6 Dec
2020
6 Dec
'20
6:24 p.m.
As the excavation of Bob's junkpile continues I have finally hit the MFM
layer. Specifically about 10 5.25 hard disks that look to be old style
MFM drives.
Vertex V150
Miniscribe 6085
ST 4038M Seagate Franklin telecom AT-40
Miniscribe 3650 HH
Seagate ST4096
Priam ID45-H
Rodime RO203E
RD54
Real ST506
Pair of ST412's.
Anyone recognize what kinds of systems may have used these? The RD54 is
of course DEC, and I'm guessing the ST506 and 412's were from either a
Rainbow or a Professional/350. But the rest are weird. Maybe Convergent
miniframes? Probably not PC's as Bob had a lot of weird stuff.
Thoughts? I'll see if I can get a mfm reader and suck data into files I
can post for others to read/try/giggle at. But as there isn't much
labelling I have no idea what is on them.
Also did find Wordperfect and speller for what I think is Rainbow on
5.25 floppies. Let me know if you need a copy, or if a copy exists in
archives (also two DEC disks for Learning the Rainbow or something like
that)
Chris
6 Dec
6 Dec
6:51 p.m.
On Sun, 6 Dec 2020, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote:
As the excavation of Bob's junkpile continues I
have finally hit the MFM
layer. Specifically about 10 5.25 hard disks that look to be old style MFM
drives.
Vertex V150
Miniscribe 6085
ST 4038M Seagate Franklin telecom AT-40
Miniscribe 3650 HH
Seagate ST4096
Priam ID45-H
Rodime RO203E
RD54
Real ST506
Pair of ST412's.
The Seagates were commodity drives, used in almost everything.
Number is approximately the unformatted capacity.
ST506 was 5MB formatted (305 Cyl x 2 heads) ;
ST412 added buffered seek, was 10MB formatted (306 cyl x 4 heads).
ST4096 was 80MB formatted. (1024 Cyl x 9 heads) For a long time, it was
the most common of the largest drives in that form factor. I found out
that 135W XT/AT power supplies were not always happy trying to run two of
those at a time.
XT/AT MFM had 17sectors per track; 512 bytes per sector.
Drives formatted on a machine other than 5160/5170 are likely to be
unreadable with 5160/5170.
Drives formatted for a given XT controller were often incompatible with
another XT controller. (Was some of that due to numbering sectors from 0
Vs from 1?)
Drives formatted with an AT controller were normally usable on another AT
controller.
7 p.m.
On Sun, Dec 6, 2020 at 7:51 PM Fred Cisin via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
On Sun, 6 Dec 2020, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote:
The mfm emulator at https://www.pdp8.net/mfm/mfm.shtml by David Gesswein
will read them all, though...
Warner
As the excavation of Bob's junkpile continues
I have finally hit the MFM
layer. Specifically about 10 5.25 hard disks that look to be old style
MFM
drives.
Vertex V150
Miniscribe 6085
ST 4038M Seagate Franklin telecom AT-40
Miniscribe 3650 HH
Seagate ST4096
Priam ID45-H
Rodime RO203E
RD54
Real ST506
Pair of ST412's.
The Seagates were commodity drives, used in almost everything.
Number is approximately the unformatted capacity.
ST506 was 5MB formatted (305 Cyl x 2 heads) ;
ST412 added buffered seek, was 10MB formatted (306 cyl x 4 heads).
ST4096 was 80MB formatted. (1024 Cyl x 9 heads) For a long time, it was
the most common of the largest drives in that form factor. I found out
that 135W XT/AT power supplies were not always happy trying to run two of
those at a time.
XT/AT MFM had 17sectors per track; 512 bytes per sector.
Drives formatted on a machine other than 5160/5170 are likely to be
unreadable with 5160/5170.
Drives formatted for a given XT controller were often incompatible with
another XT controller. (Was some of that due to numbering sectors from 0
Vs from 1?)
Drives formatted with an AT controller were normally usable on another AT
controller.
14 Dec
14 Dec
2:55 a.m.
Fred Cisin via cctalk:
(...)
The Seagates were commodity drives, used in almost
everything.
Number is approximately the unformatted capacity.
ST506 was 5MB formatted (305 Cyl x 2 heads) ;
The ST-506 had 2 platters, 4 heads. Mechanically the ST-506 and the
ST-412 are mostly the same. The track-to-track-distance and the position
of the inner and outer track differ.
ST412 added buffered seek, was 10MB formatted (306 cyl
x 4 heads).
Yes, but there are later versions auf the ST-506 with microcontroller on
it. Don't know if they already allowed buffered seek, but I think so.
--map
--
Martin Peters
martin at shackspace.de
6 Dec
6 Dec
7 p.m.
All IBM XT era drives. I have, have had or have given away at least one of
these before. Find a good working ibm xt and a genetic controller with a
manual and a copy of Spinrite software and test 'em. These are all
stiction prone and bad cap vulnerable.
Bill
On Sun, Dec 6, 2020, 9:25 PM Chris Zach via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
As the excavation of Bob's junkpile continues I
have finally hit the MFM
layer. Specifically about 10 5.25 hard disks that look to be old style
MFM drives.
Vertex V150
Miniscribe 6085
ST 4038M Seagate Franklin telecom AT-40
Miniscribe 3650 HH
Seagate ST4096
Priam ID45-H
Rodime RO203E
RD54
Real ST506
Pair of ST412's.
Anyone recognize what kinds of systems may have used these? The RD54 is
of course DEC, and I'm guessing the ST506 and 412's were from either a
Rainbow or a Professional/350. But the rest are weird. Maybe Convergent
miniframes? Probably not PC's as Bob had a lot of weird stuff.
Thoughts? I'll see if I can get a mfm reader and suck data into files I
can post for others to read/try/giggle at. But as there isn't much
labelling I have no idea what is on them.
Also did find Wordperfect and speller for what I think is Rainbow on
5.25 floppies. Let me know if you need a copy, or if a copy exists in
archives (also two DEC disks for Learning the Rainbow or something like
that)
Chris
7:23 p.m.
On Sun, Dec 6, 2020 at 6:25 PM Chris Zach via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
As the excavation of Bob's junkpile continues I
have finally hit the MFM
layer. Specifically about 10 5.25 hard disks that look to be old style
MFM drives.
Vertex V150
Miniscribe 6085
ST 4038M Seagate Franklin telecom AT-40
Miniscribe 3650 HH
Seagate ST4096
Priam ID45-H
Rodime RO203E
RD54
Real ST506
Pair of ST412's.
Anyone recognize what kinds of systems may have used these? The RD54 is
of course DEC, and I'm guessing the ST506 and 412's were from either a
Rainbow or a Professional/350. But the rest are weird. Maybe Convergent
miniframes? Probably not PC's as Bob had a lot of weird stuff.
I'd suspect that at least a few of these were from PERQ systems, given
their provenance. Vertex V150s and Miniscribes were commonly used in the
T2 models. As another listmember mentioned, Dave Gesswein's MFM emulator
will image these (and can decode PERQ hard drive formats.)
(If you do manage to capture PERQ images, please let me know...)
- Josh
7:34 p.m.
I'd suspect that at least a few of these were from
PERQ systems, given
their provenance.? Vertex V150s and Miniscribes were commonly used in
the T2 models.? As another listmember mentioned, Dave Gesswein's MFM
emulator will image these (and can decode PERQ hard drive formats.)
Probably. I didn't realize Perqs used reasonable sized drives, there's a
box there I've dug out with what looks like a transparent 8 inch drive
that I will try to disassemble and get up the stairs next time. Think
"dungeon" and "Y2" class steps....
(If you do manage to capture PERQ images, please let
me know...)
Absolutely. I have yet more Perq manuals as well and floppies. Did Perqs
only use 8 inch disks or should I keep eyes out for 5.25 as well?
https://i.imgur.com/ohuohvC.jpg
Chris
7:39 p.m.
On Sun, Dec 6, 2020 at 7:34 PM Chris Zach <cz at alembic.crystel.com> wrote:
Yeah, the later models used 5.25" media; the rare PERQ 2 used 8" Micropolis
drives, and the PERQ 1/1A used 14" Shugart SA-4000 drives.
8" floppy media exclusively.
That's a 14" Shugart SA-4000, given that it came from Bob's basement,
definitely a PERQ disk. Tough to read without a PERQ but there may be some
options nearby you, if you manage to extract it from the basement. Make
sure the spindle and heads are parked before moving.
- Josh
I'd
suspect that at least a few of these were from PERQ systems, given
their provenance. Vertex V150s and Miniscribes were commonly used in
the T2 models. As another listmember mentioned, Dave Gesswein's MFM
emulator will image these (and can decode PERQ hard drive formats.)
Probably. I didn't realize Perqs used reasonable sized drives, there's a
box there I've dug out with what looks like a transparent 8 inch drive
that I will try to disassemble and get up the stairs next time. Think
"dungeon" and "Y2" class steps....
(If you do manage to capture PERQ images, please
let me know...)
Absolutely. I have yet more Perq manuals as well and floppies. Did Perqs
only use 8 inch disks or should I keep eyes out for 5.25 as well?
Chris
9:28 p.m.
Yeah, the later models used 5.25" media; the rare
PERQ 2 used 8"
Micropolis drives, and the PERQ 1/1A used 14" Shugart SA-4000 drives.
Ok, is there a picture of a Micropolis 8 inch anywhere? If so I can
watch for it. The other oddball is the Miniframe, that box had no drives
any idea what they might have used for that?
8" floppy media exclusively.
That helps. Couple of boxes of floppies I'll keep an eye out for more 8
inchers.
That's a 14" Shugart SA-4000, given that it
came from Bob's basement,
definitely a PERQ disk.? Tough to read without a PERQ but there may be
some options nearby you, if you manage to extract it from the basement.
Make sure the spindle and heads are parked before moving.
Ok. Is there typically other stuff in that box? If I can take the drive
physically out and take the side skins off it might be light enough to
get up the steps. I'll bring a set of screwdrivers on the next trip out
and a nice head mounted lamp....
Finally what would be the priority of bringing out one of the printers?
They look like LJ1 engines and those were heavy but movable.
C
7 Dec
7 Dec
1:27 p.m.
On 12/6/20 9:28 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote:
Ok, is there a picture of a Micropolis 8 inch
anywhere?
there is a drawing on page 26 of the 1200 series design spec on bitsavers
to the first order, it's a pot metal brick about 8" x 10" x 3" with a
logic
board on the top
1:50 p.m.
Ok, so like a 2322 Fujitsu SMD drive then? I'll keep eyes peeled.
C
On 12/7/2020 4:27 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
On 12/6/20 9:28 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote:
Ok, is there a picture of a Micropolis 8 inch
anywhere?
there is a drawing on page 26 of the 1200 series design spec on
bitsavers
to the first order, it's a pot metal brick about 8" x 10" x 3" with a
logic
board on the top
8:21 a.m.
On 12/6/20 10:39 PM, Josh Dersch via cctalk wrote:
Yeah, the later models used 5.25" media; the rare PERQ 2 used 8" Micropolis
drives, and the PERQ 1/1A used 14" Shugart SA-4000 drives.
Wow. 14"!! last time I saw one of those was on the Apollo that used
to warm my house in the winter time.
bill
9 a.m.
On 12/7/20 8:21 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
On 12/6/20 10:39 PM, Josh Dersch via cctalk wrote:
Got an SA4006 sitting here in the shop with an IEEE-488 controller (done
in SSI--the PCB has the same footprint as the drive). Haven't powered
it up in about a decade, but it was working the last time I tried.
You really missed out on the big disk drives, say, the old Bryant
monsters with their 8 pound head assemblies and hydraulic leak bottles.
For a long time, the CDC 808 disk drive was standard fare on CDC 6000--4
spindles spinning stacks of what must have been 30" disks, using an
array of 6-bit parallel heads. About 7 feet tall and very reliable.
--Chuck
Yeah, the later models used 5.25" media; the rare PERQ 2 used 8"
Micropolis
drives, and the PERQ 1/1A used 14" Shugart SA-4000 drives.
Wow. 14"!!? last time I saw one of those was on the Apollo that used
to warm my house in the winter time. 
10:32 a.m.
On Dec 7, 2020, at 12:00 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On 12/7/20 8:21 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
I know of the 6603, is that a controller and the 808 is the drive?
Pretty amazing drive. 12 bit parallel transfer, so the data rate was way faster than any
other drive of that era (1964 or so). It also did "zone recording" (more
sectors per track on the outer tracks) well before that showed up in other drives.
paul
Wow. 14"!! last time I saw one of those was on the Apollo that used
to warm my house in the winter time.
...
For a long time, the CDC 808 disk drive was standard fare on CDC 6000--4
spindles spinning stacks of what must have been 30" disks, using an
array of 6-bit parallel heads. About 7 feet tall and very reliable.
11:16 a.m.
On 12/7/20 10:32 AM, Paul Koning wrote:
> Pretty amazing drive. 12 bit parallel
transfer, so the data rate was way faster than any other drive of that era (1964 or so).
It also did "zone recording" (more sectors per track on the outer tracks) well
before that showed up in other drives
I know of the 6603, is that a controller and the 808
is the drive?
The 6603 was the controller for the Bryant drive--I don't know if the
Bryant drive had an 800-series number. But it used zoned recording.
The 808's controller was the 6638. I still have a head from an 808,
salvaged from the detritus where the CEs were taking hammers and bolt
cutters to one (thank you Bill Norris). I used to have a platter as
well, but that went by the wayside during a move.
A good description of the unit is in bitsavers:
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/cdc/cyber/peripheralCtlr/60196200_6638_Disk_Fi…
I exaggerated a bit--the 808 was more than 6 feet, but less than 7 feet
tall (77 inches). I recall only that I never saw the top of one without
a ladder.
The 808 had a relative, the 821, with about 4x capacity. Other than
for internal testing and RFP responses, I don't think it was ever
released externally. Basically 808-sized. Had a terrible tendency to
go offline at the most inconvenient times. Mike Miller on the original
Special Systems AF Logistics project saved the contract by doing a
sprint during the timed benchmark to punch a button on one that had gone
offline.
The 821 never made it into the final contract; it was replaced by many
of the then-new 844 removable-media drives. Apparently, lots of small
drives were cheaper to source than monster drives.
--Chuck
12:30 p.m.
On Mon, 7 Dec 2020, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
You really missed out on the big disk drives, say, the
old Bryant
monsters with their 8 pound head assemblies and hydraulic leak bottles.
I have a single, slightly damaged RAMAC platter. It is only 24" diameter,
but when I showed it to my students, and then mentioned it later, they
tended to remember it as being "three or four FEET" diameter.
When Nikita Krushchev visited America more than 60 years ago in order to
try to de-escalate the cold war, they wouldn't let him go to Disneyland!
So, to "make up for that", they took him to San Jose to the IBM plant to
see the first RAMAC drives.
I have gotten a patio table base for the platter, and now need to get a
cover glass for it, to use it as a table.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
1:07 p.m.
On Mon, 7 Dec 2020, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
For a long time, the CDC 808 disk drive was standard
fare on CDC 6000--4
spindles spinning stacks of what must have been 30" disks, using an
array of 6-bit parallel heads. About 7 feet tall and very reliable.
Several sources said 26", but one said 39"
26" sounds about right, and is even bigger than the RAMAC (24").
39" platter would make a good dining rooom table, instead of patio table.
1:45 p.m.
On Dec 7, 2020, at 12:00 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
You really missed out on the big disk drives, say, the old Bryant
monsters with their 8 pound head assemblies and hydraulic leak bottles.
I have a Bryant platter on the wall of my office, but I?m not old enough to have seen it
operational. 39? diameter, 1/4? thick, made of magnesium. It came out of Collins Radio
Company in Cedar Rapids, IA.
I just resubscribed after not being active for a few years. It?s great to be back!
Tom
2:38 p.m.
On Mon, 7 Dec 2020, Tom Owad via cctalk wrote:
I have a Bryant platter on the wall of my office, but
I?m not old
enough to have seen it operational. 39? diameter, 1/4? thick, made
of magnesium. It came out of Collins Radio Company in Cedar Rapids, IA.
Beautiful pictures
https://www.applefritter.com/content/largest-and-smallest-hard-drives-ever-…
I just resubscribed after not being active for a few
years. It?s great
to be back!
Welcome back
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
7:07 p.m.
On 12/07/2020 03:45 PM, Tom Owad via cctalk wrote:
I have a Bryant platter on the wall of my office, but
I?m
not old enough to have seen it operational. 39? diameter,
1/4? thick, made of magnesium. It came out of Collins
Radio Company in Cedar Rapids, IA.
I have a 30" platter from an old accounting
machine. I
think it had 64 fixed heads. I did some experiments with it
but decided the data capacity was so low that it was not
worth spending time trying to cobble up a controller. it is
possible the data rate could be increased quite a bit, but
maybe the heads flew so high, or had such wide gaps that it
couldn't be pushed.
Jon
8 Dec
8 Dec
3:23 p.m.
Good news: I'm going to get a reader on loan so I should be able to
image these things. I'll put them up on my web server here, if anyone
would like to take a look at them let me know.
On a positive note it looks like the Perq T2 units used either the ST506
or ST412 drives, so those *might* have Perq data as I don't think Bob
ever had a Pro/350. Then again could be rainbows, is there a PERQ
emulator out on the web or does anyone know what a Perq disk would look
like?
C
On 12/6/2020 9:24 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote:
As the excavation of Bob's junkpile continues I
have finally hit the MFM
layer. Specifically about 10 5.25 hard disks that look to be old style
MFM drives.
Vertex V150
Miniscribe 6085 (could be 3b1)
ST 4038M Seagate Franklin telecom AT-40
Miniscribe 3650 HH (40mb maybe for a 3b2)
Seagate ST4096
Priam ID45-H
Rodime RO203E
RD54
Real ST506
Pair of ST412's.
Anyone recognize what kinds of systems may have used these? The RD54 is
of course DEC, and I'm guessing the ST506 and 412's were from either a
Rainbow or a Professional/350. But the rest are weird. Maybe Convergent
miniframes? Probably not PC's as Bob had a lot of weird stuff.
Thoughts? I'll see if I can get a mfm reader and suck data into files I
can post for others to read/try/giggle at. But as there isn't much
labelling I have no idea what is on them.
Also did find Wordperfect and speller for what I think is Rainbow on
5.25 floppies. Let me know if you need a copy, or if a copy exists in
archives (also two DEC disks for Learning the Rainbow or something like
that)
Chris
3:35 p.m.
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 3:23 PM Chris Zach via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
Good news: I'm going to get a reader on loan so I
should be able to
image these things. I'll put them up on my web server here, if anyone
would like to take a look at them let me know.
On a positive note it looks like the Perq T2 units used either the ST506
or ST412 drives, so those *might* have Perq data as I don't think Bob
ever had a Pro/350. Then again could be rainbows, is there a PERQ
emulator out on the web or does anyone know what a Perq disk would look
like?
David's MFM emulator knows how to decode PERQ hard drive images, if you use
the "--analyze" option to "mfm_read" it should pick it up. I have a
hacky
utility that can extract files from disk images, if they're in POS format.
As for emulators, yes, the one I wrote ages ago, but it doesn't emulate the
T2, as much as I keep hoping to get back to it and make that happen...
https://github.com/jdersch/PERQemu
- Josh
1236
days inactive
1243
days old
21 comments
12 participants
participants (12)
-
aek＠bitsavers.org -
bill.gunshannon＠hotmail.com -
billdegnan＠gmail.com -
cclist＠sydex.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
cz＠alembic.crystel.com -
derschjo＠gmail.com -
elson＠pico-systems.com -
imp＠bsdimp.com -
mail＠schnitz.com -
martin＠shackspace.de -
paulkoning＠comcast.net