test-drb April 2010

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

172 participants
242 discussions

by snhirsch＠gmail.com

All, I am working at bringing up a N* Horizon system and have some questions. At present, I don't have any system software and am attempting to determine basic functionality. The box currently has a Z80-A CPU card, HRAM64 memory card and an MDS-AD3 hard-sectored floppy controller (others have been removed temporarily). There are two built-in SA-400 SS 5.25" drives. Other cards that came with the unit include a Compupro bus terminator, A Morrow Disk Jockey 2D/B 8" controller and a Morrow HDCA-4A hard disk controller. Unfortunately, the 8" Morrow hard disk emitted some magic smoke at power up and I have not done any further troubleshooting yet. Anyone know anything about Memorex 8" drive mechanisms? At power up, the system tries to boot the first floppy drive, then gives up after 10-15 seconds. I take this as a sign that some life exists. Then, I connected a PC running ProComm Plus to the left serial port, but cannot get any reponse or output there. So, problem 1: Where are baud rate settings documented? I can find pinouts for assigning signals on the DB25 connector, but not a mention of baud rate. Is it possible to obtain any sort of monitor prompt in the absence of a booted system? Doesn't the floppy controller have some sort of ROM monitor on-board? Any tips for getting a terminal connection operational? I have played with handshake signals a bit, and it sure looks like both parties have the necessary lines in the necessary states for communication to occur. Steve --

15 years, 1 month

Ampro "Little Board" boot disk?

by dave09＠dunfield.com

Hi Everybody, I received this request from a good friend lately: > PS: do you happen to know anyone who has an original Ampro "Little > Board"? I'd like a copy of the boot diskette for CP/M 2.2. > > It's the one with the Z80 and no SCSI? Not their later 8088 card. I > acquired the earliest Z80 board recently, but with no CP/M diskette. > While there are some Web archives with CP/M BIOS and ROM sources, for > some reason they don't have the "boot code" sources. Can anyone help? I would also like to add the boot disk image to the archive as well. Thanks, Dave -- dave09 (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Classic Computers: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/

15 years, 1 month

eBay disaster

by melamy＠earthlink.net

well, you got what you listed then. eBay is no way a guarantee of getting a good price. You wanted a better price? Then you needed to set a minimum or a reserve price. If it sold then great, if it didn't then keep it longer or lower your price. English only, fine. You already have decided that I don't know what I am doing. I have only been selling on eBay since the late nineteen-hundreds. You asked for ideas and then discounted them. What you did - didn't work. Maybe you will be luckier next time. regards, Steve Thatcher BTW, missed the photo of an actual disk pack - It was buried farther down. The only thing I remembered from the listing was seeing a box and a comment about language. -----Original Message----- >From: Philipp Hachtmann <hachti at hachti.de> >Sent: Apr 5, 2010 3:26 PM >To: General Discussion at null, On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org>, null at null >Subject: Re: eBay disaster > > >> I am assuming that you were hoping for a higher selling price... >Yes, of course! > >> First of all, you should have set a reserve price on the auction or a minimum bid of what you >> wanted to "at least" get from the auction. >Puh.. A minimum is possible. But a reserve? I feel uncomfortable when I see this "reserve not met" >thing in other auctions. So I don't really like that idea. > >> The buyer (whatever his rating) may have just signed >> up. >Yes. That's the reason why I refused to limit the group of people who are allowed to bid. If this >should turn out to be a scam, I'll think different when it comes to further offers. > >> I think I would have included the native language write up rather than just in English. >Oh, why? Because of my bad English? The chance to sell this kind of stuff to someone in Germany is >quite a bit lower than selling it to elsewhere (i.e. US) in the world. So I decided to write in >English only. > >> Second, sometimes just a picture of a box is just what a buyer gets. I would have taken pictures >> of the box insides or even included a stock photo of what the disk pack is that is in the box. >If you looked at the pictures I have put onto the auction you should have seen that I actually have >photographed a pack lying on the box. Another one, of course. I did not want to open the box - >opening the box would have spoiled the whole thing. > >

15 years, 1 month

eBay disaster

by melamy＠earthlink.net

I am assuming that you were hoping for a higher selling price... First of all, you should have set a reserve price on the auction or a minimum bid of what you wanted to "at least" get from the auction. The buyer (whatever his rating) may have just signed up. I think I would have included the native language write up rather than just in English. Second, sometimes just a picture of a box is just what a buyer gets. I would have taken pictures of the box insides or even included a stock photo of what the disk pack is that is in the box. just a couple of thoughts. best regards, Steve Thatcher -----Original Message----- >From: Philipp Hachtmann <hachti at hachti.de> >Sent: Apr 5, 2010 5:54 PM >To: General Discussion at null, On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org>, null at null >Subject: eBay disaster > >Hi folks, > >could someone please explain me THIS? >http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190385486840 > >I don't sell on eBay very often. And from time to time I see people paying astronomical sums for >more or less junk. But this time it was me offering stuff - and what did I get? I have no clue who >would sell me a used RK05 disk pack in unknown condition for that price. But this was a new in a box >one....! > >What did I do wrong? >Was it the winner of the auction who has 0 eBay points? There was absolutely no trace of fraud on my >side. I did neither bid with another account nor did I even ask someone to bid on my auctions to >drive up the price. That's what I got from it. I hope that the lucky 0 points high bidder on my pack >is someone who really exists... > >Regards, > >Philipp > > > > > > >-- >http://www.hachti.de

15 years, 1 month

Paper drilling (was: Re: Making Hard Sector Floppies)

by woyciesjes＠sbcglobal.net

Message: 16 Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2010 13:03:05 -0700 (PDT) From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> Subject: Re: Paper drilling (was: Re: Making Hard Sector Floppies) To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20100405125858.W18344 at shell.lmi.net> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 5 Apr 2010, Dave Woyciesjes wrote: > > Well, when I was making a notepad (using the old pages from a > > Dilbert desk calendar) I just clamped the paper between a piece > > of 1/4" sheet wood and the circuit board backer; then used my > > hand drill. Kept the clamps as close to the hole location as > > possible. > > Congratulations > You manufactured a paper drill. Yep, hence my posting of what I'd done.... > Next time, . . . > You'll find that a drill press is much more convenient if you > need to do a bunch,... Yes, it would've been, if I indeed had one in my shop. > and that a hollow tubular drill bit (try > a printer Binding Supplies company!) works much better than a > standard helical drill bit. See comment above... Always one wise-ass in the bunch, isn't there? ;) > > The circuit board I used, IIRC, as a backer was a ISA > > riser card froman IBM PC300GL PC. Cut off all but one of > > the card edge slots. Keeps the pads at a good angle for > > use, and hanging... :) > > 'course now somebody will show up who is desperate for one of those > boards, . . . yeah, Murphy's law, ain't it? -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- ICQ# 905818 --- AIM - woyciesjes --- CompTIA A+ Certified IT Tech - http://certification.comptia.org/ --- HDI Certified Support Center Analyst - http://www.ThinkHDI.com/ Registered Linux user number 464583 "From there to here, From here to there, Funny things are everywhere." --- Dr. Seuss

15 years, 1 month

Computer pioneer and Gates mentor Ed Roberts dies • The Register

by woyciesjes＠sbcglobal.net

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/02/ed_roberts_dies/ -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- ICQ# 905818 --- AIM - woyciesjes --- CompTIA A+ Certified IT Tech - http://certification.comptia.org/ --- HDI Certified Support Center Analyst - http://www.ThinkHDI.com/ Registered Linux user number 464583 "From there to here, From here to there, Funny things are everywhere." --- Dr. Seuss

15 years, 1 month

Reading a BRUSYS tape

by quapla＠xs4all.nl

Hi everybody, I have a question, is there someone who can read for me 2 separate 9 track tapes containing a brusys type backup onto an image readable for SIMH? Please contact me off list. Thanks, Ed -- Dit is een HTML vrije email / This is an HTML free email.

15 years, 1 month

Paper drilling (was: Re: Making Hard Sector Floppies)

by woyciesjes＠sbcglobal.net

From: Dave McGuire On Apr 2, 2010, at 5:16 PM, Andrew Burton wrote: > > I did a quick search online last night for "paper drill" and the > > results seemed to be US specific. I have never been in a print > > shop, so maybe they are common like you say. I will certainly > > ask a few colleagues at work and see if they have heard of them. > > > Well, there not being many other ways to make holes in > inches-thick stacks of paper.. > > -Dave Well, when I was making a notepad (using the old pages from a Dilbert desk calendar) I just clamped the paper between a piece of 1/4" sheet wood and the circuit board backer; then used my hand drill. Kept the clamps as close to the hole location as possible. The circuit board I used, IIRC, as a backer was a ISA riser card from an IBM PC300GL PC. Cut off all but one of the card edge slots. Keeps the pads at a good angle for use, and hanging... :) -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- ICQ# 905818 --- AIM - woyciesjes --- CompTIA A+ Certified IT Tech - http://certification.comptia.org/ --- HDI Certified Support Center Analyst - http://www.ThinkHDI.com/ Registered Linux user number 464583 "From there to here, From here to there, Funny things are everywhere." --- Dr. Seuss

15 years, 1 month

Anyone have an image of a Japanese PET chrgen ROM 901447-12?

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

Hi, All, This has all been discussed over on the cbm-hackers list over the past several months, but I've been fixing a couple of Static PET boards for someone in Japan. The only thing that appears to be unique to one of the boards is a 2316B in a Commodore-built 6540 adapter board (P/N 320076) and the 901447-12 ROM that's in it. There is no corresponding ROM image on Zimmers.net (where the old funet archive lives), and this ROM reads all zeros. I have a photo of the keyboard layout for a Japanese chicklet PET, and it doesn't happen to match the map of the Japanese C-64. One interesting feature is a few Kanji characters mixed in with the Katana, specifically, "4" maps to the Kanji for "year", "5" has "month", and "6" has "day" - obviously for rendering dates easily. There looks to be 51 Japanese glyphs total (all the Katakana characters, the three Kanji, and a couple of other characters needed to write sentences in Japanese). Given that the editor ROM is identical to a standard European/US BASIC 1.0 PET, it seems likely that the character drawn on the key would be the replacement in "upper/lower case mode" for that particular symbol. It seems likely I could reproduce the general contents of the ROM following the keyboard map, but it would be great it someone out there happened to have the real thing. I already know that nobody on the cbm-hackers list has come forward with a copy, but I'm pretty sure there are PET owners on this list who are not on cbm-hackers. If anyone happens to have this ROM or ROM image, please share it with the great repository at Zimmers.net. Thank you, -ethan

15 years, 1 month

Northstar Horizon boot disks

by derschjo＠mail.msu.edu

Hi all -- I've spent the last couple nights searching in vain for the Northstar Horizon boot disks a listmember produced for me a few years back. I *swear* I had them in my hands not a month ago but now they are nowhere to be found. I'm worried they may have fallen into a box that got recycled. I've decided I want to get my Horizon running again now that I have a bit more spare time (my other current project, a '54 Nash Metropolitan, is now off to the body shop for some serious work) but I'm stuck without bootable media or any way to make my own, so I can't do much with it at the moment. Can anyone do me a favor and make me a copy of a couple of Horizon boot disks (CP/M or otherwise) for this machine? I have the MDS-AD3 double-density controller with a Shugart SA400 drive. (As a related aside, is there *anywhere* one can get hard-sectored 5.25" floppies these days?) Thanks as always, Josh

15 years, 1 month

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test-drb April 2010