2 Jun
2014
2 Jun
'14
4:50 p.m.
On 5/28/2014 3:35 PM, Armin Diehl wrote:
Hi,
i recently got a MAI Basic Four 210 from the Netherlands. The CPU now
powers up, have not yet tried the 14" Piram harddisk.
I would like to know if the CPU is working. It seems to be based on a
microdata 1600 but equiped with dram and cmos ROMs.
The machine has switches were it can be set to boot standard/alternate
from disk, tape or from a serial terminal. Since
the tape drive has a capstan roller transformed to liquid and i have
not yet tested the disk i would like to know how to
boot from a terminal.
I have not yet read the microcode proms nor have i checked if they are
soldered or on sockets.
Does someone out there have access to the cpu manuals that are stated
in the service manual ?
1300 CPU Technical Manual, Document No. SM 1200
M1300 Series CPU Organisation and Description Reference Manual
Pictures from the machine are here:
http://www.ardiehl.de/basicfour/mai210/pics/small/
and the manuals are on bitsavers in pdf/mai, the service manual also
contains the cpu schematics, the ones for the tape
controller and the disk controller are included in the tape / disk
service manuals.
What do you think are the chances to get the disk up and running.
(since i have no tapes of other software)
All seems to be stored dry, no rust, nor a lot of dirt in the machine.
Seemd to be powered on the last time more than 15 years ago.
Armin,
I responded to you off list about this as far as the 1600 power supply.
the drives i have I hope will work. I can work with you about the boot
options, front panel settings for such, once you get a good power supply
to the cpu.
Not too many indications about when a priam is working externally for
the 15" ones. they had a simple wire rack OEM frame and I don't recall
any ready indicators, etc. that tell if it is ready. I had 1 of 3 fail
for PS problems when I had them. I still have one unit left that I
think works.
is the tape drive a Pertec or Microdata? the MD drives were not very
good units. It would be great to get any tapes to copy to AL before you
try to do anything. I hope you can get the disk booted and possibly get
a replacement tape drive to do a backup, rather than read the backups
you might have.
Basic 4 software is exceedingly rare, so would be a great find.
if you have an external rack supply you can pull the power supply card
from the backplane and load the +5 to get it up and
properly loaded. I
wish I had the load I had from mIcrodata years ago that was
built on one
of those cards. It was discarded when they shut down those power
supplies but I was able to buy it from surplus.
please contact me by email if you didn't see the emails i mentioned with
a good address. I'll resend what I sent offline
thanks
Jim