On 2016-10-13 17:16, william degnan wrote: Nope, just waited few years until it popped up ;-) Yes, I know that one. I also got some documentation with it, checked already if it is all on the web and it is. Weirdly, some documents have a different first page, but the rest is the same ...

On 2016-10-13 20:00, william degnan wrote: Thanks!

On 2016-10-29 06:32, william degnan wrote: Sorry, I got my machine finally home two days ago. During transport, it was really bend out of shape, so I will try to check, during the day. The sticker on the outside says something like "80 track", but the drives are not original anymore. (I have two half height 5.25" in it, the early models should have full height) Thanks again!

On 10/29/2016 09:55 AM, emanuel stiebler wrote: yes and there were more than a few modem/terminal programs. Allison

On 10/30/2016 04:01 AM, emanuel stiebler wrote: When people say CP/M its nearly always in the context of 8080/8085/NSC800/Z80 or maybe 8088/86 CP/M-68 was rare but likely there was Kermit for it as all versions of kermit were based on the same effort. Myself I never used it as I had the alternates like modem-7 or MEX. A basic file transfer program was a trivial thing. Allison

On 2016-10-30 06:56, william degnan wrote: Great! If possible, just send me the .IMD file I didn't see it there. I also got last week a IBM PC 5170, if I could get it working, it should be able to write the SAGE II floppies, right?

On Sun, 30 Oct 2016, william degnan wrote: 6.2x is my favorite version of DOS, "the first one where improving reliability was a fundamental intent", and 3.20 was the first one that consistently had 720K DOS format, however, since imaging software would most often be using INT13h, or even direct acccess of the FDC, ANY version of DOS should be OK. Life is sometimes a little easier using a 720K 5.25" drive (such as Mitsubishi 4853, Shugart 465, Tandon TM100-4) instead of a 1.2M 5.25" drive. If the drive is running 300RPM, then the data transfer rate should be 250K. If the drive is running 360RPM (some 1.2M drives), then the data transfer rate should be 300K. But correcting the data transfer rate is all the extra that is needed for using a 1.2M for "720K"/"quad density" formats

It appears that there's a DIP shunt block on the CPU board where each shunt corespond to a row of DRAMs. You should check all 4 positions are shorted. I think that the power-on test checks the first 128K RAM, then sees if the top location (? first location) of the next 128K works if so, it tests that RAM, and repeats 128K at a time to work out how much RAM it has. So you may have defective RAMs in the second 128K. I wonder if the crashing is due to RAM problems in the first 128K. -tony

Yes, you're right. A jumper is fitted for a non-populated bank. That's quite clever in that the sort of shunt originally fitted is the type where you break the shorting bar with a screwdriver. So it comes with some shorted, if you upgrade the RAM you can break more (it is assumed you never downgrade the RAM :-) Ah yes... But if the location it uses to check if the bank exists at all fails (perhaps there's one totally bad chip in the bank) then the first test will fail and the machine will assume the bank does not exist. It wll not give an error. -tony

On 2016-11-04 15:20, william degnan wrote: Yes, I'm enjoying this little machine ;-) I have one question: How does it check, how much RAM is in it? Boot shows 128K, but the board has 512K

On 2016-11-05 14:25, tony duell wrote: Thanks! It looks like you are right, playing a little with the RAM banks, finally got me errors, so at least one chip is dead. Will take few days, until my replacements arrive, but now I have 384k of RAM ;-) Still crashes, but we will see. The original sockets on the board are cheap, sometimes it feels that the chips are barely hanging in there :( Cheers!

On 10/30/2016 08:56 AM, william degnan wrote: Much has been imaged and is over in bitsavers.org... Software stride and sage. What it requires is a Real Computer(tm) with disk drives not one of the latest octa-core Vunderkind M$ PCs. An older box with a FD55GFV and one of the better 3.5" should handle all but 8" and hard sector needs. I keep a Dell 486 powered pizza box for that as it has all the 5.25 and 3.5 capability, for an OS winders3.11 is fine as its really DOS and moderately useful as it runs teledisk still. Also the smaller pentium box with linux as its got that as well. Either than or a CP/M-80 machine with a bunch of drives, MY s100 crate has that from 8 though 3.5. A Qbus pdp-11 with the full compliment of floppies from RX02, though 5.25 and 3.5" can do it as well. Allison

On Sat, Oct 29, 2016 at 11:58 AM, tony duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote: To know for sure, unless my disks are labeled I will have to set the system up and test each disk, to do it right. My Sage II is here: http://vintagecomputer.net/sage/SageII/ looks like one of the disk drives was swapped out, not sure if I did that or the previous owner. one of the photos has a screen shot of a directory from CP/M, no kermit on that particular disk but certainly I assume Kermit was available for a Sage with CP/M. Not sure if I have it. Bill

On Sat, 29 Oct 2016, tony duell wrote: and the model number(s) of the drives will enable looking up hints as the specs (although some TM100-4M (100tpi) drives were labelled "TM100-4" (96tpi)). Some of my drives ended up with labels on the faceplates. For CP/M 2.x, CP/M-68K run STAT DSK: For CP/M 3.0/"PLUS" IIRC, SHOW DRIVE That'll give you some hints of the drive and parameters. There should be a KERMIT available, although machine specific overlay might not be. Getting it onto the machine is another minor project.

On 29/10/2016 22:08, william degnan wrote: If it's any help, all four Sage IIs I've seen had half-height Mitsubishi 80-track DS drives, including the one I have. But that's really a single datum point, as three came from the same place at about the same time, and I suspect the fourth may have come from the same original supplier. -- Pete Pete Turnbull

On Sat, 29 Oct 2016, emanuel stiebler wrote: IIRC, that's a 80track double density drive. (aka "720K", aka "quad density") (the 4854 is the 1.2M version) IIRC, the 4853 was used in the Tandy 2000, so that might be a good place to find the service manual if you need it. TEAC, or TEC? IIRC, TEC FB-504 is 80 track double density. IIRC, the Teac 80track double density is the FD55F (55G is 1.2M, 55FG is intended to be strappable as either) Those should be imagable (is that the right word?) using a PC with 1.2M. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com

On Sat, 29 Oct 2016, emanuel stiebler wrote: If they work OK, I wouldn't worry about the bezel, although a broken bezel is a sign that they haven't been treated gently. Teac 55F would be the ideal Teac to use. Teac55FG would work, but I don't know the jumpers Shugart/Matsushita/etc. 465 For full-height, Tandon Tm100-4 It shouldn't much matter which brand, but until it's working, I'd avoid adding in any more variables.

I don't know if this applies to the SAGE II or not, but 22DISK has two SAGE IV definitions, for 48 tpi and for 96 tpi diskettes, as derived --Chuck

IMD can't determine the interleave. I am using a DD drive, not HD. According to this page http://www.thebattles.net/sage/ they're 96TPI - I don't have a system set up for this at the moment. I have the kermit disk for the Sage II though. My B drive has an 8" drive that thinks it's a 720K drive or whatever I did to make it work. b On Sat, Oct 29, 2016 at 7:02 PM, william degnan <billdegnan at gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, 29 Oct 2016, Chuck Guzis wrote: The Sage IV sample disks formats in XenoCopy were a CP/M type file system, in 48tpi and 96tpi. We also did a Sage 2 P-system format (but only the 96tpi) I have no idea about Sage II, v Sage IV differences.