Minor Tektronix success story. - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

19 Aug 1998

Tony Duell qouted Jeff as having written:
...
   Maybe you
would have been better off using an HP IEEE disk drive: 
 Problem is, I don't think Philip has the CS/80 protocol (mainly because
 I'm looking for it, and he's not offered it to me ;-)). And without that
 impossible-to-find document, it's almost impossible to use HP drives.  
True.  The reason was, I have _no_ HP disk drives, but I have _three_
8050s (one working, one in bits, one badly mangled), not to mention a
4040 and a 2031 (which would also work), and at least six PETS.  So the
Commodore stuff was the obvious choice.
And Tony is also right:  I don't have the CS/80 protocol.
Besides, most of the problems were with the Tektronix lacking facilities
for opening files, loading and saving named files, etc.
Not to mention its asserting of IFC just when I didn't want it to...
...
  The Commodore protocol is pretty well documented in a
number of books
 ('Programming the PET' has enough info, I think). 
by Raeto West?  Exactly what I used.
...
   In this neck
of the woods anyway, Commodore IEEE related 'stuff'
 is pretty scarce . . . 
 It's not that rare in the UK. I've got an 8050, 8250LP and a number of
 printers here. 
Agreed.  Lots of PETs were used in commercial/scientific applications -
probably because of the GPIB - and there are even books like West or
Osborne & Donahue in the library here at work.
Philip.