A very generous chap here (thanks Steve) sent me a bunch of media for my
Victor 9000, as I've had no bootable software for it. Most of the new
disks are application programmes, but there's one labelled:
SYSGEN 5/20/82, CP/M 86 2.2, BACKUP
Which I figure should be on the money (although, admittedly, I've never
used CP/M before, so I may have it wrong).
The Victor has a pair of Tandon TM100-3's, which as far as I can find
online are SS/DD - and the diskettes I have are also labelled SS/DD, so
that lines up.
I have read (in the Vector Tech Ref, thanks BitSavers) that the machine
will boot from either diskette drive, which is good since the drive latch
mechanism on my left-hand drive is damaged and won't allow the drive to
engage.
Anyways. I stick in the CP/M floppy and hit the switch. The VDU warms up
and, after it checks out the disk drive with the floppy in it, I get a
cute little floppy disk logo in the bottom-right hand corner of the screen
and next to it is "x 01", as in, "disks times one". From there,
nothing.
I've tapped all the keys on the keyboard without any apparent change. If I
remove the floppy the disk with 'x 01' disappears and I get a blinking
floppy logo, so it certainly appears functional in that respect.
The Tech Ref manual on BitSavers tells me how to low-level access graphics
and helpful things like that - but I need the "Victor9000 for Dummies"
guide to tell me what in the heck I'm even looking at.
Can anyone help?
Thanks much!
- JP
Iowa