test-drb

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

101090 discussions

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

at least some of the 16 bit Paradise cards could operate in an 8 bit slot. I know this for a fact. I have no fear of endangering a board by just plugging a card --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org <james at attfield.co.uk> wrote: > > Message: 18 > > Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 22:01:13 -0600 > > From: Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> > > Subject: Re: Paradise VGA longshot > > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > > Message-ID: <45BC2009.6070800 at oldskool.org> > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > > > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > > Jim, how about this one: > > > > > > http://artofhacking.com/th99/v/U-Z/50102.htm > > > > > > Does it look familiar? The WD90C11 was used on other cards, > > > including some no-name Taiwanese ones... > > > > Although the memory configuration is different, that's pretty much it! > > I didn't realize I could search Total Hardware for things other than > > model numbers... next time I'll be a little smarter. Thanks! > > > > Sadly, it means I can't use this one. And on further inspection, many > > of the 16-bit-part-of-the-card's contacts lead to a Motorola LS245, and > > from there, to RAM, so I guess this one goes in the 286 pile. > > -- > > 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/ > > Well, I would just plug it in and try it. It will either initialise or not. > I have used several of the earlier (i.e. just post AT introduction) 16-bit > cards in an 8-bit slot and they worked just fine, especially the WD & > Paradise ones. Just because it has some traces from the 16-bit extension > part to a buffer chip doesn't mean it won't work. There is no electrical > danger as the 8-bit section has to be compliant with an 8-bit slot, more a > question of if it will fit physically as it will be longer than an > equivalent 8-bit card. In any event there is one 8-bitter on ebaY UK atm if > you are really worried. > > Jim > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ TV dinner still cooling? Check out "Tonight's Picks" on Yahoo! TV. http://tv.yahoo.com/

19 years, 4 months

Paradise VGA longshot

by james＠attfield.co.uk

> Message: 18 > Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 22:01:13 -0600 > From: Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> > Subject: Re: Paradise VGA longshot > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Message-ID: <45BC2009.6070800 at oldskool.org> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > Jim, how about this one: > > > > http://artofhacking.com/th99/v/U-Z/50102.htm > > > > Does it look familiar? The WD90C11 was used on other cards, > > including some no-name Taiwanese ones... > > Although the memory configuration is different, that's pretty much it! > I didn't realize I could search Total Hardware for things other than > model numbers... next time I'll be a little smarter. Thanks! > > Sadly, it means I can't use this one. And on further inspection, many > of the 16-bit-part-of-the-card's contacts lead to a Motorola LS245, and > from there, to RAM, so I guess this one goes in the 286 pile. > -- > 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/ Well, I would just plug it in and try it. It will either initialise or not. I have used several of the earlier (i.e. just post AT introduction) 16-bit cards in an 8-bit slot and they worked just fine, especially the WD & Paradise ones. Just because it has some traces from the 16-bit extension part to a buffer chip doesn't mean it won't work. There is no electrical danger as the 8-bit section has to be compliant with an 8-bit slot, more a question of if it will fit physically as it will be longer than an equivalent 8-bit card. In any event there is one 8-bitter on ebaY UK atm if you are really worried. Jim

19 years, 4 months

Archiving workstation hard drives

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> Actually, I've never needed to try this - but is it reasonable to expect a > "modern" system to be able to archive (using dd) a SCSI drive that's been > formatted to something other than a 512 byte block size? I think it is. Modern systems will be the ones that have mass storage systems and networks capable of dealing with disc dumps. When I've done this, though, I've written my own disc dumping code using SCSI command blocks to the low-level interface. This was necessary for archiving TI Explorer discs, which have 256 byte blocks but are SCSI devices (MFM drive and ACB 4000 host adapter).

19 years, 4 months

Strange drive from MegaTape Corp.

by cheri-post＠web.de

Hello all, two daysw ago, I aquired a microVAX II with a RA81 and a tape drive. At the beginning, I thought that it was a half inch tape drive (toploader stype), but it turned out to be a special thing. Model type is : MT500C, the "C" standing for a cache option (128KB). The drive dates back from 1986, uses 24 tracks and can save 500 MB, which is way more than the 9-track reel tapes can store. It can be connected to a pertec controller. It seems to special because I couldn't find any information for it except for a german site from which obtained the information I provided earlier. Does anybody on the list knows anything about it ? Any experiences ? Documentation would certainly help. I don't even know where to get media for this thing. I got it whitout any media. Regards, Pierre _______________________________________________________________________ Viren-Scan f?r Ihren PC! Jetzt f?r jeden. Sofort, online und kostenlos. Gleich testen! http://www.pc-sicherheit.web.de/freescan/?mc=022222

19 years, 4 months

DECmate pics for wikipedia

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

Does anyone here have any photographs of DECmate series machines (and VT78) that can be uploaded to Wikipedia? That is, if you own any of these machines, would you please take some pictures? -- 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?

19 years, 4 months

Paradise VGA longshot

by trixter＠oldskool.org

I know this is a longshot, but I'm looking for the settings of all five DIP switches on a Paradise VGA card from 1990. It has two strings on the board, either of which could be the make/model: PWBA 4316 0134-000 or PW800 VGA I'm assuming it's a paradise card, because the actual chip on it is from Western Digital Corp. (a WD90C11-LR) and Paradise used them nearly exclusively. The reason I'm asking is because I'm looking for an 8-bit ISA VGA card, and while this card is 16-bit, some of them could be DIP-switched to run in an 8-bit slot. There are five DIP switches on the backplate. No, I am not going to plug it into my 5160 and power cycle it 32 times to go hunting for something that works :) -- 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/

19 years, 4 months

Paradise VGA longshot

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

the card that I have (in storage) has a card edge/fingers on top of the card. Mine is a Paradise, bought new. There were at least 2 versions/revisions. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Now that's room service! Choose from over 150,000 hotels in 45,000 destinations on Yahoo! Travel to find your fit. http://farechase.yahoo.com/promo-generic-14795097

19 years, 4 months

Paradise VGA longshot

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

have you plugged it into an 8-bit slot yet? I was under the impression neither settings nor s/w was required to be used as such. I guess I could be mistaken tho --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org <trixter at oldskool.org> wrote: > I know this is a longshot, but I'm looking for the settings of all five > DIP switches on a Paradise VGA card from 1990. It has two strings on > the board, either of which could be the make/model: > > PWBA 4316 0134-000 > or > PW800 VGA > > I'm assuming it's a paradise card, because the actual chip on it is from > Western Digital Corp. (a WD90C11-LR) and Paradise used them nearly > exclusively. > > The reason I'm asking is because I'm looking for an 8-bit ISA VGA card, > and while this card is 16-bit, some of them could be DIP-switched to run > in an 8-bit slot. > > There are five DIP switches on the backplate. No, I am not going to > plug it into my 5160 and power cycle it 32 times to go hunting for > something that works :) > -- > 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/ ____________________________________________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta. http://new.mail.yahoo.com

19 years, 4 months

Heathkit-Zenith H/Z-19

by ericj2190＠gmail.com

I have an old Heathkit-Zenith H/Z-19 terminal, and I am trying to use it to connect to a Linux system. I have it set up successfully to connect to the Linux machine, but I have a small problem. The bottom half of the H/Z-19 screen is filled with "p"s in reverse video. When I reach that part of the screen, everything I receive is gibberish. Most of the characters show up as some other character. Once I reach the very bottom of the screen, the "p"s scroll up with the rest of the text, but come back again from the bottom. I believe this is a memory problem, but I do not know if I am correct. Do you know what could be causing this? If so, how could I fix it?

19 years, 4 months

Any IMP's still around?

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

* Curt at Atari Museum asked: Anyone ever recovered one of the original IMP's and restored it back to a functional state? Curt ----------------------------------- Please define which product you mean by IMP. There was an early microprocessor from National. There was marvelous early bit slice 16 bit machine by that name ( I know where a couple in beautiful shape are, still running.) And finally, there were the early DARPA name servers on the early internet ancestor. Several people on the list are looking for those, but I haven't heard of any surviving. Billy

19 years, 4 months

5-6 random vax 4000 cables for postage

by brad＠heeltoe.com

I have about 10 pounds (weight) of random cables which I believe where used to connect two vax 4000 boxes. One end looks like scsi-2 but the other is something similar but not (I think these connected the two qbuses) Also there is a round cable with 2x3 .1" blocks (no idea, but related?) a cable which looks like it goes from a 50 pin .1" scsi header to a centronics scsi (hint: there is sharpie saying "8mm") two cables which looks like giant multirow; I think these connected an outboard RX50 box to something else. I was going to chuck these or put them on ebay. If anyone wants to pay postage (10-12 pounds, from zip 02476 in the USA), let me know. ps: I also have a vax 4000 box I no longer need with some disks and a cpu if anyone *local* wants to come by and pick it up; it ran vms once. send email off line if interested -brad

19 years, 4 months

Tandon TM848-2 Floppy drive power

by kelly＠catcorner.org

> > I'm glad your not working on projects for me then. Having > potentially > > damaging voltage on a connector that is not needed doesn't > sound like > > good practices to me. > > I don't see it like that at all... > > I think Tandy were wiring the harness so any normal 8" drive sould be > used. Some drives needed the 12V, some produced it internally > from the > 24V line, so Tandy provided it on the cable for those drives > that need it. > > It's like PC floppy drives. Every PC I've ever worked on has > 4 pin floppy > drive power connecotrs : +_5V, +12V, and a couple of grounds. Most > modern-ish 3.5" drives use 5V only. Are you saying that PC > power supplies > shouldn't connect up the 12V pin I agree that your point is valid, but that's not the way I'd do it. If I were king it wouldn't be so, but I'm not. > > > > > I have the service manual here for this drive. No where does it say > > that pin 4 is not connected to anything. Nor do the > > schematics I have show that this drive's 7812 (which is how it > > is referenced in the print) > > is optional. The only source for +12 on this schematic is the 7812, > > derrived from the +24v line on Pin 1. > > Sure. That drive produces its 12V rail internally. > > Since you have the schematics, can you tell me what pin 4 > _is_ shown as being connected to, please. Now you've got me. I didn't look at it from this point of view. There is no trace for it. Period, doesn't exist at all. Of course we all know that published schematics are all 100% correct (this is a dig at schematics in general, not you Tony). There isn't even a land for it on the circuit board on the drive I'm looking at. Physically, there are 5 black wires coming from the AMP plug to the circuit board. Pin 4 isn't poulated and there's no open land on the board. > > > > > Tandy also uses the same connector on the same power supply wiring > > harness, but with a completely different pinout (and using the same > > color scheme in some instances) to provide power to the > > card cage riser > > IN THE SAME MACHINE. If you use this connector on the drive > > instead of > > the riser, bad things happen. If you use the drive power > connector on > > the riser, bad things happen. The only way to tell them > apart reliably > > is that the drive power cable has two connectors (to power > 2 drives) and > > the riser power connector has only one AMP connector. > > I rememebr one of the old Sun machines (Sun 2?) that used an Archive > Sidewinder QIC drive. It has a 4 pin power connector, jsut > like the one > on a 5.25" drive. There's only one problem. The Sidewinder > uses +5V and > +24V. And IIRC the only differnce in the tape drive pwoer > connector was > the colour of thew wire to one pin. > Yuck. Then you know the pain. Kelly

19 years, 4 months

Tandon TM848-2 Floppy drive power

by kelly＠catcorner.org

>> The wiring harness is made by Tandy, in the Tandy 6000. That this >> harness has power going to a drive power plug that isn't used it typical >> of Tandy's shortcuts. They banked on the fact that Tandon would NEVER >> put another pin in that socket. > > I think that's a rather strange conclusion to some to. > > I'd think of it more like this ; > > Some 8" drives need the +12V supply, and when it's needed it's on pin 4 > of the connecotr. So Tandy wired the harness to allow for such drives. > > This particular Tandon drive doesn't need 12V, so pin 4 is missing (or a > no-connect). > > How can _adding_ a wire to a harness be a shortcut? > > -tony I'm glad your not working on projects for me then. Having potentially damaging voltage on a connector that is not needed doesn't sound like good practices to me. I have the service manual here for this drive. No where does it say that pin 4 is not connected to anything. Nor do the schematics I have show that this drive's 7812 (which is how it is referenced in the print) is optional. The only source for +12 on this schematic is the 7812, derrived from the +24v line on Pin 1. Tandy also uses the same connector on the same power supply wiring harness, but with a completely different pinout (and using the same color scheme in some instances) to provide power to the card cage riser IN THE SAME MACHINE. If you use this connector on the drive instead of the riser, bad things happen. If you use the drive power connector on the riser, bad things happen. The only way to tell them apart reliably is that the drive power cable has two connectors (to power 2 drives) and the riser power connector has only one AMP connector. By the way, if anyone needs these connectors, they are stocked by Mouser and are about $3.50 each. Search for AMP 1-480270-0. I'm reworking a (different) power supply so I can put several TM848-2e drives in an enclosure for imaging disks from a PC. I also found 18ga hookup wire in 100' spools for less than $10 per spool at Jameco. It may save some wiring, but I still think it is a poor practice.

19 years, 4 months

Component level repair

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

William Donzelli wrote: Keep in mind that there are costs beyond that dollar. Yes, the costs of the parts is obvious, and the techs time is also pretty obvious, but there is more. WAY more. Doing more component level repair means more techs on staff. More salaries. With more salaries comes more health care costs, more little benefits, more equipment, more floorspace, which mean a bigger building - and then there are the extra personnel people needed to handle the techs - and their salaries, health care costs, little benefits, equipment, floorspace - which means you need an even bigger building, with more maintenance staff, and their salaries, health care costs, little benefits, equipment, floorspace - which now with a bigger building comes more property taxes, maintenance costs, material handling equipment and the servicing they always need, and then the new shelves to put the part, and the costs to erect them, which may mean some temps or even more maintenance personnel... OK, I could go on ALL NIGHT. Yes, the costs incurred for repairing that little dollar part may have only tiny fractional effects on all of the above mentioned stuff, but as things start to multiply, you find that there is a lot of money being dumped into a department that does not actually make any money. -- Will ------------------------------------ Finally, a little reality comes into this discussion. Everything William describes is normal for this industry. You will find it labeled different ways, but it is real actual costs to support a maintenance organization. (The last management textbook I saw called it MLB - materials, labour, burden.) In Silicon Valley, MLB runs from 100% to 250% of the technician's salary. In Asia, we can usually get it down to 80%, and the salary is lower. I think everyone who looks at this issue forgets that technicians are human. They have needs. They like to be paid; they need tools and space; they only work so long. To date, nobody has found a way to automate their skills. So this overhead is a real cost to an organization. And to William's final and most critical point - repair sections are not a profit and loss center. They represent only loss - they do not generate income. So if you set up a business making widgets and they can break and need repair, you have to make a choice. Do you just replace them or do you fix them? A repair department is a constant drain of money and resources. Replacement-only can take advantage of the volume/cost curve. It is the cheapest alternative. It may look like you are wasting money, spending hundreds to replace 1-2 dollar components. But looking at the overall costs to a business, it is extremely unlikely to economically viable to repair parts. You have to look at the real cost to your business, and not the cost of failing element. And for all of you who think this is a deplorable recent trend, you are wrong. These same factors existed from the very beginning of the computer industry. The cost of the maintenance on the very first systems was already one of the biggest expenses faced by the companies. It was a major factor in the demise of many of the early companies. They found their MLB exceeding their profit; and they couldn't do much to change it, since it doesn't create income. Even our favorite company here, DEC found that the maintenance and support was by far the biggest department in the company. Some third party companies like Bell Atlantic saw it as an opportunity. But in the end, they all faced the same factors - huge MLB, low income. So coming back full circle we have the hobbyists on this list who repair for the love of it. They bitch about the lack of documentation or parts. But they don't accept that the generation of documents, parts, reparability has a very high cost associated with it. And there is no income associated with creating those items. With all our high level skills, none of us got rich. It is not a marketable skill in a world focused on profit. Billy

19 years, 4 months

My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter

by vax9000＠gmail.com

The laptop served me as a terminal, after the flyback transformer of my VT320 died. (Side info: there are new VT320 flyback transformers on ebay for $4 each. But the news is too late for me.) I was facing the question as what to do. Buy a real terminal? Buy another 8086-386 laptop? Buy a mac SE? Buy a small used IDE HD? Buy serial cable for the HP 100LX I have? Replace the unreliable floppy drive? After one hour of surfing the internet, I finally bought 4 IDE-CF adapters (laptop and desktop versions, $2 each). One for the laptop, one for the pentium PC linux router, one for the 386 desktop. Just want to share the experience with you so you do not need to waste the 1 hour as I did. vax, 9000

19 years, 4 months

42 (was: Component level repair

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

Regretably it never successfully made the transition from radio to TV or film. Its not unique, many other radio shows had the same problem. R -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Fred Cisin Sent: 26 January 2007 02:51 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: 42 (was: Component level repair On Thu, 25 Jan 2007, Billy Pettit wrote: > I stand corrected. All we saw here was the BBC television series If you have a copy with six half-hour episodes, it is near the end of the last episode. > and rather > abominable big screen movie a few years ago. I didn't like that either. But, I have my own ideas about how it should be cast: Ed O'Neil as Arthur Dent Howard Stern as Zaphod Roseanne as the Vogon captain Jaqueline Pearce (Servilan on Blake's 7) as Trillian Christopher Lloyd as Slartibartfast, . . . And I see Marvin as much more like Bender than like the Disney cute one.

19 years, 4 months

RX01/02 compatibility, OS/8 conversion

by rick＠rickmurphy.net

I happened to luck into someone this week on eBay who recently put up my OS/8 Adventure sources for sale.. he's offered to put the source onto floppies from his system. However, all he has is a RX01 drive. I've got some floppies around, but they may have been "formatted" by a RX02. I don't remember if they're still compatible with the '01. Is there any hope there, or anyone with a few (3) RX01 disks? More importantly, is there anyone on the list that can dump a set of files from an RX01 in OS/8 format so I can recover them? It'd be very cool to have the RALF source back. -Rick

19 years, 4 months

42 (was: Component level repair

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

* Fred Cisin explained: > WhatdoYOUgetwhenyoumultiplysixbynine? On Thu, 25 Jan 2007, Billy Pettit wrote: > Philistines. Are there no Douglas Adams fans here? Life, The Universe and > Everything? In the BBC screen play (written BEFORE the book, the letters from the Scrabble bag spelled out: WHATDOYOUGETWHENYOUMULTIPLYSIXBYNINE ----------------- I stand corrected. All we saw here was the BBC television series and rather abominable big screen movie a few years ago. And of course we claim Douglas Adams as one of our own left coast celebrities, since he settled in Santa Barbara when he made the big time. California, heaven to those with the big bucks. Something else to those of us who work here and have to drive to work everyday. Billy

19 years, 4 months

Programming the PDP-11/10 Videos on YouTube

by dzubint＠vcn.bc.ca

I don't know why, but instead of typing in "Paris Hilton" into the YouTube search engine, I typed "PDP-11" and found a set of four videos called "Programming the PDP11" from Douglas Harms at DePauw University in Indiana, USA made in 2001 and portrayed as a Star-Trek-holodeck simulation back to the 1970s They are really funny and quite entertaining to watch. Quotes like Q: "What's 'paper tape'?" A: "It's very similar to the punch cards which I'm sure you've used" You can watch them on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV-7J5y1TQc is part 1 of 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zaaD_xP6nU is part 2 of 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiE2QldpQRQ is part 3 of 4 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUSn59iY8U8 is part 4 of 4 Or you can get them (Apple Quicktime .MOV format) at the http://fs6.depauw.edu/~dharms/pdp11/ web page. see also: http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2000-March/142575.html Nice to see video of the old fanfold paper tape reader in action. (part3) Thomas Dzubin, PDP-11 & VAX fan Vancouver, Calgary, or Saskatoon CANADA

19 years, 4 months

IBM 6580 Displaywriter

by cclist＠sydex.com

The recent talk about two old Displaywriters being up for grabs got me to thinking about something that I've left hanging out in my "things to do" list. Does anyone know the internals of the Displaywriter file format? The disks themselves are SSSD with the first track being 26x128 byte sectors and the remainder 15x256. The encoding is EBCDIC for the text, obviously, but the structure has eluded me (or I've been just too lazy to figure it out). My notes from years ago say that it appears to be a two-level sort of affair, with the top level referring to documents and the second referring to pages within the documents--and then I became distracted and that's where my notes leave off. Does anyone know anything more about these things? I'd like to close this item out in my "things to do list'. Cheers, Chuck

19 years, 4 months

OT: faking a VGA display

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

Some of you here might know this :) I've got a system here where I need to make it think that there's a monitor plugged into its VGA port even when there isn't (long story). Plugging a real CRT into the port even when that CRT is switched off and unplugged from the AC supply works, so there's obviously some way of doing it. Measuring the CRT above (switched off, unplugged from AC, and unplugged from the device) with respect to the VGA connector's shield gives me the following readings: pin sig value 1 R 76ohm 2 G 76ohm 3 B 76ohm 4 NC GND 5 GND GND 6 GND GND 7 GND GND 8 GND GND 9 NC infinite resistance 10 GND GND 11 NC GND 12 DDC DAT 8.1Kohm (initially 7.6Kohm, rose at first then steadied) 13 HSYNC 4.6Kohm 14 VSYNC 4.7Kohm 15 DDC CLK 8.1Kohm (initially 7.6Kohm, rose at first then steadied) Any suggestions? Do I just need 76ohm resistors to ground on the RGB lines (and possibly 4.7Kohm resistors to ground on HSYNC and VSYNC)? Or is there likely something more subtle going on that I need to incorporate into my "fake" connector? (Given that VGA supplies no DC out, it can't be anything too complex!) cheers Jules

19 years, 4 months

Does anyone know what this from Coax Bank Server

by techboy＠all2ez.net

http://cgi.ebay.com/Multiprocessor-Motorolla-68000-Coax-Bank-Server-Fa stbus_W0QQitemZ280072362339QQihZ018QQcategoryZ4193QQssPageNameZWDVWQQr dZ1QQcmdZViewItem All the info is in the listing, what I need to know is what was this before it became a set of boards? Thanx Ryan $4.95/mo. National Dialup, Anti-Spam, Anti-Virus, 5mb personal web space. 5x faster dialup for only $9.95/mo. No contracts, No fees, No Kidding! See http://www.All2Easy.net for more details!

19 years, 4 months

My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

Brad Parker wrote: Heh. I remember someone asking me (at work) if a 3.5" ST-506 drive would work in zero G. I ask where it was installed and they said a KC-135 :-) Apparently someone wanted to use one in the "vomit comet"... and apparently it worked (at least they never complained that it didn't) I don't know how high those where pressurized, but I'd guess around 8000ft. No doubt the old drives didn't need as much air density; the flying height was not that low. I have no idea how air pressure affects the boundary layer over the surface - I assume less density translates to less drag and then to a lower flight. -brad ---------------------------------------- Cold is not nice to disk drives. More than flying height, the mechanical parts become stiffer and don't flex correctly. Bearings becomse stiff and generate vibration. Seals shrink. A lot of work is being done on self heating. This will be needed when drives go into cell phones in the near future. The drive uses the electronics to get to a certain temperature before loading the heads off the ramp. Air pressure does affect the boundary layer, especially at high RPM. There comes a point where it goes negative and sucks the heads down. The testing I saw showed this somewhere around 18-20K RPM. For drives on the market today, flying height is controlled and compensates for altitude. As for cell phones and hard drives, yes, I know that Flash is getting cheaper and is in a surplus situation right now. And with 4 level cells coming along, the cost per bit is going down. But hard drives will still be used in cell phones, because those devices have exploding storage requirements, thanks to new features. Look at Apple's iPhone, with all the bells and whistles. And only 8GB of storage. They've sold millions of iPods with 20, 30, 40, and 60GB of storage. Those users will demand more storage as they use the iPhone. Cell phones do now and will in the future use hard drives. Cold is one of the biggest unsolved problems. Shock is looking so-so with free fall sensors. Power cosumption is the biggest detractor. But a hybrid with a big cache could solve that. Billy

19 years, 4 months

My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

Jim Leonard wrote: Yep! There are only two drawbacks to microdrives: - Slower than real flash - Can't use 6000+ feet above sea level (lack of air pressure can make the drive go wonky or, rarely, break it) -- Jim Leonard --------------------------- I have to strongly dispute this; The IBM (later Hitachi) MicroDrive was rated at 10K feet. I did competitive testing on it and the Seagate 1" drive and both had no problems at 10K feet. In fact both + the WD 1" drive work fine well past 10K feet. Come to that, Maxtor, Miniscribe, IBM and DEC built drives in Colorado well above 6000 feet. Apple used to have a factory at Fountain (6400 feet). So this simply isn't true. The biggest customer of the MicroDrive - Apple iPods - work great on the ski slopes. They also work great in Reno at 7000+ feet. I can personally vouch for this and I'm certain others on the list can too. They also work fine on airplanes, which are pressurized at 8000 feet. I have never heard of a drive breaking because of altitude. Rarely, you get a head gimbals or suspension problem that doesn't like 9000+ feet. But that is a defective drive, not the rule. All drive vendors and many OEM buyers do extensive testing to ensure this. And all heads are testing for flying height before being installed in a drive. Finally, today's drives utilize Dynamic Flying Height technology which uses a heating element in the head to maintain constant controlled flying height. Altitude is not a problem with any drive on the market today. Billy

19 years, 4 months

Wayback machine disappointment

by witchy＠binarydinosaurs.co.uk

Hi folks, Whilst shrinking in embarrassment at my own website efforts going back to the mid 90s I thought I'd look at www.digital.com for a bit of nostalgia, only to be told that the site is blocked and isn't available. Anyone know why? Wayback machine: http://www.archive.org/web/web.php -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection?

19 years, 4 months

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