27 Dec
2004
27 Dec
'04
2:40 p.m.
I've been tinkering with this mutt LSI 11/23 system I've got and am trying
to get it running. It's a custom-built system that has a mix of DEC and
third-party boards. It's configured as follows--my apologies if I'm not
conforming to standard DEC notation here [notes in brackets]:
Cage 1
Slot 1: DEC M8186 | CAMINTONN 504 [1]
Slot 2: Dataram Diceon [2]
Slot 3: Data Systems Design A4432-4 | Grant Continuity [3]
Slot 4: Emulex TU0110401 [4]
Cage 2
Slot 1: Emulex Tu1110406 [5]
Slot 2: Grant Continuity | Digital Pathways TCU-50DYR [6]
Slot 3: MDB DLV-11J | DEC M9400 [7]
Slot 4: Empty [8]
Notes:
1. I believe the Camintonn card is memory
2. This has "RK:" written on the handle...an RK05 disk controller?
3. The Data Systems Design card has "DY:" written on the handle.
4. Tape controller; is connected by 25-conductor ribbon cable to adjoining
Emulex card.
5. See note 4.
6. A real-time clock
7. The M9400 has "HB BOOT" written on the board. Is this the boot ROM
card?
8. Does there need to be a bus terminator here?
The DLV-11J is a 4-port serial card. Thanks to those who provided the
documentation to get it wired. I think I have it correct. I've jumpered
pin 3 to the RxD line and Pin 8 to the TxD line on my RS232 port. I've
also jumpered pin 4 to ground as directed.
The system powers up. There are +5V and +12V LEDs on the front of the
panel that come on, and I've checked these lines at the power supply and
they are good. One oddity: the terminal marked -12V is a perfect -0.00 on
my volt meter. WTF?
Anyway, how can I tell if anything is happening inside this thing? I can
hit the BOOT switch and the RUN light goes on. There's a RUN switch with
a momentary HALT position and an ENABLE position. I can hit the HALT
switch and the RUN light goes off. I put the switch back in the ENABLE
position and then hit the BOOT switch and the RUN light goes back on.
I see nothing on my terminal (a PC running Procomm Plus in DOS so I have
real serial ports instead of the bullshit that Win98 tries to pawn off as
serial ports).
I eventually want to boot RT-11 off floppies on this system. I guess I'll
need a disk controller at some point.
I'm completely lame. This is the first DEC system I've seriously tried to
get running so I'm starting from -1 here.
Any ideas?
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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27 Dec
27 Dec
3:25 p.m.
Q-Bus? Doesn't necessarily have a -12v. Mine didn't. The
bootstrap/terminator card had bipolar PROMs on it with a little charge pump
chip to supply the -12 for the PROMs. But the chip wouldn't supply -12v
soon enough after power up, so the system would drop to an @ debugger
prompt instead of booting. It's been about 20 years since I booted that
machine and I can still tell you how to boot it from the @ prompt: 173000G
I actually had to dig a 12v transformer out of my junkbox and wirewrap it
to the backplane to solve that problem, along with a bridge and capacitor
of course, to supply more timely -12v.
Al, are you listening? I think it was Senzig that wired that charge pump
chip to the board-- it was upside down, done dead bug style. Or maybe Dick
Stollberg.
At 08:40 PM 12/27/2004 -0800, you wrote:
I've been tinkering with this mutt LSI 11/23 system
I've got and am trying
to get it running. It's a custom-built system that has a mix of DEC and
third-party boards. It's configured as follows--my apologies if I'm not
conforming to standard DEC notation here [notes in brackets]:
Cage 1
Slot 1: DEC M8186 | CAMINTONN 504 [1]
Slot 2: Dataram Diceon [2]
Slot 3: Data Systems Design A4432-4 | Grant Continuity [3]
Slot 4: Emulex TU0110401 [4]
Cage 2
Slot 1: Emulex Tu1110406 [5]
Slot 2: Grant Continuity | Digital Pathways TCU-50DYR [6]
Slot 3: MDB DLV-11J | DEC M9400 [7]
Slot 4: Empty [8]
Notes:
1. I believe the Camintonn card is memory
2. This has "RK:" written on the handle...an RK05 disk controller?
3. The Data Systems Design card has "DY:" written on the handle.
4. Tape controller; is connected by 25-conductor ribbon cable to adjoining
Emulex card.
5. See note 4.
6. A real-time clock
7. The M9400 has "HB BOOT" written on the board. Is this the boot ROM
card?
8. Does there need to be a bus terminator here?
The DLV-11J is a 4-port serial card. Thanks to those who provided the
documentation to get it wired. I think I have it correct. I've jumpered
pin 3 to the RxD line and Pin 8 to the TxD line on my RS232 port. I've
also jumpered pin 4 to ground as directed.
The system powers up. There are +5V and +12V LEDs on the front of the
panel that come on, and I've checked these lines at the power supply and
they are good. One oddity: the terminal marked -12V is a perfect -0.00 on
my volt meter. WTF?
Anyway, how can I tell if anything is happening inside this thing? I can
hit the BOOT switch and the RUN light goes on. There's a RUN switch with
a momentary HALT position and an ENABLE position. I can hit the HALT
switch and the RUN light goes off. I put the switch back in the ENABLE
position and then hit the BOOT switch and the RUN light goes back on.
I see nothing on my terminal (a PC running Procomm Plus in DOS so I have
real serial ports instead of the bullshit that Win98 tries to pawn off as
serial ports).
I eventually want to boot RT-11 off floppies on this system. I guess I'll
need a disk controller at some point.
I'm completely lame. This is the first DEC system I've seriously tried to
get running so I'm starting from -1 here.
Any ideas?
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
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[Philosophy] Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. -
-Pablo Picasso
--... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -...
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"HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB ADDRESS http//www.mixweb.com/tpeters
43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square
EN53wc
WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, Cisco Certified CCNA
3 Jan
3 Jan
10:10 a.m.
Tom Peters wrote:
The bootstrap/terminator card had bipolar PROMs on it
with a little
charge pump chip to supply the -12 for the PROMs. But the chip wouldn't
supply -12v soon enough after power up, so the system would drop to an
@ debugger prompt instead of booting.
I think you must mean EPROMs. Bipolar PROMs don't need -12V; they run
on +5V only for read, and various voltages for programming. Early EPROMs
(before the Intel 2716 and TI TMS2516) needed multiple supply voltages
even for reading. Examples of multiple-power-supply EPROMs were the Intel
1701, 1702, 2704, 2708, National Semiconductor 5203, 5204, and TI TMS2716.
27 Dec
27 Dec
3:48 p.m.
I've been tinkering with this mutt LSI 11/23
system I've got and am trying
to get it running. It's a custom-built system that has a mix of DEC and
third-party boards. It's configured as follows--my apologies if I'm not
conforming to standard DEC notation here [notes in brackets]:
Cage 1
Slot 1: DEC M8186 | CAMINTONN 504 [1]
Slot 2: Dataram Diceon [2]
Slot 3: Data Systems Design A4432-4 | Grant Continuity [3]
Slot 4: Emulex TU0110401 [4]
Cage 2
Slot 1: Emulex Tu1110406 [5]
Slot 2: Grant Continuity | Digital Pathways TCU-50DYR [6]
Slot 3: MDB DLV-11J | DEC M9400 [7]
Slot 4: Empty [8]
Notes:
1. I believe the Camintonn card is memory
2. This has "RK:" written on the handle...an RK05 disk controller?
3. The Data Systems Design card has "DY:" written on the handle.
DY probably refers to the RX02 floppy disk drive, since I think
that's the two character code used to boot an RX02 on a unibus
system M9312 bootstrap/console emulator. Perhaps a controller?
Maybe you already have the disk controller you need.
Does it have a connector to hook up a flat ribbon cable. I don't
remember off the top of my head how many pins are on the cable,
but I just hooked up one for an RX01 drive/controller a week or
two ago.
And if DY represents the RX02 drive, surely RK represents the
RK05 drive as you are guessing.
Ashley
3:58 p.m.
Ashley Carder declared on Tuesday 28 December 2004 12:48 am:
The DSD card is most likey the controller for a DSD 440 or 880 disk drive
subsystem, and guessing from the "DY" label, more likely to be a 440
(only floppy drives, no fixed disk). It's not equivalent
(hardware-wise) to a DEC RX02 (or RX01) controller, but it is probably
software-equivalent.
Pat
--
Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/
The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org
3. The Data
Systems Design card has "DY:" written on the handle.
DY probably refers to the RX02 floppy disk drive, since I think 
28 Dec
28 Dec
4:37 a.m.
I've been tinkering with this mutt LSI 11/23 system I've got and am trying
to get it running. It's a custom-built system that has a mix of DEC and
third-party boards. It's configured as follows--my apologies if I'm not
conforming to standard DEC notation here [notes in brackets]:
Cage 1
Slot 1: DEC M8186 | CAMINTONN 504 [1]
Slot 2: Dataram Diceon [2]
Slot 3: Data Systems Design A4432-4 | Grant Continuity [3]
Slot 4: Emulex TU0110401 [4]
Cage 2
Slot 1: Emulex Tu1110406 [5]
Slot 2: Grant Continuity | Digital Pathways TCU-50DYR [6]
Slot 3: MDB DLV-11J | DEC M9400 [7]
Slot 4: Empty [8]
Notes:
1. I believe the Camintonn card is memory
2. This has "RK:" written on the handle...an RK05 disk controller?
Probably a disk controller for something else that emulates an RK05 to
the software. What connectors are on this board?
3. The Data Systems Design card has "DY:"
written on the handle.
DY: is the normal device name for an RX02 8" floppy. Does this card have
a 50 pin header on it? If so, you might have got one of the cards that
does the RX02 format on normal (SA800-series) drives, which is just what you
want, I think.
The system powers up. There are +5V and +12V LEDs on
the front of the
panel that come on, and I've checked these lines at the power supply and
they are good. One oddity: the terminal marked -12V is a perfect -0.00 on
my volt meter. WTF?
Hmm... Without a -ve supply, the serial ports may well not work
correctly. I would want to check this further (in particular, I'd want to
check the supplies to the RS232 (or whatever) driver chips on the DLV11-J
card.
-tony
5:25 a.m.
On Tue, 28 Dec 2004, Tony Duell wrote:
It's got a single 50-pin (dual row header) connector.
No, this has just a single 28-pin (dual row header) connector. I don't
recall ever seeing a disk drive with a single 28-conductor ribbon cable.
I'll test some points on the card and see what I can find. Any particular
place I should check?
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
I've been
tinkering with this mutt LSI 11/23 system I've got and am trying
to get it running. It's a custom-built system that has a mix of DEC and
third-party boards. It's configured as follows--my apologies if I'm not
conforming to standard DEC notation here [notes in brackets]:
Cage 1
Slot 1: DEC M8186 | CAMINTONN 504 [1]
Slot 2: Dataram Diceon [2]
Slot 3: Data Systems Design A4432-4 | Grant Continuity [3]
Slot 4: Emulex TU0110401 [4]
Cage 2
Slot 1: Emulex Tu1110406 [5]
Slot 2: Grant Continuity | Digital Pathways TCU-50DYR [6]
Slot 3: MDB DLV-11J | DEC M9400 [7]
Slot 4: Empty [8]
Notes:
1. I believe the Camintonn card is memory
2. This has "RK:" written on the handle...an RK05 disk controller?
Probably a disk controller for something else that emulates an RK05 to
the software. What connectors are on this board? 3. The Data
Systems Design card has "DY:" written on the handle.
DY: is the normal device name for an RX02 8" floppy. Does this card have
a 50 pin header on it? If so, you might have got one of the cards that
does the RX02 format on normal (SA800-series) drives, which is just what you
want, I think. The system
powers up. There are +5V and +12V LEDs on the front of the
panel that come on, and I've checked these lines at the power supply and
they are good. One oddity: the terminal marked -12V is a perfect -0.00 on
my volt meter. WTF?
Hmm... Without a -ve supply, the serial ports may well not work
correctly. I would want to check this further (in particular, I'd want to
check the supplies to the RS232 (or whatever) driver chips on the DLV11-J
card. 
29 Dec
29 Dec
4:12 p.m.
On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 11:25:31 -0800 (PST), Vintage Computer Festival
<vcf(a)siconic.com> wrote:
> > 3. The Data Systems Design card has
"DY:" written on the handle.
>
> DY: is the normal device name for an RX02 8" floppy. Does this card have
> a 50 pin header on it? If so, you might have got one of the cards that
> does the RX02 format on normal (SA800-series) drives, which is just what you
> want, I think.
I have one of those attached to a Shugart SA-800-series drive from a
Dataram-branded Qbus enclosure. It is _not_ a DSD-brand card.
_Might_ be Dataram, might be some other vendor. One nice feature is
that it's possible with this particular card to turn a bulk-erased
disk into a formatted RX01 disk, but I'm not sure I have the
instructions around anymore (the last time I did it, it was 1985 or
so).
In general, though, no matter what the drives a 3rd-party card can
talk to, they all are presented as either an RX11/RXV11 (RX01) or
RX211(?)/RXV21 (RX02) interface, down to the register level, so
ordinary boot ROMs and device drivers work with them.
No, this has just a single 28-pin (dual row header)
connector. I don't
recall ever seeing a disk drive with a single 28-conductor ribbon cable.
The DSD stuff had odd cables, and that sounds about right. The DSD
enclosure you are looking for will have one or more boards in it, and
one or two SA-800-type drives inside. The boards _might_ be Z-80
based, but that also might only be the particular model I happen to
have at home. There are several models of DSD drive enclosures.
> > The system powers up. There are +5V and
+12V LEDs on the front of the
> > panel that come on, and I've checked these lines at the power supply and
> > they are good. One oddity: the terminal marked -12V is a perfect -0.00 on
> > my volt meter. WTF?
I remember during our COMBOARD development that we had to drop on a
charge-pump to our board because some Qbus enclosures did not provide
-12V. You could look up the bus spec and fire that up from an
external source if you need it. I'm not sure if the DLV11J in
particular has to have -12V supplied (check its prints or perhaps a
DEC configuratiion guide), but _our_ board did. I still have a slab
of encapsulated charge pumps... ISTR we paid $17 each for them 20+
years ago. They are self-contained, 4-pin devices, about 2-3mm thick,
perhaps 20mm x 30mm? Pretty much +5V and GND in, -12V out with
enough current to run two sync serial ports buffered with 1488/1489
drivers/receivers. Fortunately we had plenty of room to stick the
charge pump dingus on a corner of the board.
-ethan
11:39 p.m.
On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 01:12:42 -0500
Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I have one of those attached to a Shugart
SA-800-series drive from a
Dataram-branded Qbus enclosure. It is _not_ a DSD-brand card.
_Might_ be Dataram, might be some other vendor. One nice feature is
that it's possible with this particular card to turn a bulk-erased
disk into a formatted RX01 disk, but I'm not sure I have the
instructions around anymore
I have a RX02 clone with SA800 interface. It starts a
low level format
when this commands are entered at the VAX chevron prompt:
Single density (RX01)
d/p/w 20001E78 9
d/p/w 20001E7A 92
Double density (RX02)
d/p/w 20001E78 109
d/p/w 20001E7A 92
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
30 Dec
30 Dec
7:09 a.m.
On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 14:39:11 +0100, Jochen Kunz
<jkunz(a)unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> wrote:
I have a RX02 clone with SA800 interface. It starts a
low level format
when this commands are entered at the VAX chevron prompt:
Single density (RX01)
d/p/w 20001E78 9
d/p/w 20001E7A 92
Double density (RX02)
d/p/w 20001E78 109
d/p/w 20001E7A 92
What brand/model is your card?
-ethan
8:43 a.m.
On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 16:09:16 -0500
Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> I have a RX02 clone with SA800 interface.
[...]
What brand/model is your card?
Can't
remember.
[pulling card vom VAX]
MTI (Micro Technology Inc.) MXV22.
Someone from this mailing list toled me about this "magic" commands and
that many RX02 clones understand them.
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
9:17 a.m.
On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 23:43:53 +0100, Jochen Kunz
<jkunz(a)unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> wrote:
On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 16:09:16 -0500
Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I've heard about that particular card, but I'm pretty sure that's not
what I have.
> I have a RX02 clone with SA800 interface.
[...]
What brand/model is your card?
Can't
remember.
[pulling card vom VAX]
MTI (Micro Technology Inc.) MXV22. Someone from this mailing list told me about this
"magic" commands and
that many RX02 clones understand them.
I'll have to give that a try when I get home. I have a case of real
RX01 disks, but I also have a bunch of blanks I can play with.
-ethan
7064
days inactive
7071
days old
11 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
-
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
eric＠brouhaha.com -
ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
jkunz＠unixag-kl.fh-kl.de -
pat＠computer-refuge.org -
tpeters＠mixcom.com -
vcf＠siconic.com -
wacarder＠usit.net