21 Mar
2012
21 Mar
'12
8:54 a.m.
cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote:
From: Steven Hirsch <snhirsch at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: need interface to CDC Keystone (92185) tape drive
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.00.1203210749121.2392 at duo>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
On Tue, 20 Mar 2012, Jon Elson wrote:
I have a 9-track drive that interfaces to an ISA bus PC through a
proprietary card. It worked the last time I fired it up (about 10 years
ago) and has been in dry storage.
Questions:
- What is the bpi density on those tapes? This thing will not read the
highest density tapes.
- Where are you located?
Well, some are 1600 BPI, some are 6250. I have verified my drive is
working at both densities (before the SCSI adapter died.)
I am in St. Louis, MO.
I am working on an FPGA interface to the Pertec formatted interface,
it ought to work, but I don't know how much fooling around it will
take to get reliable data transfers.
Jon
Hello,
I was referred by a member, Peter Wallace.
We are trying to recover some programs from 9-track backup tapes.
21 Mar
21 Mar
9:12 a.m.
On Mar 21, 2012, at 11:54 AM, Jon Elson wrote:
I am working on an FPGA interface to the Pertec
formatted interface,
it ought to work, but I don't know how much fooling around it will
take to get reliable data transfers.
Pertec is a pretty simple interface with handshake lines. I would
imagine you shouldn't have much trouble. An FPGA may be overkill
(certainly harder to work with 5v); you may find it even easier to
just use a microcontroller. My Cipher F880 runs on just a Z80
internally, nothing fancier than that.
- Dave
10:05 a.m.
In article <411AE1A6-12F1-48A7-9BAC-5D45A9425E4F at gmail.com>,
David Riley <fraveydank at gmail.com> writes:
On Mar 21, 2012, at 11:54 AM, Jon Elson wrote:
Pertec shield for Arduino, anyone? :-)
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
I am working on an FPGA interface to the Pertec
formatted interface,
it ought to work, but I don't know how much fooling around it will
take to get reliable data transfers.
Pertec is a pretty simple interface with handshake lines. I would
imagine you shouldn't have much trouble. An FPGA may be overkill
(certainly harder to work with 5v); you may find it even easier to
just use a microcontroller. My Cipher F880 runs on just a Z80
internally, nothing fancier than that. 
10:11 a.m.
On Wed, 21 Mar 2012, Richard wrote:
Ok, THAT would be cool. :)
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Buying desktop hardware and installing a server OS doesn't make a
server-class system any more than sitting in a puddle makes you a duck.
[Cipher in a.s.r]
Pertec is a pretty simple interface with
handshake lines. I would
imagine you shouldn't have much trouble. An FPGA may be overkill
(certainly harder to work with 5v); you may find it even easier to
just use a microcontroller. My Cipher F880 runs on just a Z80
internally, nothing fancier than that.
Pertec shield for Arduino, anyone? :-)
10:30 a.m.
On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 1:11 PM, Gene Buckle <geneb at deltasoft.com> wrote:
Ok, THAT would be cool. :)
Yeah it would!
Given the limited amount of RAM on an Arduino-class processor (even a
MEGA), it would likely have to have some type of SPI-interfaced
buffer, and unless that was in the multi-megabyte range, it would be
hard to keep the drive streaming. ISTR a 1600 bpi full-sized reel
holds around 45MB? Back in the day, I remember having to put a little
work into the problem of keeping our TU78 streaming on our 11/750.
The TU-80 was a little easier to keep moving.
One could put on a 2MB-8MB buffer, read as many blocks as fit, then
disgorge to the host, then repeat. Because the usual interface is
just an async serial port, it will take some time between "runs", but
it would be less stress on the media and the drive to be able to
handle many blocks vs start-stop operation.
What's the write speed for an Arduino with an SD interface? It might
be more practical to build a "dumping appliance" that just spools the
tape onto an SD card that is read later. If the tape is blocked in a
known or reasonably simple format, it's feasible for the Arduino to
emit individual files. Where it gets tricky is with "odd" tape
formats, like bootable OS install tapes that may have a handful of
different-sized files at the front to bring up a virgin system far
enough to restore the big file or files at the end of the tape (common
for PDP-11 and VAX UNIX install tapes, for example). Dumping wads of
text files (ASCII or EBCDIC) or VMS BACKUP savesets is quite
straightforward by comparison.
A compromise could be a file-at-a-time tape reader where the host side
tells the Arduino what the block size is and instructs the Arduino to
read blocks to EOF or EOT. That shifts the analysis and other burdens
off the microcontroller. It just tries to do what its told, and that
might not succeed if its told to do something impossible, or if the
media is too odd.
-ethan
Pertec is a pretty simple interface with handshake
lines. ?I would
imagine you shouldn't have much trouble. ?An FPGA may be overkill
(certainly harder to work with 5v); you may find it even easier to
just use a microcontroller...
Pertec shield for Arduino, anyone? :-)
11:20 a.m.
On Mar 21, 2012, at 1:30 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote:
One could put on a 2MB-8MB buffer, read as many blocks
as fit, then
disgorge to the host, then repeat. Because the usual interface is
just an async serial port, it will take some time between "runs", but
it would be less stress on the media and the drive to be able to
handle many blocks vs start-stop operation.
I'll say it would take a while. To get stuff onto tape with my 11/23
(which still doesn't have a proper operating system despite my best
efforts), I wrote a little serial receiver program that writes to the
tape. At 19200 baud (the max for the KDF-11's built-in port), it
took a few hours to write the 2.9BSD tape, which was around 20MB.
- Dave
12:10 p.m.
wheres one find a source of the 7 track tapes? i aquired a rack with some
rk05's and a t6b40-9-45 u2 i think is a 7 track drive from the manual i
found on bit savers describing t6x40 also gotta source a controllor and a
cable for it
got a pdp8a and a heathkit h11
http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa78/joncohen1/dec_boards127.jpg
1:23 p.m.
On 21 Mar 2012 at 14:10, Adrian Stoness wrote:
wheres one find a source of the 7 track tapes? i
aquired a rack with
some rk05's and a t6b40-9-45 u2 i think is a 7 track drive from the
manual i found on bit savers describing t6x40 also gotta source a
controllor and a cable for it got a pdp8a and a heathkit h11
http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa78/joncohen1/dec_boards127.jpg
Do you mean blank media? Isn't that similar to asking for a 100 tpi
5.25" floppy when all you have are 96 and 48 tpi ones?
I've never seen any 1/2" tape that specifically called out the number
of tracks. It's blank, after all.
--Chuck
7:30 p.m.
yea pretty much i dunno much about tape first time be dealing with one.
On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 3:23 PM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 21 Mar 2012 at 14:10, Adrian Stoness wrote:
wheres one find a source of the 7 track tapes? i
aquired a rack with
some rk05's and a t6b40-9-45 u2 i think is a 7 track drive from the
manual i found on bit savers describing t6x40 also gotta source a
controllor and a cable for it got a pdp8a and a heathkit h11
http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa78/joncohen1/dec_boards127.jpg
Do you mean blank media? Isn't that similar to asking for a 100 tpi
5.25" floppy when all you have are 96 and 48 tpi ones?
I've never seen any 1/2" tape that specifically called out the number
of tracks. It's blank, after all.
--Chuck
22 Mar
22 Mar
1:14 a.m.
On 03/21/2012 10:30 PM, Adrian Stoness wrote:
yea pretty much i dunno much about tape first time be
dealing with one.
No worries...Tape like this is generally pretty simple to deal with;
we'll help you out. What make/model drive is it? Can you get some pics
of the back, especially the cabling? There are two most common types of
tape interfaces, three-connector ("unformatted") and two-connector
("formatted") Pertec interfaces. It's likely your drive has one of
those two types.
Next...9-track drives' recording density is specified in "BPI", or
Bits Per Inch. Common densities are 800, 1600, and 6250BPI. Also seen
from time to time is 3200BPI, but that's much less
common.
There are three main sizes of reels; 600', 1200' and 2400'. I've
seen farm more 600' and 2400' than 1200', but you'll see all three
floating around. There may be other sizes but they're not very common.
There are three main types of tape handling mechanisms. Going from
least desirable to most desirable, and also the easiest to the hardest
to maintain, they are tension arm, air bearing, and vacuum column.
Tension arm uses one or two long (4-8") arms with a roller on one end
and a pivot on the other, and it moves back and forth to essentially
"hold" a length of tape off the reel. Air bearing mechanisms have
smooth curved surfaces with lots of little holes punched in them that
are pressurized from behind by a blower. The tape rarely if ever
touches the surfaces of these curved pieces, reducing friction (and
therefore tape wear) considerably. Vacuum column drives are more
complex; they use a vacuum pump and (usually) two vertical columns that
hold a dangling "loop" of tape and have a servomechanism to rotate the
reels just the right amounts to keep the loop position constant, while a
roller moves the tape across the head to the desired position. There's
very little friction in this type of system. They can be, however,
pretty tough to maintain.
Let's find out what you've got first.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
1:36 a.m.
Yeah which is why they always taught the FEs to stuff their tie down their shirt when
servicing the old 3420s ;-)
-----Original Message-----
From: Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com>
Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2012 04:14:54
To: General Discussion On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: Pertec interface tape drive
On 03/21/2012 10:30 PM, Adrian Stoness wrote:
yea pretty much i dunno much about tape first time be
dealing with one.
No worries...Tape like this is generally pretty simple to deal with;
we'll help you out. What make/model drive is it? Can you get some pics
of the back, especially the cabling? There are two most common types of
tape interfaces, three-connector ("unformatted") and two-connector
("formatted") Pertec interfaces. It's likely your drive has one of
those two types.
Next...9-track drives' recording density is specified in "BPI", or
Bits Per Inch. Common densities are 800, 1600, and 6250BPI. Also seen
from time to time is 3200BPI, but that's much less
common.
There are three main sizes of reels; 600', 1200' and 2400'. I've
seen farm more 600' and 2400' than 1200', but you'll see all three
floating around. There may be other sizes but they're not very common.
There are three main types of tape handling mechanisms. Going from
least desirable to most desirable, and also the easiest to the hardest
to maintain, they are tension arm, air bearing, and vacuum column.
Tension arm uses one or two long (4-8") arms with a roller on one end
and a pivot on the other, and it moves back and forth to essentially
"hold" a length of tape off the reel. Air bearing mechanisms have
smooth curved surfaces with lots of little holes punched in them that
are pressurized from behind by a blower. The tape rarely if ever
touches the surfaces of these curved pieces, reducing friction (and
therefore tape wear) considerably. Vacuum column drives are more
complex; they use a vacuum pump and (usually) two vertical columns that
hold a dangling "loop" of tape and have a servomechanism to rotate the
reels just the right amounts to keep the loop position constant, while a
roller moves the tape across the head to the desired position. There's
very little friction in this type of system. They can be, however,
pretty tough to maintain.
Let's find out what you've got first.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
9:02 a.m.
this is it here made some installment payments so havent received the whole
lot yet.
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/160748462238?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3…
i was just after the rk05's and the rack but the tape drive has me curious
On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 3:14 AM, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
On 03/21/2012 10:30 PM, Adrian Stoness wrote:
yea pretty much i dunno much about tape first
time be dealing with one.
No worries...Tape like this is generally pretty simple to deal with;
we'll help you out. What make/model drive is it? Can you get some pics of
the back, especially the cabling? There are two most common types of tape
interfaces, three-connector ("unformatted") and two-connector
("formatted")
Pertec interfaces. It's likely your drive has one of those two types.
Next...9-track drives' recording density is specified in "BPI", or Bits
Per Inch. Common densities are 800, 1600, and 6250BPI. Also seen from
time to time is 3200BPI, but that's much less common.
There are three main sizes of reels; 600', 1200' and 2400'. I've seen
farm more 600' and 2400' than 1200', but you'll see all three floating
around. There may be other sizes but they're not very common.
There are three main types of tape handling mechanisms. Going from least
desirable to most desirable, and also the easiest to the hardest to
maintain, they are tension arm, air bearing, and vacuum column. Tension arm
uses one or two long (4-8") arms with a roller on one end and a pivot on
the other, and it moves back and forth to essentially "hold" a length of
tape off the reel. Air bearing mechanisms have smooth curved surfaces with
lots of little holes punched in them that are pressurized from behind by a
blower. The tape rarely if ever touches the surfaces of these curved
pieces, reducing friction (and therefore tape wear) considerably. Vacuum
column drives are more complex; they use a vacuum pump and (usually) two
vertical columns that hold a dangling "loop" of tape and have a
servomechanism to rotate the reels just the right amounts to keep the loop
position constant, while a roller moves the tape across the head to the
desired position. There's very little friction in this type of system.
They can be, however, pretty tough to maintain.
Let's find out what you've got first.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
11:04 a.m.
On 22 Mar 2012 at 4:14, Dave McGuire wrote:
Next...9-track drives' recording density is
specified in "BPI", or
Bits Per Inch. Common densities are 800, 1600, and 6250BPI. Also
seen from time to time is 3200BPI, but that's much less common.
Also specified in "FCI" (flux changes per inch). More accurate
really, particularly when talking about 6250 GCR. Tapes can come in
both parity flavors, although odd parity is used overwhelmingly. I
recall the issues with 7 track even parity trying to deal with BCD
"00". (the drive can't tell the difference between it and a blank
tape). Most tape carries both vertical (calculated with the bits in
a single character) and longitudinal (calculated across an entire
tape block, but by bit position (i.e. all the bit 0, then all the bit
1, etc.). This has the nice property that single-bit errors can be
corrected many times.
There are three main sizes of reels; 600',
1200' and 2400'. I've
seen farm more 600' and 2400' than 1200', but you'll see all three
floating around. There may be other sizes but they're not very
common.
There were some very small reels (the limting factor being the hub
diameter). Remember that you can create multiple virtual tapes by
adding extra BOT markers along a tape.
There are three main types of tape handling
mechanisms. Going from
least desirable to most desirable, and also the easiest to the hardest
to maintain, they are tension arm, air bearing, and vacuum column.
I'd group that differently. There are three types of tape movement
(pinch roller (e.g. IBM 729), vacuum/pressure capstan (e.g. CDC 607
and reel motor (e.g. just about any streamer). There are two sorts
of buffering (to accomodate start-stop inertia), mechanical spring
(i.e. lever, zigzag differential arms) and vacuum column (any large
tape drive). Vacuum-colum drives quite successfully manage coming to
a full stop in the IRG; mechanical buffer, mostly used on streamers,
not so much--usually involves backing up and taking a running start
after a stop.
Also, "no ring no write", unless you can slip a punch card behind the
mounted reel and trip the write-enable sensor on the old manual-
threading drives. We used to play ring-toss with the rings on the
light fixtures and exposed plumbing on what must have been a 15'
machine-room ceiling.
--Chuck
11:42 a.m.
Oh! I thought FCI meant "flux capacitor index"
-----Original Message-----
From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com>
Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2012 11:04:38
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: Pertec interface tape drive
On 22 Mar 2012 at 4:14, Dave McGuire wrote:
Next...9-track drives' recording density is
specified in "BPI", or
Bits Per Inch. Common densities are 800, 1600, and 6250BPI. Also
seen from time to time is 3200BPI, but that's much less common.
Also specified in "FCI" (flux changes per inch). More accurate
really, particularly when talking about 6250 GCR. Tapes can come in
both parity flavors, although odd parity is used overwhelmingly. I
recall the issues with 7 track even parity trying to deal with BCD
"00". (the drive can't tell the difference between it and a blank
tape). Most tape carries both vertical (calculated with the bits in
a single character) and longitudinal (calculated across an entire
tape block, but by bit position (i.e. all the bit 0, then all the bit
1, etc.). This has the nice property that single-bit errors can be
corrected many times.
There are three main sizes of reels; 600',
1200' and 2400'. I've
seen farm more 600' and 2400' than 1200', but you'll see all three
floating around. There may be other sizes but they're not very
common.
There were some very small reels (the limting factor being the hub
diameter). Remember that you can create multiple virtual tapes by
adding extra BOT markers along a tape.
There are three main types of tape handling
mechanisms. Going from
least desirable to most desirable, and also the easiest to the hardest
to maintain, they are tension arm, air bearing, and vacuum column.
I'd group that differently. There are three types of tape movement
(pinch roller (e.g. IBM 729), vacuum/pressure capstan (e.g. CDC 607
and reel motor (e.g. just about any streamer). There are two sorts
of buffering (to accomodate start-stop inertia), mechanical spring
(i.e. lever, zigzag differential arms) and vacuum column (any large
tape drive). Vacuum-colum drives quite successfully manage coming to
a full stop in the IRG; mechanical buffer, mostly used on streamers,
not so much--usually involves backing up and taking a running start
after a stop.
Also, "no ring no write", unless you can slip a punch card behind the
mounted reel and trip the write-enable sensor on the old manual-
threading drives. We used to play ring-toss with the rings on the
light fixtures and exposed plumbing on what must have been a 15'
machine-room ceiling.
--Chuck
24 Mar
24 Mar
10:23 p.m.
On 03/21/2012 03:10 PM, Adrian Stoness wrote:
wheres one find a source of the 7 track tapes? i
aquired a rack with some
rk05's and a t6b40-9-45 u2 i think is a 7 track drive from the manual i
found on bit savers describing t6x40 also gotta source a controllor and a
cable for it
got a pdp8a and a heathkit h11
http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa78/joncohen1/dec_boards127.jpg
I just spotted this; not sure how it got buried in my inbox. Adrian,
that's definitely a tension-arm drive.
Be careful of that upper right metal roller with the rubber tire on
it. Every one I have here is starting to turn to goo right about now.
That's a 1200' tape reel on there.
You know, that drive bears a more-than-superficial resemblance to the
DEC TS11, with repositioned lights and buttons. Hmmmmmm.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
21 Mar
21 Mar
2:35 p.m.
In article <CAALmimmFDwYAiHOuWjrMa-7GMmZj_9mSyE5ohLhfN-nhcT+WDg at mail.gmail.com>,
Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> writes:
On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 1:11 PM, Gene Buckle <geneb
at deltasoft.com> wrote:
Ok, THAT would be cool. :)
Yeah it would!
[...]
What's the write speed for an Arduino with an SD interface? It might
be more practical to build a "dumping appliance" that just spools the
tape onto an SD card that is read later.
Yeah, I think this would be the best approach. Then you can use the
connection back to the PC over USB to send status on the operation
instead of the raw data.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
Pertec is a pretty simple interface with handshake
lines. I would
imagine you shouldn't have much trouble. An FPGA may be overkill
(certainly harder to work with 5v); you may find it even easier to
just use a microcontroller...
Pertec shield for Arduino, anyone? :-)
1:20 p.m.
On 21 Mar 2012 at 12:12, David Riley wrote:
On Mar 21, 2012, at 11:54 AM, Jon Elson wrote:
I worked out a Pertec interface in a CPLD so that anything capable of
a wishbone interface could use it. One of the issues with
Pertec/Cipher interface is it's dumb-as-a-stump. There are no buffer
handshake lines, per se. If you've intiated a read, the drive throws
data at you with a simple strobe--there's no acknoledge handshake.
The same for write--and you're expected to compute the parity as
well. Status bits range from real-time (i.e. drive is on-line) to
transient (pulse during the frame transfer). No lines are
bidirectional, so mostly the CPLD functions as a bus expander with
some additional logic to compute parity and latch transient status
bits.
But heck, you could probably work out most of an interface with a
couple of PIAs.
Buffering on fast streamers, of course, helps considerably. I
believe that the interface spec limits the transfer rate to about
1MB/sec. If you don't get around to issuing IGO during the IRG, the
tape will stop, the drive will backspace and take a running start at
the next block. Very time consuming.
--Chuck
I am working on an FPGA interface to the Pertec
formatted interface,
it ought to work, but I don't know how much fooling around it will
take to get reliable data transfers.
Pertec is a pretty simple interface with handshake lines. I would
imagine you shouldn't have much trouble. An FPGA may be overkill
(certainly harder to work with 5v); you may find it even easier to
just use a microcontroller. My Cipher F880 runs on just a Z80
internally, nothing fancier than that.
10:03 p.m.
On 21 Mar 2012 at 12:12, David Riley wrote:
Pertec is a pretty simple interface with handshake
lines. I would
imagine you shouldn't have much trouble. An FPGA may be overkill
(certainly harder to work with 5v); you may find it even easier to
just use a microcontroller. My Cipher F880 runs on just a Z80
internally, nothing fancier than that.
I believe the 990 uses 2 Z8002 CPUs and the 995 uses a Z8002 +
80C186, so definitely more horsepower is useful.
Still, instead of a plain old Arduino, why not use a Digilent Uno32?
Costs little more than a Arduino, but runs at 80MHz, 32-bit words and
lots more I/O (most of it is 5V tolerant). Digitlent has done a
great job of taking the C IDE and making appear very nearly identical
to the 8-bit AVR based one.
Move up to a standalone PIC32 chip and you get DMA channels and up to
128K of on-chip RAM.
--Chuck
22 Mar
22 Mar
5:02 a.m.
On Mar 22, 2012, at 1:03 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 21 Mar 2012 at 12:12, David Riley wrote:
Well, the 880 is also a pretty basic drive. :-) Gets the job done,
and it was cheap for me to acquire, so... yeah.
The way I see it, though, the Pertec interface is practically made
for a 6522 or 8255 or any chip that supports hardware data strobes.
You can almost emulate that functionality as interrupts with most
modern micros, and some of them will even allow you to use them as
DMA strobes (though I suspect you'd have to throw it through a one-
shot first).
Pertec is a pretty simple interface with
handshake lines. I would
imagine you shouldn't have much trouble. An FPGA may be overkill
(certainly harder to work with 5v); you may find it even easier to
just use a microcontroller. My Cipher F880 runs on just a Z80
internally, nothing fancier than that.
I believe the 990 uses 2 Z8002 CPUs and the 995 uses a Z8002 +
80C186, so definitely more horsepower is useful. Move up to a standalone PIC32 chip and you get DMA
channels and up to
128K of on-chip RAM.
A lot of the ARM Cortex-M[3|4] chips are along the same lines. You
might actually check out ST's STM32F4DISCOVERY board, which could be
had for free at one point (I think it's about $15 right now). It
has a pretty decent Cortex-M4 on it, has most of the I/O broken out
onto pin headers, and has a built-in USB programmer (which has support
in OpenOCD and also has connections to act as a standalone SWD tool).
It's kind of a bummer I haven't seen any Arduino stuff using the
XMEGA chips yet; that line certainly brings the AVR into the
current decade. DMA, properly modularized I/O, etc. Open-source
programming tools for it are still a little flaky, though.
- Dave
9:17 a.m.
In article <4F6A5039.26986.1EABAB5 at cclist.sydex.com>,
"Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> writes:
Still, instead of a plain old Arduino, why not use a
Digilent Uno32?
What I was thinking was that the shield did all the heavy lifting and
the Arduino was just orchestrating the high level operations.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
21 Mar
21 Mar
3:08 p.m.
On Wed, 21 Mar 2012, Jon Elson wrote:
I have a 9-track drive that interfaces to an ISA bus PC through a proprietary
card. It worked the last time I fired it up (about 10 years ago) and has
been in dry storage.
Questions:
- What is the bpi density on those tapes? This thing will not read the
highest density tapes.
- Where are you located?
Well, some are 1600 BPI, some are 6250. I have verified my drive is
working at both densities (before the SCSI adapter died.)
I can read 1600 and, I believe 3200 (?). I know this drive does not
handle 6250.
We are trying to recover some programs from 9-track
backup tapes.
I am in St. Louis, MO.
That would tend to create some logistic issues. I'm located in
Burlington, VT.
I am working on an FPGA interface to the Pertec
formatted interface,
it ought to work, but I don't know how much fooling around it will
take to get reliable data transfers.
This list has the right people to help with the design and methodology :-)
Steve
--
3:59 p.m.
On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 8:54 AM, Jon Elson <elson at pico-systems.com> wrote:
Well, some are 1600 BPI, some are 6250. ?I have verified my drive is
working at both densities (before the SCSI adapter died.)
I am in St. Louis, MO.
Maybe a certain mail list host could help you out there.... :)
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