27 Sep
2011
27 Sep
'11
5:25 a.m.
Great work, Chris. If you want to stay in touch to do some probes with my
TU-58, there is no problem.
I can do the testing probes with:
* One Laptop under Windows Xp with Cygwin and Mingw
* One HP Apollo 712 (PA-RISC) with Debian
* One Sunblade 100 with Solaris (8 or 10, it depends of my interest in
upgrade it)
Perhaps I could do it with HP-UX, IRIX and AIX, but it depends of the
availability of the systems. I'm pending of one equipment liquidation in my
company.
Regards
SPc.
2011/9/27 Chris Elmquist <chrise at pobox.com>
On Tuesday (09/27/2011 at 06:00AM -0400), allison
wrote:
I'm likely to be writing a Linux app to communicate with the TU58
very soon. I am restoring a TU58 and need a debug tool to talk to it
more conveniently than using one of my PDP-11.
So, in the next couple weeks, I might have something that can chat with the
drive and read/write some blocks.
But, it'll be for Linux. I don't get anywhere near any Microsoft OS.
Also, SPc noted,
Warning it's slow! And it's only 512 sectors of 512bytes.
>The unique option similar to this that I want is one MS-DOS driver in
>SpareTime Gizmos, but to use the TU58 as one MS-DOS storage unit. But,
what
>I have in mind is similar but different at
the same time. I want to
manage
the TU-58
contents in DEC native format.
The TU58 has no native format. It's addressed as 512byte blocks.
Any other format is imposed but the host system, for example RT11,
RSX11, VMS (VMboot and VMS). * In appeareance the Current flows by the main
board of the device (the
RED
led indicates so)
On my unit, the red LED only makes a brief flicker as the unit is being
powered up and down. Scope reveals life-- 8085 CPU is executing stuff.
I see the UART being polled, etc. so I have been believing mine is closer
to life than not.
Is the red LED supposed to come on and stay on? My impression from the
tech manual is that the red LED is a fault indicator of some sort so
I was OK with it being mostly off. If it's supposed to be mostly on,
then I have more debug to do.
I have replaced the capstan rollers in this thing and am really just
beginning the debug/restoration. I'm probably also going to find that
the first tape I put in it is going to break when it starts moving...
of the dozen or so tapes I found with the unit, four of them already
had the drive belt broken inside the tape cartridge.
Could be a lot of effort to get 512, 512-byte blocks ;-) But hey,
it's fun.
Chris
--
Chris Elmquist