19 Sep
2008
19 Sep
'08
9:46 p.m.
Rick Bensene wrote:
Hello,
I have a PDP8/e, with RX8E and a dual drive RX01 floppy subsystem.
I have a bunch of unformatted 8" Single Density, Single-Sided,
Soft-Sector floppies that will work with these drives. I also have a
working PC04 paper tape reader/punch, and a console connection at 4800
baud (to a PC running either Windows or Linux). All of the hardware
listed above has been tested using DEC diagnostics (loaded from paper
tape), and all tests pass.
What I'm looking for is a boot floppy(RX01) for OS8 V3D or better that
will support this hardware configuration. The issue is this: If I can
lay hands on a bootable floppy image, how can I make a real floppy from
the image?
Is there some kind of standalone tool that will take an image file from
a PC, and send it over a serial port, and write the image out to a
floppy via the RX8E? I'm looking for something kind of like VTSERVER
for the PDP11, but written for the PDP8/e, and small enough to either
toggle in from front panel (perhaps a few hundred words, I'm pretty
patient), or be able to be punched to tape and loaded with the BIN
loader?
I'm in the same boat on this one. Working PDP-8m with EAE, 16K core, and
an RX8E with a dual RX02 drive. But no working RX diagnostic tape images,
altho I do have PDFs of the two diags DIRXA and DIRXB. Anybody knows where
the BIN bits are that would be fantastic!
I've run the RX02 on a PDP-11/44 and passed all the DEC PDP-11 diagnostics,
so the drive itself seems very reliable (at least in PDP-11 mode). Only
my RX8E has not been checked out, but it is so simple it is hard for it
to not work :-).
Also the same problem WRT OS8 images. The bits exist on unix systems, but
no way to xfer them over to the -8m. I have written a bunch of standalone
test diagnostic programs (memory, EAE) for the 8m that I download via a
serial line (as a virtual 'slow speed' paper tape binloader. So unless
someone can point to a PDP-8e/m variation of a 'vtserver' someday I might
get around to writing a simple disk cloner (but don't hold your breath).
Also, is there anyone that has BIN-loader loadable
paper tape images for
the various diagnostics for the RK8E disk controller/RK05 disk drives?
The system has an RK8E in it (along with the diode boot board for the
RK8E/RK05), but there seems to be a problem, as when I try to boot from
a known good RK05 pack with OS/8 on it, the machine hangs. I have a
bunch of the DEC diagnostics on paper tape, and have run all of the ones
that I have, but there's none for the RK8E/RK05. All of the other
diagnostics (memory checkerboard, CPU tests, etc.) run with no errors.
The system has 24K of memory, with 8K (2x4K boards) of core, and 16K of
solid state memory.
Also, I'd need documentation for said test programs in order to know how
to run them.
Look at: http://www.bernhard-baehr.de/pdp8e/MAINDECs.html Besides having
all the basic CPU, EAE, and memory diagnostics (both paper tape images and
in most cases full hardcopy listings) there is a set of four RK8E tapes and
listings. Probably just what you are looking for. I run all these
diagnostics
(plus a few home grown ones for EAE and memory) on my 8m routinely (once
every
3 mos or so, just like a 'real' DEC F/S guy :-))
Thanks in advance for any help that the collective may
have.
Rick Bensene
Don North