>
>Subject: Goofy question about "industrial" archiving
> From: "Billy Pettit" <Billy.Pettit at wdc.com>
> Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2007 17:37:19 -0700
> To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>
>
>Chris M wrote:
> Just curious how, or even if, old design drawings and
>such were preserved in the old days. I could barely
>venture a guess as to when the first optical recording
>drives became "useful", all I remember is a friend
>obtaining one of the first (locally) cd players for
>his auto in ~the summer of '87. I was in contact with
>a few of the people who were involved w/the Mindset
>computer, and had hoped I would obtain info on the
>custom vlsi chips it used, in any form of course. This
>just lead me to ponder when this stuff started
>*appearing* on cd's and such.
> Can anyone name the different optical CD formats that
>modern readers can't work with? I know there must be a few...
>
>-------------
>
>Billy answers:
>
>There are two parts to your question. The first is how old design drawings
>were preserved. In all the companies I have worked for in the last 45
>years, the drawings were destroyed. Some individual copies survived. And
>patent applications remain. But all design drawings were destroyed as a
>matter of policy. That way there was no way support obligation coming up
>long after it was cost effective. And it makes patent challenges difficult,
>especially prior art arguments.
>
>Even today, most of the design archives where I work have a very limited
>life time.
Industrial archives are varied depending on product and lifetime of the
product. Most places I've been 7 years seems to be the upper limit. There
are exceptions, Military and aerospace in particular. Those guys have to
by contract maintain complete archive and production sets for the operating
life of the program. For example the Shuttle program is 30 years old and
still going and the contractors are required to keep everything until 10
years after the last flight. Thats a lot of paper, blue line, Vellum,
Mylar, tapes, floppies and even CDs. If the program requires ongoing
material sourcing as in spares or parts to make a new airframe those
drawings must be useable as well as production methods may be described in
those documents.
I will not address the second question on CDs.
Allison
I've had an IMS 5000 system for about a year; I got it off ebay for a
song ($35), but as I didn't know any login name and corresponding
password, it has been a brick. I've thought of a couple ways to break
the security, which isn't all that secure, but didn't due to lack of
time. Finally I made time last night.
The machine specifically is an IMS 5000 IS. It is a very well built
late model S-100 system, aimed at professional applications. This one
came from a dentists office. The main unit contains a 12" CRT, an
intelligent terminal control board (8085 based) which is connected via
an internal serial port to a Z80 CPU card in the main S-100 chassis.
This is a turbodos system, meaning it is a multiprocessing Z80 system.
Serial ports on the back of the machine can connect to remote terminals;
I have one other remote head, also made by IMS.
The machine has a 10MB Rodime hard drive, still working, a single DSDD
floppy (although there is room for another), a master Z80 CPU, a 64KB
parity checked DRAM card, and two MPUs. An MPU is a card containing a
slave Z80 processor with its own 64KB parity checked DRAM and serial
ports, etc.
Although I have the docs showing the gross functionality, I have no
schematics for any of this.
First I rebuilt disk images from Fritz Chwolka's webpage for the IMS
5000, but for whatever reason I couldn't boot these disks. IMS made
more than one configuration of this machine, so it wasn't entirely
unexpected. Next I tried a hardware approach.
The hard disk controller has a 1KB SRAM buffer for holding an inbound or
outbound sector. Programmed IN/OUT transfers fill or drain the buffer,
not DMA. First I verified that the address lines on the RAM were wired
in conventional order by seeing what pins they were wired to on the
74LS193s forming the address counter. The data pin order was more of a
question, but I assumed since the address lines were connected in
consecutive order, so the data pins would be too. I hooked up a logic
analyzer to the RAMs, booted the system, and waited for the password
prompt. I typed some gibberish and hit return, and the logic analyzer
captured the writes to the RAM. I realized the first read or maybe
first few would be reading directory entries to find the USERID.SYS
file, which is a plain text file containing the login names, passwords,
cp/m user area, and privilege level. However, no matter what I did, the
data didn't make sense.
I thought perhaps I messed up the order of the data pins, so I buzzed
out which chip drove the DOn (data out) S100 pins. Again, I did the
login thing, assuming that any time this sector buffer ram was being
read that the data would be appearing on the S100 bus. Apparently not so.
So I switched gears. I shuffled cards around to make space and
connected the logic analyzer to the Z80 and set a trigger for I/O port
operations, triggering on the first IN from the port corresponding to
the sector buffer. Pay dirt. I quickly got the list of users and
passwords, and tried them and they worked.
After disconnecting the logic analyzer, I captured the contents of the
various EPROMs, then called it a night. Bitsavers and Fritz Chwolka
both have interesting web pages, so I won't attempt to duplicate any of
that, but I will be taking some pictures, posting the HEX files for the
EPROMS and making links to the other IMS 5000 resources on the web.
Hi,
I'm doing some housecleaning and have some PC odds and ends, free for postage or pickup in Chicago (ZIP 60659). As I get the list in digest, reply directly to me at r_a_feldman at hotmail.com. If I don't hear by Friday, these items age going to the recycling center.
Bob
HP Colorado T1000 Internal tape drive.
Irwin Accutrak Tape drive, Compaq 64041 (Compaq Spare 197490-001).
Lapine Titan LT200 20MB Drive (Dead) w/National Computer Ltd. NDC5127-60 Controller.
Oak 8/16 Bit CGA/VGA card.
DTK ISA Multifunction card (FDC/Serial/Parallel/Clock/Game) P11-117 (needs battery).
MCT Turbo XT motherboard w/8088/8087.
Chinon FR-506 5.25" 1.2MB.
TEAC FD-505 (Dual 5.25"/3.5" Half height).
Epson SD-700/SD-800 (Dual 5.25"/3.5" Half height) (Condition unknown).
Citizen U1DA-49F (3.5?).
IBM 5151 Mono monitor (prefer pick-up).
HP J2341A Jet Direct Internal for LJ 4 w/software and docs.
HP J2382B JetDirect EX External Parallel/Ethernet w/software and docs, boxed.
