9 Sep
2013
9 Sep
'13
11:49 a.m.
[Reliability of the sectoring hack]
I hope so. I am trying to put together a complete 9880 system. This is an
add-on for the HP9830 'calculator', a disk system. The HP7900 drive had
one fixed and one removable platter (the latter being the same as an
RK)5 cartridge, but 24 sector).
The whole system is complicated (there's well over 100 ICs in the
controller, for exmaple). I think I understand how it all should work, so
it's really a matter of getting a drive that appears to work (at least
with heads the fly, etc), connecting it all up, and seeing what happens.
If necessary using a logic analysser to trace the cvontroller microcode
to see what it thinks it's doing.
-tony
I dont know yet, so far al lI have done is half a
dosen formats on one pack,
all ok, yes read only check would give a better take , i will look at the
format program, should be able to startit at the read check so missing out
the format part, or I may just rty and do a os8 restore image and see how
that goes.
Formatting and immeiately verifying, while a good first test, is not
really enough to be sure it works properly.
I would also want to be sure I could read it several times. That I could
stop the drive, restart it, and it would stil lred correctly. Even make
sure I could stil lread it next day.
I doubt there are any real problems, but it can't hurt to be sure.
I am just wondering how impossible it
Now that would be interesting....
I don't know quite what your PIC firmware does, but I think some kind of
digital phase-locked loop could be built from TTL on one reasonable-sized
board. So it shouldn't be too hard...
[Me an HP drives]
would be to implement much the smae solution with
simple logic ICs.
This will be the next version, TTL only Well shall
see...
Thats going to be interesting , and lots of fun..