8 Apr
2000
8 Apr
'00
10:33 a.m.
On Sat, 8 Apr 2000, Sellam Ismail wrote:
Hello Sellam,
Y'all may recall I wrote a couple weeks back about
needing an NEC APC
to try to read these disks that a geophysicist sent me so Guatemala can
find all their precious resources.
Fast forward a few weeks: I spent an hour or so digging around my
warehouse and managed to locate and then extricate the NEC APC I
had. Tonight I finally got around to checking it out again (I got it over 4
years ago and when I played with it then I couldn't get anything to come
up on it). Well tonight I was fiddling with it and realized the brightness
knob was turned all the way down. It turns out this thing works after all!
The system came with 2 disks in the drives when I received it. One in
the A drive is labeled "SYS" and the other in the B drive something else,
it's not important, since the system is trying to boot from A.
When I first turn it on, the upper lefthand corner of the screen shows
"[LOD]" and the disk light comes on. Actually, there are two red LEDs
per drive. The bottom light is always on, and it seems when it's reading
a disk the top one turns on. It tries the A drive and then displays "[LOD
C]" and momentarily accesses the B drive. Then I get "[LER]".
When first powered up, but with the A drive door open, mine displays
"[ * ]". When the drive door is closed on the disk, it changes to
"[LOD]", quickly followed by "[LOD C]" - when the bootable disk is
CP/M-86 - or "[LOD M]" - when the bootable disk is MSDOS. Following a
lot of clunking in the drive, a lot of verbiage appears and finally the
"A>" prompt.
If the disk is not bootable, it makes a couple of tries and then
displays "[LER]".
I will mail you a bootable CP/M-86 disk to help you determine the nature
of your problem.
- don
So I need to know what this all means. I'm
assuming that either the
disks are bad or the drive heads are dirty. Of course there may be
something worse going on but I'm an optimist (mostly).
So I could use the following if you've got it:
a) information from the system manuals that explain the boot process.
I've got the manuals but there is no way in hell I'd be able to find them
without a full-scale re-organization of my warehouse, which I hope to do
in my lifetime but definitely don't have the time for right now.
b) a known good copy of a system disk.
This is an NEC APC model APC-H02. The floppies are 8".
Any help will be greatly appreciated and if we are successful with getting
the data off you will be given credit for your assistance!! Remember,
goats and village women!
As ever, please reply directly to me as I am not subscribed to
ClassicCmp.
sellam(a)vintage.org
Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger
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