5 Jul
2010
5 Jul
'10
10:05 a.m.
Hi,
I have three Fujitsu SMD disk drives that came from a Nixdorf machine and
I'm looking for a way to read the data (sector based would be good
enough). Recently I got hold of a Multibus SMD controller with a Nixdorf
label and I hope this will lead me to some conclusions about the low-level
format. It's an Interphase SMD 2190 (not a 2180) which is built around an
i8085. As I understand it the format differs from controller to
controller, is that right? Of course it would be much easier if I could
just hook up the drives to a Xylogics 7053 or 451 on a VME based SUN
machine...
So the big question is, has anyone a manual of or information on the
Interphase 2190? Would it be feasible to put the controller into an Intel
MDS800 (I know, but it's the only "real" Multibus machine we have
here...) ?
Christian
5 Jul
5 Jul
11:55 a.m.
On 7/5/10 1:05 PM, Christian Corti wrote:
Hi,
I have three Fujitsu SMD disk drives that came from a Nixdorf machine
and I'm looking for a way to read the data (sector based would be good
enough). Recently I got hold of a Multibus SMD controller with a Nixdorf
label and I hope this will lead me to some conclusions about the
low-level format. It's an Interphase SMD 2190 (not a 2180) which is
built around an i8085. As I understand it the format differs from
controller to controller, is that right? Of course it would be much
easier if I could just hook up the drives to a Xylogics 7053 or 451 on a
VME based SUN machine...
So the big question is, has anyone a manual of or information on the
Interphase 2190? Would it be feasible to put the controller into an
Intel MDS800 (I know, but it's the only "real" Multibus machine we have
here...) ?
There's no standard on-disk format for SMD drives, unfortunately. I
think the only hope you have of a compatible on-disk format is to stay
within the same controller manufacturer, and then only if you're lucky. :-(
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
6 Jul
6 Jul
2:47 a.m.
On Mon, 5 Jul 2010, Dave McGuire wrote:
On 7/5/10 1:05 PM, Christian Corti wrote:
Ok, I think that I have the right controller, but I still need the manual.
Google turned out that the SMD 2190 was used in Pyramid, Sun 1 and SGI
Iris systems, too. Maybe I can put the controller into a VME based SUN; I
have some Multibus-to-VMEbus adapters from SUN.
Christian
low-level format. It's an Interphase SMD 2190
(not a 2180) which is
built around an i8085. As I understand it the format differs from
controller to controller, is that right? Of course it would be much
easier if I could just hook up the drives to a Xylogics 7053 or 451 on a
VME based SUN machine...
So the big question is, has anyone a manual of or information on the
Interphase 2190? Would it be feasible to put the controller into an
Intel MDS800 (I know, but it's the only "real" Multibus machine we have
here...) ?
There's no standard on-disk format for SMD drives, unfortunately. I
think the only hope you have of a compatible on-disk format is to stay
within the same controller manufacturer, and then only if you're lucky. :-( 
5:08 p.m.
On 7/5/10 11:55 AM, Dave McGuire wrote:
There's no standard on-disk format for SMD
drives, unfortunately.
FYI, from a while ago:
--
Newsgroups: comp.sys.prime
Subject: Re: Abandoned Prime looking for new home (UK)
Message-ID: <369pu29hl789kaf5j302ve22bstihhg2av at 4ax.com>
Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2007 23:27:55 GMT
On Mon, 05 Mar 2007 10:15:02 -0800, Al Kossow <a... at spies.com> wrote:
Jim wrote:
Actually what every vendor did is to alter the actual sector layout.
What was in the sector headers, data area of the sector and the error
correcting code was very standard. While Prime put the Record ID on
the front of the data portion of the sector (32 bits), it wasn't
checked in the controller at all, it was checked by the disk driver
after the record had been transferred to memory.
99% of SMD controllers used a standard sector/track/ 16 bit CRC code
for the header on the sector, and virtually every one used the same 32
bit polynomial error correcting code in the data portion of the
sector. (And everybody used the Chinese Remainder Theorem to calculate
the correction).
For the FS4 we consider using a 51 bit code, but dropped the resultant
media would not be readable by a 4005 or IDC1, nor would 4005 or IDC1
written media be readable by us. The 51 bit code handled certain types
of multibit errors much more gracefully. The 32 bit code would
miscorrect if there were two errors, and the space between them was
more than 9 bits. That is why any track that had more than one error
on it was considered defective in the CDC spec.
On Mar 4, 11:49 pm, Dennis Boone <d... at
ihatespam.msu.edu> wrote:
> You do realize the drives are Century 315's, i.e. 14" SMD drives,
> right?
I guess a determined person might be able to hook
the drives up to a
Sun or SGI with an Emulex SMD controller.
Nope. You need to use a controller that understands the sector format
written by the Prime controller. Every vendor had their own way of doing
things like sector error checking/correction.
7 Jul
7 Jul
3:06 a.m.
On Tue, 6 Jul 2010, Al Kossow wrote:
FYI, from a while ago:
[...]
Thanks for the pointer!
But I doubt that I will be able to read the drive
with a Xylogics 451, for example. According to the Xylogics manual, there
are two supported disk formats, the 440 format and the 450 format. They
differ in the header field, the SYNC byte is $98 resp. $CC, and header
byte 2 additionally contains a "sector" field. The format and sector size
is configured by several PROMs. Not to speak from other controllers...
Any way, I will give it a try.
Christian
7:11 a.m.
On 7/7/10 6:06 AM, Christian Corti wrote:
On Tue, 6 Jul 2010, Al Kossow wrote:
Also, I don't know if this will be helpful or not, but the Xylogics
450/451 format is not compatible with the 7053/753 format. (I learned
that the hard way at work around 1993 or so, trying to move existing
451-controlled disks to the much faster 7053 and 753 controllers)
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
FYI, from a while ago:
[...]
Thanks for the pointer!
But I doubt that I will be able to read the drive with a Xylogics 451,
for example. According to the Xylogics manual, there are two supported
disk formats, the 440 format and the 450 format. They differ in the
header field, the SYNC byte is $98 resp. $CC, and header byte 2
additionally contains a "sector" field. The format and sector size is
configured by several PROMs. Not to speak from other controllers...
Any way, I will give it a try.
5063
days inactive
5065
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5 comments
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aek＠bitsavers.org -
cc＠informatik.uni-stuttgart.de -
mcguire＠neurotica.com