test-drb June 2005

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

221 participants
681 discussions

Several comments on crashed drive in PDP-11/23

by bqt＠Update.UU.SE

On Sat, 18 Jun 2005 cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > Message: 12 > Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 22:21:29 +0200 > From: Philipp Hachtmann <hachti at hachti.de> > Subject: PDP11/23+ goes on > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Message-ID: <42B48249.7070409 at hachti.de> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed > > Hi, > > thank you all for the tips around my harddrive desaster. Next time I > will be wiser. > I have cleaned my removable disk's heads. Used isopropanol and a match. > Tried the crashed disk pack, crashed again immediately. Had to clean one > head again. Took another pack. No crash, no error display etc. Hope that > it stays ok. :-) That was to be expected. A disk crash don't happen without a reason. That said, I've very seldom ever have it happen, and several times, the drive survived fine, but the pack was junk. People around here are perhaps a bit paranoid on cleaning. :-) But then again, it all boils down to how important it is for you to succeed. Cleaning is never wrong, but personally I can't say that not having cleaned that much stuff still haven't hurt me. > Now I did: > > $dm4 > .. And dm0,1,2,3 work same way.... > > Computer says: > > > > **THIS VOLUME DOES NOT CONTAIN A HARDWARE BOOTABLE SYSTEM *** > > > > 000034 > > @ > > I would be glad if that is a message read from the disk partitions (like > the bootsector message on non-system disks in my pc). Yes, that is something that is read from the disk. RSX (don't know if the other OSes do the same) write a special boot block on non-bootable disks. This boot block basically just prints the above message, and halts. All that fits fine into 512 bytes. I don't know if more modern hardware have any checks in the boot code in the boot roms as well, which might say something. But the above message is exactly the message in the boot block RSX creates on non-bootable disks anyway. > What is the "modern way" to get software into the PDP11? Phew. Tape normally. Small, modern PDP11s usually have TK50, and software is distributed on TK50. Older PDP11s usually had/have large 1/2" tape drives. Software is also distributed on that. Tapes are bootable, and holds a system designed just for installing the rest. > Is there anything like a RIM or BIN loader? Yes, but that is very old technology. People don't have paper tape on PDP-11, and haven't for a very long time. > Has anybody a convenient solution - or do I have to start from scratch > writing my own tools? If you're on a bare system, with only disk drives to play with, then your options are limited. The best might actually be to pretend you have a TU58, which speaks through a normal serial line, but is a block device, which most PDP11 can boot from. > Message: 22 > Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 23:24:38 +0200 > From: Philipp Hachtmann <hachti at hachti.de> > Subject: Re: PDP11/23+ goes on > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Message-ID: <42B49116.5050203 at hachti.de> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed > > > >>I use a ZIP drive and a Qbus MSCP disc controller. > > Sounds interesting. But where to get that MSCP controller?? MSCP SCSI controllers, to be exact. There are several different types of MSCP controllers, and not all of the talk SCSI, nor can you hook a ZIP drive to them. That said, I believe Qbus MSCP SCSI controllers occasionally pop up on ebay. Or you find someone tossing them out. > >>A software-only solution (though much slower) is to use the > >>TU58 simulation software that is around > > ... But with it I would be able to boot my machine. At the moment I have > NOTHING to boot up my system, copy disks, transfer data from pc etc... Yes. The TU58 is a cheap block device, for which the hardware on the PDP-11 side actually is just a serial interface. Most boot roms know how to boot from one, and an emulator for the actual TU58 exist. > But I have a lot (perhaps more than 100) of these 8" disks. > > Can I boot RT11 or RSX11 from floppy??? Yes. Oh, and I would probably try to align the drive correctly if I fooled around with it. You never know when another pack shows up which you might want to read. Johnny Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at update.uu.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

20 years, 1 month

Wang paper tape format?

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

Any of the CDC machines that were multiples of 6 bits also used tapes like this. The 8th bit was start of a file or page of memory. The 7th bit indicated the start of the word - 12, 18, 24, 36 or 60 bits. Billy

20 years, 1 month

DG MV 9600C 128 MB Main Memory Assembly Language Docs

by john.seckinger＠lmco.com

Hi, I was wondering if anyone could point me towards any assembly language documentation for a DG MV 9600C configuration. Thanks in advance for any help. john

20 years, 1 month

Any IBM Power / AIX fans out there?

by jdaviscl2＠soupwizard.com

Hi, I just acquired a few IBM POWERstation 370 in unknown condition. I can probably make a couple good units out of the 4 I have - they have disks, memory, etc, were decommissioned from a university environment. I also have a diagnostics set of a cdrom labeled "POWERstation / POWERserver Diagnostics v4.1.5" and a floppy labeled "POWERstation / POWERserver High Capacity (2M byte) Diagnostics Test Diskette", and an external plextor cdrom to use to install software. Right now, since I don't have an AIX 4.3.3 (last supported) install cdrom set, I just want to get a machine powered up and tested. I don't have a 13W3 monitor, nor keyboard or mouse (which I think are non-standard). So, first question is: I plugged up a standard null modem cable to the first serial port, took out the video card, powered up (with nothing in the drives) and saw: nothing. Do I have to make a special cable, or reset the firmware, or something? Also, how does IBM deal with licensing AIX - is it tied to the machine, so if I get a media kit I'm ok to install it? Or did I just buy some boat anchors? Thanks for any info, Jeff Davis

20 years, 1 month

HP50960A

by aek＠bitsavers.org

I am hoping there is some what to make it do something other than act as an SRM server (since I have no more SRM stuff...) -- SRM coax cards are easy to find (there are a BUNCH on eBay right now for $10 ea) The hard thing to find is a stand-alone server (esp software) Digging on the list, someone had one running as late as 2003. May be a good thing to ping him to try to get the bits before they disappear. On the other hand, just finding DIO enet cards would probably be more useful.

20 years, 1 month

PDP-8s and -10s

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PDP-8s and -10s > From: Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> > Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 20:50:02 -0700 > To: classiccmp at classiccmp.org > >It seems to me that they could have made >the -10 line real mainframes (no, IBM and the BUNCH did not consider the >-10 line real) with just a little effort and not much money. > >-- > >DEC through the 'golden age' didn't go after that market. They tried to >target scientific rather than corporate computing. One of the oddities is that the 36bit machines the 10s/20s were well known for their timesharing with huge nubers of users. >One of the things that isn't talked about much is how the PDP-6 just about >killed DEC because of all of the resources it consumed to get it out the door. The PDP-6 was the VAX-9000 of the 60s. > >They did eventually abandon their 'fan base' to go after the corporate >market, and that was the beginning of DEC's downfall. It was successful for the 80s but the growing PC price performance numbers were hurting the backroom mainframe style systems. The breakpoint was when 486 powered system with basic decent graphics (640x480x8) hit the streets with Win3.11. We had the scientific workstation wars of the late 80s this would be the business workstation war. Several PCs for 2500$ each or less was cheaper than a microvax of any flavor. Allison

20 years, 1 month

unreadable HP cartridges

by aek＠bitsavers.org

Has the on-tape format of 98xx HP85 or 264x carts been documented somewhere? Did HP use different encoding schemes in their different product lines? I dug through the stuff on the 264x terminals that I just put up, and they don't mention anything in detail about the tape format itself. If you REALLY wanted to try recovering a bad tape, you could digitize the analog info from the read amp and reconstruct it with software (assuming you knew what the format was) It may not be too bad with the HP DC100 style tapes, since I beleive the heads are fixed, like the DEC TU58s.

20 years, 1 month

HP9154 hard disk drive pinout

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

I had been looking for this info for over 10 years, and I finally found it this morning while looking around hpmuseum.net for the manuals on the 9817. I looked at the service manuals for the 9153/9154, and found what is probably the only useful bit of info in those manuals (I really don't intend to use a torque wrench to tighten the top cover screws....) The HP9154 (certainly the later versions) use an HP hard disk drive with a single 40 pin power and data connector. It's a strange HP interface, with raw data and an 8 bit control bus. And from what I remember, one end goes to an ASIC on the 9154 cotnroller board, the other to an ASIC in the drive, so it's hard to work out what all the signals are... Anyway, from that manual, here's the pinout of the cable. Please save this soemwhere, if you need it, you _really_ need it.... 1 Rd Data 2 Gnd 3 Wr Data 4 Gnd 5 Wr Gate 6 Gnd 7 4MHz Clk 8 Gnd 9 Rd A-D converter 10 Gnd 11 +5V 12 Gnd 13 +5V 14 Gnd 15 +12V (Motor) 16 Gnd (Motor) 17 +12V (Motor) 18 Gnd (Motor) 19 Dr Sel 0 20 Dr Sel 1 21 Dr Sel 2 22 Dr Sel 3 23 Wr D-A Converter 24 NA/B 25 Sector Pulse 26 Index Pulse 27 Wr NIC Chip 28 Reset 29 +12V (Motor) 30 +12V (Motor) 31 Fault 32 +12V 33 Data Bus 7 34 Data Bus 0 35 Data Bus 6 36 Data Bus 1 37 Data Bus 5 38 Data Bus 2 39 Data Bus 4 40 Data Bus 3 -tony

20 years, 1 month

Aww crap, I blew something (PDP-11)

by fireflyst＠earthlink.net

Well, I was hooking up my KY11-LB front panel to the machine I have moved into a BA11-K, and after testing it several times, I saw a (not very big) flash from near the PSU and the machine quit working. I inspected the power supply modules (two H7441 regulators and one H745) and it wasn???t fuses, so I am baffled as to what happened. I was SOOOO close too, I had got the front panel lights working, the RUN light flashed on power up like it should have, then I realized the power switch was on backwards, cause when you set it from DC OFF to POWER ON (or whatever, this is off the top of my head) it would turn off. I switched the leads, then that???s when it popped. I had the leads connected to J3 on the power distribution portion of the power supply (the module that has the power cord attached to it) I hope there???s someone on here who can help me, I???m good with computers, but I???m not an electrical engineer, so I???m lost! Thanks! Julian

20 years, 1 month

DEC M8350 - KA8E posibus interface

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: DEC M8350 - KA8E posibus interface > From: "vrs" <vrs at msn.com> > Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 16:46:49 -0700 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > > >> Forgot to answer this - MSC-8 hex MOS memory cards are handy - if they >> are 1/2 populated with 4Kbit chips, they are 16KW, fully populated >> with 4Kbit chips they are 32KW. If you happen to find the same card >> with 16Kbit (4116) chips, that's a whopping 128KW. You'll need a KT8A >> to address it, another late model card of limited use - RTS/8 used it, >> and I am pretty sure there was a RAM disk driver for OS/8 to use the >> upper 96KW as storage. Is there a schematic {printset} around for MSC-8? As to boards other than memory and CPU a front pannel board either the 8E style or 8A is very handy too. Then serial IO cards are useful. I use my 8f with two serial cards, one for console and one to simulate a high speed PTR/PTP. Allison

20 years, 1 month

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test-drb June 2005