16 Aug
2006
16 Aug
'06
4:01 p.m.
I don't know if it's any use to you, but
_years_ ago I wrote a Turbo
Pascal program (runs under MS-DOS) to read double-density PERQ
'interchange' floppies on a PC. As set up, it's designed to use a
secondary controller in the PC (the XT on my desk has such a controller
linked to a pair of 8" drives...).
If you're interested (or if anyone else is interested) I can dig out the
source code. I seem to remeber the original distribution terms were that
I hold the copyright, but 'further distribution for the benefit of PERQ
fanatics is encouraged).
I'd definitely be interested in having the software for future use; as
it currently stands I don't have any software on floppies to read so I
won't have much use for it. (Plus I still need to get an 8" floppy
connected to a PC, I have one sitting around for the job but haven't
gotten around to hooking it up yet.)
If you need any help with accessing the hard disk,
etc, I may well have
useful information around. I certainly have things like the I/O port map,
etc.
Definitely; I believe I have something working (it's chugging along as
we speak) using POS system calls; I've just uploaded the source of my
program to my site (
http://yahozna.dhs.org/computers/software/PERQ/dumpdisk.pas). Go easy
on me, it's both my first Pascal program and my first PERQ program, and
I haven't cleaned it up much. Might be useful for other people
interested in preserving the contents of their drives.
Good luck. The PERQ is not a simple machine at all.
Having managed to
understand how the CPU works, I'd not want to try emulating it...
And a PERQ 2 would be even worse. On that series, you can run user code
on the I/O processor (Z80)....
-tony
Yeah -- like I said, we'll see how it turns out :). There seems to be a
lot of available documentation on the system (microcode, etc...) so I'm
hoping that's enough to get a good start -- and you sound like the
person to ask if it's not :).
Thanks,
Josh