14 Dec
2009
14 Dec
'09
2:30 p.m.
i suppose it had to happen sometime...
The cartride harddisk drive in my Lilith has died, it is unable to find tracks anymore.
Headmovement is of course controlled by the only ASIC, thus pure unobtainium, that is
inside the machine.
So : anyone has a spare unit ?
( yes i know, winning the lottary is more likely)
Failing that i will be finally forced to write new microcode and kludge in an IDE
disk....
Jos Dreesen
14 Dec
14 Dec
7:51 p.m.
i suppose it had to happen sometime...
THis is a real pity. The Lilith is a machine I find very interesting, and
it's a pity if one fails.
The cartride harddisk drive in my Lilith has died, it
is unable to
find tracks anymore.
Is this a custom drive for this machine, or a more standard one. Very few
manufacturers (espeicailly at that time) made their own hard disks.
Headmovement is of course controlled by the only ASIC,
thus pure
unobtainium, that is inside the machine.
How much documentation do you have on the operation of the drive? Is is
possible to make a replacement for this ASIC (is it digital only, or does
it, as I susepct, contain the analogue servo circuitry).
I assume you've checked the obvious -- power rails and such. I would also
guess the power amplifier to drive the positioner is not in the ASIC.
That is much more likely to fail than a low-poerr-ish ASIC. I asusme
you've checked that too.
-tony
15 Dec
15 Dec
5:59 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
Is this a custom drive for this machine, or a more
standard one. Very few
manufacturers (espeicailly at that time) made their own hard disk
It is not a custom drive, but a very uncommon one. They were used on
Bull systems, and on some PDP-11 systems made by Baydel.
I have not seen them mentioned anywhere else. They did not have a good
reputation.
And of course the ETH could never have developed a custom diskdrive, the
Lilith itself was already a tour de force.
There were very few people involved in the actual hardware design.
> Headmovement is of course controlled by the only
ASIC, thus pure
> unobtainium, that is inside the machine.
> How much documentation do you have on the operation of the drive?
I have
scanned the full documentation, Al put it on bitsavers. It is a
somewhat ST506 like interface.
Is is
possible to make a replacement for this ASIC (is it digital only, or does
it, as I susepct, contain the analogue servo circuitry).
I assume you've checked the obvious -- power rails and such.
These are OK.
I would also
guess the power amplifier to drive the positioner is not in the ASIC.
That is much more likely to fail than a low-poerr-ish ASIC. I asusme
you've checked that too.
Not yet. Will do of course, but if can get a replacement drive for a
few 100 Euro I could save loads of debugging time.
I do not mind debugging, but would prefer to do it when i have some more
time.
Jos
7:39 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
Do you know the make and model?
Is this a custom drive for this machine, or a
more standard one. Very few
manufacturers (espeicailly at that time) made their own hard disk
It is not a custom drive, but a very uncommon one. They were used on
Bull systems, and on some PDP-11 systems made by Baydel. I have scanned the full documentation, Al put it on
bitsavers. It is a
somewhat ST506 like interface.
OK, I'll take a look sometime. Does this include detailed internal
documentation on the drive?
I assume
you've checked the obvious -- power rails and such.
These are OK.
I would also
guess the power amplifier to drive the positioner is not in the ASIC.
That is much more likely to fail than a low-poerr-ish ASIC. I asusme
you've checked that too.
Not yet. Will do of course, but if can get a replacement drive for a
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ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
jdr_use＠bluewin.ch