16 Jul
2010
16 Jul
'10
9:25 a.m.
Has anyone else on the list seen one of these? I picked up a Vista V1200
disk system for Apple 2 that uses this type of drive. The mechanism takes
a plastic cartridge with five 5.25" floppy disks. The diskettes appear to
be conventional SS format with a couple of extra punchouts to mate with
the loader mechanism. Electrical interface is compatible with 8" floppy
drives (interface card was also sold for that purpose).
I'm not able to turn up any information about the drive and am wondering
how the diskette select/load scheme is intended to work. There are
at least a couple of possibilities:
- Treat the physical diskettes as portions of a single logical floppy and
select diskette by track range (first diskette 0-39, second 40-79, etc.)
- Treat each physical diskette as a logical drive and use binary select
lines on interface to choose.
Anyone have documentation on the drive mechanism or the Vista product?
Steve
--
16 Jul
16 Jul
1:37 p.m.
New subject: Two HP Apollo Workstations Available
I have two HP 700 Series (700 and 735/125) PA-RISC workstations I'd like to pass
along. Available for FREE, local pick-up only in Menlo Park, CA.
System 1: HP 735 Model 125, Seagate ST32430WD, 128MB RAM, no KB or display,
various SCSI and network ports, RGB monitor interface - powers on and passes
POST
System 2: HP Apollo Series 700, Quantum UP32210, 48MB RAM, no KB or display,
various SCSI and network ports, RGB monitor interface - does NOT power up
First come, first served. If no takers by next Wednesday then goes to E-waste.
Cheers,
Lee Courtney
6:18 p.m.
New subject: Two HP Apollo Workstations Available
Lee,
I don't know when John Bohner will be down to the CHM area, but I have a
variety of these workstations which would enjoy company. If you still
have no immediate responses, and I can work it out, I'll take them for
my pile.
Thanks
Jim
On 7/16/2010 10:37 AM, Lee Courtney (ACM) wrote:
I have two HP 700 Series (700 and 735/125) PA-RISC
workstations I'd like to pass
along. Available for FREE, local pick-up only in Menlo Park, CA.
System 1: HP 735 Model 125, Seagate ST32430WD, 128MB RAM, no KB or display,
various SCSI and network ports, RGB monitor interface - powers on and passes
POST
System 2: HP Apollo Series 700, Quantum UP32210, 48MB RAM, no KB or display,
various SCSI and network ports, RGB monitor interface - does NOT power up
First come, first served. If no takers by next Wednesday then goes to E-waste.
Cheers,
Lee Courtney
1:44 p.m.
On 16 Jul 2010 at 9:25, Steven Hirsch wrote:
- Treat each physical diskette as a logical drive and
use binary
select lines on interface to choose.
That's the way the Amlyn drives for the Apple that I've seen work.
One drive mechanism, magazine of five floppies, appears as five
drives.
There was also a version for the PC, but I don't remember how that
worked.
--Chuck
4:52 p.m.
On Fri, 16 Jul 2010, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 16 Jul 2010 at 9:25, Steven Hirsch wrote:
That makes sense, but I'm wondering how they dealt with that at the
software level. Under Apple DOS, you access disks by Sn,Dn (slot 1-7 and
drive 1 or 2). Unless they patched DOS you couldn't say, for example,
S7,D4. I think I need to get the software for this beast.
Do you recall anything about the command structure?
- Treat each physical diskette as a logical drive
and use binary
select lines on interface to choose.
That's the way the Amlyn drives for the Apple that I've seen work.
One drive mechanism, magazine of five floppies, appears as five
drives. There was also a version for the PC, but I don't
remember how that
worked.
Fred Cisin indicated that the PC version saw a single logical disk spread
across all five floppies.
Steve
--
17 Jul
17 Jul
11:06 a.m.
On 16 Jul 2010 at 16:52, Steven Hirsch wrote:
That makes sense, but I'm wondering how they dealt
with that at the
software level. Under Apple DOS, you access disks by Sn,Dn (slot 1-7
and drive 1 or 2). Unless they patched DOS you couldn't say, for
example, S7,D4. I think I need to get the software for this beast.
Do you recall anything about the command structure?
No I don't, sorry. Does anyone still have one of the Corvus units
that use an IMI hard drive? ISTR that it mapped the drive into 50 or
floppies. Perhaps that might give some insight.
--Chuck
4:16 p.m.
On Sat, 17 Jul 2010, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 16 Jul 2010 at 16:52, Steven Hirsch wrote:
Ok, I think I see what they're doing. The driver patches Apple DOS to
expect a large logical geometry and maps logical track + sector requests
to physical diskette + track + sector. I expect it shuffles diskettes as
you exceed maximum block offset for a currently loaded disk.
At the hardware interface level, it's probably using binary select lines
to choose disk 0-4 from the cartridge.
Good news is that the unit booted into Vista DOS 3.3 when connected to my
IIe in the shop. The bad news is that it only did so once :-(. On
subsequent attempts, it sits and re-seeks endlessly. I suspect the media
is deteriorating and crapped the head up with oxide. I'll clean it up and
take a last crack at copying off the system software and utilities.
Next step is to take an X-acto knife to a handful of 5.25" 1.2M diskettes
and see if the loader can work with them.
I pulled down a copy of their patent application for the unit and it
almost looks like the Minipac diskettes have some sort of pre-written
servo track. Perhaps the unit can actually write this servo, but without
documentation I'm just surmising.
Steve
--
That makes sense, but I'm wondering how they
dealt with that at the
software level. Under Apple DOS, you access disks by Sn,Dn (slot 1-7
and drive 1 or 2). Unless they patched DOS you couldn't say, for
example, S7,D4. I think I need to get the software for this beast.
Do you recall anything about the command structure?
No I don't, sorry. Does anyone still have one of the Corvus units
that use an IMI hard drive? ISTR that it mapped the drive into 50 or
floppies. Perhaps that might give some insight.
7:43 p.m.
On 17 Jul 2010 at 16:16, Steven Hirsch wrote:
I pulled down a copy of their patent application for
the unit and it
almost looks like the Minipac diskettes have some sort of pre-written
servo track. Perhaps the unit can actually write this servo, but
without documentation I'm just surmising.
Could be. It sounds a bit like the Drivetec drives of the same time
period. Something like (ISTR) 192 tpi, using an embedded servo,
making factory-formatted disks mandatory, something that probably did
more to kill the drive than anything else. I've still got a couple
of the Kodak/Drivetecs with media from Dysan, but basically they
exist for the eventuality that someone, somewhere has data written on
one of these that they need to get at.
--Chuck
18 Jul
18 Jul
9:44 a.m.
On Sat, 17 Jul 2010, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 17 Jul 2010 at 16:16, Steven Hirsch wrote:
Gets stranger as I go... I disassembled the drive to take a short at
cleaning the heads. Turns out to be "head" (singular). If the total
capacity is 6MB, then they were writing 160 tracks on a single side.
That's pushing the envelope for mechanical alignment on a floppy and
certainly explains why they used servo-feedback positioning instead of
blind stepping like a conventional drive. The majority of claims on the
patent pertained to track positioning, so this is all consistant.
Steve
--
I pulled down a copy of their patent application
for the unit and it
almost looks like the Minipac diskettes have some sort of pre-written
servo track. Perhaps the unit can actually write this servo, but
without documentation I'm just surmising.
Could be. It sounds a bit like the Drivetec drives of the same time
period. Something like (ISTR) 192 tpi, using an embedded servo,
making factory-formatted disks mandatory, something that probably did
more to kill the drive than anything else. I've still got a couple
of the Kodak/Drivetecs with media from Dysan, but basically they
exist for the eventuality that someone, somewhere has data written on
one of these that they need to get at.
19 Jul
19 Jul
8 a.m.
On Sun, 18 Jul 2010, Steven Hirsch wrote:
<sigh>.. It appears that the OEM Amlyn diskettes are pre-formatted in
some manner.
I found a utility (from my Vista 8" Apple subsystem) that recognized the
data on my Amlyn drive cartridge and was able to retrieve the system
generation and format utilities. The latter works fine on one of the
cartridge diskettes, so I tried it on a blank 1.2M HD floppy that was cut
up to fit the unit.
The new disk loads properly without mechanical issues, but will not format
or otherwise show signs of life. I'm guessing they wanted to preserve a
market for blank diskettes and cartridges. Reminds me of the DEC Rainbow
(wasn't that system deliberately crippled to prevent it from being able to
format blank media?).
Steve
--
On 17 Jul 2010
at 16:16, Steven Hirsch wrote:
Gets stranger as I go... I disassembled the drive to take a short at
cleaning the heads. Turns out to be "head" (singular). If the total
capacity is 6MB, then they were writing 160 tracks on a single side. That's
pushing the envelope for mechanical alignment on a floppy and certainly
explains why they used servo-feedback positioning instead of blind stepping
like a conventional drive. The majority of claims on the patent pertained to
track positioning, so this is all consistant. I pulled down a copy of their patent application
for the unit and it
almost looks like the Minipac diskettes have some sort of pre-written
servo track. Perhaps the unit can actually write this servo, but
without documentation I'm just surmising.
Could be. It sounds a bit like the Drivetec drives of the same time
period. Something like (ISTR) 192 tpi, using an embedded servo,
making factory-formatted disks mandatory, something that probably did
more to kill the drive than anything else. I've still got a couple
of the Kodak/Drivetecs with media from Dysan, but basically they
exist for the eventuality that someone, somewhere has data written on
one of these that they need to get at.
4:41 p.m.
I talked to Tom Freeman who owned Vista, and is not that technical about
this. The assets of Vista were auctioned off, so he did not retain any
documentation of any sort, sad to say. However from what he recalls
they probably did have preformatted media. I do have a pile "somewhere"
of the media from vista, but it will be well buried and is 1300 miles
from me (and will be some time before I can get to it).
I'll share here when I find it and let anyone interested then have the
media. I have 2 changers in the pile as well.
There was an engineer who did the software and hardware for Vista, but I
know he purged his archives about 15 or 20 years ago my direction, and
there was no documentation about this product at that time, sad to say.
Jim
On 7/19/2010 5:00 AM, Steven Hirsch wrote:
On Sun, 18 Jul 2010, Steven Hirsch wrote:
<sigh>.. It appears that the OEM Amlyn diskettes are pre-formatted in
some manner.
I found a utility (from my Vista 8" Apple subsystem) that recognized
the data on my Amlyn drive cartridge and was able to retrieve the
system generation and format utilities. The latter works fine on one
of the cartridge diskettes, so I tried it on a blank 1.2M HD floppy
that was cut up to fit the unit.
The new disk loads properly without mechanical issues, but will not
format or otherwise show signs of life. I'm guessing they wanted to
preserve a market for blank diskettes and cartridges. Reminds me of
the DEC Rainbow (wasn't that system deliberately crippled to prevent
it from being able to format blank media?).
Steve
On 17 Jul
2010 at 16:16, Steven Hirsch wrote:
Gets stranger as I go... I disassembled the drive to take a short at
cleaning the heads. Turns out to be "head" (singular). If the total
capacity is 6MB, then they were writing 160 tracks on a single side.
That's pushing the envelope for mechanical alignment on a floppy and
certainly explains why they used servo-feedback positioning instead
of blind stepping like a conventional drive. The majority of claims
on the patent pertained to track positioning, so this is all consistant. I pulled down a copy of their patent application
for the unit and it
almost looks like the Minipac diskettes have some sort of pre-written
servo track. Perhaps the unit can actually write this servo, but
without documentation I'm just surmising.
Could be. It sounds a bit like the Drivetec drives of the same time
period. Something like (ISTR) 192 tpi, using an embedded servo,
making factory-formatted disks mandatory, something that probably did
more to kill the drive than anything else. I've still got a couple
of the Kodak/Drivetecs with media from Dysan, but basically they
exist for the eventuality that someone, somewhere has data written on
one of these that they need to get at.
20 Jul
20 Jul
7:43 a.m.
On Mon, 19 Jul 2010, jim s wrote:
I talked to Tom Freeman who owned Vista, and is not
that technical about
this. The assets of Vista were auctioned off, so he did not retain any
documentation of any sort, sad to say. However from what he recalls they
probably did have preformatted media. I do have a pile "somewhere" of the
media from vista, but it will be well buried and is 1300 miles from me (and
will be some time before I can get to it).
Doug Laing of Laing Electronics purchased the rights to their Apple 2
products around 1984-5. I have no idea if they are still around or if he
has any of the software or docs.
I'll share here when I find it and let anyone
interested then have the media.
I have 2 changers in the pile as well.
Cool, thanks!
There was an engineer who did the software and
hardware for Vista, but I know
he purged his archives about 15 or 20 years ago my direction, and there was
no documentation about this product at that time, sad to say.
I recall speaking with "John" at Vista about driver issues on my Apple
IIe. Is that who you're referring to, perhaps?
It is really aggravating when folks "purge" this type of information. For
the love-of-Mike, how much trouble is it to run off a tape or burn it to a
DVD? The same thing happened to most of Applied Engineering's technical
docs when they went Chapter 11. Everything went into the dumpster.
Steve
--
2:41 p.m.
I recall speaking with "John" at Vista about
driver issues on my Apple
IIe. Is that who you're referring to, perhaps?
It is really aggravating when folks "purge" this type of information.
For the love-of-Mike, how much trouble is it to run off a tape or burn
it to a DVD? The same thing happened to most of Applied Engineering's
technical docs when they went Chapter 11. Everything went into the
dumpster.
Steve
John sounds like the guy I'm thinking of.
I have personally been around during some of these times, and that
explains my containers and boxes full of stuff. Vista's assets were
sold, not discarded, according to Tom, I asked. This was a real
"wayback" question for him, but he was sure the documents and
engineering stuff was sold. They bought the Kaypro assets for instance
and that was all sold including documentation, both at ACP and at some
auctions, so I am pretty sure he is right that someone would have
purchased whatever stuff the Vista engineering group had.
Also, since this "John" I'm speaking of was a contractor, he probably
had the real scoop on the documents. I was more into their PC to SASI /
SCSI combo board and talked him out of documentation and drawings of
that board, but not the other vista stuff.
Jim
19 Jul
19 Jul
4:56 p.m.
market for blank diskettes and cartridges. Reminds me
of the DEC Rainbow
(wasn't that system deliberately crippled to prevent it from being able to
format blank media?).
Only (AFIAK) by DEC not supplying a formatter program with early versions
of the OS. The hardware was quite capable of formatting blank disks.
-tony
4:56 p.m.
On 19 Jul 2010 at 8:00, Steven Hirsch wrote:
The new disk loads properly without mechanical issues,
but will not
format or otherwise show signs of life. I'm guessing they wanted to
preserve a market for blank diskettes and cartridges. Reminds me of
the DEC Rainbow (wasn't that system deliberately crippled to prevent
it from being able to format blank media?).
If the Amlyn disks use an embedded servo, formatting one is a
mechanical issue--you need to periodically offset from the central
track axis a bit one way or the other to write a servo burst. Not
easy to do wth a conventional read/write drive.
--Chuck
16 Jul
16 Jul
2:54 p.m.
On Fri, 16 Jul 2010, Steven Hirsch wrote:
Has anyone else on the list seen one of these?
I had a few of the 5150 version.
Sellam has them now.
I picked up a Vista V1200
disk system for Apple 2 that uses this type of drive. The mechanism takes
a plastic cartridge with five 5.25" floppy disks. The diskettes appear to
be conventional SS format with a couple of extra punchouts to mate with
the loader mechanism. Electrical interface is compatible with 8" floppy
drives (interface card was also sold for that purpose).
The 5150 version, and probably yours also, uses DSHD ("1.2M") disks. As
you mentioned, it has extra cut-outs. I have used diskettes from the
cartridges as regular 1.2m.
If you get desperate, I have a few cartridges kicking around.
I'm not able to turn up any information about the
drive and am wondering
how the diskette select/load scheme is intended to work. There are
at least a couple of possibilities:
- Treat the physical diskettes as portions of a single logical floppy and
select diskette by track range (first diskette 0-39, second 40-79, etc.)
Depending on the software that you use, . . .
The default software for the 5150 sees the pack as a single 6M disk.
(5 * 1.2M)
- Treat each physical diskette as a logical drive and
use binary select
lines on interface to choose.
. . . capable of that, but not the default in the 5150 software
Anyone have documentation on the drive mechanism or
the Vista product?
No.
. . .and I really wanted to get into it, particularly when an Amlyn rep
said that the seek was a closed-loop servo, and could do 48tpi, 96tpi,
100tpi, "or whatever else you want". But, I was not ready when it came
time to close my office, and had to abandon that project, along with many
others.
For a few years, before I ever saw an Amlyn, I used a Vista 5150 disk
controller for 8" drives on a 5150. I have/had some docs for that, but
not likely to be able to find them in a timely manner.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
3:12 p.m.
On Fri, 16 Jul 2010, Fred Cisin wrote:
I would like to take you up on that if you can locate them. I also saw a
note from you referring to a frame for punching holes in 1.2M floppies to
make them fit. If you have one of those, I'd be interested.
Hmm. I wonder how they map tracks, then? The A2 Vista controller uses a
WD179x controller and I think those are limited to one-byte track values.
Thanks for the response - I'll keep looking. And do let me know if you
want to part with the cartridges and/or punch jig.
Steve
--
On Fri, 16 Jul 2010, Steven Hirsch wrote:
Is Sellam "The Computer History Museum"? They appear to have manuals and
drives, but no means of accessing documentation. I guess it's nice if you
want to look at pictures.
Has anyone else on the list seen one of these?
I had a few of the 5150 version.
Sellam has them now. I picked up a
Vista V1200
disk system for Apple 2 that uses this type of drive. The mechanism takes
a plastic cartridge with five 5.25" floppy disks. The diskettes appear to
be conventional SS format with a couple of extra punchouts to mate with
the loader mechanism. Electrical interface is compatible with 8" floppy
drives (interface card was also sold for that purpose).
The 5150 version, and probably yours also, uses DSHD ("1.2M") disks. As
you mentioned, it has extra cut-outs. I have used diskettes from the
cartridges as regular 1.2m.
If you get desperate, I have a few cartridges kicking around. I'm not
able to turn up any information about the drive and am wondering
how the diskette select/load scheme is intended to work. There are
at least a couple of possibilities:
- Treat the physical diskettes as portions of a single logical floppy and
select diskette by track range (first diskette 0-39, second 40-79, etc.)
Depending on the software that you use, . . .
The default software for the 5150 sees the pack as a single 6M disk.
(5 * 1.2M) - Treat each
physical diskette as a logical drive and use binary select
lines on interface to choose.
. . . capable of that, but not the default in the 5150 software
Anyone have documentation on the drive mechanism
or the Vista product?
No.
4:56 p.m.
> I had a few of the 5150 version.
> Sellam has them now.
On Fri, 16 Jul 2010, Steven Hirsch wrote:
Is Sellam "The Computer History Museum"?
No. He is VCF, and has what is likely to be the largest personal
collection. When I needed to move out of my office, he took an enormous
amount of stuff to add to his collection.
If you get
desperate, I have a few cartridges kicking around.
I would like to take you up on
that if you can locate them. I also saw a
note from you referring to a frame for punching holes in 1.2M floppies to
make them fit. If you have one of those, I'd be interested.
I don't remember that.
But, 30 years ago, I did make and commercially market "The Berkeley
Microcomputer Flip-Jig" for punching regular floppies to make them
flippies. (not needed for Apple, because it didn't use the index hole)
Hmm. I wonder how they map tracks, then? The A2
Vista controller uses a
WD179x controller and I think those are limited to one-byte track values.
I don't know. The easiest way to write the software would be to have it
look like an 80 cylinder 10 head drive. But that would be horrible with
disk switching on every other side change.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
5:34 p.m.
On 16 Jul 2010 at 15:12, Steven Hirsch wrote:
Hmm. I wonder how they map tracks, then? The A2
Vista controller
uses a WD179x controller and I think those are limited to one-byte
track values.
Doesn't matter; it was done within the driver; the disks were swapped
as needed.
--Chuck
17 Jul
17 Jul
5:27 p.m.
On Fri, 16 Jul 2010, Steven Hirsch wrote:
Has anyone else on the list seen one of these? I
picked up a Vista V1200
disk system for Apple 2 that uses this type of drive. The mechanism takes a
plastic cartridge with five 5.25" floppy disks. The diskettes appear to be
conventional SS format with a couple of extra punchouts to mate with the
loader mechanism. Electrical interface is compatible with 8" floppy drives
(interface card was also sold for that purpose).
I think I encountered one in a client's junk closet. By the way, does
anyone know the identity or have pictures of the device referenced in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk#Floppy_mass_storage as being
"spectacularly messy" when it failed?
--
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
5117
days inactive
5121
days old
19 comments
7 participants
participants (7)
-
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
cclist＠sydex.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu -
jws＠jwsss.com -
lee_courtney＠acm.org -
snhirsch＠gmail.com