14 Jan
2021
14 Jan
'21
8:39 a.m.
I'm wondering how to do hard drive formatting, which is likely to be needed when
working with emulated disks in David Gesswein's MFM emulator.
As far as I can tell, RT-11 can do this. At least I have a source code printout for such
a formatter. But while I can find a hard drive image of RT V5 for Pro, I haven't
found any floppy-bootable images. And I think it's a bit tricky to create one. I
knew, long ago for V2...
Any suggestions? Any alternative sources for a formatter? I guess I really should
consider typing in the core of that formatter and adding it to RSTS.
paul
14 Jan
14 Jan
10:25 a.m.
Hm. I remember that POS 2.0 and above would just format the hard disk
and go during the install. Likewise I don't know if you can have
multiple hard disks in P/OS so that's a pain in the tail.
Boot from floppies and just init the raw disk.
C
On 1/14/2021 11:39 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
I'm wondering how to do hard drive formatting,
which is likely to be needed when working with emulated disks in David Gesswein's MFM
emulator.
As far as I can tell, RT-11 can do this. At least I have a source code printout for such
a formatter. But while I can find a hard drive image of RT V5 for Pro, I haven't
found any floppy-bootable images. And I think it's a bit tricky to create one. I
knew, long ago for V2...
Any suggestions? Any alternative sources for a formatter? I guess I really should
consider typing in the core of that formatter and adding it to RSTS.
paul
10:28 a.m.
I'll give that a try, thanks Chris.
The hardware supports multiple drives just fine (one per controller). The power supply
shuts down with three hard drives, though, the surge current is too high. I could work
around that if I ever needed two. Two drives is not a problem, and my RSTS code supports
this.
paul
On Jan 14, 2021, at 1:25 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Hm. I remember that POS 2.0 and above would just format the hard disk and go during the
install. Likewise I don't know if you can have multiple hard disks in P/OS so
that's a pain in the tail.
Boot from floppies and just init the raw disk.
C
On 1/14/2021 11:39 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
> I'm wondering how to do hard drive formatting, which is likely to be needed when
working with emulated disks in David Gesswein's MFM emulator.
> As far as I can tell, RT-11 can do this. At least I have a source code printout for
such a formatter. But while I can find a hard drive image of RT V5 for Pro, I haven't
found any floppy-bootable images. And I think it's a bit tricky to create one. I
knew, long ago for V2...
> Any suggestions? Any alternative sources for a formatter? I guess I really should
consider typing in the core of that formatter and adding it to RSTS.
> paul
10:42 a.m.
Hm. I did not know this, although the RMD process does show SY1: as well
as SY0: so it makes sense.
I'll have to try that. The power supply in the Pro is somewhat limited,
wonder if you set the drives up to power up in sequence if it would hold.
Longer term Pro project for me is to figure out if/how to get I/D
support in P/OS. I don't know if 3.2 supports split I/D and right now
the thought of making 30+ floppies is making my head hurt.
Is there a hardware emulator that can emulate RX50's from images to a
Pro? Been wondering that...
C
On 1/14/2021 1:28 PM, Paul Koning wrote:
I'll give that a try, thanks Chris.
The hardware supports multiple drives just fine (one per controller). The power supply
shuts down with three hard drives, though, the surge current is too high. I could work
around that if I ever needed two. Two drives is not a problem, and my RSTS code supports
this.
paul
On Jan 14, 2021, at 1:25 PM, Chris Zach via
cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Hm. I remember that POS 2.0 and above would just format the hard disk and go during the
install. Likewise I don't know if you can have multiple hard disks in P/OS so
that's a pain in the tail.
Boot from floppies and just init the raw disk.
C
On 1/14/2021 11:39 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
> I'm wondering how to do hard drive formatting, which is likely to be needed when
working with emulated disks in David Gesswein's MFM emulator.
> As far as I can tell, RT-11 can do this. At least I have a source code printout for
such a formatter. But while I can find a hard drive image of RT V5 for Pro, I haven't
found any floppy-bootable images. And I think it's a bit tricky to create one. I
knew, long ago for V2...
> Any suggestions? Any alternative sources for a formatter? I guess I really should
consider typing in the core of that formatter and adding it to RSTS.
> paul
10:52 a.m.
On Jan 14, 2021, at 1:42 PM, Chris Zach <cz at
alembic.crystel.com> wrote:
...
Is there a hardware emulator that can emulate RX50's from images to a Pro? Been
wondering that...
Perhaps David Gesswein's MFM emulator could be modified to do that. You might ask
him. I don't think it does so out of the box, though. The signal frequencies are
much lower than those of hard drives.
Some others make products that claim to offer the capability, https://www.drem.info is one
(mentioned by David) and I also found this
https://www.shopfloorautomations.com/hardware/floppy-connect/ . I know nothing about
either. Standard PC floppy formats use 9 sectors per track but normal drives can handle
10-sector DEC formats too. If the emulators are done right they should handle that as
well, but of course you'd have to confirm that.
paul
11:13 a.m.
torsdag 14 januari 2021 skrev Paul Koning via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org
As far as the releasnotes tell FlashFloppy by Keir Fraser support RX33 and
RX50.
https://github.com/keirf/FlashFloppy/blob/master/RELEASE_NOTES
:
On Jan 14, 2021, at 1:42 PM, Chris Zach <cz at
alembic.crystel.com> wrote:
...
Is there a hardware emulator that can emulate RX50's from images to a
Pro?
Been wondering that...
Perhaps David Gesswein's MFM emulator could be modified to do that. You
might ask him. I don't think it does so out of the box, though. The
signal frequencies are much lower than those of hard drives.
Some others make products that claim to offer the capability,
https://www.drem.info is one (mentioned by David) and I also found this
https://www.shopfloorautomations.com/hardware/floppy-connect/ . I know
nothing about either. Standard PC floppy formats use 9 sectors per track
but normal drives can handle 10-sector DEC formats too. If the emulators
are done right they should handle that as well, but of course you'd have to
confirm that.
paul
11:14 a.m.
On 1/14/21 1:52 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
What about the GOTEK with modified firmware that they are talking
about in other groups?
bill
On Jan 14, 2021, at 1:42 PM, Chris Zach <cz at
alembic.crystel.com> wrote:
...
Is there a hardware emulator that can emulate RX50's from images to a Pro? Been
wondering that...
Perhaps David Gesswein's MFM emulator could be modified to do that. You might ask
him. I don't think it does so out of the box, though. The signal frequencies are
much lower than those of hard drives.
Some others make products that claim to offer the capability, https://www.drem.info is
one (mentioned by David) and I also found this
https://www.shopfloorautomations.com/hardware/floppy-connect/ . I know nothing about
either. Standard PC floppy formats use 9 sectors per track but normal drives can handle
10-sector DEC formats too. If the emulators are done right they should handle that as
well, but of course you'd have to confirm that.
12:24 p.m.
I've successfully used a DREM-2 (https://www.drem.info/) with my Pro 380
for both floppy and hard disk emulation.
--Bjoren
On 1/14/2021 2:14 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
On 1/14/21 1:52 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
What about the GOTEK with modified firmware that they are talking
about in other groups?
bill
On Jan 14, 2021, at 1:42 PM, Chris Zach <cz at
alembic.crystel.com> wrote:
...
Is there a hardware emulator that can emulate RX50's from images to
a Pro? Been wondering that...
Perhaps David Gesswein's MFM emulator could be modified to do that.?
You might ask him.? I don't think it does so out of the box, though.?
The signal frequencies are much lower than those of hard drives.
Some others make products that claim to offer the capability,
https://www.drem.info is one (mentioned by David) and I also found
this https://www.shopfloorautomations.com/hardware/floppy-connect/ .
I know nothing about either.? Standard PC floppy formats use 9
sectors per track but normal drives can handle 10-sector DEC formats
too.? If the emulators are done right they should handle that as
well, but of course you'd have to confirm that.
12:53 p.m.
Cool! I just bought one of the G thingies ($30 on Amazon), will try
loading up the modified firmware and see if it works. Just easier than
making an endless pile of floppies I will only use once or twice (I
already have the whole POS 2.0 set).
So does a 380 support programs in split I/D? If not I need to start
hacking it to do so as 64k limits are for the birds....
C
On 1/14/2021 3:24 PM, Bjoren Davis via cctalk wrote:
I've successfully used a DREM-2
(https://www.drem.info/) with my Pro 380
for both floppy and hard disk emulation.
--Bjoren
On 1/14/2021 2:14 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
> On 1/14/21 1:52 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
>>
>>
>>> On Jan 14, 2021, at 1:42 PM, Chris Zach <cz at alembic.crystel.com>
wrote:
>>>
>>> ...
>>> Is there a hardware emulator that can emulate RX50's from images to
>>> a Pro? Been wondering that...
>>
>> Perhaps David Gesswein's MFM emulator could be modified to do that.
>> You might ask him.? I don't think it does so out of the box, though.
>> The signal frequencies are much lower than those of hard drives.
>>
>> Some others make products that claim to offer the capability,
>> https://www.drem.info is one (mentioned by David) and I also found
>> this https://www.shopfloorautomations.com/hardware/floppy-connect/ .
>> I know nothing about either.? Standard PC floppy formats use 9
>> sectors per track but normal drives can handle 10-sector DEC formats
>> too.? If the emulators are done right they should handle that as
>> well, but of course you'd have to confirm that.
>>
>
> What about the GOTEK with modified firmware that they are talking
> about in other groups?
>
> bill
>
>
3:10 p.m.
On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 3:53 PM Chris Zach via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
So does a 380 support programs in split I/D? If not I
need to start
hacking it to do so as 64k limits are for the birds...
The Pro380 has a J-11 chip. It should support Split I&D just fine on
any OS that knows about it. The real trick is what Operating Systems
and what versions support (or requires it, in the case of 2.11BSD)
Split I&D when the hardware allows it.
-ethan
5:59 p.m.
I've
successfully used a DREM-2 (https://www.drem.info/) with my Pro 380
for both floppy and hard disk emulation.
Cool! I just bought one of the G thingies ($30 on Amazon), will try
loading up the modified firmware and see if it works. Just easier than
making an endless pile of floppies I will only use once or twice (I
already have the whole POS 2.0 set).
7:01 p.m.
On 1/14/2021 8:59 PM, Cameron Kaiser via cctalk wrote:
Which firmware is this?
Mattis pointed this out: https://github.com/keirf/FlashFloppy
For $30 what's the worst that could happen.
I've successfully used a DREM-2
(https://www.drem.info/) with my Pro 380
for both floppy and hard disk emulation.
Cool! I just bought one of the G thingies ($30 on Amazon), will try
loading up the modified firmware and see if it works. Just easier than
making an endless pile of floppies I will only use once or twice (I
already have the whole POS 2.0 set). The DREM-2 also interests me since I'd like to
have a reproducible Venix
install on my PRO 380 and it seems to handle both the floppy and HD side.
I have enough MFM drives to last forever, although it would probably be
faster to have a SSD drive. We'll see.
7:42 p.m.
I should point out that, as far as I know, you can't use the floppy and
hard disk emulation of the DREM-2 at the same time; it's one or the other.
--Bjoren
On 1/14/2021 8:59 PM, Cameron Kaiser via cctalk wrote:
Which firmware is this?
The DREM-2 also interests me since I'd like to have a reproducible Venix
install on my PRO 380 and it seems to handle both the floppy and HD side.
I've successfully used a DREM-2
(https://www.drem.info/) with my Pro 380
for both floppy and hard disk emulation.
Cool! I just bought one of the G thingies
($30 on Amazon), will try
loading up the modified firmware and see if it works. Just easier than
making an endless pile of floppies I will only use once or twice (I
already have the whole POS 2.0 set).
16 Jan
16 Jan
2:17 p.m.
I just tried what you suggested (with P/OS 3.0) on an MFM emulator empty RD52 image, and
indeed that works just fine.
Thanks Chris!
paul
On Jan 14, 2021, at 1:25 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Hm. I remember that POS 2.0 and above would just format the hard disk and go during the
install. Likewise I don't know if you can have multiple hard disks in P/OS so
that's a pain in the tail.
Boot from floppies and just init the raw disk.
C
On 1/14/2021 11:39 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
> I'm wondering how to do hard drive formatting, which is likely to be needed when
working with emulated disks in David Gesswein's MFM emulator.
> As far as I can tell, RT-11 can do this. At least I have a source code printout for
such a formatter. But while I can find a hard drive image of RT V5 for Pro, I haven't
found any floppy-bootable images. And I think it's a bit tricky to create one. I
knew, long ago for V2...
> Any suggestions? Any alternative sources for a formatter? I guess I really should
consider typing in the core of that formatter and adding it to RSTS.
> paul
2:50 p.m.
Nice! If you'd like to be the greatest hero today, can you send me an
image of an RD52 or RD53 of the latest P/OS and I'll load it on one of
my drives here? (Save me 30 floppies, please :-)
Did the images from Xhomer work?
C
On 1/16/2021 5:17 PM, Paul Koning wrote:
I just tried what you suggested (with P/OS 3.0) on an
MFM emulator empty RD52 image, and indeed that works just fine.
Thanks Chris!
paul
On Jan 14, 2021, at 1:25 PM, Chris Zach via
cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Hm. I remember that POS 2.0 and above would just format the hard disk and go during the
install. Likewise I don't know if you can have multiple hard disks in P/OS so
that's a pain in the tail.
Boot from floppies and just init the raw disk.
C
On 1/14/2021 11:39 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
> I'm wondering how to do hard drive formatting, which is likely to be needed when
working with emulated disks in David Gesswein's MFM emulator.
> As far as I can tell, RT-11 can do this. At least I have a source code printout for
such a formatter. But while I can find a hard drive image of RT V5 for Pro, I haven't
found any floppy-bootable images. And I think it's a bit tricky to create one. I
knew, long ago for V2...
> Any suggestions? Any alternative sources for a formatter? I guess I really should
consider typing in the core of that formatter and adding it to RSTS.
> paul
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14 comments
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bdweb＠mindspring.com -
bill.gunshannon＠hotmail.com -
cz＠alembic.crystel.com -
ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
mattislind＠gmail.com -
paulkoning＠comcast.net -
spectre＠floodgap.com