25 Sep
2015
25 Sep
'15
9:31 p.m.
From: ian.finder at gmail.com
The "wasn't" was a hint to
indicate that the "OS" for the purpose of this
conversation - actually the disklabel and FEP code- was never available or
intended to be loaded outside of a factory / support environment.
For all I know, the disk controller may require special microcode to be
able to write the volume header. I have no real idea-
I'm not claiming any amount of expertise- only that a microcoded,
undocumented 36-bit machine with it's own secondary frontend IOP, multiple
microcoded bit-slice based custom IO subsystems, and no known external
software tools is a little different than an 8-bit toy computer kit.
Guy's response touches on the broader strokes- the ISA for the main
processor itself isn't even documented.
I get no credit for repairing a 20 bit computer without schematic.
Not 36 bit but still of some worth.
The disk controller on the imsai was a bit controlled state machine.
Not 36 bit but not a trivial toy repair either.
I think you don't know me.
Dwight
Dwight