefer a solution using a 512Kx8 SRAM. >> That lets you use the 64K for RAM and the rest for a RAM drive. Whatever >> does it for you though. > >I happen to have some 62256s with me, not any 512Kx8 SRAMs, and the next >plane isn't for almost 6 months. Go with the 32k parts! Hint to save wiring time stack the one atop the other and keep CS/ seperate. Also if you have a 32K eprom you can bank switch that in (do it as low ram/low rom) and you can put CPm and utility stuff in there. >> Writing the CBIOS is actually not that hard. I wrote one more or less based >> on the one in the Andy Laird's CP/M programmers guide book. It was >> recommended by Allison and is *the* reference book AFAIK. CP/M is a great >> OS and is rather portable considering everything it does. > >Hmm... is there a soft copy of that book anywhere? It sounds like the >perfect reading companion. It would be but I know of no on line copy. If you cant cind the on line copies of the bios from teh book I think I have them and can send to pvt email. >> I use 16550 UARTs but the CBIOS abstracts all those details away. I think >> CP/M could care less what sort of serial port you use, even if you use one >> at all. Just implement the CBIOS IO routines and it'll work. Same thing >> for drives; you can use floppy drives, memory, IDE, hard disks, whatever >> from CP/M's perspective they are all block devices. > >Right... but what I _have_ is a choice between a 16550 and a 6402. One >advantage of the 6402 is that its options are hardware selected, so the >bootstrap code doesn't have to do much to be able to squirt out a message >that it's alive. It's probably impractical to put a video circuit on this >design, so I'm going with a serial console in the CBIOS I/O routines >and shifting the burden of display and keyboard input to a dedicated >device. Either will work likely less hardware with the 16550 as it has BRG. >> Best of luck with your project. Let me know if there is anything I can do >> to help! > >Thanks. I still have lots of reading to do, as well as a bit of work to >fiddle up some GAL equations to implement the memory map. It's going to >be somewhat trivial to roll out a 32K RAM/8K ROM design, since there's >already a pair of 28-pin sockets wired up for SRAM and EPROM. The first >big trick will be mounting a second SRAM chip. I do wish I had a 512Kx8 >SRAM with me, but alas, no. > The gal can make life much easier. The larger ramm is nice for MP/M or implementing a soft ramdisk. >I think I have all the parts needed for a ROM emulator, but if not, I >do have a battery-backed 8K SRAM (48Z08?) that I can program in a device >programmer and treat as a ROM for firmware development. At home, I have >a Grammar Engine PromICE, but I didn't happen to haul that along. The ram desive will ge you there. back in the late 70s and early 80s I did it with less (2716 and a home made programmer). > >Thanks for the pointers. I'll check out your project when the 'net >comes up for us. if I can be any help let me know. Allison >-ethan > >-- >Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 5-May-2008 at 01:10 Z >South Pole Station >PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -69.9 F (-56.6 C) Windchill -103.1 F (-75.0 C) >APO AP 96598 Wind 9.0 kts Grid 41 Barometer 693.6 mb (10119 ft) > >Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html

17 years, 11 months

OT: FIB Microscopy Ideas + Request for 7409

by devonstopps＠gmail.com

We recently had a Focused Ion Beam (FIB) microscopy system installed in our lab - which I've just started to play around with. FIBs are used now fairly widely in the semiconductor industry to modify prototype chips - you can etch or deposit metal/insulator at the 100nm scale. Check out fibics.com for some more info; no relation to me. I wondered if anyone had any neat ideas of what to do with it? Both out of interest, and for a demo for some highschool students who will be here on a Nanotechnology course. I de-capped a ceramic 7401 Quad NAND and a 7405 Hex Inverter - with the idea of modifying the functions. However, I can't think of too much to do with either - except maybe trying to separate the input transistor emitter on each hex inverter to make it function as a NAND. Unfortunately these were the only relatively simple chips I had in ceramic packages - I thought turning a 7409 AND into a 7401 equivalent NAND would be neat for the students to see - and at a scale they could easily work with/understand. Does anyone have any 7409 or 7408, or, a similar ECL, DTL, etc AND in ceramic packages they'd like to give up? Control of the system is fully automated; centered around a IBM PowerPC RS6000 43P running AIX.... T.H.x. Devon

17 years, 11 months

Minimal CP-M SBC design

by lee＠geekdot.com

> On a tangent, I am curious: how difficult is it to make some form of > CP/M-68k work on a bare-bones 68000 or 68008 system? I've made a BIOS that seems to work and that fits in less than 2K. The thing I can't seem to do is find all the parts to make up a boot image to let me use a CP/M-68K C compiler to compile the sources to the parts I need to make a boot image. > What does CP/M-68k expect in RAM, ROM and I/O locations? It seems to expect to run in RAM, I/O is abstracted through system calls using TRAP #3 > Can't even remember if the DTACK grounded trick works on the 68008, It does. Lee.

17 years, 11 months

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