Re: 8 inch floppies, decaying
Would Chuck's temperature and Al's oven be appropriate for old magtapes, too? On 7/11/18 9:10 AM, Al Kossow via cctech wrote: On 7/11/18 8:57 AM, Rob Jarratt via cctalk wrote: Be wary though, domestic ovens apparently fluctuate wildly. Use a food dehydrator this is the unit I use for QIC tapes (weston 10 tray stainless steel dehydrator model 74-1001-2) https://www.ebay.com/itm//113143490361 but I do them a couple dozen at at time
Re: An historical nit about FDDs
On 07/12/2018 01:40 PM, Paul Berger via cctalk wrote: IBM created the 8" diskette as an inexpensive and reliable means of loading microcode and shipped the first read only drives in 1971. I am quite certain the original FDD on the 370/168 used a pair of solenoid coils to ratchet the head in and out. I think the mechanism was a leadscrew and toothed wheel. I heard a 370/168 loading a microcode overlay and it sounded like a machine gun, even in a pretty loud machine room. I think the same scheme was used in the 370/145. Jon
Re: Anyone have a HALstation 300 install CD?
Hi Al So, do you still need the CD? Also, my friend may have some manuals. I don't know if it is just Solaris stuff or HaL specific. Dwight From: cctalk on behalf of Al Kossow via cctalk Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2018 3:32:12 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Anyone have a HALstation 300 install CD? > I also got a Sparcstation 5 running Solaris 2.6 and have had no luck getting > it to recognize the HAL boot drives. Operator error on my part, didn't know about "drvconfig" and "disks" since I've never used Solaris 2.x before.
Re: Anyone have a HALstation 300 install CD?
> I also got a Sparcstation 5 running Solaris 2.6 and have had no luck getting > it to recognize the HAL boot drives. Operator error on my part, didn't know about "drvconfig" and "disks" since I've never used Solaris 2.x before.
Re: Anyone have a HALstation 300 install CD?
I may be that the 300 required some special init sequence to the processor. It seems like I recall that it needed to do a scan to initialize a couple of values. This may make it not work on a Sparcstation 5. I don't recall if we shipped units with this problem or if they made a rev of the silicon before shipping??? Dwight From: cctalk on behalf of Al Kossow via cctalk Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2018 1:05:23 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Anyone have a HALstation 300 install CD? that would be great. I've not been able to get Jason's images to boot I also got a Sparcstation 5 running Solaris 2.6 and have had no luck getting it to recognize the HAL boot drives. Their is something odd about the drives, I've only been able to image one of the boot drives on a Linux machine even though they boot fine. On 7/11/18 11:12 AM, dwight wrote: > Hi Al > > I have a line on a CD and may be find some documents to go with it. A friend > has this and I hope to get a copy next > week on Tues or Wed. Are you going to be at the Museum next week. I don't > know where you office is on the East bay side. > It might be closer. > > Dwight > > > *From:* cctalk on behalf of Al Kossow via > cctalk > *Sent:* Monday, July 9, 2018 1:34:24 PM > *To:* cctalk@classiccmp.org > *Subject:* Re: Anyone have a HALstation 300 install CD? > > cool, thanks! > > I don't currently have a Solaris box set up or I would have edited > the password file, after dealing with finding an 80 to 50 pin adapter > for the drive. > > On 7/9/18 1:31 PM, Jason T via cctalk wrote: >> Al - I made ISOs of the media I had before giving away my HALstations >> in 2009. I will email you directly with a link. >
Re: An historical nit about FDDs
On 07/12/2018 11:40 AM, Paul Berger via cctalk wrote: > Because IBM never sold the drives themselves and the market impact of > the first Memorex drive may not have been really big, there was no real > standard so when Shugart Associates released the SA800 its proved to be > very popular and its interface became the defacto standard. One thing that escapes modern sensibilities is how expensive the first floppy disk systems were. If you purchased one of the early microcomputers (IMSAI, Altair), a single-drive floppy disk system would run more than the CPU unit. Remember, there were initially no LSI floppy controllers--on the MDS, Intel rolled their own as a 2-board Multibus set. Some early systems used USART chips. IMSAI used another 8080 MPU for their controller. Data separation was a fairly new problem too, as floppy ISV and general signal stability was not as good as most hard drives. You're essentially using flexible, disposable media. So initially, the market was not terribly large. --Chuck
Re: SuperBrain
On Thu, Jul 12, 2018 at 12:24:18PM -0400, Diane Bruce via cctalk wrote: > I've discovered a SuperBrain manual and two floppy disks in my basement. > Anyone want them? Free to a good home. It has been spoken for and now I feel bad now that I don't have more to give away to everyone who spoke up. :-( I hope the recipient can make copies if the disks are still readable etc. Diane -- - d...@freebsd.org d...@db.net http://www.db.net/~db
Re: An historical nit about FDDs
IBM created the 8" diskette as an inexpensive and reliable means of loading microcode and shipped the first read only drives in 1971. Memorex did ship a hard sectored R/W drive some time in 1972 likely because Alan Shugart had jumped ship from IBM to Memorex. Some sources credit Shugart with inventing the diskette drive but that is not true he had given the job to others on his team. The Memorex 650 seems to have an interface very similar to the IBM drives oddly enough, using step in and step out signals. The next year IBM shipped its first R/W drive the single sided 33FD "Igar" a single sided soft sectored drive and larger capacity. It was first used in the 3741/42 key to diskette machines but was used in a wide variety of IBM machines, as far as I know IBM never sold the bare drives. Because IBM never sold the drives themselves and the market impact of the first Memorex drive may not have been really big, there was no real standard so when Shugart Associates released the SA800 its proved to be very popular and its interface became the defacto standard. Paul. On 2018-07-12 3:02 PM, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote: Hi Chuck I agree it is easy to convert but I am surprised that a start-up would have the guts to change the "standard," whether it was Memorex, Potter or Century. I think before the 33FD Memorex was the market leader but I could be wrong. I've asked some SA founders the question. Does anyone know any Potter or Century FDD people from the early 70s? The early HDD interfaces I am aware of used a control cable with an 8-bit bus and a set of tag lines to define the bus - much more expensive to implement than the Step In/Step Out. Regards, Tom -Original Message- From: Chuck Guzis [mailto:ccl...@sydex.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2018 11:38 AM To: Tom Gardner via cctalk Subject: Re: An historical nit about FDDs On 07/11/2018 11:12 AM, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote: Anyone know where the Step/Direction version of the FDD interface originated. So far as near as I can tell the earliest FDDs (IBM 23FD Minnow and Memorex 650/651) used Step In/Step Out. The IBM 33FD Igar used direct control of the motor. The earliest Step/Direction FDD I can find is the Shugart 800 which first shipped in September 1973. Shugart is probably it, unless there's a hard drive interface that precedes it. Mostly a minimal bit of logical difference between the Step in/Step out and Step/Direction. One can be converted to the other rather easily. --Chuck
Re: SuperBrain
I'd be interested if Doug isn't. Thanks, Jonathan On Thu, Jul 12, 2018 at 12:50 PM, Bill Degnan via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > Doug Crawford has one of these, he may want this. > > On Thu, Jul 12, 2018 at 12:24 PM Diane Bruce via cctalk < > cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > I've discovered a SuperBrain manual and two floppy disks in my basement. > > Anyone want them? Free to a good home. > > > > Diane > > -- > > - d...@freebsd.org d...@db.net http://www.db.net/~db > > >
Re: SuperBrain
I have a SuperBrain and have been looking for a manual and disks. I will take it if it is still available. > On Jul 12, 2018, at 11:24, Diane Bruce via cctalk > wrote: > > I've discovered a SuperBrain manual and two floppy disks in my basement. > Anyone want them? Free to a good home. > > Diane > -- > - d...@freebsd.org d...@db.net http://www.db.net/~db
RE: An historical nit about FDDs
Hi Chuck I agree it is easy to convert but I am surprised that a start-up would have the guts to change the "standard," whether it was Memorex, Potter or Century. I think before the 33FD Memorex was the market leader but I could be wrong. I've asked some SA founders the question. Does anyone know any Potter or Century FDD people from the early 70s? The early HDD interfaces I am aware of used a control cable with an 8-bit bus and a set of tag lines to define the bus - much more expensive to implement than the Step In/Step Out. Regards, Tom -Original Message- From: Chuck Guzis [mailto:ccl...@sydex.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2018 11:38 AM To: Tom Gardner via cctalk Subject: Re: An historical nit about FDDs On 07/11/2018 11:12 AM, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote: > Anyone know where the Step/Direction version of the FDD interface > originated. > > So far as near as I can tell the earliest FDDs (IBM 23FD Minnow and > Memorex > 650/651) used Step In/Step Out. The IBM 33FD Igar used direct control > of the motor. > > The earliest Step/Direction FDD I can find is the Shugart 800 which > first shipped in September 1973. Shugart is probably it, unless there's a hard drive interface that precedes it. Mostly a minimal bit of logical difference between the Step in/Step out and Step/Direction. One can be converted to the other rather easily. --Chuck
Re: SuperBrain
Doug Crawford has one of these, he may want this. On Thu, Jul 12, 2018 at 12:24 PM Diane Bruce via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > I've discovered a SuperBrain manual and two floppy disks in my basement. > Anyone want them? Free to a good home. > > Diane > -- > - d...@freebsd.org d...@db.net http://www.db.net/~db >
CHWiki issues fixed
The two main issues with the CHWiki (non-logged in users not seeing the most recent versions of pages, and image uploads not working) have been dealt with. Noel
SuperBrain
I've discovered a SuperBrain manual and two floppy disks in my basement. Anyone want them? Free to a good home. Diane -- - d...@freebsd.org d...@db.net http://www.db.net/~db
Re: An historical nit about FDDs
> So far as near as I can tell the earliest FDDs (IBM 23FD Minnow and Memorex > 650/651) used Step In/Step Out. The IBM 33FD Igar used direct control of the > motor. Someone asked (you?) on one of my Youtube videos for more detail about the 23FD's stepping method, so I made a video covering the finer details. https://youtu.be/AMPlJ7JayB4 -- Will
Re: Null program (was Re: ITS DDT anecdote)
On Jul 12, 2018, at 10:20 AM, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote: > > That reminds me of one of my favorite computer trivia questions: > > What is the shortest useful CP/M program? Oh yes, the "infinitely profitable program." There was a write up of this that I came across some time ago. It's a pretty cool program. Google can find it by searching that phrase.
Null program (was Re: ITS DDT anecdote)
That reminds me of one of my favorite computer trivia questions: What is the shortest useful CP/M program?
Re: ITS DDT anecdote
On Sun, Jun 17, 2018, at 5:52 PM, Seth Morabito wrote: > I'm trying desperately to remember an anecdote I remember reading not > too long ago about programming ITS using DDT. > [...] Replying to myself here, because I found it! Thanks to Rainer Joswig on Twitter for posting it. I will quote it here: "By way of Joe Marshall in comp.lang.lisp: Here's an anecdote I heard once about Minsky. He was showing a student how to use ITS to write a program. ITS was an unusual operating system in that the 'shell' was the DDT debugger. You ran programs by loading them into memory and jumping to the entry point. But you can also just start writing assembly code directly into memory from the DDT prompt. Minsky started with the null program. Obviously, it needs an entry point, so he defined a label for that. He then told the debugger to jump to that label. This immediately raised an error of there being no code at the jump target. So he wrote a few lines of code and restarted the jump instruction. This time it succeeded and the first few instructions were executed. When the debugger again halted, he looked at the register contents and wrote a few more lines. Again proceeding from where he left off he watched the program run the few more instructions. He developed the entire program by 'debugging' the null program." -Seth -- Seth Morabito w...@loomcom.com
Re: 8 inch floppies, decaying
On Wed, 11 Jul 2018 at 20:05, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > Don't use pumice to clean off the pumas. (they won't like it) > Stick with well whale oil. Also great for rosewood, I hear. -- Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 - ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: 8 inch floppies, decaying
On Wed, 11 Jul 2018, Al Kossow wrote: On 7/11/18 2:21 AM, Christian Corti via cctalk wrote: I use Screen 99 for cleaning floppies MSDS https://store.comet.bg/download-file.php?id=16956 first ingredient listed; isopropyl alcohol Of course, somehow you need some "magic" in the stuff ;-) But as you might have seen, the weight in weight is 10% maximum. And when sprayed on the surface (only a small spot) it generates a nice solid foam. It hasn't dissolved the binder/oxide for now, not even on Wabash floppies (that in my experience aren't too horrible, some noname stuff is much worse). If I'm afraid that it might dissolve the media I can always test it first on the inner side next to the hub hole. And I don't rub the media with high pressure, only gently. It is important to extract the floppy from its sleeve for cleaning, though. Christian
