16 Aug
2006
16 Aug
'06
2:59 a.m.
I've spent a few hours this evening transferring software from my PERQ
over the serial port at 9600 baud, and I thought I'd share them, since
there don't seem to be many games archived on the 'net (feel free to
correct me if I'm wrong on that count :).
Thus far I've archived binaries & source for:
- PERQMan (seems to be an early version, looks like a 100% clone of
Pac-Man, vs. the changed sprites & "Perq Interactive Debugger" name I've
seen in screenshots)
- Chess
- Puzzle
These are available at: http://yahozna.dhs.org/computers/software/PERQ/
These all compile and run under POS (I have D.6 running on my machine).
If I'm wasting my time (i.e. if these bits have already been archived
somewhere, let me know so I don't spend more time painfully extracting
these files one at a time over a serial link...)
There are a handful of other games and utilities (a vt52 emulator, a
Pente game, etc..) that I'll be getting to sometime later this week.
Additionally, I'm working on archiving a raw image of the 14" Shugart in
my PERQ (again, over the serial port). I've written a simple pascal
program to do the dumping and I'm doing it 10 cylinders at a time since
it takes so long :). My goal eventually is to write a PERQ emulator,
but we'll see how that turns out...
Josh
16 Aug
16 Aug
6:06 p.m.
I've spent a few hours this evening transferring software from my PERQ
over the serial port at 9600 baud, and I thought I'd share them, since
there don't seem to be many games archived on the 'net (feel free to
correct me if I'm wrong on that count :).
I don't know if it's any use to you, but _years_ ago I wrote a Turbo
Pascal program (runs under MS-DOS) to read double-density PERQ
'interchange' floppies on a PC. As set up, it's designed to use a
secondary controller in the PC (the XT on my desk has such a controller
linked to a pair of 8" drives...).
If you're interested (or if anyone else is interested) I can dig out the
source code. I seem to remeber the original distribution terms were that
I hold the copyright, but 'further distribution for the benefit of PERQ
fanatics is encouraged).
Thus far I've archived binaries & source for:
- PERQMan (seems to be an early version, looks like a 100% clone of
Pac-Man, vs. the changed sprites & "Perq Interactive Debugger" name
I've
seen in screenshots)
- Chess
- Puzzle
These are available at: http://yahozna.dhs.org/computers/software/PERQ/
I must tlake a look. The sources, in particular, are something I don't have.
Additionally, I'm working on archiving a raw image
of the 14" Shugart in
my PERQ (again, over the serial port). I've written a simple pascal
program to do the dumping and I'm doing it 10 cylinders at a time since
If you need any help with accessing the hard disk, etc, I may well have
useful information around. I certainly have things like the I/O port map,
etc.
it takes so long :). My goal eventually is to write a
PERQ emulator,
but we'll see how that turns out...
Good luck. The PERQ is not a simple machine at all. Having managed to
understand how the CPU works, I'd not want to try emulating it...
And a PERQ 2 would be even worse. On that series, you can run user code
on the I/O processor (Z80)....
-tony
7:01 p.m.
I don't know if it's any use to you, but
_years_ ago I wrote a Turbo
Pascal program (runs under MS-DOS) to read double-density PERQ
'interchange' floppies on a PC. As set up, it's designed to use a
secondary controller in the PC (the XT on my desk has such a controller
linked to a pair of 8" drives...).
If you're interested (or if anyone else is interested) I can dig out the
source code. I seem to remeber the original distribution terms were that
I hold the copyright, but 'further distribution for the benefit of PERQ
fanatics is encouraged).
I'd definitely be interested in having the software for future use; as
it currently stands I don't have any software on floppies to read so I
won't have much use for it. (Plus I still need to get an 8" floppy
connected to a PC, I have one sitting around for the job but haven't
gotten around to hooking it up yet.)
If you need any help with accessing the hard disk,
etc, I may well have
useful information around. I certainly have things like the I/O port map,
etc.
Definitely; I believe I have something working (it's chugging along as
we speak) using POS system calls; I've just uploaded the source of my
program to my site (
http://yahozna.dhs.org/computers/software/PERQ/dumpdisk.pas). Go easy
on me, it's both my first Pascal program and my first PERQ program, and
I haven't cleaned it up much. Might be useful for other people
interested in preserving the contents of their drives.
Good luck. The PERQ is not a simple machine at all.
Having managed to
understand how the CPU works, I'd not want to try emulating it...
And a PERQ 2 would be even worse. On that series, you can run user code
on the I/O processor (Z80)....
-tony
Yeah -- like I said, we'll see how it turns out :). There seems to be a
lot of available documentation on the system (microcode, etc...) so I'm
hoping that's enough to get a good start -- and you sound like the
person to ask if it's not :).
Thanks,
Josh
17 Aug
17 Aug
6:58 p.m.
I don't know if it's any use to you, but
_years_ ago I wrote a Turbo
Pascal program (runs under MS-DOS) to read double-density PERQ
'interchange' floppies on a PC. As set up, it's designed to use a
secondary controller in the PC (the XT on my desk has such a controller
linked to a pair of 8" drives...).
If you're interested (or if anyone else is interested) I can dig out the
source code. I seem to remeber the original distribution terms were that
I hold the copyright, but 'further distribution for the benefit of PERQ
fanatics is encouraged).
I'd definitely be interested in having the software for future use; as
it currently stands I don't have any software on
floppies to read so I
won't have much use for it. (Plus I still need to get an 8" floppy
You can, of course, transfer data from the hard disk to a floppy on the
PERQ ;-).
connected to a PC, I have one sitting around for the
job but haven't
gotten around to hooking it up yet.)
Or you could link a 5152" 1.2M floppy drive to the PERQ in place of the
8" one. I have info on the cable I made to do that...
Using a 5.25" 1.2Mbyte floppy disk with the PERQ
------------------------------------------------
Data Cable
PERQ EIO 5.25" Drive
1 o
2 o
3 o
4 o
5 o
6 o
7 o
8 o
9 o--Gnd-----+
10 o--2 side--+
11 o
12 o
13 o-----Gnd--------------------o 31
14 o-----Head Select------------o 32
15 o
16 o
17 o
18 o
19 o-----Gnd--------------------o 7
20 o-----Index------------------o 8
21 o-----Gnd--------------------o 33
22 o-----Ready------------------o 34
23 o
24 o
25 o-----Gnd--------------------o 11
26 o-----Drive Sel 0------------o 12
27 o
28 o +----Gnd---------------o 15
29 o +----Motor On----------o 16
30 o
31 o
32 o
33 o-----Gnd--------------------o 17
34 o-----Direction--------------o 18
35 o-----Gnd--------------------o 19
36 o-----Step-------------------o 20
37 o-----Gnd--------------------o 21
38 o-----Wr Data----------------o 22
39 o-----Gnd--------------------o 23
40 o-----Wr Gate----------------o 24
41 o-----Gnd--------------------o 25
42 o-----Trk 00-----------------o 26
43 o-----Gnd--------------------o 27
44 o-----Wr Prot----------------o 28
45 o-----Gnd--------------------o 29
46 o-----Rd Data----------------o 30
47 o
48 o
49 o
50 o
Construction
1) Crimp 34 pin IDC edge connector to one end of 1m length of multicoloured IDC
ribbon cable, so that pin 1 is connected to the first brown wire, and pin 34 to
the last yellow wire.
2) At the other end of the cable, separate the wires between :
6,7 (blue,violet)
8,9 (grey, white)
10,11 (black, brown)
12,13 (red, orange)
14,15 (yellow,green)
16,17 (blue, violet)
30,31 (black, brown)
32,33 (red, orange)
3) Make the wide section (wires 17-30) about 8 cm long, by tearing back the
other sections.
4) Crimp wires 17-30 (violet - black) to pins 33-46 of a 50 pin IDC edge
connector. Remove the top part of the connector after crimping so that other
wires can be added.
5) Similarly crimp 31,32 (brown and red) to 13,14 of the 50 pin edge connector,
33,34 (orange, yellow) to pins 21,22, 7,8 (violet, grey) to pins 19,20 and 11,12
(brown, red) to pins 25,26.
6) Crimp a short spare length of IDC wire between pins 9 and 10 of the 50 pin
edge connector. Fit the top part, and press it firmly into place.
7) Cut off wires 1-6 (brown-blue), 9,10 (white, black), and 13,14 (orange,
yellow).
8) Strip wires 15,16 (green, blue), and twist them together. Solder the
connection, and insulate it with a short length of Heat-shrink sleeving
Power Cable
-----------
+5V and +12V to operate the floppy drive can be obtained from the Tablet Power
Connector on the rear of PERQ2 machines. A suitable cable is given below.
Check the connections to the floppy drive to make sure you have the +5 and +12
the right way round before you apply power. Some drives have the connections
marked on the PCB.
4pin DIN (Plug Wire Side) Floppy Drive
+--------- +5V ---------------------------(4
|
o1
o---- +12V ---------------------------(1
o
o
|
+--------- Gnd ---------------------------(2
+--------- Gnd ---------------------------(3
Drive links
-----------
Set the drive to respond to Drive Select 1 (the default for PC drives)
The PERQ will boot from floppy if the Ready pin (pin 34 of the 34 pin connector)
is held low when th edrive is selected, and will not use the drive under any
circumstances if the ready pin is high when the drive is selected.
Some drives allow a Ready signal to be output on this line, often by setting an
internal link. If this is possible, do it. Otherwise, _try_ connecting the ready
input on the PERQ to the Drive Select output via a SPST switch. Close this
switch when there is a floppy in the drive
Notes
-----
The PERQ checks for the drive being ready _before_ asserting the Head Load
Signal, and thus the head load output cannot be used to drive the Motor On
input. By tying the Motor On input low, the drive motor runs whenever there is a
floppy in the drive. This is a good compromise, but may cause wear of the disk
and heads if left there for an extended period. Do not leave a floppy disk in
the drive if it is not being used
The 2-side input of the PERQ is pulled low, so that the disk is assumed to be
double sided.
The cable links the top connector on the EIO board to a standard 1.2Mbyte 5.25"
floppy. Pin 1 is at the top of the EIO board.
The PERQ 8" drive rotates at 360rpm, as do 1.2Mbyte drives. However, tests have
shown that a 300rpm drive will also work, although not all of its capacity will
be used. Therefore, a 3.5" 1.44Mbyte drive is another possibility.
If you need
any help with accessing the hard disk, etc, I may well have
useful information around. I certainly have things like the I/O port map,
etc.
Definitely; I believe I have something working (it's chugging along as
we speak) using POS system calls; I've just uploaded the source of my
program to my site (
http://yahozna.dhs.org/computers/software/PERQ/dumpdisk.pas). Go easy
on me, it's both my first Pascal program and my first PERQ program, and
Don't worry, I don't claim to be a programmer, I release source to stuff
I've written mainly to give programmers a good laugh...
I haven't cleaned it up much. Might be useful for
other people
interested in preserving the contents of their drives.
AFAIK doscuemtnation for just about everything exists. There are full
schematics for most machines (I think the 2T4 is missing). PROM/PAL dumps
exist. Commented sources to the bootstrap ROMs and EIO Z80 ROM exist. I
am not sure if there are sources for the Z80 ROM on the PERQ 1's CIO
card, I can see (but I do know that the CIO and EIO ROMs are _very_
different).
Good luck. The PERQ is not a simple machine at
all. Having managed to
understand how the CPU works, I'd not want to try emulating it...
And a PERQ 2 would be even worse. On that series, you can run user code
on the I/O processor (Z80)....
-tony
Yeah -- like I said, we'll see how it turns out :). There seems to be a
lot of available documentation on the system (microcode, etc...) so I'm hoping that's enough to get a good start -- and
you sound like the
person to ask if it's not :).
Feel free....
-tony
18 Aug
18 Aug
9:30 p.m.
Thanks for all the info -- it'll definitely come in handy. I now have a
complete image of the PERQ's hard disk (available on my website as well)
and I'm working on some software to allow me to traverse the
partitions/filesystems in the image to extract software. Figure that
could come in handy at some point.
I wish modern hard drives lasted as long as this thing has -- 25+ years
old and only a handful of bad sectors...
Thanks again,
Josh
Tony Duell wrote:
OK, I will see if I can find it. I am happy for it to go on an ftp/web
site, of course.
OK, I will take a look...
I don't know if it's any use to you, but
_years_ ago I wrote a Turbo
Pascal program (runs under MS-DOS) to read double-density PERQ
'interchange' floppies on a PC. As set up, it's designed to use a
secondary controller in the PC (the XT on my desk has such a controller
linked to a pair of 8" drives...).
If you're interested (or if anyone else is interested) I can dig out the
source code. I seem to remeber the original distribution terms were that
I hold the copyright, but 'further distribution for the benefit of PERQ
fanatics is encouraged).
I'd definitely be interested in having the software for future use; as
it currently stands I don't have any software
on floppies to read so I
won't have much use for it. (Plus I still need to get an 8" floppy
You can, of course, transfer data from the hard disk to a floppy on the
PERQ ;-).
connected to a PC, I have one sitting around for
the job but haven't
gotten around to hooking it up yet.)
Or you could link a 5152" 1.2M floppy drive to the PERQ in place of the
8" one. I have info on the cable I made to do that...
Using a 5.25" 1.2Mbyte floppy disk with the PERQ
------------------------------------------------
Data Cable
PERQ EIO 5.25" Drive
1 o
2 o
3 o
4 o
5 o
6 o
7 o
8 o
9 o--Gnd-----+
10 o--2 side--+
11 o
12 o
13 o-----Gnd--------------------o 31
14 o-----Head Select------------o 32
15 o
16 o
17 o
18 o
19 o-----Gnd--------------------o 7
20 o-----Index------------------o 8
21 o-----Gnd--------------------o 33
22 o-----Ready------------------o 34
23 o
24 o
25 o-----Gnd--------------------o 11
26 o-----Drive Sel 0------------o 12
27 o
28 o +----Gnd---------------o 15
29 o +----Motor On----------o 16
30 o
31 o
32 o
33 o-----Gnd--------------------o 17
34 o-----Direction--------------o 18
35 o-----Gnd--------------------o 19
36 o-----Step-------------------o 20
37 o-----Gnd--------------------o 21
38 o-----Wr Data----------------o 22
39 o-----Gnd--------------------o 23
40 o-----Wr Gate----------------o 24
41 o-----Gnd--------------------o 25
42 o-----Trk 00-----------------o 26
43 o-----Gnd--------------------o 27
44 o-----Wr Prot----------------o 28
45 o-----Gnd--------------------o 29
46 o-----Rd Data----------------o 30
47 o
48 o
49 o
50 o
Construction
1) Crimp 34 pin IDC edge connector to one end of 1m length of multicoloured IDC
ribbon cable, so that pin 1 is connected to the first brown wire, and pin 34 to
the last yellow wire.
2) At the other end of the cable, separate the wires between :
6,7 (blue,violet)
8,9 (grey, white)
10,11 (black, brown)
12,13 (red, orange)
14,15 (yellow,green)
16,17 (blue, violet)
30,31 (black, brown)
32,33 (red, orange)
3) Make the wide section (wires 17-30) about 8 cm long, by tearing back the
other sections.
4) Crimp wires 17-30 (violet - black) to pins 33-46 of a 50 pin IDC edge
connector. Remove the top part of the connector after crimping so that other
wires can be added.
5) Similarly crimp 31,32 (brown and red) to 13,14 of the 50 pin edge connector,
33,34 (orange, yellow) to pins 21,22, 7,8 (violet, grey) to pins 19,20 and 11,12
(brown, red) to pins 25,26.
6) Crimp a short spare length of IDC wire between pins 9 and 10 of the 50 pin
edge connector. Fit the top part, and press it firmly into place.
7) Cut off wires 1-6 (brown-blue), 9,10 (white, black), and 13,14 (orange,
yellow).
8) Strip wires 15,16 (green, blue), and twist them together. Solder the
connection, and insulate it with a short length of Heat-shrink sleeving
Power Cable
-----------
+5V and +12V to operate the floppy drive can be obtained from the Tablet Power
Connector on the rear of PERQ2 machines. A suitable cable is given below.
Check the connections to the floppy drive to make sure you have the +5 and +12
the right way round before you apply power. Some drives have the connections
marked on the PCB.
4pin DIN (Plug Wire Side) Floppy Drive
+--------- +5V ---------------------------(4
|
o1
o---- +12V ---------------------------(1
o
o
|
+--------- Gnd ---------------------------(2
+--------- Gnd ---------------------------(3
Drive links
-----------
Set the drive to respond to Drive Select 1 (the default for PC drives)
The PERQ will boot from floppy if the Ready pin (pin 34 of the 34 pin connector)
is held low when th edrive is selected, and will not use the drive under any
circumstances if the ready pin is high when the drive is selected.
Some drives allow a Ready signal to be output on this line, often by setting an
internal link. If this is possible, do it. Otherwise, _try_ connecting the ready
input on the PERQ to the Drive Select output via a SPST switch. Close this
switch when there is a floppy in the drive
Notes
-----
The PERQ checks for the drive being ready _before_ asserting the Head Load
Signal, and thus the head load output cannot be used to drive the Motor On
input. By tying the Motor On input low, the drive motor runs whenever there is a
floppy in the drive. This is a good compromise, but may cause wear of the disk
and heads if left there for an extended period. Do not leave a floppy disk in
the drive if it is not being used
The 2-side input of the PERQ is pulled low, so that the disk is assumed to be
double sided.
The cable links the top connector on the EIO board to a standard 1.2Mbyte 5.25"
floppy. Pin 1 is at the top of the EIO board.
The PERQ 8" drive rotates at 360rpm, as do 1.2Mbyte drives. However, tests have
shown that a 300rpm drive will also work, although not all of its capacity will
be used. Therefore, a 3.5" 1.44Mbyte drive is another possibility.
If you
need any help with accessing the hard disk, etc, I may well have
useful information around. I certainly have things like the I/O port map,
etc.
Definitely; I believe I have something working (it's chugging along as
we speak) using POS system calls; I've just uploaded the source of my
program to my site (
http://yahozna.dhs.org/computers/software/PERQ/dumpdisk.pas). Go easy
on me, it's both my first Pascal program and my first PERQ program, and
Don't worry, I don't claim to be a programmer, I release source to stuff
I've written mainly to give programmers a good laugh...
I haven't cleaned it up much. Might be
useful for other people
interested in preserving the contents of their drives.
AFAIK doscuemtnation for just about everything exists. There are full
schematics for most machines (I think the 2T4 is missing). PROM/PAL dumps
exist. Commented sources to the bootstrap ROMs and EIO Z80 ROM exist. I
am not sure if there are sources for the Z80 ROM on the PERQ 1's CIO
card, I can see (but I do know that the CIO and EIO ROMs are _very_
different).
Good luck. The PERQ is not a simple machine at
all. Having managed to
understand how the CPU works, I'd not want to try emulating it...
And a PERQ 2 would be even worse. On that series, you can run user code
on the I/O processor (Z80)....
-tony
Yeah -- like I said, we'll see how it turns out :). There seems to be
a
lot of available documentation on the system (microcode, etc...) so I'm
hoping that's enough to get a good start --
and you sound like the
person to ask if it's not :).
Feel free....
-tony
19 Aug
19 Aug
7:04 p.m.
Thanks for all the info -- it'll definitely come in handy. I now have a
complete image of the PERQ's hard disk (available on my website as well)
I am not sure how much of the disk structure you can directly get from
the POS system calls. For example, there are 4 words of filesystem
pointers in the sector _header_, that's why the DMA controller is
somewhat complicated (it can be set up to transfer those pointers to one
buffer and the sector data to another part of memory altogether). My
guess is you can't directly get those header words using POS calls.
It may not matter. From what I rmemberm the infromation is stored
elsewhere too (probably in the file descriptor blocks). THe pointers in
the headers are used for speed and to help recover the filesystem in the
event of disk problems.
and I'm working on some software to allow me to
traverse the
partitions/filesystems in the image to extract software. Figure that
could come in handy at some point.
My experience of the POS documentation is that (a) it was written to
refresh the memory of somebody who already knew the machine inside out
and (b) important information is missing -- things like the _exact_
meaning of the bits in some descriptor word, etc.
Do you have the POS source code? I thin I hace most of the Pascal (not
microcode, though) sources for one version.
I wish modern hard drives lasted as long as this thing has -- 25+ years
old and only a handful of bad sectors...
Which drive do you have? The 14" SA4000 unit used in the 1 and 1a seems
to suffer from drive belt trouble and little else. The 8" Micropolis 1203
used in the 2T1 has problems with the servo analogue electronics -- I've
had to replace op-amps and the power amplifier chip in those. The 5.25"
units used in the 2T2 and 2T4 suffer from the same problems as PC hard
drives of the time, because that's what they are :-)
-tony
8:05 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
I am not sure how much of the disk structure you can
directly get from
the POS system calls. For example, there are 4 words of filesystem
pointers in the sector _header_, that's why the DMA controller is
somewhat complicated (it can be set up to transfer those pointers to one
buffer and the sector data to another part of memory altogether). My
guess is you can't directly get those header words using POS calls.
It may not matter. From what I rmemberm the infromation is stored
elsewhere too (probably in the file descriptor blocks). THe pointers in
the headers are used for speed and to help recover the filesystem in the
event of disk problems.
Yes, I was wondering about this as well. The POS
documentation mentions
this header information as being present on disk but doesn't describe it
in detail. The UnitIO "DiagRead" command returns an 8-word block of
header data on a block read -- I don't know if this has any relationship
with the physical bits on the disk; but just in case I made sure to copy
those along with the 256 words of actual sector data.
At any rate, the header data doesn't appear to be necessary for parsing
the directory structure; I've written another quick and dirty utility
(on the PC this time) to read in the disk image and dump the directory
structure and files to disk without too many hairy issues. (The utility
and all the files on the disk are now on my website at
http://yahozna.dhs.org/computers/software/PERQ).
Nothing too incredibly exciting on the disk, but it's nice to have it
archived for posterity.
Do you have the POS source code? I thin I hace most of
the Pascal (not
microcode, though) sources for one version.
I do not -- what I have on the PERQ is the bare minimum necessary to
compile and link pascal programs.
Which drive do you have? The 14" SA4000 unit used
in the 1 and 1a seems
to suffer from drive belt trouble and little else. The 8" Micropolis 1203
used in the 2T1 has problems with the servo analogue electronics -- I've
had to replace op-amps and the power amplifier chip in those. The 5.25"
units used in the 2T2 and 2T4 suffer from the same problems as PC hard
drives of the time, because that's what they are :-)
I have the 14" SA4000 drive. The belt had a problem where it'd
immediately slip off at power-on. It wasn't loose at all, but the
inside of the belt was worn smooth. For the time being, I've turned the
belt inside out and I haven't had any problems since.
One quick question: Any ideas what digitizer pucks are compatible with
the BitPadOne? My PERQ came with a very very crude home-made puck
(http://yahozna.dhs.org/computers/perq/photos/digitizer-small.JPG). It
just barely works (the cursor jumps all over) and it's falling apart.
I'd love to replace this with something more authentic. Or at least
something that works correctly.
Now to start hacking away at that emulator... :)
Thanks again,
Josh
20 Aug
20 Aug
6:37 p.m.
It may not matter. From what I rmemberm the infromation is stored
elsewhere too (probably in the file descriptor blocks). THe pointers in
the headers are used for speed and to help recover the filesystem in the
event of disk problems.
Yes, I was wondering about this as well. The POS
documentation mentions
this header information as being present on disk but doesn't describe it
in detail. The UnitIO "DiagRead" command returns an 8-word block of header data on a block read -- I don't know if
this has any relationship
with the physical bits on the disk; but just in case I made sure to copy
My guess is that it's just the data in the header. There'd be no reason
to modify it.
those along with the 256 words of actual sector data.
At any rate, the header data doesn't appear to be necessary for parsing
the directory structure; I've written another quick and dirty utility
It's not... It's used either for efficiency (to avoid having to go back
and read/interpret the file descriptor to find the next block of the
file) or to halp re-create the file descriptor if it gets corrupted
(conversely the file descriptor can be used to recreate these pointers in
the header).
(on the PC this time) to read in the disk image and
dump the directory
structure and files to disk without too many hairy issues. (The utility
and all the files on the disk are now on my website at
http://yahozna.dhs.org/computers/software/PERQ).
I really must find time to look at that...
Nothing too incredibly exciting on the disk, but it's nice to have it
archived for posterity.
I've got 7 .zip files here, around 250K each. They contain pascal sources
for most of POS (I know the pascal compiler itself is not there :-(). And
some microcode, etc for the 'testbed'. I can e-mail you copies (or is
there somewhere I should send these to be made available?)
Do you have the POS source code? I thin I hace
most of the Pascal (not
microcode, though) sources for one version.
I do not -- what I have on the PERQ is the bare minimum necessary to
compile and link pascal programs. One quick question: Any ideas what digitizer pucks
are compatible with
the BitPadOne? My PERQ came with a very very crude home-made puck
(http://yahozna.dhs.org/computers/perq/photos/digitizer-small.JPG). It
just barely works (the cursor jumps all over) and it's falling apart.
I'd love to replace this with something more authentic. Or at least
something that works correctly.
There were 4 official pointing devices for this tablet :
A pen-like thing. This came in 2 versions, one could be pulled apart i
nth emiddle to put a ballpoint refil in, the later one couldn't. Pressing
the pen point is equivalent to one of the buttons on the true pucks
A single-button puck
A 4 button puck. This is the correct one for the PERQ. It's the same as
the single-button one with 3 more switches soldered in (in other words
you can convert a single-button puck into a 4 button one.
A 13 (?) button puck. I have no idea how this works, there must be an
interneal diode matrix or something. The tablet only has 4 button input
lines, and AFAIK there is no power line on the puck connector.
As to whether or not you can use other pucks. The buttons, IIRC, just
ground the appropirate line from the tablet. The sense coil is about 12mm
in diameter, and IIRC around 30 turns of wire. There's no electronics in
the puck. Of course piunotus are in the manual (I have that if you need
said pinouts).
If the home-made puck is not reliable, I'd suspect noise pickup on the
coil wiring. It's a pretty small signal. Maybe some careful screening
would help (the real pucks have copper foil in strategic places.
-tony
21 Aug
21 Aug
3:48 p.m.
New subject: One for classiccmp.org? (was: Re: Archived a few PERQ games...)
Tony Duell wrote:
Hmm, random thought, but does it make sense to have a list on classiccmp.org
of what preservation work (in terms of utilities, procedures etc.) has been
done for various machines?
It doesn't even necessarily need to be a maintained list of links - just
recording the fact e.g. that someone out there has successfully hacked
something to recover data off system xyz would be useful. I tend to find that
sort of level of info isn't so readily available via google, and often am too
busy to be able to wade through a few dozen enthusiast sites in order to see
what people have come up with already...
cheers
Jules
(on the PC
this time) to read in the disk image and dump the directory
structure and files to disk without too many hairy issues. (The utility
and all the files on the disk are now on my website at
http://yahozna.dhs.org/computers/software/PERQ).
I really must find time to look at that... 
10:20 p.m.
New subject: One for classiccmp.org? (was: Re: Archived a few PERQ games...)
At 7:48 PM +0000 8/21/06, Jules Richardson wrote:
Tony Duell wrote:
Hmm, random thought, but does it make sense to have a list on
classiccmp.org of what preservation work (in terms of utilities,
procedures etc.) has been done for various machines?
It doesn't even necessarily need to be a maintained list of links -
just recording the fact e.g. that someone out there has successfully
hacked something to recover data off system xyz would be useful. I
tend to find that sort of level of info isn't so readily available
via google, and often am too busy to be able to wade through a few
dozen enthusiast sites in order to see what people have come up with
already...
I can't believe I'm about to say this, but would this be something for a Wiki?
I for one am very interested in this sort of thing.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
(on the PC
this time) to read in the disk image and dump the
directory structure and files to disk without too many hairy
issues. (The utility and all the files on the disk are now on my
website at http://yahozna.dhs.org/computers/software/PERQ).
I really must find time to look at that... 
22 Aug
22 Aug
8:56 a.m.
New subject: One for classiccmp.org? (was: Re: Archived a few PERQ games...)
I can't believe I'm about to say this, but
would this be something
for a Wiki? I for one am very interested in this sort of thing.
I've seen FAQs, DataBases and KnowledgeBases barely get off the ground
or explode on the launchpad whereas the WikiPedia has become a useful and
highly evolved resource. Gets my vote.
John A.
21 Aug
21 Aug
10:52 p.m.
New subject: One for classiccmp.org? (was: Re: Archived a few PERQ games...)
From: "Jules Richardson" <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk>
Hmm, random thought, but does it make sense to have a
list on
classiccmp.org
of what preservation work (in terms of utilities,
procedures etc.) has
been
done for various machines?
That sounds like a cool idea to me, too.
Vince
6549
days inactive
6555
days old
11 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
-
allain＠panix.com -
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
derschjo＠msu.edu -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk -
vrs＠msn.com