19 May
1999
19 May
'99
12:59 p.m.
OK, the names are:
19. - David Heiserman
Programming in BASIC for the IBM Personal Computer,
1984, Prentice-Hall, hardcover
$4
20. - George Markowsky
A Comprehensive Guide to the IBM PC, 1984, Prentice-Hall, softcover
really comprehensive
$5
21. - Louis Nashelsky & Rober Boylestad
IBM PC/XT BASIC Programming, 1984, Prentice-Hall, softcover
cute book with nice photographs
$2
22. - David Bradley
Assembly Language Programming for the IBM PC, 1984, Prentice-Hall, hardcover
an exceptional intro to assembly language programming for beginners
$5
23. - Seamus Dunn & Valerie Morgan
The Apple PC for Beginners, 1982, Prentice-Hall, hardcover
a basic book with an outstanding cover - a must for Apple collectors
$4
24. - Vincent Kassab
Apple IIe BASIC programming with Technical Applications,
1985, Prentice-Hall, softcover
$2
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------
Kevin Stumpf * Unusual systems * www.unusual.on.ca
+1.519.744.2900 * EST/EDT GMT - 5
Collector - Commercial Mainframes & Minicomputers from
the 50s, 60s, & 70s and control panels and consoles.
Author & Publisher - A Guide to Collecting Computers &
Computer Collectibles * ISBN 0-9684244-0-6
.
19 May
19 May
4:14 p.m.
New subject: FS: Review copies of books about microprocessors and microcomputers.
Once upon a midnight dreary, Unusual systems had spoken clearly:
OK, the names are:
[snip]
Do you still have any of the 68K stuff available?
Thanks,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger --- sysadmin, Iceberg Computers
Recycling is good, right??? Ok, so I'll recycle an old .sig.
If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead
disarmament should *not* be your first career choice.
7:51 p.m.
New subject: The Northstar Boots!!! (LONG)
Just wanted to share that the Northstar Horizon I've been hacking
off and on for two years booted tonight. I was able to load up
NDOS 5.1 and run BASIC on it! I was leaping to and fro! =-D
I've messed with it occasionally with the goal of getting it to
work and always got frustrated at my inability to get some kind
of variation in behavior out of it. This time, starting on
Saturday, I approached it not caring if I got it working or not.
I decided I just wanted to learn about S100 boxes, Z80 stuff
and general troubleshooting.
Currently it's configured as a N* Horizon with two serial ports,
the later model CPU card, an MDS-AD3 disk controller, 1 Shugart
SA400 floppy drive and a Northstar 16k (A2 version) RAM board.
I have an A3 version board but one of the bypass caps is broken
in two and I don't trust it anyway.
(For your amusement, I was using a 4meg Mac SE as a terminal.)
At any rate, it turns out that if you follow the troubleshooting
flowcharts (written not diagrams) in the N* manuals, you can really
isolate problems down alot. Turns out that it's been booting for
two days but the serial ports are configured for a 3 wire interface
and REALLY HATE anything else. I put in a breakout box with only
a 3 wire and *poof* it gives me the NDOS banner and a prompt.
There's still some flakiness I have to explore. I walked upstairs
to announce my breakthrough to my wife and came back down and noticed
some garbage on the screen (not random per se) and that it had become
unresponsive to the terminal. Hitting reset did not solve the problem.
Powering it down and rebooting did, however. And then it seemed to
straighten itself out. I'm not sure if it's a warmup thing, a static
thing (which it shouldn't be), poor filtering on the PS or what.
I intend to increase available memory with some nice boards I have,
swap out the single SA400 for some other less scarce standard floppy
drives, configure so I can boot CP/M and add a Disk Jockey 2D and a
nice 8" drive I have.
Now I just need to find some hard-sectored disks for it. *frown*
But I'm very excited about S100 and find that I like it ALOT.
Just wanted to share my enthusiasm with the group.
Anthony Clifton
20 May
20 May
3:40 a.m.
New subject: The Northstar Boots!!! (LONG)
off and on for two years booted tonight. I was able
to load up
NDOS 5.1 and run BASIC on it! I was leaping to and fro! =-D
Mazel Tov!
the later model CPU card, an MDS-AD3 disk controller,
1 Shugart
LAter cpu card??? The only one I know is the ZPB...
SA400 floppy drive and a Northstar 16k (A2 version)
RAM board.
I have an A3 version board but one of the bypass caps is broken
in two and I don't trust it anyway.
The -a3 was better but the 16k design was poor, though once gotten working
they tended to stay that way.
flowcharts (written not diagrams) in the N* manuals,
you can really
isolate problems down alot. Turns out that it's been booting for
two days but the serial ports are configured for a 3 wire interface
and REALLY HATE anything else. I put in a breakout box with only
a 3 wire and *poof* it gives me the NDOS banner and a prompt.
Yes their docs are sparse but do have useful info as a payback.
unresponsive to the terminal. Hitting reset did not
solve the problem.
Powering it down and rebooting did, however. And then it seemed to
straighten itself out. I'm not sure if it's a warmup thing, a static
thing (which it shouldn't be), poor filtering on the PS or what.
Bad ram card. The dynamic ram is not refreshing correctly and forgetting.
That is the high probability guess. Try a different ram now that your up.
PS filtering may be a problem if the broken cap is on the ram card.
OH, AND MAKE A BACKUP OF THE SYSTEM DISK!!!
But I'm very excited about S100 and find that I
like it ALOT.
The NS* is a very capable machine and well designed.
NOTE: while it's s100 it is NOT IEEE696 compatable and will not work with
some cards (many compupro controllers, their ram is ok) without some
simple mods. It's design window is 1977 and many of the later 696 cards
are of the post 1980 design window. Just a heads up, they all can be made
to work with care but don't always expect plug it in and go.
Allison
9191
days inactive
9192
days old
3 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
-
allisonp＠world.std.com -
kstumpf＠unusual.on.ca -
wirehead＠retrocomputing.com -
zmerch＠30below.com