Re: assembler, disassembler for Intel 8089?

[Eric Smith]

On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 8:51 PM, dwight  wrote:

> > From: space...@gmail.com
> >
> > Before I write my own, does anyone happen to have an assembler and/or
> > a disassembler for the Intel 8089 I/O processor?
>
> You just may have to write your own.
> Most don't even know what a 8089 is.
>

Wrote my own disassembler in Python. No assembler yet.

https://github.com/brouhaha/i89

Re: Photos from the NWA Auction

[jim stephens]

On 10/20/2016 11:59 AM, et...@757.org wrote:
According to this article, it sounds like the facility was closed in 
2012.
http://www.twincities.com/2016/10/07/remnants-of-northwest-airlines-pilot-training-center-up-for-grabs/ 

Whether or not all the computers were still in use at that time is 
tough to
say, but I was surprised at how clean and orderly most of the 
equipment was

that was left.


I would figure the data center rooms and stuff might of had other 
racks of more modern server equipment that might have been sold off 
separately or relocated to other sites. Didn't see holes in the floor 
for cabling but wouldn't be surprised. I didn't see video projection 
hardware on the auction and usually that is used to project the stuff 
outside the cockpits no?


There were video tubes and testing units for same in the auction. Also 
if you looked at the simulator cockpits, since most were gutted, some 
had large 25" or so tubes on their sides in the cockpits.


the screens seemed to be set up so that they were front, not rear 
projected, and the projectors in the cockpits would be below the line of 
sight out of the cockpits, and may or may have not been there.


There were cockpits, and most I looked at were stripped, and there were 
skids and lots of "avionics".  One that was obvious was one for a DC-9 
marked as such, and was a bunch of boxes with some amount of steam gauge 
instruments in the lot.


The pages seem to still be up here:

https://grafeauction.proxibid.com/asp/catalog.asp?aid=117590&gl=288#288

Unrefreshed page link from my browser, YMMV  I don't know if the lots 
will show up here with th


thanks
Jim

What was left is the interesting stuff :-)


--
Ethan O'Toole

Re: Old versions of Emacs

[Lars Brinkhoff]

Chuck Guzis wrote:
> Lars Brinkhoff wrote:
>> Turns out 4.3BSD had a copy!
> It goes back before then--I can remember using it on early BSD around
> 1983.  I can look around, if you're really curious.

I am!  I looked in 4.2BSD, but didn't find any Emacs.

Emacs in 1983 would have been Gosling Emacs, I guess.  RMS started
working on GNU Emacs in September 1984.

Re: Unibus disk controller with modern storage

[David Bridgham]

> Oh that blinkenlights panel is excellent! All emulators should have
> one! :-) 

Yeah, isn't that fun?  Once I got it running, I just sat and watched it
for about fifteen minutes while it ran our disk exercising program.  And
then I noticed a bug.  It apparently wasn't causing a problem but the
address line 00 was lighting up each time it did a DMA.  That didn't
seem right.  I looked through the Verilog and figured out what was going
on.  It probably wouldn't have caused a problem, maybe, but I got to fix
it anyway.  See?  'Dem blinkenlights are useful!

> I'm not really into Qbus much but would probably buy a
> production example anyway. I'd certainly fork out for several Unibus
> devices if you make them!

Our plan was to do a Unibus version of the same thing as a follow-on. 
It ought to be reasonably straightforward.
 
> One tip from someone with same issue in a parallel endeavor (IBM
> System/360 panel): they look much better and more authentic with 'warm
> white' LEDs. These are the ones I'm using:
> https://octopart.com/l5-n55n-fuv-sloanled-29855005

Yeah.  You can see in this picture that the LEDs I picked have this
yellow lens.  I was hoping that would warm up the output but obviously
it didn't.  I looked through the list of 1206 and 0805 LEDs on DigiKey
and didn't find any that were obviously what I wanted.  I'll take
suggestions from anyone.  Or, I suppose, I could re-spin the board for
through-hole LEDs.  I've actually come to prefer surface-mount though
and I'm hoping that one of these days I'll have my own pick and place
machine (or I'll talk our soon to exist MakerSpace into getting one).

http://pdp10.froghouse.org/qsic/indp.jpg

Re: Unibus disk controller with modern storage

[Mike Ross]

On Fri, Oct 21, 2016 at 2:45 AM, David Bridgham  wrote:
> On 10/19/2016 06:48 PM, shad wrote:
>>
>> One of my retrocomputing dream is to design an Unibus universal board,
>> probably based on FPGA because of precise timing requirements,
>> to emulate one or more disk/tape interfaces, and possibly something more.
>> The real storage could be based on SD card
>
> You mean, perhaps, something like this?
>
> http://pdp10.froghouse.org/qsic/html/overview.html

Oh that blinkenlights panel is excellent! All emulators should have
one! :-) I'm not really into Qbus much but would probably buy a
production example anyway. I'd certainly fork out for several Unibus
devices if you make them!

One tip from someone with same issue in a parallel endeavor (IBM
System/360 panel): they look much better and more authentic with 'warm
white' LEDs. These are the ones I'm using:
https://octopart.com/l5-n55n-fuv-sloanled-29855005

Mike

http://www.corestore.org
'No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother.
Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame.
For one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see.'

Re: Museum thoughts?

[william degnan]

On Oct 20, 2016 10:07 PM, "Pete Turnbull"  wrote:
>
> On 20/10/2016 21:01, william degnan wrote:
>>
>> Here is an example of what I am talking about, at the U of Delaware in
the
>> computer sci hall.  I got some students to help set up.
>> http://vintagecomputer.net/UofDelaware/UofDelaware_CM_TRS80-2.JPG
>
>
> Not quite a museum, but at the request of the University's Special
Collections Librarian, I put together a display of 5 decades of computing
for the University of York 50th Anniversary:
> http://www.dunnington.info/public/UoY-50th-anniversary/
>
> --

Nice job, exactly what I am talking about.  A good museum is made of a
collectiin of exhibits like chapters in a story

Re: Museum thoughts?

[Pete Turnbull]

On 20/10/2016 21:01, william degnan wrote:

Here is an example of what I am talking about, at the U of Delaware in the
computer sci hall.  I got some students to help set up.
http://vintagecomputer.net/UofDelaware/UofDelaware_CM_TRS80-2.JPG


Not quite a museum, but at the request of the University's Special 
Collections Librarian, I put together a display of 5 decades of 
computing for the University of York 50th Anniversary:

http://www.dunnington.info/public/UoY-50th-anniversary/

--
Pete
Pete Turnbull

Re: Maslin archive "virus"? (Was: Reasonable price for a complete SOL-20 system?

[william degnan]

Yes, I discovered the virus years ago.  I thought I posted a cleaned
version somewhere is not on my site somewhere.

Bill Degnan
twitter: billdeg
vintagecomputer.net
On Oct 20, 2016 8:17 PM, "Fred Cisin"  wrote:

> On Wed, 19 Oct 2016, Sam O'nella wrote:
>>
>>> Does that archive on classiccmp.org have the infected images removed or
>>> cleaned? (Just curious as I remember this came up in a couple other
>>> forums
>>> that I think one or two of the images did have a virus).
>>>
>>
>> an 8080/Z80 compatible CP/M virus???
>> Or are you talking about a virus in some sort of MS-DOS image?
>> Or an MS-DOS boot sector virus that wrote itself onto the "boot sector"
>> of a non-MS-DOS format?
>>
>
> OK, answering my own query, I did a trivial amount of GOOGLEing, and found
> discussion that said that "Stoned" was found in TD0 images of PC-7000
> MS-DOS 2.11.
>
> That is an EXTREMELY common MS-DOS boot sector virus.  And was apparently
> in an image of an MS-DOS disk.  However, some "anti-virus" software would
> not find it, since it might ONLY look in the boot sector for that virus,
> not within an archive image.
> Many other "anti-virus" software will get a lot of false positives, since
> it is only looking for a short "signature" - meaning that the staff in the
> anti-virus company extracts a short sequence from an infected disk, and
> then triggers whenever it encounters that particular sequence of bytes.
>
> Are they skilled enough to extract a significant "signature" that would
> only occur in that virus, or do they grab a random sequence within the
> infected disk?
>
>
> In any case, it is NOT likely to be a problem for any sort of Cromemco
> disk.  And the discussion that GOOGLE turned up was specifically referring
> to MS-DOS 2.11 of PC-7000.
> Do NOT boot an 80x86 machine from one of those images.
> BTW, ANY versions of MS-DOS 2.11 or 3.31 should be saved!  Even if it
> means manually "disinfecting".  Those were the most customized versions of
> MS-DOS, and included 3.5" disk formats that were not PC-DOS compatible,
> special versions of MODE.COM (for non-80x25 screens, and laptop
> externals), etc.
>
>
> --
> Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com
>

Maslin archive "virus"? (Was: Reasonable price for a complete SOL-20 system?

[Fred Cisin]

On Wed, 19 Oct 2016, Sam O'nella wrote:

Does that archive on classiccmp.org have the infected images removed or
cleaned? (Just curious as I remember this came up in a couple other forums
that I think one or two of the images did have a virus).


an 8080/Z80 compatible CP/M virus???
Or are you talking about a virus in some sort of MS-DOS image?
Or an MS-DOS boot sector virus that wrote itself onto the "boot sector" of a 
non-MS-DOS format?


OK, answering my own query, I did a trivial amount of GOOGLEing, and found 
discussion that said that "Stoned" was found in TD0 images of PC-7000 
MS-DOS 2.11.


That is an EXTREMELY common MS-DOS boot sector virus.  And was apparently 
in an image of an MS-DOS disk.  However, some "anti-virus" software would 
not find it, since it might ONLY look in the boot sector for that virus, 
not within an archive image.
Many other "anti-virus" software will get a lot of false positives, since 
it is only looking for a short "signature" - meaning that the staff in the 
anti-virus company extracts a short sequence from an infected disk, and 
then triggers whenever it encounters that particular sequence of bytes.


Are they skilled enough to extract a significant "signature" that would 
only occur in that virus, or do they grab a random sequence within the 
infected disk?



In any case, it is NOT likely to be a problem for any sort of Cromemco 
disk.  And the discussion that GOOGLE turned up was specifically referring 
to MS-DOS 2.11 of PC-7000.

Do NOT boot an 80x86 machine from one of those images.
BTW, ANY versions of MS-DOS 2.11 or 3.31 should be saved!  Even if it 
means manually "disinfecting".  Those were the most customized versions of 
MS-DOS, and included 3.5" disk formats that were not PC-DOS compatible, 
special versions of MODE.COM (for non-80x25 screens, and laptop 
externals), etc.



--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com

Re: Altair, IMSAI, SWTPC, etc. for sale in Philly

[Ian S. King]

On Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 4:34 PM, Glen Slick  wrote:

>
> Good thing I'm not in Philadelphia to blow some money on that collection...
>

Word.  I still want an IMSAI one of these days - but I wouldn't say no to
an Altair if it dropped in my lap.  But I just paid tuition... so I'll just
play with my SWTPC 6800 for now.  (Oh, I want a 6809, too.)
-- Ian

-- 
Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS, Ph.D. Candidate
The Information School 
Dissertation: "Why the Conversation Mattered: Constructing a Sociotechnical
Narrative Through a Design Lens

Archivist, Voices From the Rwanda Tribunal 
Value Sensitive Design Research Lab 

University of Washington

There is an old Vulcan saying: "Only Nixon could go to China."

Re: Reasonable price for a complete SOL-20 system?

[Fred Cisin]

On Wed, 19 Oct 2016, Sam O'nella wrote:

Does that archive on classiccmp.org have the infected images removed or
cleaned? (Just curious as I remember this came up in a couple other forums
that I think one or two of the images did have a virus).


an 8080/Z80 compatible CP/M virus???


Or are you talking about a virus in some sort of MS-DOS image?


Or an MS-DOS boot sector virus that wrote itself onto the "boot sector" of 
a non-MS-DOS format?

Re: Altair, IMSAI, SWTPC, etc. for sale in Philly

[Glen Slick]

On Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 4:28 PM, Sam O'nella  wrote:
> No idea why this ended up in my spam folder, but replying just to get it
> one more look as-if it needed any help ;-)

That's a common gmail / yahoo thing. Ended up in my gmail spam folder too.

"Why is this message in Spam? It has a from address in yahoo.com but
has failed yahoo.com's required tests for authentication."

Good thing I'm not in Philadelphia to blow some money on that collection...

Re: Altair, IMSAI, SWTPC, etc. for sale in Philly

[Sam O'nella]

No idea why this ended up in my spam folder, but replying just to get it
one more look as-if it needed any help ;-)  I'm surprised he doesn't ebay
it to be honest.  The last sentence, is that Rick asking or you Steven
asking?

On Tue, Oct 18, 2016 at 3:44 AM, steven stengel  wrote:

>
> 
> *  Contact Rick
> below if interested.  *-
> 
> ---
> Name: Rick BunkerContact: r...@bunker.us Location: Jenkintown,
> PA
> I have a computer collection that I have to sell. My wife and I have
> separated, and the house is being sold, and I have no place to keep the
> computers in my new apartment.
> It is a pretty nice collection. Altair 8800, two IMSAI 8080's, an Apple ][
> (not ][+ or e or anything, the first one), a TRS-80 (the real first
> revision, with no numeric keypad, with the original cassette drive,
> monitor) an LSI monitor, a KIM-1, an original IBM PC (not an XT -- original
> 2-floppys, original bios), an SwTPC 6800 box, with no innards. Similarly, a
> Cromemco box with no innards. A Northstar Horizon.
>
>  Some 8-inch drives, a bunch of S-100 boards, a luggable Kaypro portable,
> an odd and an end or two.
>
> Lots of documentation.
>  Some old disks which may have readable software on them. I don't power
> these things up, since they have power supplies that you can weld with,
> with 40-year-old capacitors on them.
>
> Is there anybody in striking distance of Philadelphia suburbs, who would
> consider buying and picking up this collection?
> 
> 
>
>
>

Re: Old versions of Emacs

[Chuck Guzis]

On 10/20/2016 02:58 PM, Lars Brinkhoff wrote:

> Turns out 4.3BSD had a copy!

It goes back before then--I can remember using it on early BSD around
1983.  I can look around, if you're really curious.

--Chuck

Re: Museum thoughts?

[couryhouse]

Nice display Bill!


Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone

 Original message 
From: william degnan  
Date: 10/20/16  13:01  (GMT-07:00) 
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"  
Subject: Re: Museum thoughts? 

>
> >
> > There's someone local who's seen my assortment of computer hardware
> > twice and has, each time, told me I should set up a museum.
> 
> >
> > So, I'm wondering if there's anyone who'd be willing to share
> > experiences, thoughts, issues, whatever, on the possibility.
> >
>
>
Maybe you could find a local museum and volunteer there, see what's
involved behind the scenes.  If there is nothing close enough to your
interests offer to contribute an exhibit to a local college, or business,
or someone who has a stale display case that could use a refresh. Come up
with a plan and present it to the powers that be.  This way you can get
some experience before you go full museum.

Here is an example of what I am talking about, at the U of Delaware in the
computer sci hall.  I got some students to help set up.
http://vintagecomputer.net/UofDelaware/UofDelaware_CM_TRS80-2.JPG

Bill

Re: WD1793 FDC versions

[Eric Smith]

On Oct 20, 2016 10:47 AM, "Mike Stein"  wrote:
> Anybody know what the differences are among the WD1793, WD1793A,
WD1793B-02 etc., or where I could find this info?

A and B are the package material. -00, or no numeric suffix, is the early
version, which will not compare the side value in the sector ID; -02 adds
that ability.

Re: Fwd: Unibus disk controller with modern storage

[Noel Chiappa]

> From: David Bridgham

> the right threshold voltage to meet the receiver spec

The UNIBUS spec says the 4 crucial receiver parameters are input thresholds
(high and low), and the input currents (high and low); the crucial
transmitter parameters are the output low voltage (at 50 mA sink), and
the output high leakage current.

Noel

Re: Old versions of Emacs

[Lars Brinkhoff]

Warner Losh wrote:
> Any chance you can share your archive?

Oh, sure!  For now, my most ethical repository is this:
https://gitlab.com/larsbrinkhoff/emacs-history
But I'd be happy to mirror it on savannah.

> I went looking for emacs 17 years ago and couldn't find it...

Turns out 4.3BSD had a copy!

> I have several ancient CDROMs that have "internet archives" that have
> random versions of stuff on them, including emacs. I'll see if I can
> help you, but it will be emacs the 18 stuff only (maybe)

Those CDs sound exactly like where random versions of Emacs might turn
up.  18 is fine.  I'm especially irked that I haven't found 18.56.

Re: Unibus disk controller with modern storage

[Mark Linimon]

On Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 05:32:07PM -0400, Noel Chiappa wrote:
> For Unix, tweaking the RP11 driver to handle the extended RP11 should
> take all of 12 minutes, tops! :-)

well played.

mcl

Re: Old versions of Emacs

[Warner Losh]

Any chance you can share your archive? I went looking for emacs 17
years ago and couldn't find it... I have several ancient CDROMs that
have "internet archives" that have random versions of stuff on them,
including emacs. I'll see if I can help you, but it will be emacs the
18 stuff only (maybe)

Warner

On Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 6:23 AM, Lars Brinkhoff  wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm looking for old versions of Emacs.  I want to preserve them for the
> future.  By "old", I mean roughly released before 1990.  Or before GNU
> Emacs 19.7.
>
> I'm interested in having the most complete set of GNU Emacs release
> there can be.  Tarballs are great, but diffs are also good.  These
> releases are missing so far:
>
> - 19.0-19.6; these were never released publicly.
> - 18.56, 18.50-18.42, and everything before 18.41.
> - All 17.x except 17.61 and 17.60.
> - All 16.x except 16.56.
> - Everything older, except 13.8.
>
> I also have a few versions of TECO EMACS (MIT/ITS/TOPS-20), Lisp Machine
> Zwei/Zmacs, Multics Emacs, and Gosling Emacs.  And a pretty complete set
> of Lucid Emacs and XEmacs releases.
>
> Best

Re: Unibus disk controller with modern storage

[Noel Chiappa]

> From: Paul Koning

> That's fine if your target is an OS for which you can write drivers. It
> wouldn't help RSTS users.

Right, they're stuck with exact clones of DEC controllers. (For Unix, tweaking
the RP11 driver to handle the extended RP11 should take all of 12 minutes,
tops! :-)

> Q22 disks .. RL02 also, if I remember right.

Oh, right, the RLV12 - forgot about that. Still, it would be nice to be able
to run RK11's and RP11's in 22-bit mode! :-) Especially since there will be
replicas of DEC's indicator panels for them, whereas an RL11 indicator panel
would definitely be... an anachronism! ;-)

> A possible answer for a lot of this is to do the actual emulation
> algorithms in software, in an embedded CPU inside the FPGA. For MSCP
> that's obvious, but it would work for the others as well I suspect.

Dave B is a wizard with Verilog, so until it gets to the complexity level of
MSCP we'd probably do it all in Verilog.


> From: Jon Elson

> I did **ONE** board with some kind of gold flash that a PCB house 
> recommended. ... it was a colossal disaster. You had to lift the pin
> ... Since then, I have used pure tin HASL, and had little trouble.

I think gold came into the discussion in the context of the contact fingers
where the board plugs into the backplane. I've never seen a QBUS/UNIBUS board
with tin fingers, although they were common on SIMM memory cards; no idea
if tin would work for QBUS/UNIBUS - although now that I think about it,
SIMM cards didn't slide into position, but kind of rotated, so maybe tin
would work there.

Noel

Re: Unibus disk controller with modern storage

[David Bridgham]

On 10/20/2016 04:27 PM, Paul Koning wrote:

> I would treat this as an analog problem, putting some op amps and comparators 
> to work.  It doesn't seem to rise to the level where D/A devices are needed.  
> :-)

Clearly op amps and comparators could do the job, probably really
nicely, but it seems like you'd end up with a rather large and expensive
bus interface.  I've wondered if this might be solvable with just a
couple FETs.  I'm thinking something like in this schematic.

http://pdp10.froghouse.org/qsic/drivers-drivers.pdf

The resistor to the base of the driver FET is to limit the slew rate
(depending on the gate capacitance of the FET and maybe current limiting
from the FPGA).  An appropriate FET would have to be found, having the
right threshold voltage to meet the receiver spec, also a small enough
gate capacitance (one friend suggested that a series resistor on that
side too might help with that).

> Right.  I meant an existing non-MSCP non-RL device.  Most other disks have 
> extremely straightforward register command sets; RK05, RP06, the details 
> differ but the general approach is very easy.

I'd planned to implement an RK first, followed by an RP.  I didn't
realize the RL was any more complex than those but I'll come asking
questions of you if/when I get to that.

> Any non-DEC disk would be a problem.  Writing drivers is a pain if it's even 
> possible; for some operating systems like RSTS it flat out isn't supported.

Our plan was to first emulate the DEC disk controllers as closely as
possible.  Well, as closely as people tell us is necessary (like, do we
have to insert delays to slow our "disks" down to match the real
ones?).  Then we'd have options for various extensions like 22-bit
addresses and larger disk sizes for those people who were able to take
advantage.

ST-251 [was Re: Unsticking a Seagate ST-419 head]

[Al Kossow]

On 10/20/16 1:25 PM, Jason Howe wrote:

> I'm actually trying to bring an ST251-1 back to life right now.  It worked, 
> then was intermitently not recongnized by
> the controller after being powered on for a while, now not recognized at all. 
>  When you apply power it runs through
> whatever standard head-sweep routine (self-test?), but there seems to be a 
> communication breakdown between the Drive
> electronics and controller board.
> 

Just did my usual sweep for schematics, and there is one up now
http://www.dasarodesigns.com/schematics-and-resources/

There was a guy on ebay selling off individual sheets of reverse-engineered 
schematics,
and he bought them all and put them on line!

Re: Photos from the NWA Auction

[geneb]

On Thu, 20 Oct 2016, et...@757.org wrote:


According to this article, it sounds like the facility was closed in 2012.
http://www.twincities.com/2016/10/07/remnants-of-northwest-airlines-pilot-training-center-up-for-grabs/
Whether or not all the computers were still in use at that time is tough to
say, but I was surprised at how clean and orderly most of the equipment was
that was left.


I would figure the data center rooms and stuff might of had other racks of 
more modern server equipment that might have been sold off separately or 
relocated to other sites. Didn't see holes in the floor for cabling but 
wouldn't be surprised. I didn't see video projection hardware on the auction 
and usually that is used to project the stuff outside the cockpits no?


What was left is the interesting stuff :-)

The computers you guys are frothing :) over were either driving the 
cockpit avionics or were driving the scene generators.  I haven't seen 
pics of those simulators, but all of that era either use WAC (wide angle 
collimation) displays or cross-cockpit collimated displays like the one I 
built a few years ago.  The screens (WAC) or projectors (CCC) are mounted 
directly to the simulator cabs - either on top or for the WACs, one on 
each window.


By splitting up the computers from the sims, they've basically rendered 
the simulators useless scrap metal.  Those simulators are backed by MANY 
file cabinets full of nothing but wiring diagrams, diagnostic processes, 
and software listings.  I'm pretty sure all of that is either on it's way 
to being paper pulp or is in a landfill.  Had those materials been saved, 
it _might_ have been possible to use the sims as-is with new computers. 
Now?  Not a chance.  Any collector would have to develop wiring diagrams 
from scratch before the could even begin any kind of restoration.  It 
would be more cost effective to strip it to the frame and create new 
wiring harnesses from scratch.


When I heard about the place going up for auction, I knew exactly what the 
outcome was going to be and I avoided the auction site completely. :(


g.


--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

Re: Unsticking a Seagate ST-419 head

[Jason Howe]

On Thu, 20 Oct 2016, william degnan wrote:


On Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 4:25 PM, Jason Howe  wrote:




On Thu, 20 Oct 2016, Mike Stein wrote:

I've got several ST251-1s that spin up just fine, no funny noises, but

then do a bunch of back-and-forth seeks and shut down again.

It's the usual, "they worked fine the last time;" any ideas what the
problem is and if there's anything that can be done? Presumably it's having
trouble finding the sync track; weak signal? Any ideas?

m


I'm actually trying to bring an ST251-1 back to life right now.  It
worked, then was intermitently not recongnized by the controller after
being powered on for a while, now not recognized at all.  When you apply
power it runs through whatever standard head-sweep routine (self-test?),
but there seems to be a communication breakdown between the Drive
electronics and controller board.

Various sources on the interwebs suggest me that the small SMD tant caps
by the power connector are a known issue on these drives and can lead to
all sorts of flaky behavior.

I've orderd a few from digikey, hopefully will have them by this weekend
to attempt a repair.

See my forum post here, where my shoot-in-the dark analsys is disagreed
with: http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?54516-Caps-for-an-ST251-1:

--Jason




Can you swap the controller board of the drive with another drive's?



I would if I had a spare ST251-1 hanging around.  I've been tempted to 
order one from the flea-bay for just such an experiment.


--Jason

Re: Unibus disk controller with modern storage

[Jon Elson]

On 10/19/2016 07:23 PM, Eric Smith wrote:
I prefer NOT to use ENIG, as I find HASL tin-lead better for hand 
assembly, though the lead is a problem due to RoHS regulations in much 
of the world (but not in USA). I haven't tried HASL lead-free. 
I did **ONE** board with some kind of gold flash that a PCB house 
recommended.
If the solder on the board didn't flow, it was a colossal disaster. You 
had to lift the pin, scrape the black crud down to bare copper and 
re-tin, then solder the lead back down.


Since then, I have used pure tin HASL, and had little trouble.

Jon

Re: Unibus disk controller with modern storage

[Ethan Dicks]

On Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 4:31 PM, Paul Koning  wrote:
> Q22 disks existed on MSCP, of course.  And RL02 also, if I remember right.

There is the 2 board RLV11, which is 18-bit, and the preferred 22-bit
single-board RLV12.  I have both.  I started with a BA11-N box in 1986
and didn't mind one bit paying $100 for an RLV11 and taking up two
slots (the RLV12 was still full price at the time).  For any MicroVAX
or a MicroPDP in a BA23, can't beat the RLV12.  I have one in a bag
waiting for me to have some time to build up an RL02 image slurping
box (having recently repaired the line filter caps in a BA23).

-ethan

Re: Unsticking a Seagate ST-419 head

[william degnan]

On Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 4:25 PM, Jason Howe  wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, 20 Oct 2016, Mike Stein wrote:
>
> I've got several ST251-1s that spin up just fine, no funny noises, but
>> then do a bunch of back-and-forth seeks and shut down again.
>>
>> It's the usual, "they worked fine the last time;" any ideas what the
>> problem is and if there's anything that can be done? Presumably it's having
>> trouble finding the sync track; weak signal? Any ideas?
>>
>> m
>>
> I'm actually trying to bring an ST251-1 back to life right now.  It
> worked, then was intermitently not recongnized by the controller after
> being powered on for a while, now not recognized at all.  When you apply
> power it runs through whatever standard head-sweep routine (self-test?),
> but there seems to be a communication breakdown between the Drive
> electronics and controller board.
>
> Various sources on the interwebs suggest me that the small SMD tant caps
> by the power connector are a known issue on these drives and can lead to
> all sorts of flaky behavior.
>
> I've orderd a few from digikey, hopefully will have them by this weekend
> to attempt a repair.
>
> See my forum post here, where my shoot-in-the dark analsys is disagreed
> with: http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?54516-Caps-for-an-ST251-1:
>
> --Jason
>


Can you swap the controller board of the drive with another drive's?

Re: Unibus disk controller with modern storage

[Paul Koning]

> On Oct 20, 2016, at 4:27 PM, Noel Chiappa  wrote:
> 
>> From: Paul Koning
> 
>> I'd suggest the Massbus series, they are just about as simple as
>> anything and that's where you find the largest capacities short of MSCP
>> devices. 
> 
> If you want to exactly emulate only DEC controllers, yes. (Of course, such a
> project should do that, for binary compatability.)
> 
> However, as I think I have mentioned before, I'm actually enamoured of taking
> a very simple controller like an RP11, which has lots of spare disk address
> bits, and defining an 'RP11-E' which maxes out the virtual drive size without
> changing _anything_ about the register format other than using unused bits in
> the cyclinder address register. That will produce disks with 2^28 blocks, or
> 2^36 bytes, or 64GB. That's most of a large SD card... :)

That's fine if your target is an OS for which you can write drivers.  It 
wouldn't help RSTS users.

> 
> Not too useful to those without the ability to tweak drivers, but...  there's
> another issue with the older controllers, which is that they only support
> 18-bit addressing, and for use on QBUS machines, where one would really like
> to be able to do DMA to anywhere in the 22-bit space (for Unix, this would be
> for swapping, and raw I/O - buffered I/O would be fine with 18 bits). So maybe
> an updated version of those old, simple controllers would actually have some
> use. (I'd certainly want them for my Unix boxes.)

Q22 disks existed on MSCP, of course.  And RL02 also, if I remember right.

> 
>> Apart from MSCP, avoid RL emulation also.
> 
> Why avoid RL's? Not the greatest controller, I agree, but it is a 'lowest
> common denominator' drive for a certain era of gear.

Significantly uglier program interface, so more complex emulation compared to 
RK05 or RP06.  Not nearly as hard as MSCP, of course.

A possible answer for a lot of this is to do the actual emulation algorithms in 
software, in an embedded CPU inside the FPGA.  For MSCP that's obvious, but it 
would work for the others as well I suspect.  The main trick is to have the 
register side effects done right.  That can get complicated, as the DMC-11 
example illustrates.

paul

Re: Unibus disk controller with modern storage

[Paul Koning]

> On Oct 20, 2016, at 4:14 PM, Ethan Dicks  wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Oct 19, 2016 at 7:46 PM, Paul Koning  wrote:
>> Actually, Unibus has very straightforward timing.  It certainly should be a 
>> breeze with an FPGA, but the original designs (nicely spelled out in the 
>> back of the early Peripherals Handbooks, or later on in the Unibus Handbook) 
>> take just a handful of MSI ICs.
> 
> Then there's the interminable wrestling with "what driver ICs to use".
> I have an abundance of the real thing (DC013 and NS8641, because I
> used to make a peripheral), but modern equivalents all fall short in
> one way or another.  You _can_ get away with a variety of
> substitutions, but the question then becomes when those compromises
> sum up to bite you.

I would treat this as an analog problem, putting some op amps and comparators 
to work.  It doesn't seem to rise to the level where D/A devices are needed.  
:-)

> 
>> Yes, a non-MSCP disk would be a good choice.  I'd suggest the Massbus 
>> series, they are just about as simple as anything and that's where you find 
>> the largest capacities short of MSCP devices.
> 
> With widespread driver support (because who wants to write a wad of
> drivers for different operating systems and different _versions_ of
> operating systems - VMS4 vs VMS5 w/SMP anyone?  Done that already!).
> 
> The worst thing about rolling your own  controller is needing to write
> all the drivers, thus the interest in something universal, like MSCP -
> the interface to the bus, the register model, is all set and somewhat
> clear.  Implementation details are invisible to the bus or OS.  OTOH,
> rolling your own MSCP device is hardly a starter project.

Right.  I meant an existing non-MSCP non-RL device.  Most other disks have 
extremely straightforward register command sets; RK05, RP06, the details differ 
but the general approach is very easy.

Any non-DEC disk would be a problem.  Writing drivers is a pain if it's even 
possible; for some operating systems like RSTS it flat out isn't supported.

paul

Re: Unibus disk controller with modern storage

[Noel Chiappa]

> From: Paul Koning

> I'd suggest the Massbus series, they are just about as simple as
> anything and that's where you find the largest capacities short of MSCP
> devices. 

If you want to exactly emulate only DEC controllers, yes. (Of course, such a
project should do that, for binary compatability.)

However, as I think I have mentioned before, I'm actually enamoured of taking
a very simple controller like an RP11, which has lots of spare disk address
bits, and defining an 'RP11-E' which maxes out the virtual drive size without
changing _anything_ about the register format other than using unused bits in
the cyclinder address register. That will produce disks with 2^28 blocks, or
2^36 bytes, or 64GB. That's most of a large SD card... :)

Not too useful to those without the ability to tweak drivers, but...  there's
another issue with the older controllers, which is that they only support
18-bit addressing, and for use on QBUS machines, where one would really like
to be able to do DMA to anywhere in the 22-bit space (for Unix, this would be
for swapping, and raw I/O - buffered I/O would be fine with 18 bits). So maybe
an updated version of those old, simple controllers would actually have some
use. (I'd certainly want them for my Unix boxes.)

> Apart from MSCP, avoid RL emulation also.

Why avoid RL's? Not the greatest controller, I agree, but it is a 'lowest
common denominator' drive for a certain era of gear.


> From: Toby Thain

> Isn't Noel working on something related?

I think Dave B gave a pretty good update.

In addition to what he mentioned, I'd like to mention the indicator panels
(like the DEC ones for the RF11, RP11, etc). Dave has designed the new
indicator PCB, and we have a couple of prototype PCB's in hand, stuffed and
working. I think there's a video clip of it doing its thing on the Web page he
pointed to.

Our concept is that we'll be able to drive more than one of these panels, by
connecting them together serially - that way a machine could have, say, both
RK11 and RP11 indicator panels, driven from a single QSIC board. That will
slow down the refresh rate a bit, but our numbers indicate it should still be
acceptably fast.

Noel

Re: Unsticking a Seagate ST-419 head

[Jason Howe]

On Thu, 20 Oct 2016, Mike Stein wrote:


I've got several ST251-1s that spin up just fine, no funny noises, but then do 
a bunch of back-and-forth seeks and shut down again.

It's the usual, "they worked fine the last time;" any ideas what the problem is 
and if there's anything that can be done? Presumably it's having trouble finding the sync 
track; weak signal? Any ideas?

m
I'm actually trying to bring an ST251-1 back to life right now.  It 
worked, then was intermitently not recongnized by the controller after 
being powered on for a while, now not recognized at all.  When you apply 
power it runs through whatever standard head-sweep routine (self-test?), 
but there seems to be a communication breakdown between the Drive 
electronics and controller board.


Various sources on the interwebs suggest me that the small SMD tant caps 
by the power connector are a known issue on these drives and can lead to 
all sorts of flaky behavior.


I've orderd a few from digikey, hopefully will have them by this weekend 
to attempt a repair.


See my forum post here, where my shoot-in-the dark analsys is disagreed 
with: 
http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?54516-Caps-for-an-ST251-1:


--Jason

Re: RL02 packs available [Was: Re: Are DEC TK50/TK70 tapes worth hanging onto?]

[Matt Patoray]

Hello,

I would be interested in a few RL-02 packs with DDXP or RT-11 on them. Any
idea what you would want for them?

Matt

On Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 1:38 AM, Pontus Pihlgren 
wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 19, 2016 at 05:51:06PM -0700, Mark J. Blair wrote:
> >
> > I’m especially interested in accumulating good RL02 packs. I’m even
> > working on a project to add a USB interface to one of my RL02 drives
> > for imaging and writing packs.
> >
>
> I have more RL01 and RL02 packs than I need, some still in original
> packaging.
>
> If you are seriously interested I could muster up the energy to test
> them and put them in the mail.
>
> /P
>



-- 
Matt Patoray
Owner, MSP Productions
KD8AMG

Re: Unibus disk controller with modern storage

[Ethan Dicks]

On Wed, Oct 19, 2016 at 7:46 PM, Paul Koning  wrote:
> Actually, Unibus has very straightforward timing.  It certainly should be a 
> breeze with an FPGA, but the original designs (nicely spelled out in the back 
> of the early Peripherals Handbooks, or later on in the Unibus Handbook) take 
> just a handful of MSI ICs.

Then there's the interminable wrestling with "what driver ICs to use".
I have an abundance of the real thing (DC013 and NS8641, because I
used to make a peripheral), but modern equivalents all fall short in
one way or another.  You _can_ get away with a variety of
substitutions, but the question then becomes when those compromises
sum up to bite you.

> Yes, a non-MSCP disk would be a good choice.  I'd suggest the Massbus series, 
> they are just about as simple as anything and that's where you find the 
> largest capacities short of MSCP devices.

With widespread driver support (because who wants to write a wad of
drivers for different operating systems and different _versions_ of
operating systems - VMS4 vs VMS5 w/SMP anyone?  Done that already!).

The worst thing about rolling your own  controller is needing to write
all the drivers, thus the interest in something universal, like MSCP -
the interface to the bus, the register model, is all set and somewhat
clear.  Implementation details are invisible to the bus or OS.  OTOH,
rolling your own MSCP device is hardly a starter project.

>  ... Apart from MSCP, avoid RL emulation also.

While RL emulation is complex, one advantage is that the OS support
for the RL is nearly ubiquitous.

> How small is the smallest possible Unibus DMA card?  Quad, if I remember 
> right, because of where the NPR/NPG wires live?

The RX211 (M8256) is a quad-height card that does DMA.  There are
various quad-height tape controllers that should too, IIRC.  Mostly,
DMA peripherals are hex height because they can be and there's plenty
of silicon to fill a hex card, but that's about real estate not about
reaching certain Unibus pins.

-ethan

Re: Museum thoughts?

[william degnan]

>
> >
> > There's someone local who's seen my assortment of computer hardware
> > twice and has, each time, told me I should set up a museum.
> 
> >
> > So, I'm wondering if there's anyone who'd be willing to share
> > experiences, thoughts, issues, whatever, on the possibility.
> >
>
>
Maybe you could find a local museum and volunteer there, see what's
involved behind the scenes.  If there is nothing close enough to your
interests offer to contribute an exhibit to a local college, or business,
or someone who has a stale display case that could use a refresh. Come up
with a plan and present it to the powers that be.  This way you can get
some experience before you go full museum.

Here is an example of what I am talking about, at the U of Delaware in the
computer sci hall.  I got some students to help set up.
http://vintagecomputer.net/UofDelaware/UofDelaware_CM_TRS80-2.JPG

Bill

RE: Photos from the NWA Auction

[Steve Hatle]

 Original Message 
Subject: Re: Photos from the NWA Auction
From: et...@757.org
Date: Tue, October 18, 2016 6:47 pm
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"


> Wonder if anyone got the actual simulators/cockpits? Fun toys but
> won't fit in your average basement...

There were bids on them, hopefully they go to home flight simulator
nerds 
that will entertain us with videos on youtube of them running inside
their 
houses!


--

I was at the facility briefly to help out another lister with prepping
his lot for shipment. The GP4 is being dismantled for scrap. About half
the racks are already empty. 

With a little bit of cash beer money and some wrench work, the panel you
see in IMG_5535 is now in the backseat of my car. It will likely be all
gone by EOD on Friday.

Re: Unibus disk controller with modern storage

[william degnan]

>
>
>> From what I understand, there could be a great demand of a such
>> interface here around?
>>
>
> Been thinking about this for more than 10 years :-(
>
> Isn't Noel working on something related?
>
> Btw, MSCP isn't really as complex as its reputation... While I'm not an
> expert, the hard parts of this project seem to be the boring bits -- the
> mechanical interface, the drivers/transceivers, and all that. Once that's
> taken care of, the software/fpga is the fun bit. Imho, etc.
>
> --Toby
>
>
>
>>
a starting point might be simH, carving out the drive/storage component
from there and building some sort of stand-alone simH drive using a
Raspberry Pi or something.  That's what comes to mind if it were me making
a drive for a UNIBUS system.  A card to interface with simH as a real drive
would, not just a serial port.

b

Unibus disk controller with modern storage

[shadoooo]

Hello,
I read several posts about Unibus disk interfaces and emulation.
One of my retrocomputing dream is to design an Unibus universal board,
probably based on FPGA because of precise timing requirements,
to emulate one or more disk/tape interfaces, and possibly something more.
The real storage could be based on SD card, so very easy to be moved
to a PC for imaging and data transfer.
Probably a low level emulation would be quite easy, while a more complex
solution (MSCP) could be more difficult.
The board itself wouldn't be cheap at all, because PCB would be big,
and because FPGA aren't cheap either.
Probably it would be anyway cheaper than an MSCP-SCSI, and it would be 
far more

flexible.

From what I understand, there could be a great demand of a such 
interface here around?


Andrea

RE: Photos from the NWA Auction

[Steve Hatle]

 Original Message 
Subject: Re: Photos from the NWA Auction
From: ethan


I would figure the data center rooms and stuff might of had other racks
of 
more modern server equipment that might have been sold off separately or

relocated to other sites. Didn't see holes in the floor for cabling but 
wouldn't be surprised. I didn't see video projection hardware on the 
auction and usually that is used to project the stuff outside the
cockpits 
no?

What was left is the interesting stuff :-)


---

There were a number of ex-NWA/Delta employees that were in the building
during the inspection phase. Talking to them, the sentiment was that
after the merger, Delta took "anything that was worth anything" and sent
it down to their facilities in Atlanta. 

There were a number of simulator bays where the cockpits had been
removed, and the attendant server rooms were fairly bare. I saw a bunch
of Sun-3 "operator manuals" laying around, but no Suns. One of the guys
said they had a bunch of "old" Sun gear at one time, but that all went
south.

The PDPs and GP4 were part of what was the oldest DC-9 sim in the
country up until they walked away from it, so we were told.

I agree - the "interesting" stuff was left behind, but maybe not all of
it :-)

Steve

Re: Unibus disk controller with modern storage

[william degnan]

OH yah

Bill Degnan
twitter: billdeg
vintagecomputer.net
On Oct 19, 2016 6:48 PM, "shad"  wrote:

> Hello,
> I read several posts about Unibus disk interfaces and emulation.
> One of my retrocomputing dream is to design an Unibus universal board,
> probably based on FPGA because of precise timing requirements,
> to emulate one or more disk/tape interfaces, and possibly something more.
> The real storage could be based on SD card, so very easy to be moved
> to a PC for imaging and data transfer.
> Probably a low level emulation would be quite easy, while a more complex
> solution (MSCP) could be more difficult.
> The board itself wouldn't be cheap at all, because PCB would be big,
> and because FPGA aren't cheap either.
> Probably it would be anyway cheaper than an MSCP-SCSI, and it would be far
> more
> flexible.
>
> From what I understand, there could be a great demand of a such interface
> here around?
>
> Andrea
>
>
>

Stanford Computers

[wmachacek]

Does anyone on this list have any information on Stanford Computers?  I have
2 of them that I saved from being recycled many years ago.  I have finally
gotten around to looking at them more closely.  I have a model “640” and a
model “XT-10”.  The 640 has 2 – 5 ¼” floppy drives plus a Conner CP-344,
42MB HD (the HD may have been a later add-on to the original configuration).
The XT-10 has 1 – 5 ¼” floppy drive and a NEC D5186, 25MB HD.  I could not
see a name on the MB in the 640, but the name “80 Data” was on the XT-10 MB.
I believe these to be from the mid to late ‘80s time frame.  They both have
the 9 DB pin video connectors.  The XT-10 has an EGA Graphics card, I could
not tell what kind of card is in the 640.  I am being very reluctant to
start pulling cards on a machine this old for fear of breaking something.
The ribbon cable seemed somewhat brittle on the 640.  Can ribbon cables
break due to age?  If anyone has any information on these systems, I would
appreciate hearing from you.  I believe this company was in the bay area
somewhere.  With the name Stanford Computer, that seems very likely.  Thanks
for any information you can give me.  I am in Colo. Springs.

Bill Machacek

Re: Stanford Computers

[COURYHOUSE]

I read  something in   THE NeXT Best  Thing  book  about Stanford  col.. 
actually   making some? or  they were  in on a design of  some   book not 
handy now and my memory may  also  be flawed on this issue...
 
Ed#
 
 
 
In a message dated 10/20/2016 11:18:19 A.M. US Mountain Standard Tim,  
wmacha...@q.com writes:

Does  anyone on this list have any information on Stanford Computers?  I  
have
2 of them that I saved from being recycled many years ago.  I  have finally
gotten around to looking at them more closely.  I have a  model “640” and a
model “XT-10”.  The 640 has 2 – 5 ¼” floppy drives  plus a Conner CP-344,
42MB HD (the HD may have been a later add-on to the  original 
configuration).
The XT-10 has 1 – 5 ¼” floppy drive and a NEC  D5186, 25MB HD.  I could not
see a name on the MB in the 640, but the  name “80 Data” was on the XT-10 
MB.
I believe these to be from the mid to  late ‘80s time frame.  They both have
the 9 DB pin video  connectors.  The XT-10 has an EGA Graphics card, I could
not tell what  kind of card is in the 640.  I am being very reluctant to
start  pulling cards on a machine this old for fear of breaking something.
The  ribbon cable seemed somewhat brittle on the 640.  Can ribbon  cables
break due to age?  If anyone has any information on these  systems, I would
appreciate hearing from you.  I believe this company  was in the bay area
somewhere.  With the name Stanford Computer, that  seems very likely.  
Thanks
for any information you can give me.   I am in Colo. Springs.

Bill  Machacek

Old versions of Emacs

[Lars Brinkhoff]

Hello,

I'm looking for old versions of Emacs.  I want to preserve them for the
future.  By "old", I mean roughly released before 1990.  Or before GNU
Emacs 19.7.

I'm interested in having the most complete set of GNU Emacs release
there can be.  Tarballs are great, but diffs are also good.  These
releases are missing so far:

- 19.0-19.6; these were never released publicly.
- 18.56, 18.50-18.42, and everything before 18.41.
- All 17.x except 17.61 and 17.60.
- All 16.x except 16.56.
- Everything older, except 13.8.

I also have a few versions of TECO EMACS (MIT/ITS/TOPS-20), Lisp Machine
Zwei/Zmacs, Multics Emacs, and Gosling Emacs.  And a pretty complete set
of Lucid Emacs and XEmacs releases.

Best 

Re: Unibus disk controller with modern storage

[David Bridgham]

On 10/19/2016 06:48 PM, shad wrote:
>
> One of my retrocomputing dream is to design an Unibus universal board,
> probably based on FPGA because of precise timing requirements,
> to emulate one or more disk/tape interfaces, and possibly something more.
> The real storage could be based on SD card

You mean, perhaps, something like this?

http://pdp10.froghouse.org/qsic/html/overview.html

Noel and I started working on this project about a year ago.  I've been
away all summer, working in the wilds in Alaska, so the project stalled
for the last six months.  I'm home now and getting back into normal life
so it's time to restart.  Here's a quick status report on how far we got.

Noel wire-wrapped two prototype boards with the bus drivers and level
converters.  We have those cabled to a ZTEX FPGA module for
development.  I was working on the Verilog in the FPGA.  We got to the
point where we had all the basic QBUS bus cycles working: device
register reads and writes, bus grant, DMA reads and writes, and
interrupt cycles.  We hacked up a quick and dirty RK11 using just
internal FPGA memory for the "disk" storage and wrote some C code to
exercise all those QBUS operations.  It seems solid.  The short video of
the indicator panel on that website above is running that exerciser program.

Where we're sitting now is that the next step is to wire up an SD card
and start writing the Verilog to access it.  It's a little daunting
though not as daunting as implementing the USB protocols in the FPGA. 
I'm hoping that doing the SD card will pave the way for more complex
things like USB.

Dave

Re: Are DEC TK50/TK70 tapes worth hanging onto?

[Ulrich Tagge]

Hi,

I search some time for TK50/TK70 media for my MVII, and 3600 so I'm 
Interested.


By now I have the need for the following tapes, if you have them.

biggest need>>>
- MVII DIAG MAINT TK50
>>>

- MVII DIAG CUST TK50
- VMS V5.5-1 BIN TK50
- VMX XYZ BIN TK50 xx/nn
- VMS LIC KEY BIN TK50
- MICROVMS xyz BIN TK50
- DEC TCP/IP SER VMS xyz TK50

And any other MVII or Microvax 3600 TK70 related Tape ;-).

I know, that there is only a 50% chance, that they are still readable, 
but with view onto my QIC and other old media, it looks like I have some 
luck, in using old tape media.



Many Greetings
Ulrich

Re: Unibus disk controller with modern storage

[Pontus Pihlgren]

On Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 12:48:18AM +0200, shad wrote:
> 
> From what I understand, there could be a great demand of a such interface
> here around?
> 

I think so yes, not everyone is so lucky as to have massbus or SDI disks 
lying arround. Loose CPU boxes seems far more common.

/P

Re: Unibus disk controller with modern storage

[Fritz Mueller]

On Oct 19, 2016 6:48 PM, "shad"  wrote

Hello,
I read several posts about Unibus disk interfaces and emulation.
One of my retrocomputing dream is to design an Unibus universal board,
probably based on FPGA because of precise timing requirements,
to emulate one or more disk/tape interfaces, and possibly something more.
The real storage could be based on SD card, so very easy to be moved
to a PC for imaging and data transfer.
Probably a low level emulation would be quite easy, while a more complex
solution (MSCP) could be more difficult.
The board itself wouldn't be cheap at all, because PCB would be big,
and because FPGA aren't cheap either.
Probably it would be anyway cheaper than an MSCP-SCSI, and it would be far
more
flexible.


A good way to go on this might be just a small paddle card with Unibus 
drivers, level conversion, and some shift-register chains, which could 
then be interfaced easily to any number of off-the-shelf FPGA 
prototyping boards (the latter having the advantage of being quite 
cheap, with many integrated peripherals like ethernet, SD slots, USB 
serial, etc. and having tool chain support out of the box).


I've seen a few projects started like this out in the wilds, but none 
seem to have made it past the debug stage.


It would be super useful -- you could emulate all sorts of peripherals 
as well as memory, or you could configure it as a Unibus analyzer, or 
emulate a CPU to debug peripherals.


--FritzM.

Re: Unibus disk controller with modern storage

[Toby Thain]

On 2016-10-19 6:48 PM, shad wrote:

Hello,
I read several posts about Unibus disk interfaces and emulation.
One of my retrocomputing dream is to design an Unibus universal board,
probably based on FPGA because of precise timing requirements,
to emulate one or more disk/tape interfaces, and possibly something more.
The real storage could be based on SD card, so very easy to be moved
to a PC for imaging and data transfer.
Probably a low level emulation would be quite easy, while a more complex
solution (MSCP) could be more difficult.
The board itself wouldn't be cheap at all, because PCB would be big,
and because FPGA aren't cheap either.
Probably it would be anyway cheaper than an MSCP-SCSI, and it would be
far more
flexible.

From what I understand, there could be a great demand of a such
interface here around?


Been thinking about this for more than 10 years :-(

Isn't Noel working on something related?

Btw, MSCP isn't really as complex as its reputation... While I'm not an 
expert, the hard parts of this project seem to be the boring bits -- the 
mechanical interface, the drivers/transceivers, and all that. Once 
that's taken care of, the software/fpga is the fun bit. Imho, etc.


--Toby




Andrea

VCF East: March 31-April 2, 2017

[Evan Koblentz]

Only five and a half months until VCF East XII. :)

March 31-April 2, InfoAge Science Center, Wall, New Jersey.

http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-east/

Re: Unibus disk controller with modern storage

[Eric Smith]

On Wed, Oct 19, 2016 at 4:48 PM, shad  wrote:

> The board itself wouldn't be cheap at all, because PCB would be big,
>

True. From a Chinese vendor such as PCBway, a DEC quad size double-sided
PCB without ENIG (immersion) gold surface finish but without hard-gold edge
fingers costs $15.10 each in quantity 10, and a hex side PCB costs $20.40
each.  However, the ENIG gold is quite thin and won't withstand very many
backplane insertions.  The cheap PCB vendors don't offer hard gold edge
fingers. Jon Elson pointed out that E-TekNet in Arizona does offer hard
gold at better prices than some fab houses, but still a lot more than the
cheap Chinese PCBs.

I prefer NOT to use ENIG, as I find HASL tin-lead better for hand assembly,
though the lead is a problem due to RoHS regulations in much of the world
(but not in USA). I haven't tried HASL lead-free.


> and because FPGA aren't cheap either.
>

Xilinx XC6SLX9-2TQG144C is probably big enough for such things, and only
costs $16.52 in quantity 1 from Digi-Key.  It's in a TQFP, so not *too*
difficult to deal with. It has essentially 11,440 logic cells (5-LUT with
FF)*,  32 block RAMs of 18 Kbits each, and 102 3.3V I/O pins. It's not 5V
tolerant, but no modern parts are. 5V tolerance can be achieved in many
cases by the use of series resistors, but I like using the TI
SN74CBTD3861DGVR bus switch/voltage clamp, which can make 10 I/O pins 5V
tolerant at a cost of $0.62 in quantity 1. The bus switch is advantageous
over series resistors because it doesn't add much series resistance to pins
that are being used as outputs, and it has a maximum propagation delay of
0.25ns.

If you need more FPGA capability, the XC7A15T-1FTG256C has substantially
more resources, and costs $25.69 in quantity 1.  It's in a 256 ball BGA, so
somewhat harder to deal with, and needs at least a four layer board,
possibly even six layer.  However, it has 20,800 logic cells (5-LUT with
FF), 25 block RAMs of 36 Kbits each, and 170 3.3V I/O pins.

If you need more resources than that, it turns out that the XC7A15T,
XC7A35T, and XC7A50T are actually all the same die, just factor-programmed
with a different device ID. The 35T and 50T have double and triple the
logic cells and block RAMs of the 15T. The Vivado FPGA toolchain
artificially limits the resource usage of the two smaller parts, but
doesn't actually restrict which specific logic cells and block RAMs are
used, which means that the 15T and 35T have silicon that passes the factory
testing for ALL resources, not just 1/3 or 2/3 of them. It's been verified
that one can change the device ID in the bitstream, disable bitstream CRC
checking, and use the smaller part as a larger part. I don't like disabling
the CRC, because it serves to protect the FPGA from damage if the bitstream
has been corrupted, so I wrote a program that can both change the device ID
and recompute the CRC. I don't yet have a board with a 15T or 35T to test
with, but I'll release the program as open source once I do.

Because going to a 4 layer or 6 layer board is quite expensive when the
board size is large, e.g., DEC quad or hex size, I think it makes sense to
put the FPGA, its configuration flash, voltage regulators, and the bus
switches for 5V tolerance on a daughterboard. I've been working on such a
design, with two 96-pin DIN connectors for connection to the main board,
and at least 160 GPIOs available. The main board can then be just
double-sided, and possibly even 100% through-hole, for people that don't
want to hand-assemble boards with surface-mount components. The drawback is
that it will occupy more than one backplane slot due to the height.

There's still the problem that no current production bus interface ICs meet
Unibus, Qbus, or Omnibus specifications. Surplus DS8641 chips are
technically the best choice. With modern chips, it's necessary to use
separate drivers and receivers, and still difficult to meet the full specs.
Compromising the specs is possible but may make things unreliable in a
large system (multiple backplanes with cables, and many other cards).

Eric

* Xilinx has some other confusing definition of a "logic cell" for
marketing purposes, which is not the same as a LUT+FF. Oddly enough, their
marketing logic cell count is actually lower than a sensible accounting,
which is the opposite of how FPGAs used to be rated in exaggerated gate
counts, which we derided as "marketing gates".

The 6-series and 7-series actually have 6-LUTs with 2 FF each, but they can
be used as two 5-LUTs with 1 FF each, which is how I count them for
assessing the FPGA's logic capacity.

Re: Unibus disk controller with modern storage

[Paul Koning]

> On Oct 19, 2016, at 6:48 PM, shad  wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> I read several posts about Unibus disk interfaces and emulation.
> One of my retrocomputing dream is to design an Unibus universal board,
> probably based on FPGA because of precise timing requirements,
> to emulate one or more disk/tape interfaces, and possibly something more.
> The real storage could be based on SD card, so very easy to be moved
> to a PC for imaging and data transfer.
> Probably a low level emulation would be quite easy, while a more complex
> solution (MSCP) could be more difficult.
> The board itself wouldn't be cheap at all, because PCB would be big,
> and because FPGA aren't cheap either.
> Probably it would be anyway cheaper than an MSCP-SCSI, and it would be far 
> more
> flexible.

Actually, Unibus has very straightforward timing.  It certainly should be a 
breeze with an FPGA, but the original designs (nicely spelled out in the back 
of the early Peripherals Handbooks, or later on in the Unibus Handbook) take 
just a handful of MSI ICs.

Yes, a non-MSCP disk would be a good choice.  I'd suggest the Massbus series, 
they are just about as simple as anything and that's where you find the largest 
capacities short of MSCP devices.  And even an RP07 fits comfortably on a small 
SD card.  Or 8 of them, for that matter.  Apart from MSCP, avoid RL emulation 
also.

SD is actually the hardest part, at least the initialization.  If there's off 
the shelf IP that handles that state machine, the rest is simple.  
Alternatively, is CompactFlash still around?  That's just an ATA interface, 
really easy.

How small is the smallest possible Unibus DMA card?  Quad, if I remember right, 
because of where the NPR/NPG wires live?

paul

Re: Reasonable price for a complete SOL-20 system?

[James Attfield]

> From: "Mike Stein" 
> Subject: Re: Reasonable price for a complete SOL-20 system?
> Message-ID: 
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> 
> Any chance you still have a copy of that CP/M port buried somewhere?
> We're sort of collecting the various Cromemco ports and emulators.
> 
Sorry Mike, I didn't think so but went through my diskettes anyway and no go
- all CDOS. I do believe that there was a Cromemco CP/M in the Don Maslim
archives and another in the classicmp Dave Dunfield archives here
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img54306/system.htm. If all else fails, I
have found a CROMCPM.TD0 file in my archives which is Teledisk format and is
607Kb but I don't have a functional Teledisk at the moment so can't tell
what it represents. I'm not sure of the source but would be happy to forward
it to someone with a functional Teledisk, or Dave Dunfield's converter from
TD0 to his IMD ImageDisk format.

James

Re: Looking for HP98034 / HP9895 ROM images

[Curious Marc]

If you have not gotten the HP 98034 ROM image yet, I can try to dump mine when 
I'm back from travel next week. I suspect you want the "revised" version, which 
is the interface that works with the HP 9895. I have both versions.
Craig, I'd be interested in your 9895 ROM dump and reverse engineering info too.
Marc

> On Oct 18, 2016, at 1:14 PM, Craig Ruff  wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Oct 18, 2016, at 11:00 AM, cctech-requ...@classiccmp.org wrote:
>> 
>> does anyone of you happen to have the images of the firmware ROM of
>> HP98034 module and/or of the HP9895 disk drive, please?
> 
> I’ve sent F.Ulivi the contents of the single ROM version from my 9895A, along 
> with some preliminary reverse engineering work on the contents that I’ve done 
> in conjunction with Eric Smith.

Re: FS (cost of shipping): AS/400 8-port twinax concentrator/adapter cables

[Matt Patoray]

Hello,

Is the AS-400 stuff still avalable?I would be interested.

Thank you

On Tue, Oct 18, 2016 at 11:34 AM, J  wrote:

> I have two IBM 21F5093 AS/400 8-port twinax to DB25 adapters with clip
> mounts.
>
> Looks like the coil is about 14-16 feet of cable.
>
> Pics on request.
>
> Free for the cost of shipping (01888 metro-west Boston,MA , about 3 lbs
> each)
>
> Need the space, gotta go.
>
>
>
>


-- 
Matt Patoray
Owner, MSP Productions
KD8AMG

Re: Reasonable price for a complete SOL-20 system?

[Sam O'nella]

Does that archive on classiccmp.org have the infected images removed or
cleaned? (Just curious as I remember this came up in a couple other forums
that I think one or two of the images did have a virus).

On Wed, Oct 19, 2016 at 11:17 AM, James Attfield 
wrote:

> > From: "Mike Stein" 
> > Subject: Re: Reasonable price for a complete SOL-20 system?
> > Message-ID: 
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> >
> >
> > Any chance you still have a copy of that CP/M port buried somewhere?
> > We're sort of collecting the various Cromemco ports and emulators.
> >
> Sorry Mike, I didn't think so but went through my diskettes anyway and no
> go
> - all CDOS. I do believe that there was a Cromemco CP/M in the Don Maslim
> archives and another in the classicmp Dave Dunfield archives here
> http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img54306/system.htm. If all else
> fails, I
> have found a CROMCPM.TD0 file in my archives which is Teledisk format and
> is
> 607Kb but I don't have a functional Teledisk at the moment so can't tell
> what it represents. I'm not sure of the source but would be happy to
> forward
> it to someone with a functional Teledisk, or Dave Dunfield's converter from
> TD0 to his IMD ImageDisk format.
>
> James
>
>

Re: Photos from the NWA Auction

[ethan]

According to this article, it sounds like the facility was closed in 2012.
http://www.twincities.com/2016/10/07/remnants-of-northwest-airlines-pilot-training-center-up-for-grabs/
Whether or not all the computers were still in use at that time is tough to
say, but I was surprised at how clean and orderly most of the equipment was
that was left.


I would figure the data center rooms and stuff might of had other racks of 
more modern server equipment that might have been sold off separately or 
relocated to other sites. Didn't see holes in the floor for cabling but 
wouldn't be surprised. I didn't see video projection hardware on the 
auction and usually that is used to project the stuff outside the cockpits 
no?


What was left is the interesting stuff :-)


--
Ethan O'Toole

WD1793 FDC versions

[Mike Stein]

Anybody know what the differences are among the WD1793, WD1793A, WD1793B-02 
etc., or where I could find this info?

Thanks,

mike

Re: Unsticking a Seagate ST-419 head

[Mike Stein]

I've got several ST251-1s that spin up just fine, no funny noises, but then do 
a bunch of back-and-forth seeks and shut down again. 

It's the usual, "they worked fine the last time;" any ideas what the problem is 
and if there's anything that can be done? Presumably it's having trouble 
finding the sync track; weak signal? Any ideas?

m

- Original Message - 
From: "Al Kossow" 
To: 
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2016 12:23 PM
Subject: Re: Unsticking a Seagate ST-419 head


> The two disks this morning went much better. I tried using a heat gun on the 
> outside of the hda and VERY
> gently freed the heads and got the spindle to turn. Then I pulled the top 
> board and coaxed the spindle motor
> back up to speed. The root disk read without errors, usr has a consistent 28.
> 
> The same experiment didn't work on the usr disk from the first system though 
> :-(
> 
> At least now I have a good root image and probably usuable usr
> 
> 
> 
>> On 10/20/16 2:05 AM, jim stephens wrote:
>>> I actually years ago unstuck drives by removing them, hooking them to 
>>> cables long enough to allow me to have access to
>>> them external to the system with power, and just holding them in the air 
>>> and giving them a sharp twist around the axis
>>> of the drive.  That was enough to unstick most.
>>
>

Re: Unsticking a Seagate ST-419 head

[Al Kossow]

The two disks this morning went much better. I tried using a heat gun on the 
outside of the hda and VERY
gently freed the heads and got the spindle to turn. Then I pulled the top board 
and coaxed the spindle motor
back up to speed. The root disk read without errors, usr has a consistent 28.

The same experiment didn't work on the usr disk from the first system though :-(

At least now I have a good root image and probably usuable usr



> On 10/20/16 2:05 AM, jim stephens wrote:
>> I actually years ago unstuck drives by removing them, hooking them to cables 
>> long enough to allow me to have access to
>> them external to the system with power, and just holding them in the air and 
>> giving them a sharp twist around the axis
>> of the drive.  That was enough to unstick most.
>

Re: 1966-68 Honeywell u-COMP DDP-516 Console

[Philipp Hachtmann]

On 10/15/2016 03:00 AM, jim stephens wrote:


The two empty slots may be for connector cards for the cabling from the
panel into the system?

Yes, they are for the cables.

--

Dipl.-Inf. (FH) Philipp Hachtmann
Buchdruck, Bleisatz, Spezialitäten

Alemannstr. 21, D-30165 Hannover
Tel. 0511/352, Mobil 0171/2632239
Fax. 0511/3500439
phil...@hachtmann.com
www.tiegeldruck.de

UStdID DE 202668329

Re: RL02 packs available [Was: Re: Are DEC TK50/TK70 tapes worth hanging onto?]

[Mark J. Blair]

> On Oct 20, 2016, at 00:09, Pontus Pihlgren  wrote:
> 
> My packs come from a PDP-11/34 system. So there are some XXDP and RT-11 
> packs. I look to image them before I ship them off.

I have an XXDP 2.5 pack, but I don't think I have any with RT-11 on them. One 
or two RT-11 packs could be useful to help me get bootstrapped. No hurry, 
though. It'll still be quite a while before my PDP-11/44 project bubbles to the 
top.

If anybody listening has RL02 packs with installation stuff suitable for my 
VAX-11/730, that would really interest me.

-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X 
http://www.nf6x.net/

Re: Unsticking a Seagate ST-419 head

[Al Kossow]

On 10/20/16 2:05 AM, jim stephens wrote:
> I actually years ago unstuck drives by removing them, hooking them to cables 
> long enough to allow me to have access to
> them external to the system with power, and just holding them in the air and 
> giving them a sharp twist around the axis
> of the drive.  That was enough to unstick most.

I will probably just set this one aside for the day I have access to a spin 
stand
and a pair of heads moved with D/As.

The simple tricks work if the spindle bearing is gummy, or the head is slightly 
stuck.
This one is bad enough you can see the flexure twist.
It is going to have to be disassembled.

It is out of a pair of Gould 68000 development systems that I got from Erik 
Klein. Very
unusual boxes built out of Valid Logic 68K multibus boards, with their own SASI 
and serial
interface cards and 3com ethernet, running Valid's 4.1BSD. So far, I've been 
able to recover
most of the root file system disk. The usr disk is the one with the stuck head. 
I have one
more pair of drives from the other unit, I'm hoping either they come up, or 
there are enough
sectors that aren't bad that I can piece together the file system. I can see 
the header files,
so at least I have some information on how you talk to their boards.

David Gesswein has been a huge help through this whole effort. The Adaptec 4000 
was set up for
18 sectors/trk, and he modified mfm_read to get that working with these drives.

Re: Museum thoughts?

[Syd Bolton]

I run the Personal Computer Museum PCMuseum.ca in Canada and have done so for 
over 11 years. Happy to talk to you about anything in regards to it directly. 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 19, 2016, at 10:41 PM, Mouse  wrote:
> 
> There's someone local who's seen my assortment of computer hardware
> twice and has, each time, told me I should set up a museum.
> 
> This is tempting, but I don't know the first thing about doing it.
> About all I'm sure of is that it would involve a lot of stuff I
> currently have no idea of.
> 
> I know that there are at least a few people here who've been involved
> in such things.  While all the examples that come to mind are in the
> USA, and mine would be in Canada, I'm sure there are many respects in
> which the issues are jurisdiction-independent - and, who knows, there
> may be such a person in Canada that I just can't recall offhand.
> 
> So, I'm wondering if there's anyone who'd be willing to share
> experiences, thoughts, issues, whatever, on the possibility.
> 
> I'm not looking to make a lot of money off this.  If I can turn my
> computers from money-sink to money-neutral, I'll be content.  (They are
> currently soaking up money in the form of causing me to be renting
> significantly more storage than I would be if they were to vanish.)
> 
> /~\ The ASCII  Mouse
> \ / Ribbon Campaign
> X  Against HTMLmo...@rodents-montreal.org
> / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

Re: Unsticking a Seagate ST-419 head

[jim stephens]

I actually years ago unstuck drives by removing them, hooking them to 
cables long enough to allow me to have access to them external to the 
system with power, and just holding them in the air and giving them a 
sharp twist around the axis of the drive.  That was enough to unstick 
most.  I also had ready a drive on the systems to drain or recover data 
immediately prepped on the system in advance (Windows 95 and NT days).


Never forced or heated them, may work as well.  I thought the force if 
applied quickly would cause not only "stiction" to be be overcome from 
heads temporarily stuck to the drive, but it also gives a bit of a boost 
in case the poles on the motor were not working well enough to give a 
kick to start the spin, which is a different problem.


The latter seemed to be the problem of at least a couple of drives, as 
they would start if you gave them a prod, but otherwise were either 
silent or humming (from the pole forces oscillating rather than causing 
successive action to spin the platters).


thanks
Jim

On 10/19/2016 6:40 PM, william degnan wrote:

On Oct 19, 2016 9:25 PM, "Alexandre Souza" 
wrote:

A good bang in the side with the heavy side of a screwdriver uses to work
flawlessly ;) (sometimes 2 or 3 bangs :D )


2016-10-19 23:20 GMT-02:00 Al Kossow :


I have a couple of drives I would really like to recover the data from.
On one of the two I've tried so far, the lowest head in the stack is
really stuck on.
Has anyone successfully unstuck a head from this era. I've tried the
obvious things
(gentle rotation in both axis, heating the platters) but there is a lot

of

surface
area on those old heads and it is pretty badly stuck.




Put in the oven, 150 degrees, 2 mins on a
Side for 8 minutes total

Bill Degnan
twitter: billdeg
vintagecomputer.net

Re: RL02 packs available [Was: Re: Are DEC TK50/TK70 tapes worth hanging onto?]

[Pontus Pihlgren]

On Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 12:04:40AM -0700, Mark J. Blair wrote:
> 
> I have a small pile of packs, some of which look unused. I keep my 
> eyes open for more, since I don’t know it I have more than I need yet. 
> :)
> 
> Do any of your extra RL02 packs have potentially interesting contents, 
> such as software that might be useful for my VAX-11/730 or my future 
> PDP-11/44 restoration?

My packs come from a PDP-11/34 system. So there are some XXDP and RT-11 
packs. I look to image them before I ship them off.

/P

Re: RL02 packs available [Was: Re: Are DEC TK50/TK70 tapes worth hanging onto?]

[Mark J. Blair]

> On Oct 19, 2016, at 11:38 PM, Pontus Pihlgren  wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Oct 19, 2016 at 05:51:06PM -0700, Mark J. Blair wrote:
>> 
>> I’m especially interested in accumulating good RL02 packs. I’m even 
>> working on a project to add a USB interface to one of my RL02 drives 
>> for imaging and writing packs.
>> 
> 
> I have more RL01 and RL02 packs than I need, some still in original 
> packaging.
> 
> If you are seriously interested I could muster up the energy to test 
> them and put them in the mail.

I have a small pile of packs, some of which look unused. I keep my eyes open 
for more, since I don’t know it I have more than I need yet. :)

Do any of your extra RL02 packs have potentially interesting contents, such as 
software that might be useful for my VAX-11/730 or my future PDP-11/44 
restoration?

-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X 
http://www.nf6x.net/