20 Sep
2012
20 Sep
'12
4:29 p.m.
one 40 pin chip's id is obliterated, the other is an SCN8035A (a uP). Toshiba
TMM2016-AP10, 2 roms. Lots of glue. 18.0000 mhz? crystal. A weird squarish gray connector
on the bracket. 8 bit ISA.
20 Sep
20 Sep
8:49 p.m.
On 20 Sep 2012 at 16:29, Chris Tofu wrote:
one 40 pin chip's id is obliterated, the other is
an SCN8035A (a uP).
Toshiba TMM2016-AP10, 2 roms. Lots of glue. 18.0000 mhz? crystal. A
weird squarish gray connector on the bracket. 8 bit ISA.
Connector is 50 pin? It's a tape controller, probably QIC02. Don't
know anything else about it.
--Chuck
21 Sep
21 Sep
1:25 p.m.
On 20 Sep 2012 at 16:29, Chris Tofu wrote:
I doubt it. It is probably a tape controller, but QIC02 is a 'formatteed'
interface, and ineerfacign that to the ISA bus is trival -- a dozen TTL
chips/
I would guess it's QIC36, which is a low-level 'unformatted' interface. I
have seen simialr QIC 36 boards for the ISA bus, A micorprocessor or
microcotnroller , EPROM, 2K or 8K of SRAM, a custom 40 pin tape data
control IC and glue logic. Often internally they are built as
ISA-QIC02 and QIC02-QIC36 interfaces on the same board. In fact I ahve a
QIC02 to QIC36 interfce here that usese the same custom IC as a common
ISA QIC36 controller (guess where I get spares from :-)).
-tony
one 40 pin chip's id is obliterated, the
other is an SCN8035A (a uP).
Toshiba TMM2016-AP10, 2 roms. Lots of glue. 18.0000 mhz? crystal. A
weird squarish gray connector on the bracket. 8 bit ISA.
Connector is 50 pin? It's a tape controller, probably QIC02. Don't
know anything else about it.
3:22 p.m.
On 21 Sep 2012 at 21:25, Tony Duell wrote:
I doubt it. It is probably a tape controller, but
QIC02 is a
'formatteed' interface, and ineerfacign that to the ISA bus is trival
-- a dozen TTL chips/
I would guess it's QIC36, which is a low-level 'unformatted'
interface. I have seen simialr QIC 36 boards for the ISA bus, A
micorprocessor or microcotnroller , EPROM, 2K or 8K of SRAM, a custom
40 pin tape data control IC and glue logic. Often internally they are
built as ISA-QIC02 and QIC02-QIC36 interfaces on the same board. In
fact I ahve a QIC02 to QIC36 interfce here that usese the same custom
IC as a common ISA QIC36 controller (guess where I get spares from
:-)).
I don't know, Tony. I've got a couple of QIC36 boards; two are
Wangtek QIC36-to-ISA, the other is a Wangtek QIC36-to-QIC02
converter. Both have a substantial number of chips, including an MPU
(8085 in all cases) as well as some analog circuitry for what I
suspect is a data separator, SRAM and ROM. That seems to me to be a
bit beyond the capabilities of an 8035 MCU.
So, let''s see what the World-Wide-Intertube says. The only relevant
mention I can find of the Sysgen 4540 is in connection with a Wangtek
5096E drive. The 5096E (-ES for SCSI versions) is definitely a
QIC-02 interface drive.
So there you go...
--Chuck
.
22 Sep
22 Sep
11:33 a.m.
I would guess
it's QIC36, which is a low-level 'unformatted'
interface. I have seen simialr QIC 36 boards for the ISA bus, A
micorprocessor or microcotnroller , EPROM, 2K or 8K of SRAM, a custom
40 pin tape data control IC and glue logic. Often internally they are
built as ISA-QIC02 and QIC02-QIC36 interfaces on the same board. In
fact I ahve a QIC02 to QIC36 interfce here that usese the same custom
IC as a common ISA QIC36 controller (guess where I get spares from
:-)).
I don't know, Tony. I've got a couple of QIC36 boards; two are
Wangtek QIC36-to-ISA, the other is a Wangtek QIC36-to-QIC02
converter. Both have a substantial number of chips, including an MPU (8085 in all cases) as well as some analog circuitry
for what I
suspect is a data separator, SRAM and ROM. That seems to me to be a
bit beyond the capabilities of an 8035 MCU.
The Archive Sidewidner (an wear QIC drive, with an 8" floppy drive form
factor) was a QIC 36 unti with a QIC-02-QIC36 interface tagged onto it.
IRIC< there's an 8048 i nthe drive and another one in the controller. But
that controller has a lot of otehr chips (including a PLL as a data
separator IIRC). It's actually 2 PCBs, each about the size of an SA800
logic board.
So, yes, I so agree that doing a QIC-02-QIC36 converter in an 8035 with
not tht much more is possible impossible.
I do wonder why you would need a micorcontorller, RAM, etc on a QIC-02
card, though. the QIC-02 interfaces I've come across (for the PERQ, for
ISA, etc) are just a few simple logic chisp. Maybe a PAL fdor address
decoding.
I wonder if this card does some kind of data buffering. That could use a
microcontroller.
-tony
12:02 p.m.
________________________________
From: Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
I wonder if this card does some kind of data buffering. That could use a
microcontroller.
-tony
C: Is there any possibility this card is for something else entirely? I entertained the
notion that it's a floppy disk controller (for 8" drives!). Otherwise I
wouldn't care. Never used tape drives.
?I know, I'm dreaming.
12:25 p.m.
On 22 Sep 2012 at 19:33, Tony Duell wrote:
I wonder if this card does some kind of data
buffering. That could use
a microcontroller.
That was my suspicion. Performance of QIC drives on 4.77MHz 8088
machines can be somewhat anemic. As you know, starving a streamer is
not a great idea, so any buffering would help.
--Chuck
23 Sep
23 Sep
11:37 a.m.
On 22 Sep 2012 at 19:33, Tony Duell wrote:
Indeed yes. The QIC-02 interfce, being a formatted interface, doesn;t
depend on the data rate, but if it can't transfer data fast enough to
prevent the data buffer in the tape drive from overflowing on a read, or
emptying o na write, the resultas are unpleasant (and not waht you might
intitiall expect). The drive starts 'washing machining' [1]. It reads a
block, the buffer fills, it reads the next block, etc. When the buffer
gets full, the tape doesn't stop instantly. It overruns. So the drive has
to stop, rewind, read that block again when the host has emptied the
buffer a bit. Perfomace goes throgu hthe floor. And wear on tape, ehads
and drive motor goes throguh the roof.
[1] Think of the motion of the agitator in an old-fashioned top-loader
washing machine.
The Archive sidewinder came in 2 versions, 30 ips and 90ips. the former
was used wit hte PERQ. If you use the latter, it washing-machines like
mad. I once covereted one from 90ips to 30 ips (a matter of fitting an
extra flip-flop IC on the controller board, changing a few jumpers, and
replacing lots of pasisbves in the data separator and read filter
sections, and then setting the whole thing up. I also used a Wangtek
90ips drive with my PERQ for a time. I found I could improve peformance
a lot, and get it to stop and rewind less frequently, by upgrading the
data buffer on the QIC02-QIC36 card from 2K to 8K. This was a matter of
changing the SRAM chip and moving a link IIRC.
-tony
I wonder if this card does some kind of data
buffering. That could use
a microcontroller.
That was my suspicion. Performance of QIC drives on 4.77MHz 8088
machines can be somewhat anemic. As you know, starving a streamer is
not a great idea, so any buffering would help.
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