Sorry for the delayed response, Bruce. I have been on a very nice trip to the UK (from The Netherlands). Thanks for all this information, it will come in handy when I will get time to check out the Nova! kind regards, - Henk, PA8PDP ________________________________ Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org namens Bruce Ray Verzonden: do 25-05-2006 17:32 Aan: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Onderwerp: Re: Data General Nova Trip The Data General top-loading disk drives were designed and built by DG: the 6045 "Phoenix" series were 5 MB + 5 MB fixed/removable and the 6070 "Gemini" series were 10 MB + 10 MB fixed/removable. These were similar to the CDC "Hawk" series, but designed and built by DG in-house. Likewise, the DG Dasher (tm) LP2 and TP2 printers (Line Printer 2 - withouth keyboard, Terminal Printer 2 - with keyboard) were DG designed and built, and were similar in design to the DEC LA36 series. Commonly sporting the "classic" DG blue paint scheme, the later ones sometimes had an "earthtone" (brown) color that matched the DG MV rack scheme of the 1980's. It uses/prints the standard ASCII character set but has extended features that allow downloading programmer-created character sets and plotting functions. Hidden in its pedestal base is... <yup> ... a microNova that controls the printer/terminal. Serial, parallel and 20 ma current loop interfaces were available for it. The Dasher D200 terminal displays standard ASCII characters but has a cursor control and other special feature code set different than other vendors. Later DG Dasher terminals did have ANSI 1964 support along with the DG mode support. The Nova 3 officially can support 128 KW (256 KB) according to DG but can really handle up to 256 KW (512KB) with a single-word patch to the RDOS operating system. The Nova 3's were the last Nova with "real lights and switches" and signaled the end of an era for DG. There were three variants of the Nova 4: the Nova 4/X, the Nova 4/C and Nova 4/S. Each had the same instruction set that was upward compatible from the Nova 3, and differed only in physical implementation and market positioning. The Nova 4/X CPU was contained on a single CPU board (same board as the Eclipse S/140) and used separate memory boards with optional parity. The 4/X usually had the memory map and mul/div option microcode installed. The other systems were 'unmapped systems' using the same chassis but usually without the memory map and contained on a single board. These were popular with small-configuration dedicated systems such as process control, mass spectrometers, etc.. Rob's systems look in great shape and are a great rescue. The 6125 "screamer" (Streamer) tape drives are reliable and easily maintained compared to other tape units. The maintenance manual appears included in the docs shown in one .jpg. The main system disk drives appear to be the DG-built 6100-series Echo Winchester drives (12.5 or 25 MB) combined with a soft-sectored "quad" floppy (1.2 MB) that were very popular. (Note - the disks have a head restraint bar to lock the head during transit to prevent disk platter damage.). The S/20 system is hiding in an MV low-boy, earthtone rack. The S/20 is a microEclipse that has a different PCB form factor and backplane design than the standard 15" x 15" PCB standard.DG systems. The microNova and microEclipse series used a hybrid parallel/serial I/O backplane as a cost and space-savings technique compared to the standard DG parallel I/O backplane. This questionable decision resulted in significantly longer disk and tape I/O transfer times for the micro series than the standard DG series. Very noticable if you were a user. A frustrating note is that DG / EMC still considers its documentation and software (yeah, even the Nova stuff from the 1960s/70s) proprietary and will not yet let us release our archives to the public. We are still working with EMC legal on a "hobbyist release" for the gigs of docs and software in the growing archives... Bruce Bruce Ray Wild Hare Computer Systems, Inc. bkr at WildHareComputers.com ...preserving the Data General legacy: www.NovasAreForever.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Billy Pettit" <Billy.Pettit at wdc.com> To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 7:50 PM Subject: Re: Data General Nova Trip This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation.