30 Jan
2003
30 Jan
'03
9:12 a.m.
Dave,
I don't remember the model numbers on mine and I don't even know what a
Gridcase is. I guess I should dig em out and get the model numbers before you go to a lot
of trouble.
Joe
At 05:39 PM 1/30/03 -0500, you wrote:
Hi Joe,
I'll dig it out, but it is very specifically for the Gridcase series.
Is that what you want? It won't do anything for any other computers.
Joe wrote:
Dave,
If you find the software and docs I'd love to get a copy of them.
I've had several computers that had EPROM sockets for application
software but none of them ever explained what was needed to use them.
Joe
At 09:00 AM 1/30/03 -0500, you wrote:
--
Dave Mabry dmabry(a)mich.com
Dossin Museum Underwater Research Team
NACD #2093 Maybe I shouldn't speak until I find what I
will talk about, but
here goes anyway. I used GRiD computers extensively during their
"hey day" and I have several versions of the GRiDCase models.
There was a program that I have somewhere that allows you to create
MS-DOS bootable EPROM images and put files onto EPROMs for that
series. It has about 10 or 15 pages of documentation. I will look
for it all, scan it, and make it available to anyone who would like
it. Let me know if it is worth the effort for me to do this. As
long as there are a few who would use it I'll do that. Just reply
to the list and I'll watch for interested folks.
For a while I had a gridcase powering up each night about 3am,
running a program that would recalculate on and off times for a
bunch of X10 modules based on sunset and sunrise, and send that new
schedule to the CP292 controller module through the serial port.
All that was done on a simple GRiDCase 3 (the one with the plasma
screen) and without any hard drive or floppy. It was all
orchestrated from a single EPROM (or maybe it was two) that
contained the boot code, and autoexec.bat, and the X-10 program.
The last command it would issue to the CP292 X-10 controller was a
command to kill the power to the GRiDCase itself. Every night at
3am this sequence would repeat. I thought that was a cool
application for a ROM-based PC.
Over the years Grid eventually removed the capability to store
programs on EPROM, but I think it remained up through some of the
386-based GRiDCase models.
Joe wrote:
.
I don't remember which model Grids I have but
I've had them loose
their settings due to sitting too long and then they they
couldn't access their hard drives. All of them had a little door
on the left side above the keyboard with EPROM sockets in them. I
finally found one that had a EPROM in the socket. With that I
could boot any of them to a ***virtual*** C: drive and then
update the settings and then the computer would boot on the real
C: drive even with the EPROM removed. I've been meaning to make
some copies of that EPROM but I don't have a working EPROM burned
that will burn that EPROM (27c010 IIRC). FWIW none of my Grids
have a floppy drive. The floppy drive is external and I've never
been able to find one.
Joe
At 07:04 PM 1/29/03 -0600, you wrote:
> I not too recenly picked up a GRiDCase 3 with 2 "GRiD Disc
> System 2204" external hard drives. Just yesterday they both
> started acting up on me. It would initially spin up when you
> turned it on, but after a few seconds they would just kick off.
> A few seconds later I get a "1702" message on my screen.
>
> I'm lead to believe that there could be a configuration problem
> somewhere, but I'm not 100% sure on this.
>
> My questions are:
>
> 1. What is going on here? 2. How do I fix this? -- David Vohs
> netsurfer_x1(a)fastmailbox.net
>
> -- http://fastmail.fm - Choose from over 50 domains or use your
> own
>
.
-- Dave Mabry dmabry(a)mich.com Dossin Museum Underwater
Research Team NACD #2093