10 Jan
2007
10 Jan
'07
1:57 a.m.
Multics History Site - includes a few software notes. Gotta be a few people
on thie list who remember....
Billy
http://www.multicians.org/multics.html
10 Jan
10 Jan
2:32 a.m.
On 1/9/07, Billy Pettit <Billy.Pettit at wdc.com> wrote:
Multics History Site - includes a few software notes.
Gotta be a few people
on thie list who remember....
Billy
http://www.multicians.org/multics.html
I probably only used a SIPB Multics account a handful of times. Using
TOPS-20 on DEEP-THOUGHT was much more interesting. I had no
appreciation of the history of Multics at the time. That sites makes
for some interesting reading now.
-Glen
4:36 a.m.
Glen Slick wrote:
On 1/9/07, Billy Pettit <Billy.Pettit at
wdc.com> wrote:
Tom Van
Vleck has done a fantastic job on the multicians.org site.
Also, he is looking for work (shameless and possibly bad plug),
but he has done so much for the history of Multics it is something
that should be done for him.
There is also a yahoo groups mailing list associated with Multics,
multicians at yahoogroups.com
if anyone wishes to join it.
Jim
Multics History Site -
1:12 p.m.
New subject: rqdx3 firmware
Anyone know if I can update an RQDX3 from v2 firmware to v4 firmware just
just by replacing the eeprom?
if so, anyone have an image files(2) of v4 firmware?
(an rqdx3 is as pdp-11 qbus disk controller for mfm disk drives)
-brad
4:12 p.m.
New subject: rqdx3 firmware
On 1/10/07, Brad Parker <brad at heeltoe.com> wrote:
Anyone know if I can update an RQDX3 from v2 firmware to v4 firmware just
just by replacing the eeprom?
if so, anyone have an image files(2) of v4 firmware?
I don't know the answer to your first question. I have two M7555's in
front of my right now. One has 243E5 / 244E5 and the other has 285E5
/ 286E5. These are listed as issue 2 and issue 3 here:
http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/DECROMs/ROMlist
It lists issue 4 as 339E5 and 340E5. BIN files are there.
My first board (243E5 / 244E5) does not have two jumper headers
between the two osc cans. My second board (285E5 / 286E5) does have
two jumper headers between the two osc cans, both with jumpers across
them.
-Glen
4:41 p.m.
New subject: rqdx3 firmware
"Glen Slick" wrote:
I don't know the answer to your first question. I have two M7555's in
front of my right now. One has 243E5 / 244E5 and the other has 285E5
/ 286E5. These are listed as issue 2 and issue 3 here:
http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/DECROMs/ROMlist
It lists issue 4 as 339E5 and 340E5. BIN files are there.
I just finished buring 339 & 340 into 27128A's. I plan to try them as
replacements for 243/244.
I can't get my rqdx3 to format any of the st-225's I have. I'm hoping
this will solve my problem.
and on a related note...
-brad
5:33 p.m.
New subject: rqdx3 firmware
I can't get my rqdx3 to format any of the st-225's I have. I'm hoping
this will solve my problem.
I've had the same issue, my experience has been that unless the drive is
already formatted for a DEC, the RQDX3 won't be able to reformat it
successfully (even for drives with the exact same geometry as a DEC
standard drive). At least I never had any luck doing so, but maybe
newer ROMs will solve the problem.
I recently picked up a VAXStation 2000 for the purpose of formatting
these drives (it has firmware routines for reformatting RQDX3 drives).
Well, that and I couldn't resist having such a tiny VAX machine... if
you get really desperate, I'd be happy to format your drives for ya' :).
Josh
Brad Parker wrote:
"Glen Slick" wrote:
I don't know the answer to your first
question. I have two M7555's in
front of my right now. One has 243E5 / 244E5 and the other has 285E5
/ 286E5. These are listed as issue 2 and issue 3 here:
http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/DECROMs/ROMlist
It lists issue 4 as 339E5 and 340E5. BIN files are there.
I just finished buring 339 & 340 into 27128A's. I plan to try them as
replacements for 243/244.
I can't get my rqdx3 to format any of the st-225's I have. I'm hoping
this will solve my problem.
and on a related note...
-brad
10:39 p.m.
New subject: rqdx3 firmware
On Wednesday 10 January 2007 12:33, Josh Dersch wrote:
FWIW, I've pulled ST225's (aka RD31's) out of bog-standard PC's, and
formatted them on an RQDX3 in an MicroPDP11, using ZQRCH0 from XXDP...
Pat
--
Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org
I can't
get my rqdx3 to format any of the st-225's I have. I'm
hoping this will solve my problem.
I've had the same issue, my experience has been that unless the drive
is already formatted for a DEC, the RQDX3 won't be able to reformat
it successfully (even for drives with the exact same geometry as a
DEC standard drive). At least I never had any luck doing so, but
maybe newer ROMs will solve the problem.
10:42 p.m.
New subject: rqdx3 firmware
Josh Dersch wrote:
I put in the v4 eeproms and was able to format the drive; I'm not sure
if it was the eproms, however.
Pretty much all of the posted examples of zrqch0 use for st-2xx drives
were incorrect. Or at least they didn't work for me. I started experimenting
and finally figured out how to get it to format the drive. Basically
telling it not to autoformat and to ignore existing bad block info.
At some point I'll try it again with the old eproms just for grins.
I should post a log of the session (I'll try and make one tomorrow)
-brad
I can't get my rqdx3 to format any of the st-225's I have. I'm hoping
this will solve my problem.
I've had the same issue, my experience has been that unless the drive is
already formatted for a DEC, the RQDX3 won't be able to reformat it
successfully (even for drives with the exact same geometry as a DEC
standard drive). At least I never had any luck doing so, but maybe
newer ROMs will solve the problem.
11:15 p.m.
New subject: rqdx3 firmware
Brad Parker writes:
I put in the v4 eeproms and was able to format the
drive; I'm not sure
if it was the eproms, however.
Pretty much all of the posted examples of zrqch0 use for st-2xx drives
were incorrect. Or at least they didn't work for me. I started experimenting
and finally figured out how to get it to format the drive. Basically
telling it not to autoformat and to ignore existing bad block info.
Huh. I did the same exact thing with zrqch0 (many, many, many times, with
many different variations of options on a wide swath of drives). I could
get the format to complete without errors (supposedly) but I was unable to
use the drive afterwards (couldn't make partitions or create filesystems for
2.11BSD, for example).
Maybe it's just something wrong with my setup. At any rate, I'd love to see
the logs of your attempts to see if I'm perhaps doing something incorrectly.
Thanks,
Josh
>
> Josh Dersch wrote:
>>>
>>> I can't get my rqdx3 to format any of the st-225's I have. I'm
hoping
>>> this will solve my problem.
>>>
>>I've had the same issue, my experience has been that unless the drive is
>>already formatted for a DEC, the RQDX3 won't be able to reformat it
>>successfully (even for drives with the exact same geometry as a DEC
>>standard drive). At least I never had any luck doing so, but maybe
>>newer ROMs will solve the problem.
>
I put in the v4 eeproms and was able to format the
drive; I'm not sure
if it was the eproms, however.
Pretty much all of the posted examples of zrqch0 use for st-2xx drives
were incorrect. Or at least they didn't work for me. I started experimenting
and finally figured out how to get it to format the drive. Basically
telling it not to autoformat and to ignore existing bad block info.
> At some point I'll try it again with the old eproms just for grins.
>
> I should post a log of the session (I'll try and make one tomorrow)
>
> -brad
>
11 Jan
11 Jan
9:58 p.m.
New subject: rqdx3 firmware
"Joshua Alexander Dersch" wrote:
Huh. I did the same exact thing with zrqch0 (many, many, many times, with
many different variations of options on a wide swath of drives). I could
get the format to complete without errors (supposedly) but I was unable to
use the drive afterwards (couldn't make partitions or create filesystems for
2.11BSD, for example).
Maybe it's just something wrong with my setup. At any rate, I'd love to see
the logs of your attempts to see if I'm perhaps doing something incorrectly.
Well, I used my SMT hot air gun and pulled a few DC005's off a spare
board (it worked pretty well - just never thought to use it for
through-hole). I put the DC005 in the dead RQDX3 and it appears to work
fine.
With that I was able to try formatting an ST-225 with V2 firmware and V4
firmware. They both worked. I was able to install RT-11 and boot from
the drive (I plan to try rsts next, which is has been my goal for a
while).
So it wasn't firmware - it was operator error :-)
I put the log of formatting with zrqch0 here:
http://www.heeltoe.com/retro/pdp11/formatting.txt
I think my problem is that I got fixated on "autoformatting". This
turned out to be wrong (probably works fine for an drive which already
has an FCT but not for a drive used ina pc).
If I had a big enough MFM drive I'd try BSD but the biggest MFM I have
is 20mb. All my larger drives are ESDI. RSTS should work on a 20mb
drive... he said... crossing his fingers (and remembering it ran on
2x RK05's at long ago... :-)
-brad
10:30 p.m.
New subject: rqdx3 firmware
On 1/11/07, Brad Parker <brad at heeltoe.com> wrote:
Well, I used my SMT hot air gun and pulled a few
DC005's off a spare
board (it worked pretty well - just never thought to use it for
through-hole). I put the DC005 in the dead RQDX3 and it appears to work
fine.
Cool.
RSTS should work on a 20mb drive... he said...
crossing
his fingers (and remembering it ran on 2x RK05's at long ago... :-)
Depends on the version, indeed it should be. The latest version of
RSTS/E I played with when it was contemporary was v9.0 in the late
1980s/early 1990s, to support one of our few remaining RSTS customers
from the late 1980s/early 1980s. It was on an 11/24
w/4xRL02, but I'm
reasonably certain that we only had two packs spinning. We
_might_
have run v10 on that same hardware, but I'm not as certain of that.
We never did move up to the newer/faster/larger PDP-11s there - we
stopped at 11/34s and 11/24s and 11/23s, and we never had a disk
larger than 10MB on any of our PDP-11s. :-/ Made it tough to play
with 2BSD after hours at work.
-ethan
12 Jan
12 Jan
7:42 a.m.
New subject: rqdx3 firmware
Brad Parker wrote:
With that I was able to try formatting an ST-225 with
V2 firmware and V4
firmware. They both worked. I was able to install RT-11 and boot from
the drive (I plan to try rsts next, which is has been my goal for a
while).
So it wasn't firmware - it was operator error :-)
I put the log of formatting with zrqch0 here:
http://www.heeltoe.com/retro/pdp11/formatting.txt
I think my problem is that I got fixated on "autoformatting". This
turned out to be wrong (probably works fine for an drive which already
has an FCT but not for a drive used ina pc).
If I had a big enough MFM drive I'd try BSD but the biggest MFM I have
is 20mb. All my larger drives are ESDI. RSTS should work on a 20mb
drive... he said... crossing his fingers (and remembering it ran on
2x RK05's at long ago... :-)
Cool -- thanks for putting the log up. I'm
fairly sure that's exactly
what I've tried, but I'll have to have another go at it next time I get
a chance.
Josh
11 Jan
11 Jan
1:24 a.m.
New subject: rqdx3 firmware
Brad Parker wrote:
I put in the v4 eeproms and was able to format the
drive; I'm not sure
if it was the eproms, however.
Probably not, the formatter contains the relevant table for the drive
configuration, not the ROMs. However, the ROMs do contain diagnostic
and formatting routines, which are invoked by a special set of commands,
distinct from normal MSCP commands/routines, and it may be that the
oldest ROMs don't have something needed for later drives like RD31 etc.
Pretty much all of the posted examples of zrqch0 use
for st-2xx drives
were incorrect.
You mean which DEC names match which drives (RD31 is 20MB ST-225, RD32
is whatever is 40MB, RD33 is 65MB) or how to invoke the right stages of
the formatter?
I started experimenting
and finally figured out how to get it to format the drive. Basically
telling it not to autoformat and to ignore existing bad block info.
Yep, that's about it, as far as I remember. A log would be useful as a
record and aide-memoire, though.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
1:07 a.m.
New subject: rqdx3 firmware
Brad Parker wrote:
"Glen Slick" wrote:
I just finished buring 339 & 340 into
27128A's. I plan to try them as
replacements for 243/244.
I can't get my rqdx3 to format any of the st-225's I have. I'm hoping
this will solve my problem.
It may help, as I'm not absolutely sure that Issue 2 can handle ST-225,
but Issue 3 or 4 certainly can. However, the common problem is that you
need to give the right answers to the formatter's questions about using
the manufacturer's bad block table and various other things, otherwise
the formatter just tries to use the UIT table (aka FCT, Format Control
Table) that's in the first three XBNs of a DEC-formatted disk, which it
needs but won't find on a non-original-DEC drive. You can't use
"autoformat" mode, although the data for the table for RD31/32/33 is in
ZRQCH0. I used to do this a lot, fifteen years ago, but offhand I don't
remember the incantations; I even worked out what almost all of the
numbers had to be in order to use drives that DEC didn't support. I've
no doubt the relevant recipe for an ST-225 -- which is supported, as an
RD31 -- is on the web somewhere.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
12:38 a.m.
New subject: rqdx3 firmware
Brad Parker wrote:
Anyone know if I can update an RQDX3 from v2 firmware
to v4 firmware just
just by replacing the eeprom?
obNitpick: it's an EPROM, not an EEPROM :-)
Yes, that's all you need to change. However, the meaning of one of the
links changed with later versions of the firmware. It only matters for
hard drives with more than 8(? or 4?) heads, though, as far as I
remember. I don't have the manual to hand, so I can't check.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
6569
days inactive
6571
days old
15 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
-
Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com -
brad＠heeltoe.com -
derschjo＠msu.edu -
ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
glen.slick＠gmail.com -
jwstephens＠msm.umr.edu -
pat＠computer-refuge.org -
pete＠dunnington.plus.com