17 Aug
2015
17 Aug
'15
10:44 p.m.
Any sense of what PC models / controllers are capable of this task? Despite
my recent comments to the contrary, I just recalled that I do, in fact,
have a few old and (iirc) working PCs around here.
Here's what I think I have available. Please - anyone who might know - tell
me if one will fit the bill? All have at least 1 - 5.25" drive.
1) Compaq Portable III (286 @ 12 MHz?)
2) Tandy 1000 EX (XT clone, I think)
3) IBM 5155 luggable (PC or XT?)
4) Another portable XT clone, with an IR remote keyboard and a tip-out LCD
screen. Can't recall the brand, same size as a Compaq Portable II/III
Heck, there might be more. In fact there's also a 5120 and a 5145 but those
are both big lugs and would need a proper setup and sufficient real-estate
on already corwded work tables. How did I forget I had all this stuff?!
On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 5:04 PM, Jules Richardson <
jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote:
On 08/17/2015 03:31 PM, drlegendre . wrote:
As Mike mentioned, try the shift-quote trick and see if the other drive
behaves differently.
It definitely does
> spin, the LED lights up, but I haven't been able to detect any head
> movement. You mention that the head on yours steps back & forth
> (indefinitely?) with no disk present - does it behave any differently
> when
> the drive door is open vs. closed?
It's the same whether the door is open or closed. Probably indefinite - I
got bored after a couple of minutes of listening to drive heads crunching
:-)
In any case, one of us needs to find boot media..
Aha - I have it now... *somewhere*. I just didn't have any about a year
ago when I stopped goofing around with the system that you now have.
Unfortunately I don't immediately know where my CP/M disks are; Wordstar
and the xdiags disk were in one of the little cubby areas below the drives,
so I'm not sure why I didn't leave the CP/M disks there, too.
IIRC I got mine from images on Dave Dunfield's site and wrote them on a PC
(but you'll need a PC with a controller capable of writing FM density). My
todo list is about nine miles long right now, but I can probably rustle you
a set of disks eventually if nobody else gets there first!
cheers
Jules
Hey Jules,
Ah, so your O1 also has the weird screen artifacts prior to hitting
'return'? Weird.. wonder what's up with that?
No, sorry! I meant the "boot error" scrolling up the screen (e.g. it's not
the result of some kind of stuck key fault or anything).
I've only detected activity from drive A (LH side).