Morrow 8" disk image CP/M uploaded

Mark G Thomas Mark at Misty.com
Thu May 11 10:31:21 CDT 2017


Hi Bill,

On Tue, May 09, 2017 at 09:56:15PM -0400, william degnan via cctalk wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I was contacted though my site by someone looking for a boot disk for their
> California Computer System S-100 2200 computer with Morrow's Disk Jockey
> DJ/DMA floppy disk controller.  I checked and found what might be a
> suitable disk.
> 
> I imaged the disk and the file has been uploaded to my web site along with
> a PDF of the directory the original owner printed and inserted into the
> disk sleeve. Does anyone have such a drive controller and would like to
> take a look at this image to see if it's usable?  Uploaded, here:
> 
> http://vintagecomputer.net/disk_images/Morrow/
> 
> There may be something wrong with the disk.  The label reads
> 8" Morrow E14 Phil's System Disk Backup 9/22/86
> Permanent error on boot track
> 
> Despite what was printed on the lable I was able to image the disk without
> error.  I am hoping the error referred to in the hand-written label is not
> a physical error and can be edited/corrected.  Maybe this disk is
> salvageable, maybe the error is a BIOs thing.
> 
> There was talk about trying to find a diskJockey boot disk on this list a
> few weeks ago (right?), if so I hope this is useful.  If anyone attempts to
> read, let me know how it goes.
> 
> Bill

There are at least two different versions of this controller, with different
ROM decode addresses. It's non-trivial to modify the card -- not just a jumper
and PROM to change. The boot disk is specific to which version of the
card. I have the earlier version of the card with the BIOS at E000H, and
have been meaning to try the images from Herb's disks.

These cards are nice in that they include a serial port, so the provided 
CP/M boot disk and CBIOS will boot up to a functional enough system
to further configure for specific hardware, solving the chicken and
egg problem with CP/M BIOS and hardware configuration.

Newer versions of this card have BIOS at F800H, which Mike Loewen has
images for, which are probably good, for that version of the card.
It would be helpful if the person inquiring could determine which version
of the card they have.

When I was working on this, I found manuals for both versions on Bitsavers
(I think), which should have enough info to match up with the card:

0xE000 Morrow Disk Jockey 2D Floppy Controller Users Manual 1980 rev2.pdf
0xF800 Disk_Jockey_2_Model_B_Technical_Reference_Rev_1_Dec82.pdf

Please feel free to put the person inquiring in contact with me. I'd like
to get mine booting, and may be able to help them do similarly.

Mark

-- 
Mark G. Thomas (Mark at Misty.com), KC3DRE


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