> In a sense, yes. I can't justify the cost of ownership (which is a lot
> higher than the value of the machine) for such a machine. I'd rather spend
> the money on something useful. I've got better things to put in the
> space. I've got more interesting things to learn to fix than a PC where
> half the components are probably unobtainable anyway.
>
> And I can assure you there's nothing that I want to do that I can't do on
> my existing computers.
OK, I'm curious, what hardware/Operating System do you use to get on the
net? You've obviously got email access, do you have web, etc.?
Zane
I have - ready for the dumpster- a bunch of token ringers. None are tested
but came from working mo-chines. Heres' a rough breakdown of the 15 cards:
3 ea - NCR long MCA 16/4 cards, pn 770-00238 (2 B's, 1 A) RJ45 and 9 d-sub
1 ea - IBM short "Auto 16/4" FRU 92G7690 RJ45 only
4 ea - IBM short 16/4 FRU 74F9515 9 d-sub only
5 ea - IBM short 16/4 FRU 74F9321 9 d-sub only
1 ea - Thomas Conrad long ISA 16 bit w/ Tropic 500-4043-001 Rev A, 9 d-sub
only
1 ea - 3Com TokenLink Velocity ISA 3C319 short 16 bit w/RJ45 and 9 d-sub
Shipping by USPS, approx 10 lbs (might vary when packed but this is close).
If not spoken for by Monday they get chucked. Postage would be from zip
42726
A parallel port ZIP drive is very handy for this sort of thing.
Easy to setup; in your case I'd format a disk in the old PC (360K),
take it to a newer PC, SYS it with 6.22, put the files on it
for the ZIP drive, and boot it on the old PC. The parallel ZIP
only needs a 1/2 dozen or so control files to work.
a:guest (assigns ZIP to drive D)
xcopy c:*.* d: /s /e (put it on the floppy when you sys it)
It make take awhile. Go have lunch.
Lance.
At 12:37 PM 7/25/01 -0700, you wrote:
>Here's the deal:
>
>I have a circa 1982 IBM PC that has a Seagate ST-251 in it attached to a
Data Technology Corp. DTC-5150CI controller with a BIOS on it. Everything
works fine and the PC will boot up (it's running PC-DOS 3.3) and I can
navigate around and look at all the files, etc.
>
>The problem is that I want to pull the files off of this drive, and the
360K floppy doesn't appeal to me a method of transfer (the hard drive is
almost full.)
>
>There are three ways I can imagine doing this:
>
>1. Get an 8-bit ethernet card working under DOS 3.3 and somehow connect it
to my home network,
>2. Install a second HD in the PC that's running off a more modern
controller (IDE?),
>3. Install the ST-251 into a more modern PC.
>
>I've been trying to get option 3 to work for a week now, but I'm not
having any luck. Any tips? I'm currently trying to get the DTC controller
to work in an old EISA 486 with a 1992 AMI BIOS, but I keep getting a "HDD
Controller failure" message. I've tried it both with the controllers BIOS
enabled and disabled. If the BIOS is enabled, it puts up a message saying
"1 hard disk" right before the other error - this is the same message I see
on the PC right before it starts booting.
>
>So I know the controller itself is "working", but it's not being
recognized by the BIOS. I'm not sure what's going on.
>
>Any tips? Any other ideas about how to get the data off of this drive?
Should I try another MFM controller?
>
>Daniel
>--
>Daniel A. Segel
>WorldCom
>Employee Systems User Support
>Phone: 916-373-4810; Vnet: 653-4810; Pager: 888-783-5951; AIM: DanSegel
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ethan Dicks" <ethan_dicks(a)yahoo.com>
> To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
> Sent: Friday, July 27, 2001 6:34 PM
> Subject: QNX (was Re: building a PDP11 from the things you find at home)
>
>
> >
> > --- "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh(a)aracnet.com> wrote:
> > > > QNX is a very cool operating system, which unfortunately (from my
> > > >perspective) runs only on the Intel platform...
> > >
> > > Do some research, QNX runs on a *LOT* more than IA, and yes, it seems to
> be
> > > pretty cool.
> >
> > Agreed. I heard of QNX _years_ ago on the mc68k platform, long before
> > I saw it for the first time (on a 486, running the air handlers and
> > environmental controls at the science lab at McMurdo; they also use it
> > on the research boats for data collection as well as environmental
> > monitoring and control).
> >
> > -ethan
> I think you must be mistaken. Perhaps you're thinking of another system?
> I was in high school hanging out at the University of Waterloo when
> Danny Dodge (??)came to pick up his lineprinter listings I happened to
> be reading. It was the source code to what became QNX. He was
> part of a 3 member team writing a real time kernel as an assigment
> for a 3rd or 4th year real-time programming course. At the time
> the target was a generic intel 80186 box. Most interesting was that
> the cross development was done on a Honeywell Gecos mainframe...
>
> I later acquired QNX 1.0 for the 8088 IBM PC, Nabu 1600 (8086) and
> Cemcorp Icon (80186 bionic beaver, a machine put into every Ontario school)
> I still have all these machines - QNX was a perfect match for <512K
> mmu-less memory systems. The Nabu also has an add-on discrete mmu
> which allowed it to run Xenix in 512 K... amazing for the time as it benched
> close to the speed of a VAX even with miserably slow WD MFM drives.
>
> Could you be thinking of OS-9 ? for the 6809 or OS-9000 ?
>
> Regards, Heinz
He's not mistaken, while the latest version(s) don't look to still support
68k processors, it does support a LOT of different CPU's.
http://qdn.qnx.com/support/hardware/platform/processors.html
Zane
> Has anyone here successfully done this? I have the VAXen, I have a ROM
> burner, I have the patches and I have a complete 32-bit file with the
I've no idea, but I think people have done this successfully. I've only got
one VAXstation 2000, and it's got bad RAM, so the only thing it's good for
is a disk formatter (but then that was all I wanted it for in the first
place).
Zane
Check out http://content.sunhelp.org/boards/
Anybody know what these might be out of?
No company name/markings that I can find.
About the size of a modern PC motherboard, maybe a little
smaller. They DONT look like DEC boards to me, but I may
be wrong. The "levers" on each board to remove them are
two different colors - one white with a label, one colored
(I guess to color-code installing the boards). Each board
has two card-edge connectors to plug into a backplane, and
some have top-edge connectors (cables, etc, I would guess).
Here's what they are so far:
White Handle Other Part # ?
--------------------------------------------------------
MICA green 176P1346-2-0
MICB green 170A113670-D
DECODE green 176P1239-A
DRIVER green 176P1238-B
DMEM green/black? 176P1240-1-A
FMEM yellow 176P1267-C
MCS yellow 176P001282-C
TERMINAL white 176A109450-A
KBINT blue 176A116980-0
--
Bill Bradford
mrbill(a)mrbill.net
Austin, TX
> When there get to be enough thieves that those law abiding citizens who get
> robbed become tired of it, the law may change to the extent that your
property
> becomes worth more than the fleas that choose to steal it. In the meantime,
> we'll just have to make stew out of their flesh, cat food from their
innards,
> and fertilizer from their bones ... <sigh> at least that way they serve
SOME
> useful purpose. Is it really worth the effort?
Yup. Time to install that lime pit....
(BTW, I have instructions on how to make your own lime
>from limestone, if anyone needs it).
-dq
Well... If it were me, I'd just hook the things together modem to modem (or
serial port to serial port as the case may be) and send everything over
using terminal software. Procomm was what I used on my olde '286 and XT;
Hyperterminal for my Pentium machine.
Craig
-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel A. Segel <Daniel.Segel(a)wcom.com>
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Date: Wednesday, July 25, 2001 3:13 PM
Subject: need help with an old ST-251 MFM drive...
>Here's the deal:
>
>I have a circa 1982 IBM PC that has a Seagate ST-251 in it attached to a
Data Technology Corp. DTC-5150CI controller with a BIOS on it. Everything
works fine and the PC will boot up (it's running PC-DOS 3.3) and I can
navigate around and look at all the files, etc.
>
>The problem is that I want to pull the files off of this drive, and the
360K floppy doesn't appeal to me a method of transfer (the hard drive is
almost full.)
>
>There are three ways I can imagine doing this:
>
>1. Get an 8-bit ethernet card working under DOS 3.3 and somehow connect it
to my home network,
>2. Install a second HD in the PC that's running off a more modern
controller (IDE?),
>3. Install the ST-251 into a more modern PC.
>
>I've been trying to get option 3 to work for a week now, but I'm not having
any luck. Any tips? I'm currently trying to get the DTC controller to work
in an old EISA 486 with a 1992 AMI BIOS, but I keep getting a "HDD
Controller failure" message. I've tried it both with the controllers BIOS
enabled and disabled. If the BIOS is enabled, it puts up a message saying "1
hard disk" right before the other error - this is the same message I see on
the PC right before it starts booting.
>
>So I know the controller itself is "working", but it's not being recognized
by the BIOS. I'm not sure what's going on.
>
>Any tips? Any other ideas about how to get the data off of this drive?
Should I try another MFM controller?
>
>Daniel
>--
>Daniel A. Segel
>WorldCom
>Employee Systems User Support
>Phone: 916-373-4810; Vnet: 653-4810; Pager: 888-783-5951; AIM: DanSegel
>
>
> > > Imagine different front panels depending on which PDP11 you software
> > > configure...
> >
> > And none of them have the feel of the real thing...
> >
> > -tony
>
> Only if you miss the fan noise...
You would mention that... I've got a Dell PowerEdge 2400 sitting three
feet away that's slowly robbing me of my hearing... it has a "slow mode"
but since airflow around the unit is a problem, I don't feel safe using
it... so it stays set on "hurricane"...
-dq
> > Tony-
> >
> > I'm running SIMH on a 233MHz Pentium-1 with rather good response. At
>
> I stand by my statement. I don;t have a Pentium 1, I don't have any sort
> of Pentium, and I don't have anything with a 233MHz master clock.
This, then, by choice, I take it?
> > least, TOPS-10 seems as fast as it was at university loaded with
> > students...
>
> Hmm... I think I'd rather have a go at making a real
> PDP10.... That could be an 'interesting' project....
I'm not sure what would qualify as "real" to you... would it
have to be a machine built from the original schematic prints?
Or would a re-implementation using modern devices (e.g. FPGA)
qualify as "real"...?
-dq
