On Mon, 17 Oct 2016, geneb wrote: I noticed that too, I keep a copy of Chrome around for just such horrid sites. There's really no reason for it. Regardless, this looks pretty exciting to me, as I get ready to repair the board on my ST251-1, I wonder how much longer the old drive can realistically last. I wonder if they can put a small speaker on the board to emulate the sounds of an ST251, because damn, this drive sure does like to talk to you. Much like an AirCooled Volkswagen, the first time you use it, you think it's going to blow up, then the crazy noises become the thing that let you know everything is working as it should....but I digress. Agree it's a little pricey, but, in the end almost certainly worth it. I spent far more on my first 20GB 7200RPM IDE Drive. Also, have you priced a NOS MFM hard drive lately? Can you find one? There's joy in keeping all the original stuff running, but at some point that becomes unfeasable -- we're not there yet, but in 10 or 15 years this may prove to have been a good investment. --Jason

----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark J. Blair" <nf6x at nf6x.net> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 1:48 PM Subject: Re: MFM floppy and HD emulator DREM Does anybody here have experience with both the DREM and David Gesswein's MFM emulator? I'm wondering how they compare. I have one of David's emulators. I have only played with it a bit, but I have been pleased with it so far. ---------------- No experience myself, but FWIW several Cromemco owners have used David's unit successfully with Cromemco's non-standard whole-track-at-a-time controller and have said good things about his willingness to work with non-standard formats. (It's also cheaper, but apparently not available at the moment, unfortunately). m

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 02:32:31PM -0400, Mike Stein wrote: More are on order so bare boards end of the month and assembled hopefully in a couple weeks more.

On Mon, 17 Oct 2016, Jason Howe wrote: Considering there's now JavaScript versions of Cryptolocker out in the wild, I won't even touch it with Chrome. :) The price doesn't bother me much - that's simply a reflection of small-volume production. It would be nice if they'd offer it as a kit though. Maybe release the firmware so folks could add support for other machines. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

Really? Come on guys, this stuff costs $$?s to produce and they may actually want to make some profit. If you?re doing small volume stuff (10?s-100?s vs 100,000?s - 1,000,000?s) it?s going to be a bit pricey. Frankly, to get the price to drop to half ($125), you?d probably have to get 10x-100x quantity increase. I know because I face the same thing when trying to produce my boards. Assembly will typically double the cost of the board + components. I?ll likely be getting at least 3 of them (1 for the IBM 3174 and 2 for my Symbolics 3640 and possible another 2 for my other Symbolics 3640). TTFN - Guy

Sad. :-( That probably means it won?t work with the 3174 either. It sounds like they?re not doing bit level capture/replay but actually trying to emulate the actual format (ie knowing about how sectors and addressing are laid out). It make the end result (ie what?s on the SD card) a bit more usable but it also makes the emulation dependent upon what controller is being used. TTFN - Guy

Yes, that?s me but I have had issues with the emulator starting up reliably so that the 3174 boots. Actually, the format is 2.4MB (2x 1.2MB). It?s a 5-1/4? format instead of a 3-1/2? format. TTFN - Guy

Nope. Lots of other projects (including work and a major kitchen remodel). ;-) I don?t know. One of my other distractions is trying to get OS/2 (any version) installed on my xSeries 232 so that I can run it as a P/390 and everything is fighting me on that (bad RAID controller, to it not wanting to boot off of a floppy). I finally gave up and purchased a copy of eComStation but that kernel panic?d somewhere during installation. I haven?t even had time to put in a support call. :-( Oh and did I mention that I?ve acquired (just need to move it) an IBM 4331 mainframe including *all* of the peripherals (3340 disk drives + lots of packs, 1403 printer, IBM tape drives, card reader/punch, 029 keypunch, manuals, terminals, etc, etc)? TTFN - Guy

I?ve been on the lookout for IBM mainframes for a while. I did manage to acquire a fully functional Multiprise 3000 that was taken out of service and stored. I was incredibly lucky with that one as it was unmolested (it even came to me in its original IBM shipping crate!). I learned about the 4331 a few years ago and I?d been asking if they were interested in ?getting rid of it?. Every 6 months or so I would ask if they?d made a decision about getting rid of it. Finally about 2 months ago I got an email saying that they had decided to get rid of it. It?s been stored for a number of years even before I found out about it but it has been stored properly. I still imagine that there?s going to be a fair amount of work to get it running again. We?re still working out arranging getting it shipped. TTFN - Guy

On 10/17/2016 3:29 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: A friend @ UMSL worked when they had 2 4341s there. All of the campus workload had moved to UMC (Columbia) from St. Louis, so they were idle for 2 or 3 years. he had them as PC's They were stacked on on top of the other, but powered and running. If one wanted the ideal small footprint setup, the best would be the 4361, 4320, and a 3370. The 4361 was I think the only system with a builtin storage director, and the 4320 could connect directly to a channel w/o any controller. The 3370 IIRC correctly was FBA, and I think the controller was FBA (someone corrected me which one it was last time this came up). But any 43xx would be fun to work with. I worked with a maintenance group in the mid 80's and we got 3 or 4 of them scrap, and they all just turned up and worked. almost all the stuff that anyone had had running worked if it was properly de-installed and move in my experience. Might have been unique, but very solid designs and good documents with that hardware. thanks Jim

I haven?t had any time to work with it. When I get a chance to get back to it and still have problems, I?ll let you know. TTFN - Guy

After receiving an update to the firmware from the incredibly helpful DREM team I?ve been able to install XENIX on my Tandy 6000 with the DREM HD emulator! https://youtu.be/L12mL1IC11g