28 Nov
2010
28 Nov
'10
4:50 p.m.
Hi! Thinking about this some more, we already have simple Z80 with RAM/ROM
circuits and 8255 PIA for I/O including circuitry for 8255 to IDE.
The only new element of this design would be converting a pair of 8255 PIAs
to SCSI-2. Looking at a pin out of a SCSI-2 pin out of the 68 pins, 34 are
grounds and a few more are power related. Basically it is about 30 pins
which actually do anything and of those 24 are data lines. This does not
appear to be a difficult interface to "bit bang" and would be somewhat akin
to the 8255 to IDE circuits.
Yes, performance would just OK and not fast. I think it would probably work
and be fairly cheap to make. I am willing to support other approaches but
would like to just help with the schematic capture, PCB design, and
prototype board development. The key to success is to keep it simple and
easily understood. Adding a bunch of unnecessary complexity just dooms the
project IMO.
Please contact me if interested. Thanks and have a nice day!
Andrew Lynch
29 Nov
29 Nov
1 p.m.
On 11/28/10 4:50 PM, Andrew Lynch wrote:
Why?
This _is_ classiccmp. The SCIS->whatever interface will be used with 20th
century computers. And I hate to say this, but a lot of stuff back then
seems to work properly, and be easy to keep working, which is more than I
can say for many things today. Not that I would ever use an 8255 for
anything, a worse-designed parallel interface chip is hard to imagine!
-tony
The only new element of this design would be
converting a pair of 8255 PIAs
to SCSI-2.
Get out of the 20th century, please. 
2:03 p.m.
On 29 Nov 2010 at 21:00, Tony Duell wrote:
Why?
Well, money for one reason. A 32-bit microcontroller is much cheaper
than the assemblage of CPU+ROM+RAM+Peripherals and speed-wise will
run rings around the older configuration. And there are several that
are USB-ready if that floats your boat.
Not that I would ever use an 8255 for anything, a
worse-designed
parallel interface chip is hard to imagine!
I suppose it's because 8255s can still be had easily, although there
are still some Z0853606 CIO chips floating around (much better
IMOHO).
I thought it curious that sometimes even Zilog would stoop to using
Intel silicon. Didn't the ZDS use 8251 USARTs instead of Z80-SIOs?
--Chuck
30 Nov
30 Nov
11:44 a.m.
On 29 Nov 2010 at 21:00, Tony Duell wrote:
So?
You know as well as I do that the cost of the chip is not the major cost
for a 1-off (or small run) project like this.
Yes, the microocntroller may be cheaper, but :
You might well have Z80s, EPORms, RAMs, etc in the junk box (I certainly
do), but not the latest microcontroller
You may well feel it's a lot easier to solder up a handful of DIL
packages on stripboard than a fine-pitch SMD packge that requires you you
to design a PCB first . This in turn may entail obtianign suitable CAD
tools, something to run them on, and finding a PCB manufacturer (or
buying the equipoment to do it at home).
You may well know the assmbly language for the Z80, and have the
assembler, etc. Not so fo rthe microcotnroller.
It's a darn sight easier to debug something when you know what it should
be doing and can see what it is doing. The former is much easier to
determine for a Z80 than many modern processors (where the instructions
are not necesarily executed one at a time in the order you expect). The
latter is also much easier to do on a system with external program memory
where you cvan conenct a logic analyser to the ROM address lines.
If you want a design to last as long as the classic computer it's
connected to, I would certainly go with the Z80 + memory solution. Z80s
are very common. The microcontroller may be common _now_, but whata bout
next year. There are som many fariants with different memory sizes,
internal peripherals, etc that several times I've needed to find a
replacement for something made a few years ago onlky to find that that
particualr chip is rarere than hen's teeth. Oh, there are 'improved
versions', but they are not drop-in replacements.
I also feel that this idea of always making everything as cheap as
possible is a big mistake. It seems to lead to poorly made products with
all sorts of corners cut. As I have said many times before, I can think
of plentyy of examples where the cost to do it properly would add perhaps
\pounds 1.00 od xomponents. Say that translates into \pounds 10.00 by the
time you've added in all the otehr costs. That increase in selling price
would not have stopped me buying the product. But when I see how many
corners havec been cut, I am not goign to be happy, I am not going to buy
any more products from that company, I am goign to tell my friends to
look elsewhere too.
Anyway...
If you employ me to desgin soemthing, then you get to specify the sort of
devices to be used. If you want microcontrollers, or FPGA,s or... then
fine. But if I am doing it for myself as a hobbyist, then I get to pick
the devices I like best.
-tony
Why?
Well, money for one reason. A 32-bit microcontroller is much cheaper
than the assemblage of CPU+ROM+RAM+Peripherals and speed-wise will
12:49 p.m.
On 30 Nov 2010 at 19:44, Tony Duell wrote:
It's a darn sight easier to debug something when
you know what it
should be doing and can see what it is doing. The former is much
easier to determine for a Z80 than many modern processors (where the
instructions are not necesarily executed one at a time in the order
you expect). The latter is also much easier to do on a system with
external program memory where you cvan conenct a logic analyser to the
ROM address lines.
Fine--why not just do the job with SSI TTL, or even discrete
transistors, diodes, resistors, etc.? I'm sure your junk box is full
of those and you can devise any sort of programming or lack thereof
that you desire.
When it comes to new designs, I prefer to live in the present.
--Chuck
1 Dec
1 Dec
11:16 a.m.
On 30 Nov 2010 at 19:44, Tony Duell wrote:
_Precisely_. I know you were being sarcastic, but actually, that's just
my point.
For me (And for many people here), this is a hobby. We do it becasue we
enjoy it. And that means we get to pick the ways that we enjoy the most.
Of course sometimes we have to do things we don't enhoy too much, but, at
least for me, I do them becasue I know that's what's eneded to complete
the restoration, finish the design, whatever.
But If I happen to like soldering a hundred or so 14 and 16 pin DIL chips
to a bit of stripboard and connecting them up with roadrunner wire or
whatever, then, to be frank, that's my business. Doing so doesn't affect
anyone else. If you want to use an ARM microcontrolelr to do much the
smae job, well, that's your business. I am certainly not goign to try to
stop you.
You knwo, I can think of dozens of hobbies that I have no interest in.
But this doens;t mean I think the people who enjoy them are in any way
wrong. All I ask is that they let me get on with tinkering with old
computers.
-tony
It's a darn sight easier to debug something
when you know what it
should be doing and can see what it is doing. The former is much
easier to determine for a Z80 than many modern processors (where the
instructions are not necesarily executed one at a time in the order
you expect). The latter is also much easier to do on a system with
external program memory where you cvan conenct a logic analyser to the
ROM address lines.
Fine--why not just do the job with SSI TTL, or even discrete
transistors, diodes, resistors, etc.? I'm sure your junk box is full
of those and you can devise any sort of programming or lack thereof
that you desire. 
30 Nov
30 Nov
12:56 p.m.
Tony, you live in the seventies ;oD
You know as well as I do that the cost of the chip is
not the major cost
for a 1-off (or small run) project like this.
No, but the sum of all chips maybe are :)
You might well have Z80s, EPORms, RAMs, etc in the
junk box (I certainly
do), but not the latest microcontroller
I have many microcontrollers in my junk box, and it doesn't need to be
the latest.
You may well feel it's a lot easier to solder up a
handful of DIL
packages on stripboard than a fine-pitch SMD packge that requires you you
to design a PCB first . This in turn may entail obtianign suitable CAD
tools, something to run them on, and finding a PCB manufacturer (or
buying the equipoment to do it at home).
:oO
- There are microcontrollers powerful enough for this task, and they are
all DIP
- I can design a PCB at home using free tools (Kicad rulez!)
- I can make boards good enough for fine pitch SMD at home (see my page,
http://tabalabs.com.br/eletronica/tts/index.htm) and the equipment is all
made from junk.
Maybe it is time for you to update your prototype methods :)
You may well know the assmbly language for the Z80,
and have the
assembler, etc. Not so fo rthe microcotnroller.
I know the asm for the Atmel microcontrollers. Also, I have the original
(and free) assembler from Atmel. BTW, the programmer is also cheap, 5
resistors on your parallel port can do the task. BTW, there are lots of
compilers for atmel microcontrollers, and they run on windows, DOS and even
linux. Since they are portable, I can do development on my Octane (Irix) or
in my PA9000. (still OS-Less)
It's a darn sight easier to debug something when
you know what it should
be doing and can see what it is doing. The former is much easier to
determine for a Z80 than many modern processors (where the instructions
are not necesarily executed one at a time in the order you expect). The
latter is also much easier to do on a system with external program memory
where you cvan conenct a logic analyser to the ROM address lines.
In modern processors I can use cheap debug tools (which are CHEAP, look
for the price of the AVR Dragon which is an excellent USB programmer and
debugger via 1-wire. Ah, cheaper than my cheap logic analyser). And I can
use (free) simulators to see the code running on my screen.
If you want a design to last as long as the classic
computer it's
connected to, I would certainly go with the Z80 + memory solution. Z80s
are very common. The microcontroller may be common _now_, but whata bout
next year. There are som many fariants with different memory sizes,
internal peripherals, etc that several times I've needed to find a
replacement for something made a few years ago onlky to find that that
particualr chip is rarere than hen's teeth. Oh, there are 'improved
versions', but they are not drop-in replacements.
Tell me a microcontroller that was common yesterday and isn't today.
Using atmel microcontrollers I NEVER had to find a plug-in replacement,
because most of them are pin-compatible and EVEN COMPILED CODE compatibles.
I also feel that this idea of always making everything
as cheap as
possible is a big mistake. It seems to lead to poorly made products with
all sorts of corners cut. As I have said many times before, I can think
of plentyy of examples where the cost to do it properly would add perhaps
\pounds 1.00 od xomponents. Say that translates into \pounds 10.00 by the
time you've added in all the otehr costs. That increase in selling price
would not have stopped me buying the product. But when I see how many
corners havec been cut, I am not goign to be happy, I am not going to buy
any more products from that company, I am goign to tell my friends to
look elsewhere too.
Of course, as fewer devices on board, lesser problems of design,
manufacture and repair I'll have. I'd prefer to use an internal program
microcontroller (and I'm not saying a newer microcontroller, I can use an
8751 if suited to the task) than use lots of external components.
http://micha.freeshell.org/ramdisk/index.php is an exercise in simplicity
and ingenuity. These are ALL common-of-the-shelf components, and the circuit
is modular, you can recreate it any way you like. A SCSI SDD can be done
with half the components used in this board and another half created from
scratch (another microcontroller doing the interfacing with the PIA he
created.
If you employ me to desgin soemthing, then you get to
specify the sort of
devices to be used. If you want microcontrollers, or FPGA,s or... then
fine. But if I am doing it for myself as a hobbyist, then I get to pick
the devices I like best.
This is YOUR take. When I create something for hobbists, I pick-up the
devices and techinics I think common hobbysts will have most ease to use.
The HP9845 board I redid I had lots of work for doing it single face and
all-DIP, but it was a way to make it reproductible by every hobbist around.
1:59 p.m.
On 30 Nov 2010 at 18:56, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote:
- I can design a PCB at home using free tools
(Kicad rulez!) - I
can make boards good enough for fine pitch SMD at home (see my page,
http://tabalabs.com.br/eletronica/tts/index.htm) and the equipment is
all made from junk.
Some very nice work, Alexandre!
--Chuck
1 Dec
1 Dec
11:34 a.m.
Tony, you live in the seventies ;oD
OK, I meant the total compoent cost. If that was the primary design
criterion in all cases, we would have many fewer embedded PCs, for example.
You know as well as I do that the cost of the
chip is not the major cost
for a 1-off (or small run) project like this.
No, but the sum of all chips maybe are :) You might well have Z80s, EPORms, RAMs, etc in
the junk box (I certainly
do), but not the latest microcontroller
I have many microcontrollers in my junk box, and it doesn't need to be
the latest.
You may well feel it's a lot easier to solder
up a handful of DIL
packages on stripboard than a fine-pitch SMD packge that requires you you
to design a PCB first . This in turn may entail obtianign suitable CAD
tools, something to run them on, and finding a PCB manufacturer (or
buying the equipoment to do it at home).
:oO
- There are microcontrollers powerful enough for this task, and they are
all DIP - I can design a PCB at home using free tools
(Kicad rulez!)
For the nth time, the machien it runs on (and I susepct the OS it runs
under) are not free.
- I can make boards good enough for fine pitch SMD
at home (see my page,
http://tabalabs.com.br/eletronica/tts/index.htm) and the equipment is all
made from junk.
Excellent (I am not being sarcastic). Hwoever, building that equipment is
a project in itself (albeit an interesting one). If you just want to make
up a SCSI-drive rpelacement or whatever, why should you _have_ to make
the PCB stuff first?
Maybe it is time for you to update your prototype methods :)
Why? As I said in anotehr message, thsi is a hobby, why shouldn't I do it
the way I enjoy?
You may well know the assmbly language for the
Z80, and have the
assembler, etc. Not so fo rthe microcotnroller.
I know the asm for the Atmel microcontrollers. Also, I have the original (and free) assembler from Atmel. BTW, the programmer
is also cheap, 5
resistors on your parallel port can do the task. BTW, there are lots of
compilers for atmel microcontrollers, and they run on windows, DOS and even
linux. Since they are portable, I can do development on my Octane (Irix) or
in my PA9000. (still OS-Less)
Looking around, I don;t think I can see _one_ machine here that could be
used for that. You mention a programmer conissiting of a few resistors
ona a parellel port. I've got pletny of GPIB ports here, but I guess
that's not what you meant. OK, what about an HP9817 with an HP98522 GPIO
card? It probably could program an Atmel processor, but I'll bet the
software doesn't exist...
It's a darn sight easier to debug something
when you know what it should
be doing and can see what it is doing. The former is much easier to
determine for a Z80 than many modern processors (where the instructions
are not necesarily executed one at a time in the order you expect). The
latter is also much easier to do on a system with external program memory
where you cvan conenct a logic analyser to the ROM address lines.
In modern processors I can use cheap debug tools (which are CHEAP, look
for the price of the AVR Dragon which is an excellent USB programmer and
debugger via 1-wire. Ah, cheaper than my cheap logic analyser). And I can use (free) simulators to see the code running on my
screen.
I'd much rather know what my hardware is actually doing than what some
simulator things it's doing. The fewer uncertainties the better!
If you want a design to last as long as the
classic computer it's
connected to, I would certainly go with the Z80 + memory solution. Z80s
are very common. The microcontroller may be common _now_, but whata bout
next year. There are som many fariants with different memory sizes,
internal peripherals, etc that several times I've needed to find a
replacement for something made a few years ago onlky to find that that
particualr chip is rarere than hen's teeth. Oh, there are 'improved
versions', but they are not drop-in replacements.
Tell me a microcontroller that was common yesterday and isn't today. I also feel
that this idea of always making everything as cheap as
possible is a big mistake. It seems to lead to poorly made products with
all sorts of corners cut. As I have said many times before, I can think
of plentyy of examples where the cost to do it properly would add perhaps
\pounds 1.00 od xomponents. Say that translates into \pounds 10.00 by the
time you've added in all the otehr costs. That increase in selling price
would not have stopped me buying the product. But when I see how many
corners havec been cut, I am not goign to be happy, I am not going to buy
any more products from that company, I am goign to tell my friends to
look elsewhere too.
Of course, as fewer devices on board, lesser problems of design,
manufacture and repair I'll have. I'd prefer to use an internal program
2 p.m.
I do not dispute htat. My main comment was to the
poster who suggested an
ARM-based microocntroller (I have never seen seen such a device in a DIL
package)
There are always SMD to DIP adapters :)
- I can
design a PCB at home using free tools (Kicad rulez!)
For the nth time, the machien
it runs on (and I susepct the OS it runs
under) are not free. Excellent (I am not being sarcastic). Hwoever,
building that equipment is
a project in itself (albeit an interesting one). If you just want to make
up a SCSI-drive rpelacement or whatever, why should you _have_ to make
the PCB stuff first?
I can always use perfoboard...or just connect the wires chip-to-chip.
Why? As I said in anotehr message, thsi is a hobby,
why shouldn't I do it
the way I enjoy?
You can do in any way you want :) But when I do and for people being
able to reproduce it, I try to do it in the easiest way to most hobbists to
reproduce it. :)
Fine. I was ismpoly pointing out that there are people
who ar
expeerienced in (say) Z80 assemblet and not AVR. In which case, for a
hobby project, why not use the former?
No problem. But why not use the later, since it is more powerful, has
more built-in things and is easier to program (not everyone has an eprom
programmer, emulator, eraser, etc) for most hobbysts
Looking around, I don;t think I can see _one_ machine
here that could be
used for that. You mention a programmer conissiting of a few resistors
You don't have ONE PC on your home?
ona a parellel port. I've got pletny of GPIB
ports here, but I guess
that's not what you meant. OK, what about an HP9817 with an HP98522 GPIO
card? It probably could program an Atmel processor, but I'll bet the
software doesn't exist...
The nice thing of open standards is that you can always roll your own :)
OK, so firtly you have to buy this tool [1] and
secondly I need a USB
host to control it.
Ah, come on Tony, P3 are throwaway itens...P4 are cheap as candy. A nice
post "I need a P4"will bring 3 or 4 to your door. For free. Why not use new
technology? Linux drives that, you don't need to use windows. And if you get
a PC with ORIGINAL windows installed, you can have it for free.
I'd much rather know what my hardware is actually
doing than what some
simulator things it's doing. The fewer uncertainties the better!
I programmed a nice debugging monitor for the AVR, so I can see
everything is going on :) I used that before having the hardware debugger
6303 in one of its many varieants? 7811? COP400? 3870?
Do I have to list
any more?
Was ist common?? When?
Actually I disagree with that. It's often easier
to repari something with
lots of parts, where yoy only have to replace the one bit that's failed.
Which would you rather have to fix? An HP9830 (lots of TTL), a Sinclear
Spectrum (custom ULA) or a modern PC motherboard.
I can repair the three :) I can even recreate the speccy ULA in CPLD :)
2 Dec
2 Dec
11:54 a.m.
I do not dispute htat. My main comment was to the
poster who suggested an
ARM-based microocntroller (I have never seen seen such a device in a DIL
package)
There are always SMD to DIP adapters :) - I
can design a PCB at home using free tools (Kicad rulez!)
For the nth time, the
machien it runs on (and I susepct the OS it runs
under) are not free. Excellent (I
am not being sarcastic). Hwoever, building that equipment is
a project in itself (albeit an interesting one). If you just want to make
up a SCSI-drive rpelacement or whatever, why should you _have_ to make
the PCB stuff first?
I can always use perfoboard...or just connect the wires chip-to-chip. Why? As I said
in anotehr message, thsi is a hobby, why shouldn't I do it
the way I enjoy?
You can do in any way you want :) But when I do and for people being
able to reproduce it, I try to do it in the easiest way to most hobbists to
reproduce it. :) Fine. I was ismpoly pointing out that there are
people who ar
expeerienced in (say) Z80 assemblet and not AVR. In which case, for a
hobby project, why not use the former?
No problem. But why not use the later, since it is more powerful, has more built-in things and is easier to program (not
everyone has an eprom
programmer, emulator, eraser, etc) for most hobbysts
It is my bitter esperience that a lot of thsee parallel-port devices,
even those that have software that runs under MS-DOS, do not work
properly on a 4.77MHz PC/XT...
Looking around, I don;t think I can see _one_
machine here that could be
used for that. You mention a programmer conissiting of a few resistors
You don't have ONE PC on your home? ona a parellel port. I've got pletny of GPIB
ports here, but I guess
that's not what you meant. OK, what about an HP9817 with an HP98522 GPIO
card? It probably could program an Atmel processor, but I'll bet the
software doesn't exist...
The nice thing of open standards is that you can always roll your own :) OK, so firtly you have to buy this tool [1] and
secondly I need a USB
host to control it.
Ah, come on Tony, P3 are throwaway itens...P4 are cheap as candy. A nice post "I need a P4"will bring 3 or 4 to your
door. For free. Why not use new
technology? Linux drives that, you don't need to use windows. And if you get
For mt own (in)sanity, I want to unsderstand how thigns should work, so
when (not if) they don't I have some chance of putting them right. I
guess that answers your question...
6303 in one of
its many varieants? 7811? COP400? 3870? Do I have to list
any more?
Was ist common?? When? Actually I disagree with that. It's often
easier to repari something with
lots of parts, where yoy only have to replace the one bit that's failed.
Which would you rather have to fix? An HP9830 (lots of TTL), a Sinclear
Spectrum (custom ULA) or a modern PC motherboard.
I can repair the three :) I can even recreate the speccy ULA in CPLD :)
2:08 p.m.
Which normalyl cost more than the chips to put on them
(at least in the
UK).
I usually make them at home :)
You keep on telling us that things are different
between Brazil and the
States, and what is common in one place is not common in the other. Whcih
I happily accept. All I can say is that the UK is different again. Or at
least I've enver found any form of Pentium PC for free. The latest PC
that I've been given was a battered 386SX that, I have to admit, I took
apart for useful bits.
Strange. I **though** "old" PCs in UK were as cheap as water. But I
still don't believe someone reading this won't give you as a gift an old P3
or even a P4. If I were near you I'd surely do that.
Also, not being a PC enthusiast, you have to relaise
that while I would
have things like HP-HIL keyboards and mice, HP 22kHz horizontal composte
monitors, and the like, I do not have spare PC/AT or PS/2 keyboards, PC
mice or VGA monitors.
I believe you would get a complete pack :)
Sure, do thast all the time. It's a little harder
(not I did not say
impossible, I do it all the time) with SMD pacakges though.
look for elm-chan.org, he does that all the time :) But as I told you,
there are adapters, blah blah blah :)
I am actually wondering how on earth you can know what
'most hobbyists'
can do, or would want to do...
- Keep it simple
- Keep it cheap
- Keep it reproductible in the easiest way
No reason, if you want to, and you have the facilities
to use it.
As there is no reason to the former ;)
It is my bitter esperience that a lot of thsee
parallel-port devices,
even those that have software that runs under MS-DOS, do not work
properly on a 4.77MHz PC/XT...
My keyboard runs faster than that... :oD
True, and contrary to some other people here, I do
like making my own
tools, whether they be mechancial tools, electronic tools (like test
equipment) or software tools. In fact _I_ am seriously looking at some of
the current microcotnrolelr families for use in projects. But this
doesn't mean everybody has to want to use them.
So they roll their own :)
FWIW, I was simply defending the right of some other
poster to build this
device using a Z80 and 8255s if he wants to. You don't like that desing?
Well, nobody is stopping you making your own.
I'm not against! You can do it however you want
For mt own (in)sanity, I want to unsderstand how
thigns should work, so
when (not if) they don't I have some chance of putting them right. I
guess that answers your question...
That is up to you. I have this notebook for some years, and it just
works. Although I love to know my tools, I can use some I don't know the
internal workings.
I have come across all of those microcontrollers in my
time. In fact I
was using something based on the 3870 (the HPIL-GPIO interface) and
reparing something containing a COP400 (HPIL knob input device -- in fact
jsut about all HP-HIL devices have COP400s in them) a couple of days ago.
HP does everything different :o)
Actually, the 8048 family is getting soemwhat hard to
find now (AFAIL it
is no longer manufactured), and that one turns up _everywhere_.
Ok, this one you are right. But as far as I remember, MCS-51 devices are
pin-compatible. And since they don't have code protection, I can always
download the code of a good 8048 and use a 8748 to replace it. I did it many
times in Kenwood TS-430's.
So can I. So what? Which would you rather repair?
The three of them :)
3:27 p.m.
? Strange. I **though** "old" PCs in UK were
as cheap as water. But I still
don't believe someone reading this won't give you as a gift an old P3 or
even a P4. If I were near you I'd surely do that.
Not for nothing...but it took me about three long minutes of Google to
find some very recently placed ads for free Pentium or better
computers all over the UK.
--
Will
3 Dec
3 Dec
11:17 a.m.
You keep on
telling us that things are different between Brazil and the
States, and what is common in one place is not common in the other. Whcih
I happily accept. All I can say is that the UK is different again. Or at
least I've enver found any form of Pentium PC for free. The latest PC
that I've been given was a battered 386SX that, I have to admit, I took
apart for useful bits.
Strange. I **though** "old" PCs in UK were as cheap as water. But I
still don't believe someone reading this won't
give you as a gift an old P3
or even a P4. If I were near you I'd surely do that.
Of coruse the otehr side ot this is 'Do I realy want a Pentium PC'. And
to be honest, I can't see that I do. I'm happy with the machine I've got...
It is my
bitter esperience that a lot of thsee parallel-port devices,
even those that have software that runs under MS-DOS, do not work
properly on a 4.77MHz PC/XT...
My keyboard runs faster than that... :oD True, and contrary to some other people here, I
do like making my own
tools, whether they be mechancial tools, electronic tools (like test
equipment) or software tools. In fact _I_ am seriously looking at some of
the current microcotnrolelr families for use in projects. But this
doesn't mean everybody has to want to use them.
So they roll their own :) That is up to you. I have this notebook for some
years, and it just
works. Although I love to know my tools, I can use some I don't know the
internal workings.
I really do like to know what's going on, and be able to repair
everything. Call me eccentric if you like, but I am, not likely to change :-)
I have come across all of those microcontrollers
in my time. In fact I
was using something based on the 3870 (the HPIL-GPIO interface) and
reparing something containing a COP400 (HPIL knob input device -- in fact
jsut about all HP-HIL devices have COP400s in them) a couple of days ago.
HP does everything different :o) Actually, the 8048 family is getting soemwhat
hard to find now (AFAIL it
is no longer manufactured), and that one turns up _everywhere_.
Ok, this one you are right. But as far as I remember, MCS-51 devices are
pin-compatible. And since they don't have code protection, I can always
download the code of a good 8048 and use a 8748 to replace it. I did it many
2 Dec
2 Dec
4:04 p.m.
On 2 Dec 2010 at 19:54, Tony Duell wrote:
Which normalyl cost more than the chips to put on them
(at least in
the UK).
They're getting cheaper, at least in the import market. Apparently
the Chinese have noticed that there's a market for these things. For
example, the adapters from Futurlec are less than USD$1 Q1:
http://futurlec.com/SMD_Adapters.shtml
Header pins (with machine-pin socket-compatible ends) are getting
similarly cheap.
--Chuck
7:44 p.m.
On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 7:54 PM, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
You keep on telling us that things are different
between Brazil and the
States, and what is common in one place is not common in the other. Whcih
I happily accept. All I can say is that the UK is different again. Or at
least I've enver found any form of Pentium PC for free.
Oh, come *on*, Tony. You live about a 45min cycle ride from me. You
are not in some parallel universe!
Just last year I gave 14 Pentium-class machines in a single
transaction to a chap on Freecycle, and I was /very/ glad to do so,
because otherwise they'd have been off to the recycling centre.
It is virtually impossible to *give* anything as old as a
Pentium-class machine away these days. The last few individual
machines I've given to Freecyclers were Cyrix 6x86-powered, in the
region of 200-300MHz. I gave them away on Freecycle because no charity
will accept machines that old. In the summer, I donated 4 PCs to the
collection scheme at the Zeitgeist pub in Vauxhall - a few
circa-1500MHz AMD AthlonXP boxes and a 2.6GHz Pentium-4-class Celeron.
These were too low-specification for ComputerAid to be interested in
them.
No, you don't often see free Pentium machines any more, because
they're "skipware" - too old to be of any interest to any ordinary
user these days.
The current class of free kit most commonly going is stuff like ~2GHz
Pentium 4 boxes and low-end Athlon64 machines. Occasionally you'll get
late-model Pentium III machines but most of them disappeared by 3-4y
ago.
I though the reason you limped along on your PC-AT with a 486 in it
was that it was the latest-model PC you could get for which you had
full schematics and so on. Machines 2 orders of magnitude show up in
skips beside the road all the time. Try your local recycling centre -
you'll probably find piles of them, you just need to get to 'em before
they're left out in the rain.
(10sec on Google) Try Townmead - they take electricals.
Townmead Road, Re-use and Recycling Centre, Townmead Road (off
Mortlake Road), Kew, TW9 4EL. Telephone 020 8876 3281 for more
details.
If you /want/ a newer PC that's not been scrapped, I have a dual
Athlon MP 1600+ machine in the garage. It worked, it just very
occasionally hard-reset for no apparent reason. It's been extensively
cannibalised - now it's just a motherboard in a case - but if you want
it it's yours. I can probably find you graphics, sound, hard disks,
optical drive, PSU and ancillary cabling.
I also have a dual Pentium-II 400 that I have been using for some
server testing, but I'd consider it to be too old for use as a desktop
machine any more. You /can/ access the Web on a Pentium II but it's
not terribly pleasant. It's in a ginormous full-tower Gateway case I
was planning to strip out and try to eBay off to some casemodder for
phase-change cooling or something
--
Liam Proven ? Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508
7:45 p.m.
On Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 3:44 AM, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
not terribly pleasant. It's in a ginormous
full-tower Gateway case I
was planning to strip out and try to eBay off to some casemodder for
phase-change cooling or something
Oops! Closed the message in the wrong window.
Anyway, I was going to say, if you want the case, you're welcome to
it. If you wanted both the machines, and were, say, prepared to take
them in exchange for attempting the repairs we were discussing in
private email, then I might be able to arrange delivery. I know
neither of us drives.
--
Liam Proven ? Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508
8:20 p.m.
If you /want/ a newer PC that's not been scrapped,
I have a dual
Athlon MP 1600+ machine in the garage. It worked, it just very
occasionally hard-reset for no apparent reason. It's been extensively
cannibalised - now it's just a motherboard in a case - but if you want
it it's yours. I can probably find you graphics, sound, hard disks,
optical drive, PSU and ancillary cabling.
That is SUCH a machine! With linux, I doubt Tony will have something
against that :oD
Lets' start a campaign: "A modern PC for Tony. Tony using Linux" :oD
3 Dec
3 Dec
1:24 p.m.
>If you /want/ a newer PC that's not been scrapped, I have a dual
>Athlon MP 1600+ machine in the garage. It worked, it just very
>occasionally hard-reset for no apparent reason. It's been extensively
>cannibalised - now it's just a motherboard in a case - but if you want
>it it's yours. I can probably find you graphics, sound, hard disks,
>optical drive, PSU and ancillary cabling.
That is SUCH a machine! With linux, I doubt Tony
will have something
against that :oD
Only that I have absolutely no way of fixing it...
Lets' start a campaign: "A modern PC for
Tony. Tony using Linux" :oD
Firstly, what do you think I am using at this very moment?
Secondly, why do you want to change me. Surely the machine I chose to use
is my business? Why do you think my life would be improved in any way if
I had such a machine?
-tony
1:20 p.m.
I though the reason you limped along on your PC-AT
with a 486 in it
was that it was the latest-model PC you could get for which you had
full schematics and so on. Machines 2 orders of magnitude show up in
Indeed I do. having the schemaitcs and source code is very important to
me. It measn I can fix the machine when things go wrong...
skips beside the road all the time. Try your local
recycling centre -
you'll probably find piles of them, you just need to get to 'em before
they're left out in the rain.
(10sec on Google) Try Townmead - they take electricals.
Townmead Road, Re-use and Recycling Centre, Townmead Road (off
Mortlake Road), Kew, TW9 4EL. Telephone 020 8876 3281 for more
details.
No matter what it now clls itself, that's the council dump. And lasttime
I checked they would not let me have old PCs quoting reasons of health
and sefet and data protection.
If you /want/ a newer PC that's not been scrapped, I have a dual
Athlon MP 1600+ machine in the garage. It worked, it just very
occasionally hard-reset for no apparent reason. It's been extensively
I don;t want to seem ungreatful, but the last thing I need is a PC that
occasiuonaly reboots for no apparent reason, and which I don;t have
scheamtics for. Since this whole discussion started over programming
microcontrollers, what happens if the thing decides to reboot half way
though a programming cycle. I've come across device programs that can
damge chips under such comnditions/ And considering this PC clearly has
problems, should I really trust it to necessarily ru nthe microcontroller
development tools correctly? The last thing i need when designing
something is any more unknowns.
-tony
1:48 a.m.
On Thu, 2 Dec 2010, Tony Duell wrote:
Now I can't really believe you, there can't be such a big difference
within the EU. Don't you have e.g. a university around or someone who
works there? I could give you several Pentium-4 or AMD Athlon PCs for free
if they were near you as they are old by today's standard. Since I don't
collect that kind of stuff, I will junk them as soon as something more
modern falls out of the "system". BTW these systems are all in the
several-GHz range and fast enough, just not on the top of the edge and
over three years old.
A Pentium
III - which you can find in trashcans - runs it with linux.
And linux is free :)
You keep on telling us that things are different between Brazil and the
States, and what is common in one place is not common in the other. Whcih
I happily accept. All I can say is that the UK is different again. Or at
least I've enver found any form of Pentium PC for free. The latest PC
that I've been given was a battered 386SX that, I have to admit, I took
apart for useful bits. monitors, and the like, I do not have spare PC/AT or
PS/2 keyboards, PC
mice or VGA monitors.
Oh, boxes full of them... and nobody wants the (modern) CRT monitors.
Christian
2:18 a.m.
>>>
Now I can't really believe you,
there can't be such a big difference
within the EU.
<<<<
The UK govt's "gold plating" of the Waste Electrical and Electronic
Equipment Directive (2002/96/EC) tends to make UK businesses and
Universities very wary of how they dispose of "obsolete" (typically 3 year
old) computers.
Andy
3:17 a.m.
Andy Holt wrote:
Now I can't really believe you, there can't be
such a big difference
within the EU.
The UK govt's "gold plating" of the Waste Electrical and Electronic
Equipment Directive (2002/96/EC) tends to make UK businesses and
Universities very wary of how they dispose of "obsolete" (typically 3 year
old) computers.
The university that I work at has a policy that we are not even allowed
to give old hardware away, let alone sell it. I believe that the
thinking goes, that if we sell/give away equipment then we qualify as a
supplier and have the problem that if a piece of equipment subsiquently
catches fire and burns someone's house down then we could be found liable.
Cheers.
Phill.
7:25 a.m.
On Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 11:17 AM, Phill Harvey-Smith
<afra at aurigae.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Andy Holt wrote:
Then talk to Computer Aid, who have all manner of legal waivers and so
on to avoid that, and are WEEE compliant.
http://www.computeraid.org/
--
Liam Proven ? Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508
Now I can't really believe you, there can't be such a big difference
within the EU.
The UK govt's "gold plating" of the Waste Electrical and Electronic
Equipment Directive (2002/96/EC) ?tends to make UK businesses and
Universities very wary of how they dispose of "obsolete" (typically 3 year
old) computers.
The university that I work at has a policy that we are not even allowed to
give old hardware away, let alone sell it. I believe that the thinking goes,
that if we sell/give away equipment then we qualify as a supplier and have
the problem that if a piece of equipment subsiquently catches fire and burns
someone's house down then we could be found liable.
7:46 a.m.
The university that I work at has a policy that we are
not even allowed to
give old hardware away, let alone sell it.
Most universities have gone this way. However, if you talk to the
right people the right way, good stuff can still be had (quite legally
and above the board, too.).
--
Will
1 Dec
1 Dec
2:55 p.m.
On 1 Dec 2010 at 19:34, Tony Duell wrote:
I do not dispute htat. My main comment was to the
poster who suggested
an ARM-based microocntroller (I have never seen seen such a device in
a DIL package)
No, but there's at least one in a PLCC package, sockets for which
have contacts on 0.100" centers, so in my mind, a PLCC is about the
same as a DIL socket regarding ease of use. If I'm really dead-set
on a through-hole package (perhaps I want to wire-wrap the design),
SMT adapters are inexpensive are easy to use.
What's more of a consideration for me is the shift to 3.3V logic and
using mixed signal levels. While many uCs have 5V tolerant inputs,
many don't and adding either a resistor-clamp-diode network to each
5V output, or resorting to a made-for the-purpose IC to shift levels
is a bit of a bother.
It's actually surprising that a number of manufacturers have modern
MCUs in DIL configurations. Even the TI MSP430 has at least one
family member in a 14 pin DIL package.
If you're making things for your own use, fine--use whatever works
for you. But don't expect others to use galena-and-catwhisker diodes
or ammonium sulphate and aluminum wet rectifiers.
Consider a project to convert a PC AT-type keyboard to a PC XT one.
I could do this with a Z80, an SIO chip, some ROM and some RAM--and
the "glue" to interface it all, or I could do it with an 8 pin PIC
microcontroller that costs less than a dollar. The choice to me is a
no-brainer--my design debugging time will be substantially less.
As far as learning new instruction sets, that's a big shrug. After
your first dozen or two, they all pretty much look the same. I've
yet to be really surprised by any new one--hardly any learning at all-
-and most new uCs can be programmed in C at any rate. Show me a new
dataflow uC with 19 bit words that uses a Chen-Ho encoding and I'll
be surprised.
One big benefit of modern uCs is the number and variety of I/O pins.
You simply can't find a 144-pin DIL package.
--Chuck
2 Dec
2 Dec
1:13 p.m.
I do not
dispute htat. My main comment was to the poster who suggested
an ARM-based microocntroller (I have never seen seen such a device in
a DIL package)
No, but there's at least one in a PLCC package, sockets for which have contacts on 0.100" centers, so in my mind, a
PLCC is about the
same as a DIL socket regarding ease of use. If I'm really dead-set
Actually, it's signlly harder to wire (you can't put a PLCC socket on
stripboard, for example), but certianly no real problem.
on a through-hole package (perhaps I want to wire-wrap
the design),
SMT adapters are inexpensive are easy to use.
You can plug the PLCC socket into wire-wrap pin strips (eitehr the proper
ones, or cut apart DIL wire-wrap sockets) and then wire-wrap to that.
Yes, you ahve an extra contact which may reduce long-time reliability,
but this is a prototype, right?
If you're making things for your own use,
fine--use whatever works
for you. But don't expect others to use galena-and-catwhisker diodes
or ammonium sulphate and aluminum wet rectifiers.
DOn't worry, I won't :-)
Consider a project to convert a PC AT-type keyboard to a PC XT one.
I could do this with a Z80, an SIO chip, some ROM and some RAM--and
the "glue" to interface it all, or I could do it with an 8 pin PIC
microcontroller that costs less than a dollar. The choice to me is a
no-brainer--my design debugging time will be substantially less.
And I would fully agree with you there.
-tony
2:09 p.m.
Do you haappen to have the part number for that? And
know of a supplier
that sells 1-off qunanitites. When I looked at the commpon suppliers in
the UK< I couldn't find any prototypiong-friemndly ARMs :-)
Farnell UK
The reason I ask about the supplier is that I rememebr
som years ago
when I was doing a commerical design, findin the ideal chip for the job.
I thn found that _nobody_ would sell me less than a tube quantity (which
as they wwre nearly \pounds 200 each was way over budget). This was after
I'd done all the rest of the design...
Farnell UK
Actually, it's signlly harder to wire (you
can't put a PLCC socket on
stripboard, for example), but certianly no real problem.
You can, I do it many times. Want a photo?
You can plug the PLCC socket into wire-wrap pin strips
(eitehr the proper
ones, or cut apart DIL wire-wrap sockets) and then wire-wrap to that.
Yes, you ahve an extra contact which may reduce long-time reliability,
but this is a prototype, right?
Yep
3:01 p.m.
On 2 Dec 2010 at 20:09, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote:
> Do you haappen to have the part number for that?
And know of a
> supplier that sells 1-off qunanitites. When I looked at the commpon
> suppliers in the UK< I couldn't find any prototypiong-friemndly ARMs
> :-)
Again, my email seems to have been dropped, but I'm assuming that
this is Tony asking about my claim of a PLCC ARM MCU:
LPC1114FA44/302
LPC1114FA44/301
Don't know if it's in production yet, but the NXP datasheets show it.
Apparently also the LPC2101, 2102 and 2103.
With adapters being as cheap as they are, however, PLCC doesn't make
much sense. I wouldn't bother with it.
--Chuck
5:38 p.m.
On Dec 2, 2010, at 6:01 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 2 Dec 2010 at 20:09, Alexandre Souza - Listas
wrote:
mbed NXP LPC1768
Arm cortex in a dip package.
http://mbed.org/
price not too bad and easy to use.
Rob
Robert Borsuk
rborsuk at colourfull.com
Colourfull Creations
http://www.colourfull.com
> Do you haappen to have the part number for
that? And know of a
> supplier that sells 1-off qunanitites. When I looked at the commpon
> suppliers in the UK< I couldn't find any prototypiong-friemndly ARMs
> :-)
Again, my email seems to have been dropped, but I'm assuming that
this is Tony asking about my claim of a PLCC ARM MCU:
LPC1114FA44/302
LPC1114FA44/301
Don't know if it's in production yet, but the NXP datasheets show it.
Apparently also the LPC2101, 2102 and 2103.
With adapters being as cheap as they are, however, PLCC doesn't make
much sense. I wouldn't bother with it.
--Chuck
3 Dec
3 Dec
11:21 a.m.
Do you haappen to have the part number for that?
And know of a supplier
that sells 1-off qunanitites. When I looked at the commpon suppliers in
the UK< I couldn't find any prototypiong-friemndly ARMs :-)
Farnell UK 
2 p.m.
On 12/03/2010 02:21 PM, Tony Duell wrote:
That was, not suprisingly, the first place I looked. Alas the web site is
somwhat broken, in that if you look at microcotnrollers it will tell you
that there are<n> of them (for a large<n>) and then ask you to refine
the sarach by selecting from checklists. It's then that you discover that
while you can select DIP, PLCC, PQFP, SIOC, BGA, etc packages, the sum of
the numbers for all the package types is a lot less than<n>. And you
can't seay 'I definetely do not want a BGA deivce).
Mind you, the paper catalogue is not much better...
-tony
Around here, USA if I want a ARM to proto with I just go on the net and
look for a board with the desired arm on it I bought one recently for
$150 and the config was ARM9, 64meg ram, built in 256mb of flash with
linux in it and the usual USB, Ethernet and an IO extension area.
Plug in a USB flash of 16gb and you can bootstrap develop on it.
Generally a decent P4 PC running linux makes a good development
system as tools for arms are common and plenty of free stuff out there
and linux for ARM (if you need a OS platform).
I've seen boards in the 80$(US) to 300$us range. Generally you
proto starting with that until the memory requirements are known
and then design a board (or even ask the proto vendor to do a custom
if its a volume build).
Allison
Do you haappen to have the part number for that?
And know of a supplier
that sells 1-off qunanitites. When I looked at the commpon suppliers in
the UK< I couldn't find any prototypiong-friemndly ARMs :-)
Farnell UK
2:16 p.m.
Around here, USA if I want a ARM to proto with I just
go on the net and
look for a board with the desired arm on it I bought one recently for
$150 and the config was ARM9, 64meg ram, built in 256mb of flash with
linux in it and the usual USB, Ethernet and an IO extension area.
Plug in a USB flash of 16gb and you can bootstrap develop on it.
Only 2 problems with me doing that :
1) $150 is far too expensive for one of my projects. I am used to
microcontrollers costing a few pounds at msot
2) I don't want a pre-built board with peripherals I don't need on it. I
am a great believeer in actually designin the hardware to suit the
problem I am solving
-tony
2 Dec
2 Dec
6:10 p.m.
On Thursday (12/02/2010 at 09:13PM +0000), Tony Duell wrote:
Do you haappen to have the part number for that? And know of a supplier
that sells 1-off qunanitites. When I looked at the commpon suppliers in
the UK< I couldn't find any prototypiong-friemndly ARMs :-)
There's also these,
http://mbed.org/nxp/lpc1768/
http://mbed.org/handbook/mbed-NXP-LPC1768
ARM Cortex-M3
and a design contest,
http://www.nxp.com/news/content/file_1767.html
where you can win $10,000!
No, I don't work for NXP. Just think these are kinda cool.
--
Chris Elmquist
I do not dispute htat. My main comment was to the
poster who suggested
an ARM-based microocntroller (I have never seen seen such a device in
a DIL package)
No, but there's at least one in a PLCC package, sockets for which 
29 Nov
29 Nov
3:35 p.m.
Hi
I've been watch this talk on the side but don't
recall anyone mentioning where to get a spec for
SCSI without hanving to join some expensive publishing
group?
Dwight
1:32 p.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-DpcvY4aBk
...but I'm biased. :)
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
6:30 p.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 4:32 PM, Gene Buckle <geneb at deltasoft.com> wrote:
Verrry nice!
-ethan
6:59 p.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 4:32 PM, Gene Buckle <geneb
at deltasoft.com> wrote:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-DpcvY4aBk
Any idea when the video was taken? Obviously fairly recently, given
the LCD panels, etc.
Great to see the ol' girl still doing her job :)
3:45 p.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
On Mon, 29 Nov 2010, Jason T wrote:
No idea. I suspect it's close to the upload date of the video. It's a
shame they don't have the motion base active.
On Mon, Nov
29, 2010 at 4:32 PM, Gene Buckle <geneb at deltasoft.com> wrote:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-DpcvY4aBk
Any idea when the video was taken? Obviously fairly recently, given
the LCD panels, etc.
Great to see the ol' girl still doing her job :)
Indeed!
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
30 Nov
30 Nov
12:12 a.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 03:45:45PM -0800, Gene Buckle wrote:
On Mon, 29 Nov 2010, Jason T wrote:
No idea. I suspect it's close to the upload date of the video.
It's a shame they don't have the motion base active.
This is from the Norwegian Cooperative Nordic Simulator Center(NSC).
They aquired the flight sim in 2007 (or so) and have been working on
restoring it. It's _awesome_ that they have gotten this far. Imagine
getting all that hardware going! It is three PDP-11 cooperating!
I found the Zip-drive somewhat anachronistic and amusing.
Read more here:
http://www.dc10.no/
and here:
http://www.toomuchfs.com/2mfs/showdoc.php?dsn=493
I'm not affiliated, but I want to take a trip to norway now :D
/P
On Mon,
Nov 29, 2010 at 4:32 PM, Gene Buckle <geneb at deltasoft.com> wrote:
>
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-DpcvY4aBk
Any idea when the video was taken? Obviously fairly recently, given
the LCD panels, etc.
2 Dec
2 Dec
2:10 p.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
Replying to myself here. I got an email from Geert and he allowed me to
forward it to the list.
----
Hi Pontus,
We were pointed to the mailing list and I found your message...
The DC-10 Sim was moved from Houston to Oslo in 2004. Installation and
reconstruction took considerable time. Me and my coworker joined end of
2007. Two out of three old PDPs have been replaced by newer.
See http://www.xs4all.nl/~geerol/FLG-talk-75dpi.pdf
Last half year we have (step by step) interfaced the Sim to MSFS 2004
for visual only. The original Night Vision System has never worked
again. The third PDP-11 receives the position information from the core
Simulator ran by the other two machines. The 3rd PDP got a DELUA
ethernet card and I've written a program that receives the data from
CPU-A and kicks it onto the ethernet as UDP Broadcasts.
The conversion software runs at a PC with Unix and receives the
broadcasts and converts runway oriented X, Y and Z into Lat, Lon and
AGL, using a table with all known runways. It also counts overflows in
24 bit X and Y and maps to 32 bit. This drops the limit of NVS: 86 NM in
X and Y are current max. They flew LAX-SFO: close (+- 45 NM distance) to
SFO visual orientation hopped to SFO. MS FS2004 runs with FSUIPC
licensed (23 Euro) and a LUA program that sets position, lights etc. The
conversion program on Unix connects to this LUA module.
If you are a flightsimmer Lillestrom, Norway is worth the trip!!
---
2010-11-30 09:12, Pontus Pihlgren skrev:
On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 03:45:45PM -0800, Gene Buckle
wrote:
On Mon, 29 Nov 2010, Jason T wrote:
No idea. I suspect it's close to the upload date of the video.
It's a shame they don't have the motion base active.
This is from the Norwegian Cooperative Nordic Simulator Center(NSC).
They aquired the flight sim in 2007 (or so) and have been working on
restoring it. It's _awesome_ that they have gotten this far. Imagine
getting all that hardware going! It is three PDP-11 cooperating!
I found the Zip-drive somewhat anachronistic and amusing.
Read more here:
http://www.dc10.no/
and here:
http://www.toomuchfs.com/2mfs/showdoc.php?dsn=493
I'm not affiliated, but I want to take a trip to norway now :D
/P
On Mon,
Nov 29, 2010 at 4:32 PM, Gene Buckle<geneb at deltasoft.com> wrote:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-DpcvY4aBk
>
Any idea when the video was taken? Obviously fairly recently,
given
the LCD panels, etc.
30 Nov
30 Nov
2:36 a.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 3:59 AM, Jason T <silent700 at gmail.com> wrote:
Yep, definitely the last few months or so as I've been loosely
following the project since visiting the museum run by the guys who
restored the computery bits. Lots more on their site (look under news,
especially that of last year)
http://www.xs4all.nl/~geerol/index-en.html
On Mon, Nov
29, 2010 at 4:32 PM, Gene Buckle <geneb at deltasoft.com> wrote:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-DpcvY4aBk
Any idea when the video was taken? ?Obviously fairly recently, given
the LCD panels, etc. Great to see the ol' girl still doing her job :)
The original set-up used no less than *three* 11/45s (or maybe one was
an 11/50) but I believe they only managed to piece together one
working machine. The other two were replaced with 11/44s - I remember
because had a minor hand in tracking one of them down.
--
Steve Maddison
http://www.cosam.org/
29 Nov
29 Nov
8:40 p.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
The 11/55's that I acquired a few years ago were used as controllers for a flight
simulator. There was some custom HW attached to the unibus that interfaced to the flight
simulator itself.
TTFN - Guy
On Nov 29, 2010, at 1:32 PM, Gene Buckle wrote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-DpcvY4aBk
...but I'm biased. :)
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
8:47 p.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
Anyway we can not post stuff like this to the list ?
> Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a
delusional, illogical
> minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
> holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
> by the clean end.
>
9:33 p.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
Anyway we can not post stuff like this to the list ?
>> Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
>> minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
>> holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
>> by the clean end.
With all due respect, that's part of Gene's signature, not his message.
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. -- Tacitus ---------
9:39 p.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
So what ? I can put anything in my sig and its cool ? Why should we even
go there. The list doesn't need it. I'd love to see a list of the
computers he owns or a funny old computer joke. This is none of the above.
On 11/29/2010 9:33 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
Anyway we can
not post stuff like this to the list ?
>> Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
>> minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
>> holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
>> by the clean end.
With all due respect, that's part of Gene's
signature, not his message.
9:43 p.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
So what ? I can put anything in my sig and its cool ?
Frankly, yes. Who are you to say what he can put in his signature? You can
argue about the topicality of a message, but dictating the content of a
personal signature is pretty petty, IMHO.
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- Yup, pretty petty. ---------------------------------------------------------
9:45 p.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
So what ? I can put anything in my sig and its cool ?
Why should we even go
there. The list doesn't need it. I'd love to see a list of the computers he
owns or a funny old computer joke. This is none of the above.
Please grace us with a list of the computers you own, and then tell us
a funny old computer joke.
Then go chill out, dude.
--
Will
9:52 p.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
Ahh attack me. Cool. I'm not going to play. I'm just saying we should
keep the political stuff out of here. I can say lots on the subject lets
just talk about computers.
On 11/29/2010 9:45 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
--
This is my sig
So what ? I
can put anything in my sig and its cool ? Why should we even go
there. The list doesn't need it. I'd love to see a list of the computers he
owns or a funny old computer joke. This is none of the above.
Please grace us with
a list of the computers you own, and then tell us
a funny old computer joke.
Then go chill out, dude.
--
Will 
10:15 p.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
Disagreement does not mean an attack. Now, if I was to call you a censorious asshole, THAT
would be an attack, but that is clearly not what is going on. In any event, nitpicking on
a signature that has been here for years is probably not the greatest way to gather
support from the rest of the list.
On Nov 29, 2010, at 11:52 PM, leaknoil <leaknoil at gmail.com> wrote:
Ahh attack me. Cool. I'm not going to play.
I'm just saying we should keep the political stuff out of here. I can say lots on the
subject lets just talk about computers.
On 11/29/2010 9:45 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
--
This is my sig
So what ?
I can put anything in my sig and its cool ? Why should we even go
there. The list doesn't need it. I'd love to see a list of the computers he
owns or a funny old computer joke. This is none of the above.
Please grace us with
a list of the computers you own, and then tell us
a funny old computer joke.
Then go chill out, dude.
--
Will
10:22 p.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
I can't even to begin to express how done I am with this. Through your
intelligent insight I have learned the errors of my ways. Clearly if I
called you a fucking asshole that would be wrong. If I told you I could
rip your head off and shit down what is left of you neck that would be
bad too. No matter where you go on the internet there you are. Its all
the same. cctalk or 4chan. People talk big behind a keyboard.
On 11/29/2010 10:15 PM, Daniel Seagraves wrote:
Disagreement does not mean an attack. Now, if I was to
call you a censorious asshole, THAT would be an attack, but that is clearly not what is
going on. In any event, nitpicking on a signature that has been here for years is probably
not the greatest way to gather support from the rest of the list.
On Nov 29, 2010, at 11:52 PM, leaknoil<leaknoil at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ahh attack me. Cool. I'm not going to play. I'm just saying we should keep
the political stuff out of here. I can say lots on the subject lets just talk about
computers.
>
> On 11/29/2010 9:45 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
>>> So what ? I can put anything in my sig and its cool ? Why should we even go
>>> there. The list doesn't need it. I'd love to see a list of the
computers he
>>> owns or a funny old computer joke. This is none of the above.
>> Please grace us with a list of the computers you own, and then tell us
>> a funny old computer joke.
>>
>> Then go chill out, dude.
>>
>> --
>> Will
>
> --
> This is my sig
--
This is my sig
10:32 p.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
Gentlemen, please! There's no call for this sort of thing here.
Thank you,
Chuck
10:50 p.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
And the plonkage will be epic...
--
Will
10:51 p.m.
New subject: [Not] Best use of a .sig ever... (was: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
On 11/30/2010 01:22 AM, leaknoil wrote:
Maybe you could use some new seals?
[[ I'd say that was a joke, but it wasn't really funny... so maybe it
wasn't... but it sure wasn't serious, anyway... I need to head to bed
soon. ]]
[[snippage]]
... People talk big behind a keyboard.
If I may make an observation -- you're the only individual in this
thread who doesn't use his "parental-unit-issued" identity... so who's
hiding behind their keyboard?
[[ Content snipped, but headers left to prove my point... ]]
On 11/29/2010 10:15 PM, Daniel Seagraves wrote:
> On Nov 29, 2010, at 11:52 PM, leaknoil<leaknoil
at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 11/29/2010 9:45 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
This is my sig
Ya know, if someone were to whine about a .sig, *real* classic computers
used a .sig, not just a sig...
[[ No, I don't care. Really. Besides, you could always say the data
compression utility ate the period... but my whin[g]ing about your .sig,
IMHO, is just as pointless as yours about others'... ]]
Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
30 Nov
30 Nov
3:43 a.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
On Mon, 29 Nov 2010, leaknoil wrote:
I can't even to begin to express how done I am
with this. Through your
intelligent insight I have learned the errors of my ways. Clearly if I called
you a fucking asshole that would be wrong. If I told you I could rip your
head off and shit down what is left of you neck that would be bad too. No
matter where you go on the internet there you are. Its all the same. cctalk
or 4chan. People talk big behind a keyboard.
WTF? Seriously? You really, really need to relax. It's just a signature
fer chrissakes! This passive/aggressive shit has no place here. Oh, and
comparing these fine folks to the emo bitches over on 4chan is just
*begging* to get your ears pinned back.
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
7:24 a.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
On Nov 30, 2010, at 5:43 AM, Gene Buckle wrote:
On Mon, 29 Nov 2010, leaknoil wrote:
I'm fairly certain at this point that YHBT.
Poorly.
I can't even to begin to express how done I
am with this. Through your intelligent insight I have learned the errors of my ways.
Clearly if I called you a fucking asshole that would be wrong. If I told you I could rip
your head off and shit down what is left of you neck that would be bad too. No matter
where you go on the internet there you are. Its all the same. cctalk or 4chan. People talk
big behind a keyboard.
WTF? Seriously? You really, really need to relax. It's just a signature
fer chrissakes! This passive/aggressive shit has no place here. Oh, and comparing these
fine folks to the emo bitches over on 4chan is just *begging* to get your ears pinned
back.
4:08 a.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
On Tue, 30 Nov 2010, Daniel Seagraves wrote:
On Nov 30, 2010, at 5:43 AM, Gene Buckle wrote:
I'm fairly certain at this point that YHBT.
Poorly.
It's my understanding from what I've heard on #classicmp that while
ill-behaved on other lists, he's probably not a troll. Then again, if it
looks like a duck... :)
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
9:50 a.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
In article <4CF49833.70205 at gmail.com>,
leaknoil <leaknoil at gmail.com> writes:
I can't even to begin to express how done I am
with this.
Just go away, then, and stop with the sanctimonious speeches.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
3:33 a.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
On Mon, 29 Nov 2010, leaknoil wrote:
So what ? I can put anything in my sig and its cool ?
Why should we even go
there. The list doesn't need it. I'd love to see a list of the computers he
owns or a funny old computer joke. This is none of the above.
This just begs the question - which are you? The delusional, illogical
minority or the unscrupulous mainstream media?
All kidding aside, if I'd put something in there like, "Sponsored by the
International Brotherhood of Priests that Enjoy Buggering Children", then
yeah, I could completely understand you getting your knickers in a knot.
However, I'm just making comment (originally written by someone else) on
something that is absurd in the extreme. You're welcome to not agree
with me, but the heat death of the universe will occur before I change my
sig because you don't like it.
(and don't top-post, it's annoying *grin*)
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
7:08 a.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
something that is absurd in the extreme. You're
welcome to not agree with
me, but the heat death of the universe will occur before I change my sig
because you don't like it.
What about "just say (insert 4-letter expletive here) and have a good
day"? :o) Can we talk about old SGIs? :)
4:09 a.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
On Tue, 30 Nov 2010, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote:
I've got an Octane I have no use for - I'm keeping the absurdly huge
monitor it came with though. :) If anyone in Washington State wants it,
they're welcome to it! Comes with boot media, dev tools, etc. Even has
an external SCSI floppy drive.
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
something that
is absurd in the extreme. You're welcome to not agree with
me, but the heat death of the universe will occur before I change my sig
because you don't like it.
What about "just say (insert 4-letter expletive here) and have a good
day"? :o) Can we talk about old SGIs? :)
9:15 a.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
I've got an Octane I have no use for - I'm
keeping the absurdly huge
monitor it came with though. :) If anyone in Washington State wants it,
they're welcome to it! Comes with boot media, dev tools, etc. Even has
an external SCSI floppy drive.
Gene, since octanes are so common in USA, would you mind parting with
two little black squares that I miss a lot and wouldn't make your octane
unusable? :o) What video board you have? Do you have the (optional) TRAM
modules on that? ;oD I'd LOVE to get a pair of tram modules for my octane :)
:) :)
6:06 a.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
On Tue, 30 Nov 2010, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote:
I really don't want to take parts off of it. Sorry!
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
I've got
an Octane I have no use for - I'm keeping the absurdly huge
monitor it came with though. :) If anyone in Washington State wants it,
they're welcome to it! Comes with boot media, dev tools, etc. Even has an
external SCSI floppy drive.
Gene, since octanes are so common in USA, would you mind parting with two
little black squares that I miss a lot and wouldn't make your octane
unusable? :o) What video board you have? Do you have the (optional) TRAM
modules on that? ;oD I'd LOVE to get a pair of tram modules for my octane :)
:) :)
12:10 p.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
unusable? :o) What video board you have? Do you have
the (optional) TRAM
modules on that? ;oD I'd LOVE to get a pair of tram modules for my octane :)
:) :)
Since I know nothing about SGIs...
Wajht is a TRAM in this context? (I can think of 2 meanings of the term,
the obvious one associated iwht public transport, and the less common one
associated with a certain microcprocessor, but I can't think either are
applicable here).
-tony
12:55 p.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
On 30/11/2010 20:10, Tony Duell wrote:
Texture RAM. Generally in some form of pluggable memory module on the
graphics card.
unusable? :o)
What video board you have? Do you have the (optional) TRAM
modules on that? ;oD I'd LOVE to get a pair of tram modules for my octane :)
:) :)
Since I know nothing about SGIs...
Wajht is a TRAM in this context? (I can think of 2 meanings of the term,
the obvious one associated iwht public transport, and the less common one
associated with a certain microcprocessor, but I can't think either are
applicable here).
-tony
1 Dec
1 Dec
11:19 a.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
What is a TRAM
in this context? (I can think of 2 meanings of the term,
the obvious one associated iwht public transport, and the less common one
associated with a certain microcprocessor, but I can't think either are
applicable here).
Texture RAM. Generally in some form of pluggable memory module on the
graphics card.
30 Nov
30 Nov
12:59 p.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
Since I know nothing about SGIs...
Wajht is a TRAM in this context? (I can think of 2 meanings of the term,
the obvious one associated iwht public transport, and the less common one
associated with a certain microcprocessor, but I can't think either are
applicable here).
Tony, TRAMs are RAM modules used in the octane video board. The octane
video is accelerated for "plain" surfaces, but not texturized. Adding the
pair of TRAM modules on this video board, you make it capable of rendering
3D graphics with textured surfaces.
4:57 p.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
On Tue, 30 Nov 2010, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote:
I remember setting up a lab of brand-new top-of-the-line Octanes for the
California State University Geotech Lab several years ago. There were six
dual-headed machines. For some weird reason none of them had TRAMs. I
discovered this when I tried running Quake 2 and found that it was slower
than snail snot. One of the main purposes of the machines was to model
rock strata and fault lines to identify where oil would likely be trapped.
This involved a lot of 3D rotating things. The performance was not as I
expected. 3D molecular simulations ran just fine though.
I never understood why SGI made the texture memory seperate unless it was
just a ploy to nickle and dime the customers.
--
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
Since I know
nothing about SGIs...
Wajht is a TRAM in this context? (I can think of 2 meanings of the term,
the obvious one associated iwht public transport, and the less common one
associated with a certain microcprocessor, but I can't think either are
applicable here).
Tony, TRAMs are RAM modules used in the octane video board. The octane
video is accelerated for "plain" surfaces, but not texturized. Adding
the pair of TRAM modules on this video board, you make it capable of
rendering 3D graphics with textured surfaces.
7:10 p.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
In article <alpine.DEB.1.10.1011301649580.3209 at sleipnir.cs.csubak.edu>,
David Griffith <dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu> writes:
I never understood why SGI made the texture memory
seperate unless it was
just a ploy to nickle and dime the customers.
For the same reason the current GPU manufacturers vary the amount of
RAM across their product line: it allows them to hit different price
points. Memory was more expensive when Octanes were current, as I'm
sure you're aware. For many CAD/CAM applications, texturing wasn't
necessary and saving the money for the TRAM modules was a significant
win because you don't pay for what you don't need. Even if you were
doing hollywood rendering stuff, you still might not need it because
the GPU wasn't going to render the final textured image anyway, it was
going to be rendered in software, so Gouraud shaded interactivity was
sufficient.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
7:18 p.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
On 11/30/2010 04:57 PM, David Griffith wrote:
I never understood why SGI made the texture memory
seperate
unless it was just a ploy to nickle and dime the customers.
It was a ploy to give the customers higher performance. Having the
textures separate increases the available memory bandwidth when
rendering textured surfaces.
2:53 p.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
Surely the Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*, isn't for
reacting/over-reacting to offensive .sig's????
--
g at xenosoft.com Disclaimer: I speak for nobody else, and I can't even
_---_ | speak for me. All of my personalities and the spirits
/[@ @]\ | that I channel deny all knowledge of my activities.
oOO--(_)--OOo | In fact, they hate my guts. (except with garlic & butter)
``` ''' | For NSA or law enforcment officials monitoring the net:
abortion, assassinate, Bush, cia, cocaine, dea, flight school, hacker,
homeland security, marijuana, nsa, sex, drugs, and rock'nroll.
4:53 p.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
you forgot "fertilizer"...
back to sleep
ss
On 11/30/2010 2:53 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
Surely the Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*, isn't
for
reacting/over-reacting to offensive .sig's????
--
g at xenosoft.com Disclaimer: I speak for nobody else, and I can't even
_---_ | speak for me. All of my personalities and the spirits
/[@ @]\ | that I channel deny all knowledge of my activities.
oOO--(_)--OOo | In fact, they hate my guts. (except with garlic& butter)
``` ''' | For NSA or law enforcment officials monitoring the net:
abortion, assassinate, Bush, cia, cocaine, dea, flight school, hacker,
homeland security, marijuana, nsa, sex, drugs, and rock'nroll.
29 Nov
29 Nov
11:08 p.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
Chill out. Disclosure: I completely agree with the analysis expressed in this sig.
A sig is a 'free area' for any of us to express an opinion. If I said in the body
of a post "Intel is the Satan of computing, stifling innovation and profiting from it
handsomely" that would certainly be controversial, but not necessarily out of scope
for this list. On the other hand, a sig is fair game. Want to talk about Wicca or Coke
vs. Pepsi or some such? Stick it in your sig, and kindred spirits will find you.
Moreover, the expression of disdain for political correctness is quite appropriate to this
list, where e.g. we question the decisions made by for-profit corporations that often make
our tasks as collectors and historians more burdensome than they need be. It also
reflects a level of intellectual integrity that rejects the groupthink that stifles
innovation in nearly all dimensions, whether technological or social.
In sum: dude, chill out. You want to really get some folks riled? Let's talk CISC
vs. RISC or (dare I say it?) which is the best editor. There we can polish a turd, not
just look for its clean end -- Ian
________________________________________
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of
leaknoil [leaknoil at gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 8:47 PM
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
Anyway we can not post stuff like this to the list ?
> Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a
delusional, illogical
> minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
> holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
> by the clean end.
>
8:25 a.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
I'd tell you just where you could put it, but I choose to not descend to your level of
childishness (nor do I think my suggestion would be anatomically feasible). Your reply is
immature and uncalled for, especially from someone who started this discussion with a
complaint about off-topic content....
We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
________________________________________
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of
leaknoil [leaknoil at gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2010 12:23 AM
To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
On 11/29/2010 11:08 PM, Ian King wrote:
Chill out. Disclosure: I completely agree with the
analysis expressed in this sig.
How about you suck my dick ? That is free expression
too. Could I put
that in my .....sig ?
9:56 a.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
In article <FF6AB92D97A23A409701CDBF66F03FCD03DC3D1B16 at 505fuji>,
Ian King <IanK at vulcan.com> writes:
which is the best editor.
Obviously TECO, since all the other editors can be written in TECO.
;-)
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
29 Nov
29 Nov
10:50 p.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
[Sorry to divert the discussion from the good, bad and ugly of sig lines, and
back onto the original topic. :-)]
I am pretty sure this is the origin of the video - http://www.dc10.no/
Very nice setup, and yes an excellent use of (multiple) PDP-11(s). Also looked
like there were a couple of 11/44s about the 11/45s?
I also recall having recently seen a thread about a L-1011, or maybe it was a
Constellation simulator, that is still running off of a very large vacuum tube
machine. Maybe I'm hallucinating about a Constellation simulator, since I doubt
if there are any of those still in commercial service.
Cheers,
Lee Courtney
----- Original Message ----
From: Gene Buckle <geneb at deltasoft.com>
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Cc: simpits-tech at simpits.org
Sent: Mon, November 29, 2010 1:32:54 PM
Subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-DpcvY4aBk
...but I'm biased. :)
g.
-- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
3:48 p.m.
On 29 Nov 2010 at 15:35, dwight elvey wrote:
I've been watch this talk on the side but
don't
recall anyone mentioning where to get a spec for
SCSI without hanving to join some expensive publishing
group?
Vendors' product specs are often more indicative of the real world,
rather than any "standard". My most thumbed-over SCSI spec for disk
drives is still the 2-volume SCSI-2/SCS-3 spec from 1995. The last
time I looked, it was still on Seagate's ftp site.
The NCR databooks for their chips are also quite valuable,
particularly the "SCSI Engineering Notebook".
--Chuck
30 Nov
30 Nov
9:24 a.m.
New subject: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
From: "Steve Maddison" <steve at cosam.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2010 11:36 AM
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 3:59 AM, Jason T <silent700
at gmail.com> wrote:
Yep, definitely the last few months or so as I've been loosely
following the project since visiting the museum run by the guys who
restored the computery bits. Lots more on their site (look under news,
especially that of last year)
http://www.xs4all.nl/~geerol/index-en.html
Jup, I too know Geert and Warner personally. They went more than once to
Norway to assist the guys with getting the PDP-11 systems working.
The original simulator indeed ran on 3 PDP-11/45. Two of them were
connected using *shared memory* on the UNIBUS (visible by both 11/45
processors). However, two 11/45 were replaced by two 11/44 systems.
I dropped off a spare 11/44 PSU at Geert's place for the Norwegian guys.
The guys from Norway got the DC-10 in a few sea containers. The hardware
is unbelievable ... it is in more than ten 19" cabinet racks 3 feet tall
(almost
2 meter). IIRC it is in 18 racks. It came with shelves full of (hardware)
documentation. They worked through all that data, managed to connect it
all. One of the hard problems they faced (again IIRC) had to do with
ground loops. I read a lot of their efforts, and can only say that those
chaps
are really devoted to this project and are very knowledgeable IMHO.
There are a few other clips on youtube ...
- Henk
On Mon,
Nov 29, 2010 at 4:32 PM, Gene Buckle <geneb at deltasoft.com>
wrote:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-DpcvY4aBk
Any idea when the video was taken? Obviously fairly recently, given
the LCD panels, etc. Great to see the ol' girl still doing her job
:)
The original set-up used no less than *three* 11/45s (or maybe one was
an 11/50) but I believe they only managed to piece together one
working machine. The other two were replaced with 11/44s - I remember
because had a minor hand in tracking one of them down.
--
Steve Maddison
http://www.cosam.org/
29 Nov
29 Nov
11:06 a.m.
Maybe someone should invent a SCSI target board (old, parallel SCSI
interface) that turns it into iSCSI initiator over ethernet on the
other side and then your actual disk is anything you can connect to a
Linux box or other server running iSCSI target host code. Now you can
have multiple old systems connecting to your storage pool, which would
essentially be a SAN made from a Linux box.
--
Chris Elmquist
1 Dec
1 Dec
9:38 a.m.
Well alright then, if its just a flame war I wont bother bringing it
up. Just thought it would be an interesting idea, a way to keep the
machines running in the future with a cheap media when scsi becomes
unavailable or too expensive because of its rarity.
Anyone who has come up with ideas, i'd encourage you to move forward
with at least a theory or virtual model, if not a physical device.
11:28 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "joe lobocki" <jlobocki at gmail.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2010 12:38 PM
Subject: Re: SCSI to IDE
Well alright then, if its just a flame war I wont
bother bringing it
up. Just thought it would be an interesting idea, a way to keep the
machines running in the future with a cheap media when scsi becomes
unavailable or too expensive because of its rarity.
Anyone who has come up with ideas, i'd encourage you to move forward
with at least a theory or virtual model, if not a physical device.
How hard would it be to make an adapter from SCSI (or laptop IDE) to SD
cards (the ones all these digital cameras use)? I figure there will be
millions of those things in the 256MB to several GB range (perfect for old
systems), they should be fast enough, small enough, and about worthless plus
easy to ship cheaply. People are using IDE to CF adapters but it seems to be
SD is more common and much smaller.
3 Dec
3 Dec
6:42 a.m.
On 12/02/2010 02:28 AM, Teo Zenios wrote:
A little bit of history and how we got to SCSI to anything...
In the early days pre-SCSI there was the WD1001HDO , What that was is a
bus level interface not unlike IDE
(8bit bus, a few address lines, read, wrie and select) to a board that
had CPU, RAM,EPROM, and the full
interface from the cpu to ST506 disk drive(MFM). The idea was to make
using the ST506 drives easier
as it was largely interfaces like and IO chip. These were used in many
systems and also existed in forms
like the S100 version (aternate vendors did this like KONAN, Teltek).
Many systems had a functionally
similar board that plugged into do this and for PCs the most well known
was the WD1003 (hint remember
that one).
SCSI to MFM.. A starting point.
the typical bridge board sucj as the WD, Adaptec, or Xybec were very
similar. they contained a SCSI to
microprocessor interface (raw ttl, ASIC, or 5380), A CPU typically Z80
or 8085 and 4-16K of rom and
2-8k of ram followed by (for the ones I have) a WD1010 MFM chip set and
TTL ST506 interface or maybe
the WD11C00 ST506 D interface chipset. The rest is software that does
three major things, SCSI protocol
and interface management, SCSI command structure(read write and
housekeeping), and the needed
routines to read, write and manage the disk hardware and the drive
itself. All on a board that fits in the
common (then) 5.25 footprint. These were emerging soon after the
WD1001HDO as the naucent SASI
bus that later would be come SCSI in all its flavors.
SCSI to IDE..
First why IDE, IDE drives are still available and CF or solid state IDE
is the same interface and parts in the 32MB
to many GB range are available.
A bridge board for SCSI to anything will look the same as most of the
boards already known save for
the one area gets way simpler. the scsi interface can still be done
with TTL, Z80 or 8085s are easily found
in small volumes, Eprom/flash for fixed storage is easy and same for Ram
though a few K is all thats needed
such as a 2116 or maybe 2164. The departure is that the whole disk
interface just goes away and can be
replaces with a trivial bit of TTL to interface to IDE/CF as the "DISK
and interface".
Fundamentally the IDE interface was the WD1003(remember that) and a MFM
drive amalgamated into one
so that the PC bus could literally be connected to the IDE (integrated
electronics disk) directly. Well, it was
never direct as engineers decided a little buffering and decoding of the
PC bus was needed but that was
very trivial. It became a standard. The IDE command set is the WD1003
command set though later
versions allowed for LBA instead of CHS and a few extensions. So what
does that ahve to do with SCSI...
Well, if you can put the whole WD1001HDO or 1003equivilent on the drive
then the interface is ready for
CPU/ram/rom to do intelligent interfaces like SASI and SCSI. Due to
miniaturization in the same time frame
the SCSI to IDE was skipped as the SCSI interface with all the
electronics could be put on the drive.
So what we have been talking about is revisiting the SCSI to IDE bridge
that never emerged as it was a
evolutionary step never needed. Until now.
So to do this all was need to do is build the SCSI interface with TTL or
a FPGA to CPU, add the cpu plus some
ram and rom and then employ the common and electronically simple IDE
interface to add the drive . The drive
could easily be a IDE drive or CF, MMD, FLASH but the idea is the host
interface to whatever. this whole thing
can be done with common parts and need not include ASICs or FPGA, gal or
other programmable logic outside
of Eproms. Parts like an ARM with integrated peripherals are appealing
for this as they offer speed and
may limit the needed external hardware but mounting a BGA or TQFP is at
best unappealing to out of
reach. Additionally many older systems that use SCSI do not stress the
performance needed and a z80
or 8085 is fast enough. Plenty of people have built 8085 or z80 to IDE
so this is known and in the public
domain. there are examples of Z80 to SCSI using nothing but TTL and
software the Visual 1050 used
that and there are others.
So SCSI to IDE is electrically fairly simple. The software is harder to
call but if a z80 with 4k Eprom
could do SCSI to MFM and IDE is simpler or minimally similar to the MFM
chip sets the task should
be about the same magnitude. I don't presume to know all of SCSI but
the AmproLB+ had a CPM
Bios that spoke SCSI to a SCSI hard disk so there is code there and
likely other places to use. I also
had to rewrite it to go from a SCSI bridge with 10mb drive to a 45mb
SCSI drive so there is no
real mystery there. The tasks that need to be performed are likely not
many or complex and it
would only take a spec for a SCSI drive to find out what those commands
and actions would be.
So if SCSI drive supplies went away that's a solution. Myself I'm not
planning on doing it as I have dozens
of SCSI drives in the 45mb to 1.3GB range (DEC RZ2x, RZ55,RZ56 and
Barcudas) to insure my needs. I also
made a point to collect SCSI drives with failed media and electronics as
they can be used to reeanimate
a similar dead drive. On the other front I have a boxes (imagine two 10
ream paper boxes) of IDE drives
in the 10mb to 500mb range and a smaller collection of 1gb to 80gb
drives pulled from those PCs people
just toss. Since I also maintain DEC systems a significant pile of 5mb
to 31mb drives of the ST506, 512 and
Q540(AKA rd52), RD53 and a few RD54 drives. Sure some might fail from
sitting, I've not seen that. Also
drives with known poor histories (as a family) have been eliminated by
use to extinction already, for example
ST251s and JST and some flavors of WD and Segates. Oddly enough the
oldest is a ST506 that refuses to quit
and it's been used hard for a long time. I also have a lot of the
RD53s with the head stick problem
(micropolos 1325s) I've fixed all and they all have long use that says
for that class of drive opening them
without doing the extremes of a clean room has no ill effect.
The only bridge ibe interested in is Q-bus MSCP to IDE/CF/MMD/FLASH to
fill the need in the DEC space as
Q-bus to anything is not well filled with cheap anything especially the
RQDXn series Q-bus to MFM.
In the end If I had to and I didn't have the SCSI spares I see no great
difficulty in wire wrapping a
SCSI to IDE bridge. Some research would be be needed to unsure the
board implemented the SCSI drive
it replaces but if the drive existed the spec should be on hand anyway.
I'm rather pragmatic and practical
on all this as much of the hardware I have has 20+ years of my
experience as well and is maintainable
for a long time to come. When it comes to the system people are
worrying drives when Power supplies,
and a whole host of other subsystems are also likely to fail. Systems
become unsupportable when the
sum total of the parts has an item that has become unobtainium and there
for unrepairable if failed.
Allison
Anyone who has come up with ideas, i'd encourage you to move forward
with at least a theory or virtual model, if not a physical device.
How hard would it be to make an adapter from SCSI (or laptop IDE) to
SD cards (the ones all these digital cameras use)? I figure there will
be millions of those things in the 256MB to several GB range (perfect
for old systems), they should be fast enough, small enough, and about
worthless plus easy to ship cheaply. People are using IDE to CF
adapters but it seems to be SD is more common and much smaller.
9:08 a.m.
On 12/2/2010 1:28 AM, Teo Zenios wrote:
----- Original Message ----- From: "joe lobocki" <jlobocki at gmail.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2010 12:38 PM
Subject: Re: SCSI to IDE
I believe if the appropriate pin is grounded on power up, the CF card
interface is exactly an IDE interface. In this mode the adapter is just
a couple of connectors and a bunch of conductors - usually etch of
course. Thus the adapter is really just compensating for the connector
differences. I think that is why they are relatively inexpensive.
You're right about SD cards replacing CF. Not too long back I bought a
good sized CF card for my still very serviceable Canon G3 camera since I
fear the CF cards will shortly become more difficult to find.
SD cards are attractive in many ways. For one thing, they can be
accessed via an SPI interface which saves some I/O pins on that end.
Since I really know nothing about SCSI, I don't know if that is a good
approach for a SCSI/SD adapter or not. I wonder if there are any real
time requirements in a SCSI interface that would be impacted by talking
to the SD card in a bit serial fashion.
Later,
Charlie C.
Well alright then, if its just a flame war I wont
bother bringing it
up. Just thought it would be an interesting idea, a way to keep the
machines running in the future with a cheap media when scsi becomes
unavailable or too expensive because of its rarity.
Anyone who has come up with ideas, i'd encourage you to move forward
with at least a theory or virtual model, if not a physical device.
How hard would it be to make an adapter from SCSI (or laptop IDE) to SD
cards (the ones all these digital cameras use)? I figure there will be
millions of those things in the 256MB to several GB range (perfect for
old systems), they should be fast enough, small enough, and about
worthless plus easy to ship cheaply. People are using IDE to CF adapters
but it seems to be SD is more common and much smaller.
2:37 p.m.
SD cards are attractive in many ways. For one thing,
they can be accessed
via an SPI interface which saves some I/O pins on that end. Since I really
know nothing about SCSI, I don't know if that is a good approach for a
SCSI/SD adapter or not. I wonder if there are any real time requirements
in a SCSI interface that would be impacted by talking to the SD card in a
bit serial fashion.
HDSD cards are speedy enough to be used as SCSI drives. I think how
command queueing would work, but being a "for fun" project, I believe things
can be implemented, one by one.
I'm studying whatever I can find about SCSI. Seems I'll dive deep on
this project as soon as I can get my lab back. I want to have my name
remembered by the comunity he he he :o)
4 Dec
4 Dec
11:33 a.m.
SD cards are attractive in many ways. For one thing,
they can be
accessed via an SPI interface which saves some I/O pins on that end.
Since I really know nothing about SCSI, I don't know if that is a good
approach for a SCSI/SD adapter or not. I wonder if there are any real
time requirements in a SCSI interface that would be impacted by talking
to the SD card in a bit serial fashion.
As far as I know, there is nothing in the SCSI spec that specifies a
minimum data rate or a maximum seek time. Soyou could even read 1 byte
out of an SD card and then send it over the SCSI interfce, and then do
the net byte, and so on. It would probably be better to buffer a 'sector'
in RAM on the microcontroller, and then transfer the buffer to the SCSI
interface.
However, it's entirely possible that some OSes will moan if the device is
too slow because they will assuem there's a hardware failure. However, I
would think the time taken to read/write a 'sector' from an SD card would
nopt be any longer than the seek time of some hard drives. So there
should be no problem.
-tony
12:20 p.m.
On 12/04/2010 02:33 PM, Tony Duell wrote:
Correct, same for IDE and CF. though in those cases you poll or wait
interrupt for ready. Or in the SCSI case wait for ATN (poll or interrupt).
The oddity is that SCSI treats block IO the same if slow data rate or to
the medium limit. generally slow can be very slow.
Sector buffering is not needed for SCSI, CF, SD or IDE as all have their
own local buffers
and for the SCSI and IDE those buffers are a minimum of one cylinder in
size (for the oldest drives)
and for later drive can be many hundreds of KB or even several MB.
However, it can help if the controller is doing a interleaved operations
as block Io overhead is generally lower that byte IO.
So the performance is really define in the bridge device rather than the
end
storage devices up to the slowest in the pipeline(bottlnecking).
SD cards are
attractive in many ways. For one thing, they can be
accessed via an SPI interface which saves some I/O pins on that end.
Since I really know nothing about SCSI, I don't know if that is a good
approach for a SCSI/SD adapter or not. I wonder if there are any real
time requirements in a SCSI interface that would be impacted by talking
to the SD card in a bit serial fashion.
As far as I know, there is nothing in the SCSI spec that specifies a
minimum data rate or a maximum seek time. Soyou could even read 1 byte
out of an SD card and then send it over the SCSI interfce, and then do
the net byte, and so on. It would probably be better to buffer a 'sector'
in RAM on the microcontroller, and then transfer the buffer to the SCSI
interface.
However, it's entirely possible that some OSes
will moan if the device is
too slow because they will assuem there's a hardware failure. However, I
would think the time taken to read/write a 'sector' from an SD card would
nopt be any longer than the seek time of some hard drives. So there
should be no problem.
Possible but not likely as most would assume speeds typical for the time
(slow) and even slow SD cards are faster than that.
Speed in the scsi to anything case is rarely an issue beyond the fact that
slow devices will be a performance bottleneck. But for systems using
SCSI or SCSI1 we are not talking data rates exceeding a few hundred
Kb/Second.
Where CF and SD cards will excel even with slower data rates they have
no real seek time and for typical disks seek to data rate is usually
defining
the performance for transfers greater than one cylinder (typically 20k to
100Kbyts depending on vintage).
Allison
12:31 p.m.
On 4 Dec 2010 at 19:33, Tony Duell wrote:
As far as I know, there is nothing in the SCSI spec
that specifies a
minimum data rate or a maximum seek time. Soyou could even read 1 byte
out of an SD card and then send it over the SCSI interfce, and then do
the net byte, and so on. It would probably be better to buffer a
'sector' in RAM on the microcontroller, and then transfer the buffer
to the SCSI interface.
There's an excellent argument for heavily cache-ing SD card accesses
when using it as a hard disk--to minimize repeated writes to a block
(usually 16K) of SDRAM to extend longevity of the medium--and to
defer much slower writes as much as possible for performance reasons.
If reading speed was an issue, one could employ the faster 4-bit
access to SD rather than the simpler and much slower SPI mode that's
usually used for slow embedded applications.
--Chuck
12:50 p.m.
If reading speed was an issue, one could employ the
faster 4-bit
access to SD rather than the simpler and much slower SPI mode that's
usually used for slow embedded applications.
Hey people, c'mon?!
SD Card speeds:
---8<---cut here---8<---
Speed Class Rating
The Speed Class Rating is the official unit of speed measurement for SD
Cards, defined by the SD Association. The Class number represents a multiple
of 8 Mb/s (1 MB/s), and meets the least sustained write speeds for a card in
a fragmented state.[12]
These are the ratings of some currently available cards:[12]
a.. Class 0 cards do not specify performance, which includes all legacy
cards prior to class specifications.
b.. Class 2, 2 MB/s, slowest for SDHC cards.
c.. Class 4, 4 MB/s.
d.. Class 6, 6 MB/s.
e.. Class 10, 10 MB/s.
---8<---cut here---8<---
Ok, now to SCSI specs
---8<---cut here---8<---
SCSI-1: 5MB/s
Fast SCSI: 10MB/s
Fast-Wide SCSI: 10MB/s
Ultra SCSI: 20MB/s
Ultra-Wide SCSI: 40MB/s
---8<---cut here---8<---
So...
- I hope I can develop a SCSI bridge that can move 10MB/s, because I
doubt a normal Atmel XMega will be capable of that.
- If I can design a fast enough circuit, I can use a Class 10 card and
will have 10MB/s.
- Since it will be a hard disk emulator, and not a SD Card reader, I can
have TWO interleaved cards on the bridge, so making 20MB/s easy
- We are talking old computers here. What do you use about CLASSIC
computing that goes beyond Fast-Wide SCSI?
- Not all people are capable of begin big.
- Maybe with ARM microcontrollers, Ultra2Wide can be achived. Who knows?
Time to define DOWN TO EARTH specs and begin working :)
Greetings from Brazil,
Alexandre SOuza
2:56 p.m.
On 4 Dec 2010 at 18:50, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote:
Speed Class Rating
The Speed Class Rating is the official unit of speed measurement for
SD Cards, defined by the SD Association. The Class number represents a
multiple of 8 Mb/s (1 MB/s), and meets the least sustained write
speeds for a card in a fragmented state.
Using SPI, 400KB/sec is about the top rate for read, 200KB/sec for
write. If you can get 1MB/sec write speed, more power to you. Most
uC implementations get substantially less.
Most first-timers trying to wring performance using SPI out of an
SDHC are surprised by the low transfer rate.
Cache-ing would help a lot.
--Chuck
7:43 p.m.
On 12/04/2010 03:50 PM, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote:
Assumes the full speed was used. Often not most of the SCSI to MFM
controllers
I have (adaptex, WD, Xybec) were limited to what the drives could do and
thats
maybe 5MB peak but sustained more like 400kbyts/S. Considering all of them
run 4mhz z80s even thats likely to be unlikely.
I have an AIC4070 Adaptec SCSI to MFM card loose. The core is a 8085
running
3mhz (6mhz crystal) and the memory is a mere 256bytes (8156= 256ram,
22-IO pins
and timer) and the EProm a 2764. There are two asics one to do part of
the MFM disk
interface the other looks to be part of the MFM plus some added IO
function. a pair of
2148s supplied and additional 2k of ram likely as a sector buffer.
An 8085 would be hard pressed to do about 85kbytes second without a DMA
assist.
The DMA Bus speed being processor speed that put the bus in the 3mbyte/S
range maximum.
None of the bridge boards or early (sub 150mb) SCSI disks ran at SCSI
bus speeds.
However the design does show that the cpu and core facilities need not
be big/fast.
The Xybec is a 4mhz Z80, 2116, 2764 and 5380(scsi) and WD asics for MFM
disk.
I pulled these as reference designs.
Drives that are of the era arfe using tms320 and 80c196 cpus (1gb
baracuda class)
and the buffers are in the 256K but that includes LRU cache and cylinder
buffering.
And older RZ23 had a 68hc11,27256 and a 6165 (8k ram) plus a 256Kx8 dram
for
cache and buffer. The basic CPU can be a bench mark for performance.
So those numbers are more about what the BUS was spec'ed to do and not
what actual
devices did.
If reading
speed was an issue, one could employ the faster 4-bit
access to SD rather than the simpler and much slower SPI mode that's
usually used for slow embedded applications.
Hey people, c'mon?!
SD Card speeds:
---8<---cut here---8<---
Speed Class Rating
The Speed Class Rating is the official unit of speed measurement for
SD Cards, defined by the SD Association. The Class number represents a
multiple of 8 Mb/s (1 MB/s), and meets the least sustained write
speeds for a card in a fragmented state.[12]
These are the ratings of some currently available cards:[12]
a.. Class 0 cards do not specify performance, which includes all
legacy cards prior to class specifications.
b.. Class 2, 2 MB/s, slowest for SDHC cards.
c.. Class 4, 4 MB/s.
d.. Class 6, 6 MB/s.
e.. Class 10, 10 MB/s.
---8<---cut here---8<---
Ok, now to SCSI specs
---8<---cut here---8<---
SCSI-1: 5MB/s Fast SCSI: 10MB/s
Fast-Wide SCSI: 10MB/s
Ultra SCSI: 20MB/s
Ultra-Wide SCSI: 40MB/s
---8<---cut here---8<---
So...
- I hope I can develop a SCSI bridge that can move 10MB/s, because
I doubt a normal Atmel XMega will be capable of that.
The atmega might if you go for te fastest part and write tight code.
the problem is it will be waiting for the
SD as they are generally not that fast (it would have to be class 6).
- If I can design a fast enough circuit, I can use
a Class 10 card
and will have 10MB/s.
Why not CF, they are faster. and also IDE can be used.
- Since it will be a hard disk emulator, and not a SD Card reader,
I can have TWO interleaved cards on the bridge, so making 20MB/s easy
Not so fast. SD cards are not like rams/roms and running them
interleaved is going to take a
lot to sync them. It's also a storage management problem. The overhead
will assure that
you get less than twice.
- We are talking old computers here. What do you
use about CLASSIC
computing that goes beyond Fast-Wide SCSI?
- Not all people are capable of begin big.
- Maybe with ARM microcontrollers, Ultra2Wide can be achived. Who
knows?
Time to define DOWN TO EARTH specs and begin working :)
If one is deperate for a drive to run a system then modest speeds that
are in the z80/6mhz
range and SD class 2 are more likely and probably faster on average than
most under
200mb drives were. To replace a 1.07gb Baracuda, thin more like a a CPU
that can do
multiple MIPS of IO performance or faster. The best a Z80 can do with
DMA is 4mbytes/S
and a 8085AH with DMA (8237H) is around 5mb/S. To faster than
SCSI-2your need a
100mhz ARM DMA support (if not on the ARM) and lots of fast everything.
FYI a quick check found plenty of Seagate Barcudas in the 1gb range.
Not cheap but
not scarce either. DEC RZ series drives were easy to find too. If you
looking at fast wide
or faster those are still available. It doesnt look worth the effort at
this time to do faster
than base SCSI.
Allison
9:22 p.m.
On 12/4/2010 2:31 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 4 Dec 2010 at 19:33, Tony Duell wrote:
That's a very good
point. I was rather naively thinking of a vintage
system that is used only very occasionally. That notion may be valid in
some instances, but obviously not always. If you are going to be doing
much writing to the flash, I think you would need to do flash wear
leveling in the bridge device. If you are running an OS which (like
some I could mention) seem to access the disk drive fairly frequently
for no apparent reason (reading? writing? I'm never sure) then you
should probably not consider using a flash drive at all unless you have
enough RAM to make most of the writing unseen by the flash. Then of
course you must be sure the write from RAM to flash occurs when power is
about to be lost. This is starting to sound pretty complicated. I'm
sure most of the new SSD's take all of that into account. Maybe what is
really needed is a SCSI to SATA bridge. :-)
Later,
Charlie C.
--and to
As far as I know, there is nothing in the SCSI
spec that specifies a
minimum data rate or a maximum seek time. Soyou could even read 1 byte
out of an SD card and then send it over the SCSI interfce, and then do
the net byte, and so on. It would probably be better to buffer a
'sector' in RAM on the microcontroller, and then transfer the buffer
to the SCSI interface.
There's an excellent argument for heavily cache-ing SD card accesses
when using it as a hard disk--to minimize repeated writes to a block
(usually 16K) of SDRAM to extend longevity of the medium defer much slower writes as much as possible for
performance reasons.
If reading speed was an issue, one could employ the faster 4-bit
access to SD rather than the simpler and much slower SPI mode that's
usually used for slow embedded applications.
--Chuck
1 Dec
1 Dec
6:14 p.m.
Excellent plan!
On Mon, 29 Nov 2010, Chris Elmquist wrote:
Maybe someone should invent a SCSI target board (old, parallel SCSI
interface) that turns it into iSCSI initiator over ethernet on the
other side and then your actual disk is anything you can connect to a
Linux box or other server running iSCSI target host code. Now you can
have multiple old systems connecting to your storage pool, which would
essentially be a SAN made from a Linux box.
--
Chris Elmquist
4905
days inactive
4911
days old
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