Aaron Nabil & pdp-8.org

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

I’m not sure if Aaron’s website was offline prior to the last couple days or 
not, as I honestly don’t remember the last time that I visited, but it’s 
offline now.  Aaron once upon a time, used to work for what was a really great 
ISP, aracnet.com, and that’s apparently where his website was still being 
hosted.  Aracnet has vanished under rather suspicious circumstances, and with 
it, both Aaron’s website, and my DEC emulation pages website.

I can’t speak for Aaron, but I’ll have the DEC Emulation website back online 
one of these days.  Currently I’m trying to deal with the fun of the email 
account I’ve used for nearly 20 years vanishing without warning.

Zane

Re: The origin of the phrases ATA and IDE [WAS:RE: formatting MFM drives on a IBM PC]

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 10/05/2017 03:27 PM, Paul Berger via cctalk wrote:



I once had a Tecmar SASI adapter  (I still have the 
documentation and diskette) I seem to recall that it was 
mostly buffers which would suggest that most of the work 
was done by the device driver. The disks that went with it 
where  ST506 drives connected to Xebec S1410 bridge 
cards.   This card/device driver also supported having 
multiple initiators  so more than one PC could share that 
massive 10, 15 or 33MB disk.


Sure, I put a SASI disk onto a CP/M system.  The interface 
was basically a bidirectional 8-bit port with some extra 
handshake lines.  The physical interface was as simple as 
could be, the software was also quite simple.  I used the 
INIR/OUTIR instructions on the Z-80 that were pretty close 
to a DMA operation.


Jon

Re: The origin of SCSI [WAS:RE: The origin of the phrases ATA and IDE ]

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 10/05/2017 01:50 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:



What I found curious was the CDC manual that called SCSI "SASI subset".
To me that says that SASI was the more elaborate protocol and SCSI
initially picked and chose from it.


Oh, no!  SASI was VERY simple.  You could read and write a 
number of blocks, and sense the error status.
That was just about the total command set.  Even SCSI-I had 
a much wider set, to accommodate tapes,
scanners, printers,and other things.  It allowed for several 
different types of status sensing, could report
a lot of information about the drive (make & model, physical 
configuration, etc.)


At least the Memorex SASI drive/controller I put on my CP/M 
system was really basic, as far as I remember.


Jon

Re: The origin of SCSI [WAS:RE: The origin of the phrases ATA and IDE ]

[Jerry Weiss via cctalk]

The DK Driver for VMS versions around 5.x definitely had a problem with non-DEC 
disks.  6.X and greater were slightly more forgiving.

The specifics are summarized in a note from Ralph Weber in 
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!search/SCSI$20Mode$20Page$20Requirements$20$20axp/comp.os.vms/RAaUpP_XXEw/BWn64YZYwBQJ
 .  

I don’t think there is list of non-DEC disks in the driver as it instead 
checked the SCSI Mode bits and other disk configuration settings.   There is a 
list (table) for DEC Drives (idiosyncrasies?) and another SCSI2 Tagged Queuing 
devices requirements used for Clusters in the driver.

Regards,
Jerry



> On Oct 5, 2017, at 6:23 PM, Peter Coghlan via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> 
>> The biggest problem you had was the requirement to assert ATN when selected 
>> properly.� Later the tag queuing caused huge headaches as manufacturers 
>> implemented that feature.
>> 
>> It eventually was made mandatory for the most part by linux, and perhaps 
>> Windows requiring the tag queuing drilled own to the lowest level of the 
>> system's use of the disk.  The capability to do that, or fake it is required 
>> to allow the kernel to queue commands to run, and have the OS continue to 
>> run till command completion.
>> 
> 
> I recall VMS having issues with SCSI disks which claimed to do tag queueing
> (and bad block replacement) but didn't do it right, before I'd even heard
> of linux.
> 
> Customers complained that VMS refused to work with commodity SCSI disks
> and thought that it was a conspiracy to get them to buy expensive DEC branded
> disks.  DEC claimed that only the disks with their firmware did tag queueing
> and bad block replacement correctly.  The VMS SCSI driver supposedly had 
> (has?)
> a list of specific disks known to mess up which it would refuse to bring
> online.
> 
> I wasn't well up on Sun but I expect the same issue existed there too.
> 
> Regards,
> Peter Coghlan.

Re: (Classic Computers) HP 7970 1/2" 9-Track Reel-to-Reel Tape Drive

[Anders Nelson via cctalk]

Hi Jack,

I believe finding the load point and bottom-of-tape has to do with
photosensors that pick up reflected light from a lamp/photo detector
assembly in the tape path. Are you sure the lamps are working? After that
you'd look for the reflective sticker on the tape then perhaps scope the
photo detectors.

=]

--
Anders Nelson

+1 (517) 775-6129

www.erogear.com

On Thu, Oct 5, 2017 at 7:47 PM, Jack Harper via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

>
>
> Marc -
>
> I certainly do know you from your great YouTube videos.
>
> Because of the video on the Overland Data drive, I bought one of those
> that popped up on eBay, but it will not find load point.
>
> The output voltages from the BOT sensor look, I think, good or at least
> reasonable:  +0.3VDC for the DARK condition and +3.0VDC for the LIGHT
> condition.
>
> The drive failed all of the power-on diagnostics when I first got it, but
> I discovered how to re-initialize NOVRAM to "factory settings" by weird
> button pushes - Did that and all was well.
>
> However, the drive will not, now, find the load point and so I am stuck.
>
> That was interesting to me as you had the exact same problem with the 7970
> on your YouTube video - burned out light bulb.
>
> I believe the problem in the Overland to be something other than the BOT
> sensor.
>
>
> I considered a SCSI tape drive, but really I want the classic open reels
> with the classic fast/stop action. Reliving, of course, my childhood when I
> grew up living inside a UNIVAC 1108 - assembly and all that - and all those
> drives start/stopping :)
>
> I consider this a long term project if I tackle it - clearly not something
> that I can dash together over a weekend.
>
> Do you think that parity issue on commands is only for the HP-IB
> controller and not if I end up talking direct to the internal controller of
> the 7970 tape drive??  Any idea on that?
>
>
> Regards to the List,
>
> Jack
>
>
>
>
> At 12:22 AM 10/4/2017, Curious Marc wrote:
>
>>
>> Jack,
>>
>> You can drive an HP-IB equipped HP7970E with an old PC that has an HP-IB
>> card using Ansgar Kueckes HPDIR. I debugged it together with Ansgar. The
>> rub is that it only worked well with an ISA HP-IB card running under Win98.
>> The PCI HP-IB card running under XP uses a driver that causes timing errors
>> and it skipped some records, and I don't think Ansgar ever bothered to fix
>> it - we were happy enough to have made one solution work... The commands
>> used to read and write from the tape are complex and tricky, and you have
>> to get your timing right as there is hardly a buffer in the interface (128
>> bytes). And there is this weird parity thing, where parity has to be
>> generated for commands on the HPIB bus, but not for data, or something of
>> that ilk. If not the tape just hangs the bus. There are several GPIB
>> emulators based on Arduino that should enable you to build an interface.
>>
>> You know me, I made several videos documenting the work on the 7970E tape:
>> https://youtu.be/eCBxNhEzIfc?t=7m6s
>> (tape interfaced with a PC running Ansgar HPDIR)
>> https://youtu.be/5J8IbpJoeqk (shows how I
>> sniffed the HP-IB bus to figure out how the commands worked - or didn't,
>> also has a demo of sending a rewind command in the raw via a paddled-in
>> program)
>> https://youtu.be/YS9dGYUbNd0 (showing a
>> demo with the tape attached to an HP-85, using an FPGA based gizmo to take
>> care of the on-the-fly parity generation)
>> https://youtu.be/rAsLwcq4RNU (fixing a
>> loading fault on the tape drive)
>>
>> Although I love the HP 7970E dearly and want to encourage you to try your
>> luck at it, that was a lot of work to get it to work on something it wasn't
>> meant for. You'd have a much easier time bringing up a SCSI based tape.
>>
>> Marc
>>
>>
>> Subject: (Classic Computers) HP 7970 1/2" 9-Track Reel-to-Reel Tape Drive
>>
>> Question:  Anyone have experience talking to a 7970 tape drive from
>> something other than an HP computer - something that does not have
>> HP-IB???  How is that usually done??
>>
>> Jack Harper
>> Evergreen, Colorado
>>
>>
>>
> 
> --
> Jack Harper, President
> Secure Outcomes Inc
> 2942 Evergreen Parkway, Suite 300
> Evergreen, Colorado 80439 USA
>
> 303.670.8375
> 303.670.3750 (fax)
>
> http://www.secureoutcomes.net for Product Info.
>

Re: (Classic Computers) HP 7970 1/2" 9-Track Reel-to-Reel Tape Drive

[Jack Harper via cctalk]

Marc -

I certainly do know you from your great YouTube videos.

Because of the video on the Overland Data drive, I bought one of 
those that popped up on eBay, but it will not find load point.


The output voltages from the BOT sensor look, I think, good or at 
least reasonable:  +0.3VDC for the DARK condition and +3.0VDC for the 
LIGHT condition.


The drive failed all of the power-on diagnostics when I first got it, 
but I discovered how to re-initialize NOVRAM to "factory settings" by 
weird button pushes - Did that and all was well.


However, the drive will not, now, find the load point and so I am stuck.

That was interesting to me as you had the exact same problem with the 
7970 on your YouTube video - burned out light bulb.


I believe the problem in the Overland to be something other than the 
BOT sensor.



I considered a SCSI tape drive, but really I want the classic open 
reels with the classic fast/stop action. Reliving, of course, my 
childhood when I grew up living inside a UNIVAC 1108 - assembly and 
all that - and all those drives start/stopping :)


I consider this a long term project if I tackle it - clearly not 
something that I can dash together over a weekend.


Do you think that parity issue on commands is only for the HP-IB 
controller and not if I end up talking direct to the internal 
controller of the 7970 tape drive??  Any idea on that?



Regards to the List,

Jack




At 12:22 AM 10/4/2017, Curious Marc wrote:


Jack,

You can drive an HP-IB equipped HP7970E with an old PC that has an 
HP-IB card using Ansgar Kueckes HPDIR. I debugged it together with 
Ansgar. The rub is that it only worked well with an ISA HP-IB card 
running under Win98. The PCI HP-IB card running under XP uses a 
driver that causes timing errors and it skipped some records, and I 
don't think Ansgar ever bothered to fix it - we were happy enough to 
have made one solution work... The commands used to read and write 
from the tape are complex and tricky, and you have to get your 
timing right as there is hardly a buffer in the interface (128 
bytes). And there is this weird parity thing, where parity has to be 
generated for commands on the HPIB bus, but not for data, or 
something of that ilk. If not the tape just hangs the bus. There are 
several GPIB emulators based on Arduino that should enable you to 
build an interface.


You know me, I made several videos documenting the work on the 7970E tape:
https://youtu.be/eCBxNhEzIfc?t=7m6s 
(tape interfaced with a PC running Ansgar HPDIR)
https://youtu.be/5J8IbpJoeqk (shows 
how I sniffed the HP-IB bus to figure out how the commands worked - 
or didn't, also has a demo of sending a rewind command in the raw 
via a paddled-in program)
https://youtu.be/YS9dGYUbNd0 (showing 
a demo with the tape attached to an HP-85, using an FPGA based gizmo 
to take care of the on-the-fly parity generation)
https://youtu.be/rAsLwcq4RNU (fixing a 
loading fault on the tape drive)


Although I love the HP 7970E dearly and want to encourage you to try 
your luck at it, that was a lot of work to get it to work on 
something it wasn't meant for. You'd have a much easier time 
bringing up a SCSI based tape.


Marc


Subject: (Classic Computers) HP 7970 1/2" 9-Track Reel-to-Reel Tape Drive

Question:  Anyone have experience talking to a 7970 tape drive from
something other than an HP computer - something that does not have
HP-IB???  How is that usually done??

Jack Harper
Evergreen, Colorado




--
Jack Harper, President
Secure Outcomes Inc
2942 Evergreen Parkway, Suite 300
Evergreen, Colorado 80439 USA

303.670.8375
303.670.3750 (fax)

http://www.secureoutcomes.net for Product Info. 

Re: The origin of SCSI [WAS:RE: The origin of the phrases ATA and IDE ]

[Peter Coghlan via cctalk]

The biggest problem you had was the requirement to assert ATN when 
selected properly.  Later the tag queuing caused huge headaches as 
manufacturers implemented that feature.


It eventually was made mandatory for the most part by linux, and perhaps 
Windows requiring the tag queuing drilled own to the lowest level of the 
system's use of the disk.  The capability to do that, or fake it is 
required to allow the kernel to queue commands to run, and have the OS 
continue to run till command completion.




I recall VMS having issues with SCSI disks which claimed to do tag queueing
(and bad block replacement) but didn't do it right, before I'd even heard
of linux.

Customers complained that VMS refused to work with commodity SCSI disks
and thought that it was a conspiracy to get them to buy expensive DEC branded
disks.  DEC claimed that only the disks with their firmware did tag queueing
and bad block replacement correctly.  The VMS SCSI driver supposedly had (has?)
a list of specific disks known to mess up which it would refuse to bring
online.

I wasn't well up on Sun but I expect the same issue existed there too.

Regards,
Peter Coghlan.

Re: (Classic Computers) HP 7970 1/2" 9-Track Reel-to-Reel Tape Drive

[Jack Harper via cctalk]

Chuck -

Great information!

E.g., connectors from Anchor Electronics/San Diego - I have been 
wondering about primordial connectors.


I appreciate the description of your STM32F407 machine - makes sense 
and gives me hope that I can replicate the functionality in the 68K world.


I do have a dual trace 'scope and usually manage to use it without 
hurting myself too badly with a screwdriver or something :)


I have not looked yet - just printed the HP documentation - but are 
the lines into/out of the 7970 tape drive +5VDC etc or something 
weird that I will have to convert.  I "assume" that the current draws 
are reasonable for a GPIO approach?



Regards to the List,

Jack







If you get a 7970B or -C, get the service+operation manual from the HP
Museum.  Al has a bunch of 7970 stuff on bitsavers, but not, I think (I
could be wrong) the manual specific to the B and C models.  All of the
HP manuals have lots of detail (the drives had almost endless revisions
and additions, which can be confusing if you're just trying to figure
out what you've got)--and still, your drive may be slightly different.

For example, I've got a -B made in 1984 and the write-protect mechanism
doesn't match any of the variations in the manual.  This was important
to me as on of the microswitches was broken on mine.

But now that I've got the -B outfitted with 7/9 track read stack, write
protect doesn't matter so much.  I"m still tweaking the various
adjustments on the drive (have a dual-trace 'scope handy) and it's
getting very good.

Currently, I'm using it to read old 7-track tapes and create SIMH .TAP
files on a (shared) SDCard.

I used a generic STM32F407 evaluation board, mounted it on a hunk of
prototype board and fit a 50 line ribbon connectors to it.  Hookup
between the MCU board and the connector was done with wire-wrap.  The
MCU board even has a battery-backed real-time clock on it, so my files
are all correctly date-stamped.   I got the 48-conductor edge connectors
for the other end of the cable from Anchor Electronics in San Jose.

For switching between the heads, I built a small board that bolts to the
head mounting plate and contains a 34-line ribbon connector for the head
leads and a 20 line edge connector for the read preamp--and 5 small DPDT
DIP relays to do the switching.   The relay coils occupy a couple of
lines in the cable connecting the drive to the MCU, so I can shift
between the heads under software control.

So far, so good.

--Chuck


--
Jack Harper, President
Secure Outcomes Inc
2942 Evergreen Parkway, Suite 300
Evergreen, Colorado 80439 USA

303.670.8375
303.670.3750 (fax)

http://www.secureoutcomes.net for Product Info. 

RE: (Classic Computers) HP 7970 1/2" 9-Track Reel-to-Reel Tape Drive

[Jack Harper via cctalk]

Hello to Everyone that replied to my post on the HP7970 Tape Drive.

I very much appreciate the advice and counsel.

Sorry for the delay responding, I had a medical procedure that 
knocked me back a bit - nothing serious, just mostly irritating  (the 
ENT Doc injected 25ml of a liquid steroid direct into my inner ear 
Cochlear through penetration of the eardrum - Yuck!) 



My goal is to understand the feasibility of connecting a 7970 to the 
68K system that I have assembled.


I do not yet have a 7970 and it is probably a bit of a wait to find one.

I begin to believe that such a project is feasible, especially 
considering that people have done that sort of thing before to other 
processors.


Best that I can tell, there are no device drivers whatsoever for the 
Motorola 68K - Please let me know if I am wrong.


I begin to believe that a possible path would be to use a VMEbus 
digital in/out board to connect possibly direct to the HP7970 
control/read/write lines and then build ASM software to control that.


Running on a 50Mhz 68060 processor gives me hope that I will be able 
to stay ahead of the drive. Polling loops running hard should help there.


The key, I think, to that will be finding really detailed timing etc 
specifications.



Jay, I will look for documentation on the HP 13181/13183 tape 
controller - that certainly makes sense and will give me something to 
stare at :)


I just found it at HP Computer Museum: It's a pretty thing: 
http://www.hpmuseum.net/images/7970MagTape1-13181-60040-42.jpg


Just downloaded and printed the 13181/13183 tape controller 
documentation. I am much stronger in software than hardware, but will 
see if I can make sense of it.  Mostly what I need are the control 
lines: commands, timing...



Regards to the List,

Jack

ps - If interested, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfT96j-7Zjc 
to see what we did with some 68000 boards running ASM/Lisp back in 
the day 1985. It was a fun project - I ran and hid in my hole when 
that thing was running around - not kidding :)











At 07:58 PM 10/3/2017, Jay West wrote:


Jack wrote...

I begin to understand - so, for example an HP2100 with the 7970 tape option
had a specific tape controller board that talked direct to the 7970.

Yep, and no small amount of logic. The 7970A or B interfaced to a 2100/21MX
host using a 13181 interface (which is a two board set). The 7970E
interfaced to a 2100/21mx host using a 13183 interface (which is also a two
board set). Wasn't there some deal where a M/E/F could drive it at 45ips but
a 2100 couldn't (next lower speed)?? I don't recall for sure, but there was
something vaguely like that. And off that 13181/3 board you could have four
tape drives I believe.

-
I never used an HP2100 with a "real" tape drive such as the 7970 - actually
just paper tape back in 1974-1978 where I wrote in ASM (a bit ugly with no
index register) and ALGOL (I still have the box of paper tapes somewhere
with that four pass ALGOL compiler  - that nice black oiled paper with the
smell  :)

No... you did use a HP2100 with a REAL tape drive... such as the 2748B
*grin*Paper tape rocks. I have that same ALGOL compiler I'm sure secreted
away in a paper tape box(es).

--
I am delighted to hear that people have actually built a 7970 interface and
got it to work mostly in pure software.
That is good news and gives me hope :)
Interesting indeed.
Jay, I appreciate the helpful response.  Thank you.
--
Glad to help, but I just copied Chucks post from a few weeks back. He
supplied the knowledge :)

--
I will read the 7970 interface specifications more carefully now that I
understand better the context.  The timing issues are, of course, key.
--
HP manuals of the period are awfully detailed. They all have the theory of
operation section with a circuit walkthrough, etc. It could be helpful for
you to also take a look at the manual for the 13181 or 13183 controller set,
as you'll kinda be doing what that boardset does.

Best,

J


--
Jack Harper, President
Secure Outcomes Inc
2942 Evergreen Parkway, Suite 300
Evergreen, Colorado 80439 USA

303.670.8375
303.670.3750 (fax)

http://www.secureoutcomes.net for Product Info. 

Re: The origin of the phrases ATA and IDE [WAS:RE: formatting MFM drives on a IBM PC]

[Paul Berger via cctalk]

On 2017-10-05 8:22 AM, allison via cctalk wrote:



On 10/5/17 5:53 AM, Christian Corti via cctalk wrote:

On Wed, 4 Oct 2017, Guy Sotomayor Jr wrote:
Also, the early desktop PS/2 (model 50 and such) had the controller 
integrated on the drive and those were Maxtor as I recall.  The PS/2 
shipped in 1987 and we had the drives in labs at least 12-18 months 
prior (memory is dim on this right now).


No. The IBM 8550 has the controller on a special card and the drive 
had a PCB edge that inserted into the PCB connector on the side of 
the controller. The 8550-021 used a 20MB IBM WD-325N disk drive (P/N 
90X6806). The controller is a ST-506 type MFM controller (with DMA, 
so it rocks with a sustained data rate of above 500kB/s!). My father 
upgraded the system with a standard Rhodime 50MB MFM drive. There was 
a purely passive adapter that split the card edge connector into the 
normal 20+34 pin connectors plus power. I still have that system and 
drive :-)


Christian
I have the 10MB hardcard, WD I think.  Its a 10mb 8bit IDE interface 
on the ISA-8 full length card.
The card has EPROM and bus level interface only (buffers) and I think 
512k of ram (have to check).
I got it second hand after an upgrade in '94ish but then most users 
were happy to have 10 or

20mb of disk.

Funny the market knew of the 386 in the fall of '85 but it would be 
three years before I'd see
one in the field.  Disks and CPUs lagged the introductions by years 
due to cost.


Allison
there was a company called "Plus" that made a product called hardcard   
that had the controller and drive electronics on the same ISA card and a 
disk enclosure on the back of the card.  I took a dead one apart and 
they have one of the weirdest actuator assemblies I have ever seen.  
There where 8 bit and 16 bit versions of the cards.


Paul.

Re: The origin of the phrases ATA and IDE [WAS:RE: formatting MFM drives on a IBM PC]

[Paul Berger via cctalk]

On 2017-10-05 4:31 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:

On 10/05/2017 11:39 AM, Rich Alderson via cctalk wrote:

From: Chuck Guzis
Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2017 1:46 PM


As an aside, I picked up a 1986 Wren II full-height manual that discussed the
drive and its various interfaces.  Sadly, IDE isn't one, but SCSI is referred
to as "SASI Subset"; i.e. "SCSI (SASI subset)"

I believe that you're reading that backwards.  What it says is that this is a
SCSI-compatible device which employs only the SASI subset of SCSI commands, not
that "SCSI" is a subset of "SASI".

Okay, that makes sense, even if it is a bit confusing--I recall that the
SASI disk drive protocol was pretty simple.

--Chuck
I once had a Tecmar SASI adapter  (I still have the documentation and 
diskette) I seem to recall that it was mostly buffers which would 
suggest that most of the work was done by the device driver. The disks 
that went with it where  ST506 drives connected to Xebec S1410 bridge 
cards.   This card/device driver also supported having multiple 
initiators  so more than one PC could share that massive 10, 15 or 33MB 
disk.


The Xbec controller manual that is in the documentation suggests that 
the SASI command set was much simpler that SCSI.


Paul.

Re: 8" magtapes

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 10/05/2017 12:36 PM, jim stephens via cctalk wrote:

> The Kennedy 9800 is an oddball with 1200' reels, and a smaller panel
> footprint.

Kennedy made some incremental tape drives for key-to-tape systems with
8" reel capacity.  The advantage, of course, is the smaller
footprint--and key-to-tape tends not to generate a lot of data, as it's
basically a glorified keypunch simulator.

I wonder if this is the intended application of the drive in question.

--Chuck

RE: The origin of the phrases ATA and IDE [WAS:RE: formatting MFM drives on a IBM PC]

[Peter Coghlan via cctalk]

> > That concurs with my observation that SCSI was initially an Apple 
> > convention.
> > I can recall conversations about SASI vs. Apple SCSI.
>
> And like Fred, I don't believe that it does any such thing.
>
>Rich

Me too.  Given how Apple mangled the 50pin SCSI connector into a 25pin one,
it is hard to see how they could have been responsible for coming up with it.

Regards,
Peter Coghlan.

Re: The origin of the phrases ATA and IDE [WAS:RE: formatting MFM drives on a IBM PC]

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 10/05/2017 04:22 AM, allison via cctalk wrote:

> Funny the market knew of the 386 in the fall of '85 but it would be
> three years before I'd see
> one in the field.  Disks and CPUs lagged the introductions by  years due
> to cost.

It was hard to rationalize the extra cost of a 16MHz 80386 when there
was little software or performance gain over a fast 80286 box when
running MS-DOS--the dominant OS of the day.

I recall an Intel engineer opining on the subject.  "We give you a
32-bit advanced architecture CPU and you p*ss it away running DOS."

Compatibility is a tough mistress.

--Chuck

Re: 8" magtapes

[jim stephens via cctalk]

On 10/5/2017 8:53 AM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:


On 9/29/17 8:56 AM, Henk Gooijen via cctalk wrote:


Now I'm looking for 8" mag tapes/reels that will fit!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/311973810676

even a good brand.

2400' as said 10" reels for that auction.
1200' 8"
600' 6"

The Kennedy 9800 is an oddball with 1200' reels, and a smaller panel 
footprint.


Example (far overpriced) currently for illustration:
KENNEDY-9800-192-9801-50-DIGITAL-TAPE-Transport-Reel-to-Reel-Recorder-Industrial-/
http://www.ebay.com/itm/192192224461

I think Henk is in Europe, shipping will be a tad more than $20 at any 
rate from a US auction.

I may pounce on this auction, it is for Graham Magnetics.

I do have a project system, FWIW, a Pertec / Singer 7 track key to tape 
that i plan to restore,
could use some 600' reels if anyone may have some to spare / sell. Some 
for junk testing,

some for recording.

Thanks
Jim

Re: The origin of the phrases ATA and IDE [WAS:RE: formatting MFM drives on a IBM PC]

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 10/05/2017 11:39 AM, Rich Alderson via cctalk wrote:
> From: Chuck Guzis
> Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2017 1:46 PM
> 
>> As an aside, I picked up a 1986 Wren II full-height manual that discussed the
>> drive and its various interfaces.  Sadly, IDE isn't one, but SCSI is referred
>> to as "SASI Subset"; i.e. "SCSI (SASI subset)"
> 
> I believe that you're reading that backwards.  What it says is that this is a
> SCSI-compatible device which employs only the SASI subset of SCSI commands, 
> not
> that "SCSI" is a subset of "SASI".

Okay, that makes sense, even if it is a bit confusing--I recall that the
SASI disk drive protocol was pretty simple.

--Chuck

RE: The origin of the phrases ATA and IDE [WAS:RE: formatting MFM drives on a IBM PC]

[Rich Alderson via cctalk]

From: Chuck Guzis
Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2017 1:46 PM

> As an aside, I picked up a 1986 Wren II full-height manual that discussed the
> drive and its various interfaces.  Sadly, IDE isn't one, but SCSI is referred
> to as "SASI Subset"; i.e. "SCSI (SASI subset)"

I believe that you're reading that backwards.  What it says is that this is a
SCSI-compatible device which employs only the SASI subset of SCSI commands, not
that "SCSI" is a subset of "SASI".

> That concurs with my observation that SCSI was initially an Apple convention.
> I can recall conversations about SASI vs. Apple SCSI.

And like Fred, I don't believe that it does any such thing.

Rich


Rich Alderson
Sr. Systems Engineer
Living Computers: Museum + Labs
2245 1st Ave S
Seattle, WA 98134

http://www.LivingComputers.org/

Re: The origin of the phrases ATA and IDE [WAS:RE: formatting MFM drives on a IBM PC]

[allison via cctalk]

On 10/5/17 5:53 AM, Christian Corti via cctalk wrote:

On Wed, 4 Oct 2017, Guy Sotomayor Jr wrote:
Also, the early desktop PS/2 (model 50 and such) had the controller 
integrated on the drive and those were Maxtor as I recall.  The PS/2 
shipped in 1987 and we had the drives in labs at least 12-18 months 
prior (memory is dim on this right now).


No. The IBM 8550 has the controller on a special card and the drive 
had a PCB edge that inserted into the PCB connector on the side of the 
controller. The 8550-021 used a 20MB IBM WD-325N disk drive (P/N 
90X6806). The controller is a ST-506 type MFM controller (with DMA, so 
it rocks with a sustained data rate of above 500kB/s!). My father 
upgraded the system with a standard Rhodime 50MB MFM drive. There was 
a purely passive adapter that split the card edge connector into the 
normal 20+34 pin connectors plus power. I still have that system and 
drive :-)


Christian
I have the 10MB hardcard, WD I think.  Its a 10mb 8bit IDE interface on 
the ISA-8 full length card.
The card has EPROM and bus level interface only (buffers) and I think 
512k of ram (have to check).
I got it second hand after an upgrade in '94ish but then most users were 
happy to have 10 or

20mb of disk.

Funny the market knew of the 386 in the fall of '85 but it would be 
three years before I'd see
one in the field.  Disks and CPUs lagged the introductions by  years due 
to cost.


Allison

RE: The origin of the phrases ATA and IDE [WAS:RE: formatting MFM drives on a IBM PC]

[Tom Gardner via cctalk]

WD acquired the Tandon drive business in 1988 so it was both a drive maker
and a chip supplier to other drive makers.

WD used the term "Integrated Drive Electronics" internally as early as June
23, 1985 on proprietary business plans (I have copies) but the target
"Intelligent Drive" interfaces are SCSI and "host level" without detail so I
don't think this counts as IDE in the sense of ATA.  My recollection is they
were then thinking more along the lines of direct connection to the host bus
- like Hardcard did.

Hallam speaking as a WD employee did not use IDE in his October 1986 Buscon
presentation where he disclosed direct connection to AT bus extension with
40 pin connector.  

An early WD (second?)  "intelligent" drive was announced in a September 23,
1989 press release as, "WESTERN DIGITAL ANNOUNCES VOLUME SHIPMENT OF ITS NEW
AT-COMPATIBLE, 3.5-INCH INTELLIGENT DRIVES" and "WD93024-A and WD93044-A, a
pair of AT-compatible, 3.5-inch, intelligent disk drives."  It did not use
the term IDE.  I looked for a product spec on line but did not find any.
Photos of these early WD intelligent drives either show no interface
definition or use the terms "PC XT" or "PC AT".

My recollection is that WD was indeed the leading proponent of "IDE" but I
can't find usage by them in 1989.

Tom



-Original Message-
From: Fred Cisin [mailto:ci...@xenosoft.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2017 6:32 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: The origin of the phrases ATA and IDE [WAS:RE: formatting MFM
drives on a IBM PC]

On Wed, 4 Oct 2017, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
> Why on earth would WD have anything to do with it?  They supplied the 
> controller, but not the drives.  I used to have an early Maxtor ~50MB 
> 3.5" drive with bugs in the interface.  Nowhere did they give any nod to
WD.

I was thinking in terms of their wholesale marketing TO the drive companies.
When they wanted to peddle their chipset to Maxtor, etc. what materials did
they send?
I assumed that WD was the first to produce a controller chipset.
Or was WD even the maker of the controller chips on the drive?

You're right, though, that WD may be totally irrelevant.
Surely, it would not have been hard for any of the drive makers to start
making their own.


When did any of the drive makers start saying "IDE" on their drive spec 
sheets?  (I've already make my rant about them not putting any of the 
information on the drive that was necessary for end users to use the 
drive)

Tektronix 8560 external hard disk connector [WAS: Re: The origin of SCSI]

[Christian Groessler via cctalk]

On 10/05/17 20:18, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote:


I suspect this might start another discussion, but as I understand it Apple had 
little to do with the evolution of SASI into SCSI.
Shugart Associates published SASI in 1981 and took it to ANSI in 1982 where 
they renamed it SCSI to avoid using a vendors name.

To quote from the draft SCSI 1 standard

" A commercial small system
parallel bus, the Shugart Associates System Interface (SASI), generally met
the small system requirements for a device-independent peripheral or system
bus and had enjoyed significant market success. It was offered to X3T9.2 as
the basis for a standard. X3T9.2 chose the name Small Computer System
Interface (SCSI) for that standard and began work at its April 1982 meeting.

The present SCSI dpANS is a formalization and extension of the SASI. Many
existing SASI devices are SCSI compatible.

Since April 1982, X3T9.2 has held plenary sessions, at two month intervals,
plus numerous informal working meetings. The original SASI has been extended
in a number of ways"

I was at Shugart at that time and to the best of my recollection Apple was not 
a driver of the ANSI activity.
The Macintosh shipped in January 1984 well after the ANSI SCSI work started and 
its major distinguishing feature was the non-standard connector

Tom



This reminds me of something I wanted to ask for some time:

I've got a Tektronix 8560 where the internal hard disk is not that much 
reliable anymore. No read/write errors, but
after running for some time (btw. 24h and 48h) it seems to reset. 
Spin-down, spin-up, etc. until the host receives an

error.

The connector for an external hard disk looks like an external SCSI 
connector. I haven't found the pinout or other description
in the docs. My hope was that it might be really SASI or SCSI, but given 
the release date of the machine (I don't know exactly

but I think around 1978 or 1979), it might not be.

Does anyone know more details about this connector/connection?

regards,
chris

Re: The origin of SCSI [WAS:RE: The origin of the phrases ATA and IDE ]

[Phil Blundell via cctalk]

On Thu, 2017-10-05 at 11:50 -0700, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
> 
> What I found curious was the CDC manual that called SCSI "SASI
> subset".
> To me that says that SASI was the more elaborate protocol and SCSI
> initially picked and chose from it.

I think that's just bad/ambiguous wording and the intended meaning was
"SCSI (but only the parts that are in SASI)" as distinct from "SCSI
(all parts)".

p.

Re: The origin of SCSI [WAS:RE: The origin of the phrases ATA and IDE ]

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 10/05/2017 11:18 AM, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote:
> I suspect this might start another discussion, but as I understand it Apple 
> had little to do with the evolution of SASI into SCSI.
> Shugart Associates published SASI in 1981 and took it to ANSI in 1982 where 
> they renamed it SCSI to avoid using a vendors name.  

You could well be right--I do recall that there was "Mac SCSI" and then
the slightly different "Everyone else's SCSI".  I ran into this when
talking with some SMS/OMTI engineers about an ST506-to-SCSI bridge board
that I have.  Their reaction was "Oh, that's Mac SCSI--you want real SCSI".

What I found curious was the CDC manual that called SCSI "SASI subset".
To me that says that SASI was the more elaborate protocol and SCSI
initially picked and chose from it.

I do know that many SASI devices work as SCSI-1 devices.  Somewhere, I
still have an early PC ISA SASI (not SCSI) adapter for an Ampex
Megastore unit.

I'm also well-acquainted with what Andy Johnson-Laird called "SCSI
Voodoo" in trying to get several different SCSI devices to work off the
same SCSI-2 bus.

--Chuck

Re: The origin of the phrases ATA and IDE [WAS:RE: formatting MFM drives on a IBM PC]

[Guy Sotomayor Jr via cctalk]

> On Oct 5, 2017, at 11:26 AM, Paul Berger via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 2017-10-05 12:57 PM, Guy Sotomayor Jr via cctalk wrote:
>>> On Oct 5, 2017, at 2:53 AM, Christian Corti via cctalk 
>>>  wrote:
>>> 
>>> On Wed, 4 Oct 2017, Guy Sotomayor Jr wrote:
 Also, the early desktop PS/2 (model 50 and such) had the controller 
 integrated on the drive and those were Maxtor as I recall.  The PS/2 
 shipped in 1987 and we had the drives in labs at least 12-18 months prior 
 (memory is dim on this right now).
>>> No. The IBM 8550 has the controller on a special card and the drive had a 
>>> PCB edge that inserted into the PCB connector on the side of the 
>>> controller. The 8550-021 used a 20MB IBM WD-325N disk drive (P/N 90X6806). 
>>> The controller is a ST-506 type MFM controller (with DMA, so it rocks with 
>>> a sustained data rate of above 500kB/s!). My father upgraded the system 
>>> with a standard Rhodime 50MB MFM drive. There was a purely passive adapter 
>>> that split the card edge connector into the normal 20+34 pin connectors 
>>> plus power. I still have that system and drive :-)
>>> 
>> OK, my recollection must be faulty since I thought that the “riser” was 
>> passive e.g. just some connectors for HDD and floppy, traces and plugged 
>> into the motherboard.
>> 
>> There were a number of different drives.  I don’t recall the 20MB drive.  I 
>> mostly saw 60MB and 120MB drives.
>> 
>> TTFN - Guy
>> 
> It would appear that the original 50 was shipped with a ST506 disk drive that 
> would seem to have been connected to microchannel adapter card.  The 50Z is 
> described as coming with an ESDI drive, and from the pictures I have seen the 
> drive plug into an adapter card that is in turn plugged into a reserved slot 
> on the system board  that may be a regular microchannel slot, but was 
> reserved because the drive plugged directly into a connector on the card.  
> This card does have logic and EPROMs on it so is more that a simple riser, 
> the drive however does not have standard ESDI connectors on it  and does 
> resemble the DBA drives.  The model 70 that is in a case very similar to 50 
> and 50Z has what is called Direct Bus Attach (DBA) drives with a riser from 
> the system board that provides connectors for the DBA disk and diskette 
> drives.  The model 70 tech ref manual shows the connector for the DBA drive 
> as being on the microchannel bus.  I do remember seeing 50s and 70s, but most 
> of the PS/2s I saw when doing machine room support where 60s and 80s.
> 

Yea, most of my work on PS/2’s were on 60s, 70s, 80s and various 95s (as well 
as the P70 luggable).  I don’t recall doing very much (if anything on the 50), 
so it may in fact have been different.

I was also on the team that did the processor card for the 70-486 and the 
“Spock” and “Tribble” SCSI microchannel cards.

TTFN - Guy

Re: The origin of the phrases ATA and IDE [WAS:RE: formatting MFM drives on a IBM PC]

[Paul Berger via cctalk]

On 2017-10-05 12:57 PM, Guy Sotomayor Jr via cctalk wrote:

On Oct 5, 2017, at 2:53 AM, Christian Corti via cctalk  
wrote:

On Wed, 4 Oct 2017, Guy Sotomayor Jr wrote:

Also, the early desktop PS/2 (model 50 and such) had the controller integrated 
on the drive and those were Maxtor as I recall.  The PS/2 shipped in 1987 and 
we had the drives in labs at least 12-18 months prior (memory is dim on this 
right now).

No. The IBM 8550 has the controller on a special card and the drive had a PCB 
edge that inserted into the PCB connector on the side of the controller. The 
8550-021 used a 20MB IBM WD-325N disk drive (P/N 90X6806). The controller is a 
ST-506 type MFM controller (with DMA, so it rocks with a sustained data rate of 
above 500kB/s!). My father upgraded the system with a standard Rhodime 50MB MFM 
drive. There was a purely passive adapter that split the card edge connector 
into the normal 20+34 pin connectors plus power. I still have that system and 
drive :-)


OK, my recollection must be faulty since I thought that the “riser” was passive 
e.g. just some connectors for HDD and floppy, traces and plugged into the 
motherboard.

There were a number of different drives.  I don’t recall the 20MB drive.  I 
mostly saw 60MB and 120MB drives.

TTFN - Guy

It would appear that the original 50 was shipped with a ST506 disk drive 
that would seem to have been connected to microchannel adapter card.  
The 50Z is described as coming with an ESDI drive, and from the pictures 
I have seen the drive plug into an adapter card that is in turn plugged 
into a reserved slot on the system board  that may be a regular 
microchannel slot, but was reserved because the drive plugged directly 
into a connector on the card.  This card does have logic and EPROMs on 
it so is more that a simple riser, the drive however does not have 
standard ESDI connectors on it  and does resemble the DBA drives.  The 
model 70 that is in a case very similar to 50 and 50Z has what is called 
Direct Bus Attach (DBA) drives with a riser from the system board that 
provides connectors for the DBA disk and diskette drives.  The model 70 
tech ref manual shows the connector for the DBA drive as being on the 
microchannel bus.  I do remember seeing 50s and 70s, but most of the 
PS/2s I saw when doing machine room support where 60s and 80s.


Paul.
Paul.

The origin of SCSI [WAS:RE: The origin of the phrases ATA and IDE ]

[Tom Gardner via cctalk]

I suspect this might start another discussion, but as I understand it Apple had 
little to do with the evolution of SASI into SCSI.
Shugart Associates published SASI in 1981 and took it to ANSI in 1982 where 
they renamed it SCSI to avoid using a vendors name.  

To quote from the draft SCSI 1 standard

" A commercial small system
parallel bus, the Shugart Associates System Interface (SASI), generally met
the small system requirements for a device-independent peripheral or system
bus and had enjoyed significant market success. It was offered to X3T9.2 as
the basis for a standard. X3T9.2 chose the name Small Computer System
Interface (SCSI) for that standard and began work at its April 1982 meeting.

The present SCSI dpANS is a formalization and extension of the SASI. Many
existing SASI devices are SCSI compatible.

Since April 1982, X3T9.2 has held plenary sessions, at two month intervals,
plus numerous informal working meetings. The original SASI has been extended
in a number of ways"

I was at Shugart at that time and to the best of my recollection Apple was not 
a driver of the ANSI activity.
The Macintosh shipped in January 1984 well after the ANSI SCSI work started and 
its major distinguishing feature was the non-standard connector

Tom

-Original Message-
From: Chuck Guzis [mailto:ccl...@sydex.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2017 1:46 PM
To: Fred Cisin via cctalk
Subject: Re: The origin of the phrases ATA and IDE [WAS:RE: formatting MFM 
drives on a IBM PC]



As an aside, I picked up a 1986 Wren II full-height manual that
discussed the drive and its various interfaces.   Sadly, IDE isn't one,
but SCSI is referred to as "SASI Subset"; i.e. "SCSI (SASI subset)"

That concurs with my observation that SCSI was initially an Apple convention.  
I can recall conversations about SASI vs. Apple SCSI.

--Chuck

Re: Univac

[Kirk Davis via cctalk]

> On Oct 4, 2017, at 9:58 AM, Evan Koblentz via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
>>> Here's a phone video from a recent repair workshop at the VCFed
>>> museum in New Jersey. Bill Dromgoole is demonstrating progress on one
>>> of the tape drives for our Sperry-Rand Univac 1219B mainframe (circa
>>> mid-1960s).
>>> 
>>> https://www.instagram.com/p/BZxg7e7DJ3r/
>> Terrific!
>> It's really amazing that you have a complete 1219-B!!! Wishing you the
>> best in your restoration. We need more 18-bit systems from that era up
>> and running :)
> 
> 36 bit.

Anyone remember Uniblab?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnsVmPHbQT0 

Re: 8" magtapes

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 10/05/2017 09:35 AM, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote:

> Those all look like 10.5" reels.

Yup.  As a guide, the hub hole in a reel of tape is abou 3.75" in diameter.

--Chuck

Re: 8" magtapes

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 10/05/2017 10:53 AM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:


On 9/29/17 8:56 AM, Henk Gooijen via cctalk wrote:


Now I'm looking for 8" mag tapes/reels that will fit!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/311973810676

even a good brand.




Those all look like 10.5" reels.

Jon

Re: 8" magtapes

[Anders Nelson via cctalk]

Aaa, thanks! I already snatched this auction:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Datamastet-9-Track-Mag-Tapes-Brand-New-Case-of-10/112152910883

I have no brand awareness for this sort of thing so I hope they work...

=]

--
Anders Nelson

+1 (517) 775-6129

www.erogear.com

On Thu, Oct 5, 2017 at 11:53 AM, Al Kossow via cctalk  wrote:

>
>
> On 9/29/17 8:56 AM, Henk Gooijen via cctalk wrote:
>
> > Now I'm looking for 8" mag tapes/reels that will fit!
>
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/311973810676
>
> even a good brand.
>
>
>

Re: The origin of the phrases ATA and IDE [WAS:RE: formatting MFM drives on a IBM PC]

[Guy Sotomayor Jr via cctalk]

> On Oct 5, 2017, at 2:53 AM, Christian Corti via cctalk 
>  wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 4 Oct 2017, Guy Sotomayor Jr wrote:
>> Also, the early desktop PS/2 (model 50 and such) had the controller 
>> integrated on the drive and those were Maxtor as I recall.  The PS/2 shipped 
>> in 1987 and we had the drives in labs at least 12-18 months prior (memory is 
>> dim on this right now).
> 
> No. The IBM 8550 has the controller on a special card and the drive had a PCB 
> edge that inserted into the PCB connector on the side of the controller. The 
> 8550-021 used a 20MB IBM WD-325N disk drive (P/N 90X6806). The controller is 
> a ST-506 type MFM controller (with DMA, so it rocks with a sustained data 
> rate of above 500kB/s!). My father upgraded the system with a standard 
> Rhodime 50MB MFM drive. There was a purely passive adapter that split the 
> card edge connector into the normal 20+34 pin connectors plus power. I still 
> have that system and drive :-)
> 

OK, my recollection must be faulty since I thought that the “riser” was passive 
e.g. just some connectors for HDD and floppy, traces and plugged into the 
motherboard.

There were a number of different drives.  I don’t recall the 20MB drive.  I 
mostly saw 60MB and 120MB drives.

TTFN - Guy

8" magtapes

[Al Kossow via cctalk]

On 9/29/17 8:56 AM, Henk Gooijen via cctalk wrote:

> Now I'm looking for 8" mag tapes/reels that will fit!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/311973810676

even a good brand.

Re: The origin of the phrases ATA and IDE [WAS:RE: formatting MFM drives on a IBM PC]

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Wed, 4 Oct 2017, Guy Sotomayor Jr wrote:
Also, the early desktop PS/2 (model 50 and such) had the controller 
integrated on the drive and those were Maxtor as I recall.  The PS/2 
shipped in 1987 and we had the drives in labs at least 12-18 months 
prior (memory is dim on this right now).


No. The IBM 8550 has the controller on a special card and the drive had a 
PCB edge that inserted into the PCB connector on the side of the 
controller. The 8550-021 used a 20MB IBM WD-325N disk drive (P/N 90X6806). 
The controller is a ST-506 type MFM controller (with DMA, so it rocks with 
a sustained data rate of above 500kB/s!). My father upgraded the system 
with a standard Rhodime 50MB MFM drive. There was a purely passive adapter 
that split the card edge connector into the normal 20+34 pin connectors 
plus power. I still have that system and drive :-)


Christian