On Wed, 2004-05-26 at 21:18, jim wrote: Unfortunately a) I'd quite like the ease of moving this between a few machines and b) I have one application in mind that would require the target device (I'm not planning on having more than the one device + host controller on the bus at once) to be able to be switched off with the machine to which it is connected remaining on. I couldn't be certain I could get away with that when using a dedicated SCSI controller, but with a parallel port solution it's less of an issue. I'm not sure if I'm going to hit timeout problems if things aren't fast enough. So far in the documentation I have here there's only mention of needing certain signals asserted for a minimum period of time - no mention if there's an upper limit. (The manual for the Omti bridge board I have here is actually pretty good and gives a nice overview of SCSI with timing diagrams etc. - I suppose it was pitched at people building systems where there wasn't necessarily an existing SCSI host controller available) Of course most 8bit machines in the 80's with SCSI controllers did everything in software and the hardware was just a few buffers and the like. I don't know the theoretical transfer rate of a modern PC parallel port, but it can't be that much worse than the data bus speed on an 8 bit micro using a software-driven SCSI controller which would have to be servicing the display etc. at the same time. In other words, I'm hopeful I can get something going :) Raw transfer speed isn't an issue, so using the response-per-byte method of data transfer (giving me around 1Mb/s transfer if I'm lucky I think) should be fine. That's useful to know if I do go for a 'smart' controller approach - one of the problems I'm finding with some of these older device boards is that they were made when the SCSI spec was a little vague, so they don't support things now taken for granted like the inquiry command. Unfortunately all the modern SCSI boards I have are Adaptec and use the same chipset - Linux Adaptec drivers expect inquiry to work and mark the device offline at boot if it doesn't, but because I'd have active modern OS disks on the same system sharing the same driver I don't want to go hacking the driver to death. I really need two SCSI controllers in the system from different manufacturers, then I could use one to host the modern OS disk and the other to use for messing around with drivers and the like against. cheers, Jules

Wai-Sun> Hello list, Is it possible to boot a 11/04 (16kW core) Wai-Sun> without any drives? Wai-Sun> This may just be fantasizing.. 1. Connect a PC to the PDP Wai-Sun> via the console 2. Have a program (a'la vtserver) serve out Wai-Sun> a disk image 3. Toggle in a bootstrap loader to load from Wai-Sun> that virtual disk 4. Jump to start of image Wai-Sun> Possible? Yes, depending on the operating system. In particular, RSX-11/S is exactly that -- a diskless OS. It's designed to be loaded over the network. If you have a comm device that can support MOP, you may be able to find a bootROM that can do this directly (and MOP servers are available on the net). Similarly, there are some PDP-11 based embedded systems that are diskless; some terminal servers, for example. (There was LAT-11 -- did that become a product?) Most other PDP-11 operating systems require local block storage, though. Usually a disk -- RT-11 will also work with local DECtape as the only storage, if you're patient. Oh yes, if you go WAY back, there are the paper tape based systems, not really enough to call it an OS -- something called IOX for example. I know nothing more than the name and I haven't seen any docs. There are paper tape images for it on bitsavers.org/DEC/pdp11. paul

On Thu, 27 May 2004, Wai-Sun Chia wrote: Very possible. That is how Xinu worked, and how various of my "fun things" work. --f

On Sat, Aug 21, 2004 at 06:56:37PM -0700, SHAUN RIPLEY wrote: That's *huge*. Definitely not standard AT-sized. Unfortunately for me, I only have i960s in PGA, not any i860s. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 22-Aug-2004 02:00 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -84.5 F (-64.8 C) Windchill -128.9 F (-89.40 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 13.8 kts Grid 047 Barometer 676.6 mb (10756 ft) Ethan.Dicks(a)amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html

At 09:19 PM 8/21/2004, Tom Hudson wrote: Oh, you *are* *that* Tom Hudson! I'd read your posts here for the last few months wondering if. Remember me? I wrote a 3D translator for Win/Amiga/SGI, supported .3D and .3D2, wrote the first .3DS converter, wrote among the first 3DS plug-ins, etc. And I probably still have a few Design Disks in shrink-wrap in the basement if you want them. When did you move to Port Washington? - John

Reminds me of the Hauppauge 4860 board. Yes, the same company that makes the WinTV boards. Actually, not too far from where I am (I live in Hauppage, NY). It also contained a 486 + i860 processors. Briefly had one in my hands several years ago. Very cool board, but wasn't a monster like this one. Cheers, Ram -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces(a)classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of SHAUN RIPLEY Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2004 9:57 PM To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org Subject: Interesting 486 motherboard that accepts an I860 Interesting 486 motherboard that accepts an I860, <http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1244&item=6702700769 __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

Am 21 Aug 2004 18:56 meinte SHAUN RIPLEY: looks like a prety of the shelf 486 EISA Server board. Gruss H. -- VCF Europa 6.0 am 30.April und 01.Mai 2005 in Muenchen http://www.vcfe.org/