21 Sep
1998
21 Sep
'98
5:38 a.m.
At 01:16 21-09-98 -0400, you wrote:
Can't agree more with you on that William!
Less S/370s out there? I would think, since they are more recent vintage,
there would be more. Any reason why? I'll keep my eyes peeled for you though.
Anybody know
where I can get an IBM 360/30?
No. And I would _seriously_ drive across the country to get any S/360 or
370. Maybe even for an S/3 or S/7. It would be fun to port Linux
to that, although the lack of paging would be a bit of a problem. One of
the cool things about the 360/30 is that you can alter the microcode using
a standard keypuch machine.
A real problem, I would say. The Model 30s were just about the runts of
the family, and could only have 8 to 64 K of storage.
I would think that putting Linux on an S/370 would be just a bit easier,
but still cool enough to matter (circa 1974!). But I think there are less
S/370s out there than S/360s (I know of _one_ S/370, and it belongs to
IBM. S/360s, at least, number more than 10, probably).
And by S/370, I mean _real_ S/370, with the cool panels. Not the beige
boxes IBM made in late 1970s, dropping the S/370 name.
Yeah, even my beige box 9370 is boring as heck to look at :-( (It's a CMOS
version of the S/370 from 1987/88.) No interesting front panels, can't
tinker with hardware much at all, etc. Pah!
Later this winter, William, I'll be trying to get the bugs worked out of
that thing as to IPL failures. I still have to move it over from the old
house to its new home in a nicely remodeled basement workarea. It'll set
beside the PDP-11 racks I still need to haul outta the garage before
winter. All this stuff is _heavy_. Oh, my sore back!
Anyway, O Honorable Listmembers, stand by for a request from me for VSE OS
documentation of any sort and perhaps some IPL troubleshooting.
--Chris
-- --
Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian
Jamestown, NY USA
Member of Antique Wireless Association
URL: http://www.ggw.org/freenet/a/awa/
21 Sep
21 Sep
6:13 a.m.
Less S/370s out there? I would think, since they are
more recent vintage,
there would be more. Any reason why? I'll keep my eyes peeled for you though.
I think is simply the prestige of the S/360s. After all, they are probably
the single most influential computer family of the 1960s. The S/370s just
do not have the same magic in their name.
Yeah, even my beige box 9370 is boring as heck to look
at :-( (It's a CMOS
version of the S/370 from 1987/88.) No interesting front panels, can't
tinker with hardware much at all, etc. Pah!
Even the last of the machines tagged "System/370" started to lose their
panels. By the time the 3033 and 4331 came out (mid to late 1970s), the
panels were gone. IBM used the same cabinets until recently switching over
to the black and red (very sharp looking) S/390s.
S/370 panels are amazing. Unlike the S/360 panels, they are black with all
sorts of color coding, and liberal use of the hexadecimal knobs for
setting the registers.
I would like to find a picture of any old S/370 on the Web, but I have not
come accross one yet.
Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical
Historian
Lets give Chris a big hand for being an Auction helper at the Antique
Wireless Association meet in Rochester, NY just a few weeks ago. He did
not drop too many things.
William Donzelli
william(a)ans.net
7:48 a.m.
New subject: My 'newest' one: an Epson QX-10
I picked up an Epson QX-10 yesterday for $22. It came with 256k of RAM, CP/M
2.2, Valdocs 1.19 and Valdocs III+.
Most intruiging is the single card in the expansion slots: a Titan
Technologies QX-PC. I gather that this was a 8088 and memory that allowed the
Epson to run MS-DOS and MS-DOS software (kinda like its big brother, the QX-16).
I have the "QX-PC Pre-boot" disk and the "MS-DOS v2.11" disk that
apparently
came with the Titan card. On the Pre-boot disk is a CP/M system and two .COM
files: QXPC, which when run claims to be testing the QXPC card but never
finishes; and QXDISK, which complains about the harddisk(!) being
misconfigured or not responding and returns to the CP/M prompt.
Is/was there a harddisk option for the QX-10?
What other options are/were available for it?
Any ideas about what might be wrong with the QXPC card?
I noticed there's a whole lot more information about the Epson portables (the
HX and PX) on the 'net than there is about the QXs.
-jrs
8:04 a.m.
New subject: My 'newest' one: an Epson QX-10
"Don't touch it, it's EVIL." A line from the Time Bandits I believe...
I actually won a QX-10 with its Titan PC card in a contest once. It was
surrealistically slow running MS-DOS, not very compatible, and just
plain weird. I also had the hard disk card for it. Weird system.
QXPC should finish if the Titan card is working. I may have the source
to it (don't ask :-) I'll see...
--Chuck
Jason Simpson wrote:
I picked up an Epson QX-10 yesterday for $22. It came with 256k of RAM, CP/M
2.2, Valdocs 1.19 and Valdocs III+.
Most intruiging is the single card in the expansion slots: a Titan
Technologies QX-PC. I gather that this was a 8088 and memory that allowed the
Epson to run MS-DOS and MS-DOS software (kinda like its big brother, the QX-16).
I have the "QX-PC Pre-boot" disk and the "MS-DOS v2.11" disk that
apparently
came with the Titan card. On the Pre-boot disk is a CP/M system and two .COM
files: QXPC, which when run claims to be testing the QXPC card but never
finishes; and QXDISK, which complains about the harddisk(!) being
misconfigured or not responding and returns to the CP/M prompt.
Is/was there a harddisk option for the QX-10?
What other options are/were available for it?
Any ideas about what might be wrong with the QXPC card?
I noticed there's a whole lot more information about the Epson portables (the
HX and PX) on the 'net than there is about the QXs.
-jrs
10:34 a.m.
New subject: My 'newest' one: an Epson QX-10
Chuck McManis wrote:
"Don't touch it, it's EVIL." A line from the Time Bandits I believe...
"...PURE evil..."
Actually, it seems like a reasonable system, at least CP/M-wise. I did find a
page on the web where a fellow made an IDE controller card and patched the
BDOS to use it. I'd really like to play with a 2.5" card-mounted HD in this
thing!
Now that Titan card might be evil... MS-DOS and all. :)
It's strange that 64k (CP/M memory) + 111k (RAM disk) leaves 81k of 'unused'
memory. Where'd that go?
I actually won a QX-10 with its Titan PC card in a
contest once. It was
surrealistically slow running MS-DOS, not very compatible, and just
plain weird. I also had the hard disk card for it. Weird system.
I just put Turbo Pascal 3.0 on it last night, although I have to reconfigure
the key commands. (Anyone know a quick way to get TP3 back to WordStar-style
defaults? My copy, freshly installed, doesn't even let me exit the editor. All
the key commands except up/down/left/right are undefined.)
It's certainly faster and easier to use than my Commodore 128 I've been
playing with in CP/M mode.
QXPC should finish if the Titan card is working. I may
have the source
to it (don't ask :-) I'll see...
I let it run for 5, maybe 10 minutes without any noticable progress.
Source? Uh.. Okay.
--
_______________________________________________________________________
\/|/\ | Jason Simpson | http://www.xio.com/jason/
/\|\/ | jason(a)xio.com | Wanted: Honda Civic VX or Volkswagen Fox Wagon
10:44 a.m.
New subject: My 'newest' one: an Epson QX-10
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ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
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jason＠xio.com -
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