I saw one box of software that supposedly allowed interconnections with
ordinary PC's. I also saw some materials that suggested there was a SCSI
bus on at least one machine. One was running, the ogher considered a
parts source. there was some sort of SMD type drive, but it had had a
head crash and wasn't in use.
On Sun, 10 Mar 2002, James B. DiGriz wrote:
Merle K. Peirce wrote:
I think they are both variations of the 990/12.
One may be a model 8. I
think one is a 13 slot chassis, the other a 17.
I have a /10 in a 13 slot chassis. ~512K installed, several more 192 and
256K MEM A boards, and controllers for DS10 and DS50 drives, 911 VDT's
(have 3 terminals), COMM, EIA, CI402, Some are spares, plus I have 202
modems, assorted extra cables, etc, so if you run across anything you
need but don't have, give me a holler. I may have it.
The drives and cartridges need a lot of work before I even think about
trying to spin them up. Unfortunately they haven't been stored in the
best of conditions. I'm not set up to do that myself, yet, and the only
man I know hereabouts with the know-how and tools to clean, refurbish,
test and align old SMD drives and disk packs isn't ready to get into
restoring old gear just yet.
In the meantime, I'm looking at the boot ROM source from Kossow's site
for ways to hack in from a PC or maybe the 990/1 I have. Need to find an
FD800/1000 or other SA800 series floppy subsytem for the latter, though.
And software. Or I might dump the boot ROM on it and write/port some, at
least a monitor/assembler/linker/loader. I'm going to be doing some
99xx(x) assembly here anyway.
By all means please keep us posted on the progress. I'd be interested in
knowing what software you got with the 990's, too.
Thanks,
jbdigriz
M. K. Peirce
Rhode Island Computer Museum, Inc.
Shady Lea, Rhode Island
"Casta est quam nemo rogavit."
- Ovid