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

2017-10-02 Thread Tom Gardner via cctalk 
Nice find but still later than Mar 1989.

 

Since Compuadd didn’t make drives it does raise the question of whose drives 
were in there.

 

Thanks

 

Tom

 

From: wrco...@wrcooke.net [mailto:wrco...@wrcooke.net] 
Sent: Monday, October 02, 2017 5:48 PM
To: Tom Gardner; 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]

 

>From the Oct 2 1989 Infoworld (here 
>https://books.google.com/books?id=vTAEMBAJ 
>
> 
>=PT6=PT6=compaq+brochure=bl=OFrm0z4OIF=ngg5Ojsj-ABUs7YeAEQ48BegRUg=en=X=0ahUKEwjKsqy9nNPWAhXFz4MKHSAiCkIQ6AEIVjAM#v=onepage=ide=false)

 

"All five Compuadd systems include an ide hard drive and floppy disk 
controllers"

 

Will

 

On October 2, 2017 at 8:04 PM Tom Gardner via cctalk  
wrote:

Unfortunately there is no documentation to support Pete's recollection - if 
there is any I would like to see it.

For example:

· WD's Fall 1988 Corporate Product Overview does not use the terms IDE, 
Intelligent d..., or Integrated d... Similarly, WD's October 23, 1989 press 
release " WESTERN DIGITAL

ANNOUNCES VOLUME SHIPMENT OF ITS NEW AT-COMPATIBLE, 3.5-INCH INTELLIGENT 
DRIVES," does not use the acronym IDE or any of its meanings.

· Conner as late as 1990 was not using the acronym IDE or any of its meanings 
in its product literature.

· The MiniScribe 1988 announcement of its 8000 series did not use the acronym 
IDE or any of its meanings

So if WD, Conner and possibly MiniScribe weren’t using the term in 1989 I have 
a hard time accepting it's common use that early.

But again if anyone has any documents dating IDE in the 1980s I’d love to see 
them

Tom

-Original Message-
From: Pete Turnbull [mailto:p...@dunnington.plus.com]
Sent: Monday, October 02, 2017 8:29 AM
To: Tom Gardner via cctalk
Subject: Re: The origin of the phrases ATA and IDE [WAS:RE: formatting MFM 
drives on a IBM PC]

On 01/10/2017 20:46, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote:

As best I can tell WD began publically using the term IDE for its

drives sometime around 1990

Nope. I recall conversations with a small-scale developer in the UK who was 
creating addons and accessories for the company I worked for (Acorn

Computers) in 1987-1988, and he was touting IDE as best improvement (because 
simpler and cheaper to interface) on ST506/ST412 interface drives for the hard 
drive upgrades he was about to market. I recall having to ask what IDE stood 
for, at the time. So it must have been in common use, at least amongst 
developers, by then. By 1989 there were more people using "IDE" - by that name 
- than anything else in the markets I was involved in.

--

Pete

Pete Turnbull

Owens Illinois Digivue technical info

2017-10-02 Thread Josh Dersch via cctalk 

Hi all --

I find myself with an Owens Illinois Digivue plasma display, model 
designation MDXVI.  This appears to be a later model than the ones used 
in the PLATO IV and V terminals and I can't find any real information on 
it.  This one has two D-sub connectors on the rear -- a 15-pin for the 
power supply and a 25-pin for everything else.


Love to know what the interface specs are so I can make the display do 
something interesting.  Schematics would also be nice. Anyone have any 
docs stashed away?


Thanks,

Josh

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

2017-10-02 Thread Chuck Guzis via cctalk 
Here's one a bit earlier: Jan 31, 1989, for a CompuAdd 286 machine with
on-board IDE interface:

https://books.google.com/books?id=pMnJ2MkrjNgC=PA161=Built-in+IDE+interface=en=X=0ahUKEwiYnpG0yNPWAhVSy2MKHXdMA4kQ6AEIXTAI#v=onepage=Built-in%20IDE%20interface=true

Which means that the ad copy was probably developed during 1988.

I'm trying to determine the date of the first IDE card.   It'd have to
be much earlier than the CompuAdd board, as I remember the initial ones
only had a single cable for 2 drives--no secondary interface.

--Chuck

Tektronix 4050E01

2017-10-02 Thread Bob Rosenbloom via cctalk 
I'm looking for the schematic of a Tektronix 4050E01 ROM expander 
(toaster). This is the one that works with either the
Tektronix 4051 or 4052/4054 units. Different than the 4051E01. I have a 
few to fix. Anyone have a manual for one that they

could scan?

Thanks,

Bob

--
Vintage computers and electronics
www.dvq.com
www.tekmuseum.com
www.decmuseum.org

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

2017-10-02 Thread Chuck Guzis via cctalk 
See:

https://books.google.com/books?id=HXDkCoqMiVIC=PP399=IDE+hard+disk+interface+1989=en=X=0ahUKEwj01P2UmdPWAhUJhlQKHTBVD9IQ6AEILTAB#v=snippet=IDE%20hard%20disk%20interface%201989=true

For a CompuAdd 1989 ad that offers a dual IDE hard disk interface on
their motherboards.

I didn't even bother searching 1900 issues.

I remember getting the Wren III and reading in the manual "ATA" and my
reaction was "Wuzzat?  Oh, they mean IDE."

--Chuck

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

2017-10-02 Thread Tom Gardner via cctalk 
Unfortunately there is no documentation to support Pete's recollection - if 
there is any I would like to see it.

 

For example:

· WD's Fall 1988 Corporate Product Overview does not use the terms IDE, 
Intelligent d..., or Integrated d...  Similarly, WD's October 23, 1989 press 
release " WESTERN DIGITAL 

ANNOUNCES VOLUME SHIPMENT OF ITS NEW AT-COMPATIBLE, 3.5-INCH INTELLIGENT 
DRIVES,"  does not use the acronym IDE or any of its meanings.

· Conner as late as 1990 was not using the acronym IDE or any of its 
meanings in its product literature.

· The MiniScribe 1988 announcement of its 8000 series did not use the 
acronym IDE or any of its meanings

 

So if WD, Conner and possibly MiniScribe weren’t using the term in 1989 I have 
a hard time accepting it's common use that early.

 

But again if anyone has any documents dating IDE in the 1980s I’d love to see 
them

 

Tom

 

-Original Message-
From: Pete Turnbull [mailto:p...@dunnington.plus.com] 
Sent: Monday, October 02, 2017 8:29 AM
To: Tom Gardner via cctalk
Subject: Re: The origin of the phrases ATA and IDE [WAS:RE: formatting MFM 
drives on a IBM PC]

 

On 01/10/2017 20:46, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote:

 

> As best I can tell WD began publically using the term IDE for its 

> drives sometime around 1990

 

Nope.  I recall conversations with a small-scale developer in the UK who was 
creating addons and accessories for the company I worked for (Acorn

Computers) in 1987-1988, and he was touting IDE as best improvement (because 
simpler and cheaper to interface) on ST506/ST412 interface drives for the hard 
drive upgrades he was about to market.  I recall having to ask what IDE stood 
for, at the time.  So it must have been in common use, at least amongst 
developers, by then.  By 1989 there were more people using "IDE" - by that name 
- than anything else in the markets I was involved in.

 

--

Pete

Pete Turnbull

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

2017-10-02 Thread Tom Gardner via cctalk 
Sorry for the typo, I typed 6 where I should have typed 9, as in 1969 when I 
meant 1989.  But my 20 years typo doesn’t change a thing. L

 

Chuck’s old Wren III supports the point. Wren III’s began shipping in the late 
80s and so his recollection (if correct) that  ‘ the interface is called "ATA", 
with no mention of "IDE" ’ suggests at least Imprimis wasn’t using IDE at that 
time but was using ATA.

 

Porter’s Disk/Trend doesn’t mention IDE until its 1992 edition; its 1988 
edition identifies 14 manufacturers of drives having what he called a “PC AT” 
interface.   As I said, I think the term IDE came into public usage from WD in 
1991 or 1992.  

 

I don’t think any digging is necessary but if I had to I suppose I could go to 
the Computer History Museum and pull up Porter’s files for the early ATA drive 
manufacturers and see what term their literature uses.

 

Tom

 

-Original Message-
From: Chuck Guzis [mailto:ccl...@sydex.com] 
Sent: Sunday, October 01, 2017 12:59 PM
To: Tom Gardner via cctalk
Subject: Re: The origin of the phrases ATA and IDE [WAS:RE: formatting MFM 
drives on a IBM PC]

 

On 10/01/2017 12:46 PM, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote:

> I've looked for but cannot find any WD or Compaq documents publically 

> using IDE to describe what ultimately issued as ATA-1.  My search 

> included various Compaq maintenance manuals.  The earliest public use 

> of ATA and AT attachment that I can find is March 1989 [1969] at the CAM 

> committee draft standard long before IDE was linuga franca for these 

> drives.  The earliest public disclosure of the interface that I can 

> find is revision IV to the Conner CP3022 specification dated Feb 1988; 

> it doesn t name the interface other than in terms of  task file 

> emulation.   It is likely that such documents existed from Conner 

> prior to Feb 1988, perhaps as early as shipping the CP344 in 4Q86.

> My point is the interface was public before it was named.

> 

> My recollection (possibly flawed) is WD tried to have the responsible 

> committee change the name to IDE and failed.

> 

> I do have a confidential WD document from 1985 [1965] which does use the term 

> IDE for "Integrated Drive Electronics" referring to their chips, a 

> drive built with these chips was called an "Integrated Drive" or an 

> ID.

> 

> The earliest advertisements and specifications for what we would now 

> call ATA-1 drives from Conner, MiniScribe and Quantum did not use 

> either the term IDE or ATA.  I have a list of terms used if anyone 

> cares.

> 

> As best I can tell WD began publically using the term IDE for its 

> drives sometime around 1990 - if anyone can find a public usage prior 

> to March 1989 of IDE to describe what became ATA-1  I'd really like to 

> see it.

> 

> The CAM and ANSI committees have since March 1989 [1969] defined ATA == AT 

> Attachment and NEVER used "Advanced Technology" as an acronym for AT 

> in any standard or draft including the one cited below!  There are

> 134 possible definitions <  
> https://www.acronymfinder.com/AT.html>  of 

>  AT,  including for example,  Appropriate Technology sure the 

> connection to IBM s PC/AT  is obvious, but the authors, editors and 

> reviewers of the standards never meant it to mean  Advanced 

> Technology  so I suggest we respect their definition and not leap to 

> an obvious but incorrect conclusion.

 

Tom, I think your dates are about 20 years early.

 

I do have an old CDC Wren III half-height manual where the interface is called 
"ATA", with no mention of "IDE".  Even then, we still referred to

the drives as "IDE".   That term had to come from somewhere.

 

So perhaps some digging is in order.

 

--Chuck

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

2017-10-02 Thread Chuck Guzis via cctalk 
On 10/02/2017 10:03 AM, Alan Perry via cctech wrote:

> Here is a complete quote from the minutes:
> "Jim McGrath of Quantum defined his company's interest as being
> primarily in the ability to embed SCSI into a drive without there being
> a physical SCSI bus present. He described some problems of this
> environment, with references to the PC AT bus in particular. Jim
> believes that the greatest benefit of the CAM will come from a "severe
> pruning of SCSI functionality in order to meet the goal of a precise,
> simple, software interface."

While ATA was codified by the CAM working group, one should not be under
the impression that CAM was limited to any particular physical interface.

CAM stands for "Common Access Method" and is applicable to a number of
physical interfaces, including SCSI.   Future Domain, for example,
patterned their drivers along CAM conventions, using CCB (CAM control
blocks).  Adaptec, on the other hand, perferred ASPI.  Of the two, CAM
is far more flexible and varied.  After Adaptec acquired FD, they
provided a "middle" driver to convert ASPI calls to CAM.

Just saying...

--Chuck

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

2017-10-02 Thread Alan Perry via cctalk 



On 10/2/17 11:34 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctech wrote:

On 10/02/2017 10:03 AM, Alan Perry via cctech wrote:


Here is a complete quote from the minutes:
"Jim McGrath of Quantum defined his company's interest as being
primarily in the ability to embed SCSI into a drive without there being
a physical SCSI bus present. He described some problems of this
environment, with references to the PC AT bus in particular. Jim
believes that the greatest benefit of the CAM will come from a "severe
pruning of SCSI functionality in order to meet the goal of a precise,
simple, software interface."

While ATA was codified by the CAM working group, one should not be under
the impression that CAM was limited to any particular physical interface.

CAM stands for "Common Access Method" and is applicable to a number of
physical interfaces, including SCSI.   Future Domain, for example,
patterned their drivers along CAM conventions, using CCB (CAM control
blocks).  Adaptec, on the other hand, perferred ASPI.  Of the two, CAM
is far more flexible and varied.  After Adaptec acquired FD, they
provided a "middle" driver to convert ASPI calls to CAM.

Just saying...

FWIW I included the full quote from the minutes as elaboration on my 
summary since someone asked a question related to it.


I used to work on SATA and wrote a brief history of the evolution of 
disk interfaces to present to new college grad hires. When someone else 
brought the topic of the origin of the phrases, it got me wondering 
specifically who came up with "AT Attachment", partly since I indirectly 
knew Bob Snively.


alan

Re: The SPERRY UNIVAC UTS 40 system + 8406 double-sided diskette subsystem : Restoration

2017-10-02 Thread Camiel Vanderhoeven via cctalk 
On 8/13/17, 11:15 PM, "cctech on behalf of Dominique Carlier via cctech"
 wrote:


>On 12/08/2017 19:35, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
>> the black one in the lower left
>>
>> it is a tantalum, which are known to short, try removing them
>>
>
>Yes ! It was this one that was shorted !
>I decided in the same way to repair the second disk drive but this time
>by taking some pictures.

It would be a good idea to replace all tantalum capacitors; if two
shorted, chances are others are on their way out soon, too. Sometimes,
tantalum capacitor failure is paired with a nasty epxlosion that can make
a mess of things.

Camiel

Re: The SPERRY UNIVAC UTS 40 system + 8406 double-sided diskette subsystem : Restoration

2017-10-02 Thread Dominique Carlier via cctalk 
You're probably right, but the work is so massive, and also this time I 
would like to understand and target this breakdown instead of working 
(as usual) in blind mode.
In addition, I do not see the same type of capacitor on the CPU board as 
the one from the subsystem you quote as being known to break down.


Do you think that the small green capacitors here
http://www.zeltrax.com/classiccmp_forum/uts40_from_usa_08.jpg

can be as fragile as this model there?
http://www.zeltrax.com/classiccmp_forum/uts40/8406repair07.jpg

Dominique

On 2/10/2017 19:05, Camiel Vanderhoeven via cctech wrote:

On 8/13/17, 11:15 PM, "cctech on behalf of Dominique Carlier via cctech"
 wrote:



On 12/08/2017 19:35, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:

the black one in the lower left

it is a tantalum, which are known to short, try removing them


Yes ! It was this one that was shorted !
I decided in the same way to repair the second disk drive but this time
by taking some pictures.

It would be a good idea to replace all tantalum capacitors; if two
shorted, chances are others are on their way out soon, too. Sometimes,
tantalum capacitor failure is paired with a nasty epxlosion that can make
a mess of things.

Camiel

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

2017-10-02 Thread Warner Losh via cctalk 
On Mon, Oct 2, 2017 at 9:12 AM, Jon Elson via cctech 
wrote:

> On 10/02/2017 08:29 AM, allison via cctech wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> It was price...  ATA-IDE was cheaper and PC industry was working hard to
>> push the price down.
>> SCSI always remained more costly.
>>
>> Yes.  I think there were royalties to pay for a true SCSI drive. Anyway,
> there was a VERY significant price
> difference between early IDE and SCSI drives.  Several hundred $ for a
> similar capacity drive.
>

The difference has persisted to this day. SCSI tags are deeper than NCQ for
ATA. The error reporting from SCSI is much richer than you get from ATA. In
general, reliability is better for SAS drives than for SATA drives, and the
performance variations you see in SATA have a higher magnitude than the SAS
drives.

ATA was always meant to get bits to the user at a lower cost w/o solving
all the hard problems SCSI tried to solve.

Warner

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

2017-10-02 Thread Alan Perry via cctalk 



On 10/2/17 5:22 AM, Jules Richardson via cctech wrote:

On 10/02/2017 01:46 AM, Alan Perry via cctech wrote:
There was a call to form the CAM (Common Access Method) Committee of 
X3T9.2

(SCSI-2) on 30 Sept 1988 and they first met on 19 Oct 1988. The primary
goal was to come up with a SCSI subset to facilitate it support in 
multiple

OSs and BIOS on PCs. At the first meeting, two items mentioned in the
minutes seem relevant. 1. Jim McGrath of Quantum was interested in
embedding SCSI in the drive without a physical SCSI bus and described
problems with reference to the PC/AT.


Does anyone know why IDE/ATA even came about? I mean, why SCSI wasn't 
used? It would have been an established standard by then, the drive 
complexity seems comparable to IDE/ATA (i.e. intelligent commands over 
a parallel bus), and SCSI controllers can be extremely simple - just a 
handful of LS logic ICs - unless you want to add loads of command 
queuing and such (again, comparable to IDE)


Did it simply come down to pressure from vendors, wanting to 
distinguish between expensive workstation-class drives and something 
cheaper which could be associated with the lowly PC?


Here is a complete quote from the minutes:
"Jim McGrath of Quantum defined his company's interest as being 
primarily in the ability to embed SCSI into a drive without there being 
a physical SCSI bus present. He described some problems of this 
environment, with references to the PC AT bus in particular. Jim 
believes that the greatest benefit of the CAM will come from a "severe 
pruning of SCSI functionality in order to meet the goal of a precise, 
simple, software interface."


alan




cheers

Jules

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

2017-10-02 Thread Jon Elson via cctalk 

On 10/02/2017 09:04 AM, allison via cctech wrote:



On 10/2/17 9:40 AM, william degnan wrote:



ATA-IDE and SCSI (OK SASI) are about the same age but 
had

different adoption and growth rates.

Earliest SASI/SCSI was AmproLB+ and Visual 1050 with 
adaptor.  I

have both with hard disks.
FYI the Z80 powered AMPROLB+ was 1984 introduction.


The Commodore D9060/D9090 pre-dates these and was a SASI 
derivative, right?  Not that it matters which was first, 
but just wanted to mention the CBM hard drive too. I have 
worked with the Visual and CBM drives, but never seen the 
AMPRO.



Hi Bill,

I used those as I knew the dates well having them since new.

Ampro was a basic 64K Z80 system with mini (5.25) or 
micro(3.5) inch floppy interface and if purchased the 5380 
parallel/SCSI/SASI adaptor chip.  With it you could use 
the varios boards (Adaptec or Xybec) and the Shugart 20mb 
SASI drive with the existing software supplied.  I modded 
the BIOS to adapt it for a Fujitsu 45mb 3.5" SCSI drive a 
few years later. and it would work with most current 
generation SCSI-1 drives save for partitioning and 
initializing.


The visual was actually older and used TTL to create SASI 
(scsi look alike) bus and the same adaptors

and drives to complete the hard disk side like the Ampro.

I still feel the SCSI bus was inspired by IEE488 (GPIB).

Nope, inspired by IBM selector channel bus.  This was stated 
in an early SASI or SCSI document, and the
names of the signals are pretty close to the signal names on 
the tag cable for a selector channel.


I bought a Memorex 10 MB drive and SASI adaptor on an 
introductory deal in a magazine.  This was in about 
1980-1982.  I had it on my Z-80 CP/M system.


Jon

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

2017-10-02 Thread Jon Elson via cctalk 

On 10/02/2017 08:29 AM, allison via cctech wrote:



It was price...  ATA-IDE was cheaper and PC industry was 
working hard to push the price down.

SCSI always remained more costly.

Yes.  I think there were royalties to pay for a true SCSI 
drive. Anyway, there was a VERY significant price
difference between early IDE and SCSI drives.  Several 
hundred $ for a similar capacity drive.


Jon

Re: The SPERRY UNIVAC UTS 40 system + 8406 double-sided diskette subsystem : Restoration

2017-10-02 Thread Dominique Carlier via cctalk 
Yes indeed, on the "Peripheral Interface" connector of the US 
configuration there was a terminator which seems indicated that nothing 
was connected there. Moreover, with the Program Cartridge US, the 
terminal does not recognize the PERIPHERAL I/O board of my original 
configuration.
This is why I use the CPU board US, its memory extension but with my 
Program Cartridge and my PERIPHERAL I/O board on which the subsystem 
8406 was connected.
It is not impossible that the PERIPHERAL I/O board US is also able to 
manage the 8406 Subsystem, the board is very elaborate, 4 or 5 Zilog 80, 
and two rows of dip switches, but without documentation ... I prefer to 
try with the board that worked with the subsystem.


It remains to be discovered what the "SERIAL I/O CHANNEL B" is, find the 
related component and the breakdown, and there is a good chance that I 
can restart this venerable machine.
But I search everywhere, I have not found any information that explains 
what it is.


Dominique


On 2/10/2017 21:28, jim stephens via cctalk wrote:



On 10/2/2017 9:13 AM, Dominique Carlier via cctalk wrote:



Everything would be perfectly fine if most of the time I did not have 
at startup an error at line 9. of the POC test:


SERIAL I / O CHANNEL B: FAILED 
I doubt the US unit you bought was used with a floppy running CPM. It 
most likely had a synchronous channel for connection to some network 
and ran just standalone.


I recall that there were modules of some sort you added to get some 
functionality, so as to not have to open the box.  I don't know if you 
set anything outside the box, but it may have some switches or such to 
indicate some other device is present that now is not.  So it would 
fail on power on test.


that's just a guess on which way I'd go to figure it out.  I don't 
have any documentation or anything other than having had one for about 
a year for a project I did to go on.


Mine had no floppies, but had a printer interface option attached 
which was the same as one that was on a Univac 1100 series mainframe I 
was making a controller for.  So I could  just run a standalone test 
and if my controller card was working it would spew on the printer.
That option was also one of these things added on.  Never dug into 
anything as the device is pretty overengineered and without a lot of 
manuals and parts, you can't do much with it.


thanks
Jim

53 foot truckload of CRT tested working monitors for free in WV

2017-10-02 Thread Electronics Plus via cctalk 
Anyone have an interest in a 53ft trailer load of CRT monitors 24 pallets
good condition, no broken plastic, no broken tubes or cut cables. Most are
17" with a few 15" and 19/21". These are free if there is an interest,
located in our Weirton WV warehouse. Please reply back if there is an
interest. 

dnunkov...@ierusa.com

 

 

Not affiliated with this supplier is any way; just thought I would pass it
on.

 

Cindy Croxton

Electronics Plus

1613 Water Street

Kerrville, TX 78028

830-370-3239 cell

sa...@elecplus.com

AOL IM elcpls

 



---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

Re: The SPERRY UNIVAC UTS 40 system + 8406 double-sided diskette subsystem : Restoration

2017-10-02 Thread jim stephens via cctalk 



On 10/2/2017 9:13 AM, Dominique Carlier via cctalk wrote:



Everything would be perfectly fine if most of the time I did not have 
at startup an error at line 9. of the POC test:


SERIAL I / O CHANNEL B: FAILED 
I doubt the US unit you bought was used with a floppy running CPM. It 
most likely had a synchronous channel for connection to some network and 
ran just standalone.


I recall that there were modules of some sort you added to get some 
functionality, so as to not have to open the box.  I don't know if you 
set anything outside the box, but it may have some switches or such to 
indicate some other device is present that now is not.  So it would fail 
on power on test.


that's just a guess on which way I'd go to figure it out.  I don't have 
any documentation or anything other than having had one for about a year 
for a project I did to go on.


Mine had no floppies, but had a printer interface option attached which 
was the same as one that was on a Univac 1100 series mainframe I was 
making a controller for.  So I could  just run a standalone test and if 
my controller card was working it would spew on the printer.
That option was also one of these things added on.  Never dug into 
anything as the device is pretty overengineered and without a lot of 
manuals and parts, you can't do much with it.


thanks
Jim

The SPERRY UNIVAC UTS 40 system + 8406 double-sided diskette subsystem : Restoration

2017-10-02 Thread Dominique Carlier via cctalk 

Hi everybody,

Here is the next episode of the restoration of my UTS 40.

During the previous “season”, I was talking about buying a wreck of an 
UTS 40 from the USA.

http://www.zeltrax.com/classiccmp_forum/annonce.jpg

 I had taken the risk to buy it, after the conclusion of the sale, the 
seller had retracted, I had argued with him, I finally put a bad note on 
Ebay. However, surprise! The guy still sends me the machine. This one 
remains blocked during a full month at the Belgian custom house. I 
finally receive it, and now, if you like horror movies, you will be happy.


Here is the state in which I received the machine:
http://www.zeltrax.com/classiccmp_forum/uts40_from_usa_01.jpg
http://www.zeltrax.com/classiccmp_forum/uts40_from_usa_02.jpg

I never - never! - received a package in this condition !! The reason 
maybe was the hideous and ridiculously “protective” packaging ? Possible 
... or in the plane they 400kg over my UTS ? Possible ... but we still 
have the impression that someone hammered the machine, even the very 
solid plastic pieces have also shattered.


As I am an optimistic guy, I think "the plastic ... not important, 
fortunately the chassis and the electronics of this machine is build 
like a tank".


I analyze the boards, as expected, some architectural differences but 
not so much. Here is the CPU board:

http://www.zeltrax.com/classiccmp_forum/uts40_from_usa_03.jpg
http://www.zeltrax.com/classiccmp_forum/uts40_from_usa_06.jpg

Unsurprisingly, the battery has sunk and there are damages:
http://www.zeltrax.com/classiccmp_forum/uts40_from_usa_04.jpg
http://www.zeltrax.com/classiccmp_forum/uts40_from_usa_05.jpg
http://www.zeltrax.com/classiccmp_forum/uts40_from_usa_07.jpg

With courage I clean the board, I replace some resistors, one capacitor, ...
Before/After
http://www.zeltrax.com/classiccmp_forum/uts40_from_usa_08.jpg

and I replace the battery (2,4V ? A doubt persist)
http://www.zeltrax.com/classiccmp_forum/uts40_from_usa_10.jpg

And comes the time of the first test and it boot!
http://www.zeltrax.com/classiccmp_forum/uts40_from_usa_09.jpg
http://www.zeltrax.com/classiccmp_forum/uts40_from_usa_09b.jpg

The POC test at startup is not successfull but from the outset, this 
allows me to analyze and diagnose some elements of my own UTS 40, here 
is what I notice:


- The program cartridge of my UTS 40 is functional
- The power supply to my UTS 40 is OK
- The video circuit of my UTS is OK
- The keyboard of my UTS requires a restoration (aluminum discs, foam 
cylinder, classic issue of old keytronic keyboard)

http://www.zeltrax.com/classiccmp_forum/uts40_from_usa_11.jpg
http://www.zeltrax.com/classiccmp_forum/uts40_from_usa_12.jpg

- The absence of the backup battery is not a problem, the machine can 
boot, without this it can successfully passing the POC test and the 
encoding of the parameters in the setup page is possible.


I discover other interesting things about the relationship between the 
cartridge program and the hardware configuration.


- These program cartridge are made for a specific hardware 
configuration, for example the RAM repartitions at the level of hardware 
has an impact on the result of the startup test. The number of kilobytes 
checked, the memory extension considered as PASSED or FAILED. Even the 
installed memory is working and assignable, with a configuration that 
differs from the hardware intended to run with a specific Program 
Cartridge, the POC test could show that a memory is missing, simply 
because the RAM is not physically in the slot or socket according to the 
program specification in the cartridge.
I drew this conclusion because the CPU board form USA has 64Kb installed 
on it, and 27 empty sockets, I filled them with RAM and now with the 
program cartridge form Ebay, 4X  64KB are detected and flagged with a 
PASSED.
However with my program cartridge, it detects a second memory extension 
as PASSED, but considers the first extension FAILED, I think that on the 
original CPU board, there was only 32kb, even 16kb and non-extensible on 
that board (hence the presence of two memory expansion boards in my 
original configuration). Briefly, according to the inserted program 
cartridge, the tests are sometimes but not always dynamically adaptable 
to a given configuration.


- A cartridge program can be programmed to operate only with a specific 
model of PERIPHERAL I/O board. The program cartridge form Ebay does not 
work with my PERIPHERAL I/O board, however my program cartridge seems to 
detect the PERIPHERAL I/O board of the US.


- I recreated the breakdown of my machine with the hardware of the other 
UTS. I'm talking about the situation of a long BEEP + blank screen, this 
happens if I remove the unique memory expansion board in the original 
configuration of the UTS from Ebay, this could mean that my own CPU 
board is maybe OK and that this could be one of two memory extensions of 
my machine that has a problem (Hypothesis).


But now,

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

2017-10-02 Thread Pete Turnbull via cctalk 

On 01/10/2017 20:46, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote:

As best I can tell WD began publically using the term IDE for its drives sometime around 1990 


Nope.  I recall conversations with a small-scale developer in the UK who 
was creating addons and accessories for the company I worked for (Acorn 
Computers) in 1987-1988, and he was touting IDE as best improvement 
(because simpler and cheaper to interface) on ST506/ST412 interface 
drives for the hard drive upgrades he was about to market.  I recall 
having to ask what IDE stood for, at the time.  So it must have been in 
common use, at least amongst developers, by then.  By 1989 there were 
more people using "IDE" - by that name - than anything else in the 
markets I was involved in.


--
Pete
Pete Turnbull

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

2017-10-02 Thread Alan Hightower via cctalk 
 

On 2017-10-02 08:22, Jules Richardson via cctalk wrote: 

> I mean, why SCSI wasn't used? It would have been an established standard by 
> then, the drive complexity seems comparable to IDE/ATA (i.e. intelligent 
> commands over a parallel bus), and SCSI controllers can be extremely simple - 
> just a handful of LS logic ICs - unless you want to add loads of command 
> queuing and such (again, comparable to IDE)

The simple fact IDE is a single master to indexed slave only interaction
vs a SCSI conversation where each ID must be both an initiator and
respondent on a contentious shared bus separates the complexity quite a
bit. PIO IDE controllers can be just a few bus buffers and an address
decoder. PIO IDE slaves only have to decode a register address and
synchronously return 16-bits at a time and only while selected by a
simple strobe. 

-Alan

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

2017-10-02 Thread Paul Koning via cctalk 

> On Oct 2, 2017, at 8:22 AM, Jules Richardson via cctalk 
>  wrote:
> 
> Does anyone know why IDE/ATA even came about? I mean, why SCSI wasn't used? 
> It would have been an established standard by then, the drive complexity 
> seems comparable to IDE/ATA (i.e. intelligent commands over a parallel bus), 
> and SCSI controllers can be extremely simple - just a handful of LS logic ICs 
> - unless you want to add loads of command queuing and such (again, comparable 
> to IDE)
> 
> Did it simply come down to pressure from vendors, wanting to distinguish 
> between expensive workstation-class drives and something cheaper which could 
> be associated with the lowly PC?

Comparable complexity, I don't think so.  ATA, until about 2002, had no command 
queueing.  You could issue exactly one command which the drive would then 
execute, and after completing that it was willing to accept another command.  
Semantically ATA looks like the RK05 or RP04 disk API.

SCSI is an entirely different beast.  It has command queueing, and logical 
addressing.  It feels more like MSCP.

Over time, especially once "native command queueing" was added to ATA, it 
started to look more like SCSI and closer in complexity, but that clearly was 
not the case early on.

As for differentiation, that's plausible too.  This has been done for a long 
time, consider that fibre channel and SCSI continued to be used for high 
performance drives even after SATA started to appear in enterprise grade high 
density lower speed drives.  There wasn't any technical reason for associating 
SCSI or FC with 15k RPM drives, or SATA with 7200 RPM drives.

paul

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

2017-10-02 Thread Jules Richardson via cctalk 

On 10/02/2017 08:29 AM, allison via cctech wrote:



On 10/2/17 8:22 AM, Jules Richardson via cctech wrote:

On 10/02/2017 01:46 AM, Alan Perry via cctech wrote:

There was a call to form the CAM (Common Access Method) Committee of X3T9.2
(SCSI-2) on 30 Sept 1988 and they first met on 19 Oct 1988. The primary
goal was to come up with a SCSI subset to facilitate it support in multiple
OSs and BIOS on PCs. At the first meeting, two items mentioned in the
minutes seem relevant. 1. Jim McGrath of Quantum was interested in
embedding SCSI in the drive without a physical SCSI bus and described
problems with reference to the PC/AT.


So in effect the IDE was a minimal interface that would interface to the
computer bus
with no more than buffering.


True, I suppose the command structure was more complex with SCSI. It's a 
shame though, it would have been nice if SCSI had been the PC standard, 
what with the large number of devices available, more flexibility, and 
performance potential.



Early SCSI disks
were MFM drives with Adaptec or Xybec host boards (SCSI to MFM, local cpu
was Z80 on the adaptor).


Xebec... but yeah, and I forgot that they used a Z80 (I was thinking it was 
some Intel 80xx thing). I don't know if Xebec actually made a SCSI one, I 
think they may all have been SASI (at least the ones that I've used). I 
remember there was a little schematic in the back of the manual for a 
suitable controller.


Adaptec, Emulex and OMTI all made similar bridge boards... and there were 
probably others, too.


cheers

Jules

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

2017-10-02 Thread allison via cctalk 



On 10/2/17 10:13 AM, Jules Richardson via cctech wrote:

On 10/02/2017 08:29 AM, allison via cctech wrote:



On 10/2/17 8:22 AM, Jules Richardson via cctech wrote:

On 10/02/2017 01:46 AM, Alan Perry via cctech wrote:
There was a call to form the CAM (Common Access Method) Committee 
of X3T9.2
(SCSI-2) on 30 Sept 1988 and they first met on 19 Oct 1988. The 
primary
goal was to come up with a SCSI subset to facilitate it support in 
multiple

OSs and BIOS on PCs. At the first meeting, two items mentioned in the
minutes seem relevant. 1. Jim McGrath of Quantum was interested in
embedding SCSI in the drive without a physical SCSI bus and described
problems with reference to the PC/AT.


So in effect the IDE was a minimal interface that would interface to the
computer bus
with no more than buffering.


True, I suppose the command structure was more complex with SCSI. It's 
a shame though, it would have been nice if SCSI had been the PC 
standard, what with the large number of devices available, more 
flexibility, and performance potential.


It was/is widely used in PCs.  It put Adaptec on the map.  Servers and 
high end systems

commonly used it especially for early shadow and RAID systems.


Early SCSI disks
were MFM drives with Adaptec or Xybec host boards (SCSI to MFM, local 
cpu

was Z80 on the adaptor).


Xebec... but yeah, and I forgot that they used a Z80 (I was thinking 
it was some Intel 80xx thing). 

Later versions of bridge boards had the 8088 or 80188 16bitter.

I don't know if Xebec actually made a SCSI one, I think they may all 
have been SASI (at least the ones that I've used). I remember there 
was a little schematic in the back of the manual for a suitable 
controller.


Some were SASI and later firmware was SCSI...  Only difference as I had 
both.


Adaptec, Emulex and OMTI all made similar bridge boards... and there 
were probably others, too.



Yes, them too.

Oddly the first VAX to use SCSI or SCSI like was uVAX-2000 as the extra 
box with TK50 Tape

used that.

Allison

cheers

Jules

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

2017-10-02 Thread allison via cctalk 



On 10/2/17 9:40 AM, william degnan wrote:



ATA-IDE and SCSI (OK SASI) are about the same age but had
different adoption and growth rates.

Earliest SASI/SCSI was AmproLB+ and Visual 1050 with adaptor.  I
have both with hard disks.
FYI the Z80 powered AMPROLB+ was 1984 introduction.


The Commodore D9060/D9090 pre-dates these and was a SASI derivative, 
right?  Not that it matters which was first, but just wanted to 
mention the CBM hard drive too. I have worked with the Visual and CBM 
drives, but never seen the AMPRO.



Hi Bill,

I used those as I knew the dates well having them since new.

Ampro was a basic 64K Z80 system with mini (5.25) or micro(3.5) inch 
floppy interface and if purchased the 5380 parallel/SCSI/SASI adaptor 
chip.  With it you could use the varios boards (Adaptec or Xybec) and 
the Shugart 20mb SASI drive with the existing software supplied.  I 
modded the BIOS to adapt it for a Fujitsu 45mb 3.5" SCSI drive a few 
years later. and it would work with most current generation SCSI-1 
drives save for partitioning and initializing.


The visual was actually older and used TTL to create SASI (scsi look 
alike) bus and the same adaptors

and drives to complete the hard disk side like the Ampro.

I still feel the SCSI bus was inspired by IEE488 (GPIB).

In the systems world my first SCSI on VAX was microVAX ba123 (uVAXIIgpx) 
with CMD controller
and a RD54(MFM 150mb) on an Adaptec Controller and later replaced with 3 
RZ56s (drive with SCSI internal).


Memries of the first SASI/SCSI was 33 years ago for Me, and VAX SCSI was 
1995 as that's when I got

the CMD controller.

Allison

Bill

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

2017-10-02 Thread Jules Richardson via cctalk 

On 10/02/2017 01:46 AM, Alan Perry via cctech wrote:

There was a call to form the CAM (Common Access Method) Committee of X3T9.2
(SCSI-2) on 30 Sept 1988 and they first met on 19 Oct 1988. The primary
goal was to come up with a SCSI subset to facilitate it support in multiple
OSs and BIOS on PCs. At the first meeting, two items mentioned in the
minutes seem relevant. 1. Jim McGrath of Quantum was interested in
embedding SCSI in the drive without a physical SCSI bus and described
problems with reference to the PC/AT.


Does anyone know why IDE/ATA even came about? I mean, why SCSI wasn't used? 
It would have been an established standard by then, the drive complexity 
seems comparable to IDE/ATA (i.e. intelligent commands over a parallel 
bus), and SCSI controllers can be extremely simple - just a handful of LS 
logic ICs - unless you want to add loads of command queuing and such 
(again, comparable to IDE)


Did it simply come down to pressure from vendors, wanting to distinguish 
between expensive workstation-class drives and something cheaper which 
could be associated with the lowly PC?


cheers

Jules

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

2017-10-02 Thread allison via cctalk 



On 10/2/17 8:22 AM, Jules Richardson via cctech wrote:

On 10/02/2017 01:46 AM, Alan Perry via cctech wrote:
There was a call to form the CAM (Common Access Method) Committee of 
X3T9.2

(SCSI-2) on 30 Sept 1988 and they first met on 19 Oct 1988. The primary
goal was to come up with a SCSI subset to facilitate it support in 
multiple

OSs and BIOS on PCs. At the first meeting, two items mentioned in the
minutes seem relevant. 1. Jim McGrath of Quantum was interested in
embedding SCSI in the drive without a physical SCSI bus and described
problems with reference to the PC/AT.


Does anyone know why IDE/ATA even came about? I mean, why SCSI wasn't 
used? It would have been an established standard by then, the drive 
complexity seems comparable to IDE/ATA (i.e. intelligent commands over 
a parallel bus), and SCSI controllers can be extremely simple - just a 
handful of LS logic ICs - unless you want to add loads of command 
queuing and such (again, comparable to IDE)


Roughly the same at the complexity level but SCSI was more costly as it 
was a defined bus
and did not include the actual device level hardware which SCSI disks 
needed same as IDE.
The ya but was to get SCSI to go faster it needed a complex chip in the 
computer (anyone

remember the NCR 5380 and its kin...) that was costly and PITA to program.

So in effect the IDE was a minimal interface that would interface to the 
computer bus
with no more than buffering.  SCSI required translation from PC buses to 
SCSI BUS and then
from SCSI to IDE(essentially the same electronics with SCSI bus 
interface).  IDE was always a
register interface where SCSI was a protocol that needed a smarter 
target.  Early SCSI disks
were MFM drives with Adaptec or Xybec host boards (SCSI to MFM, local 
cpu was Z80 on the adaptor).


ATA-IDE and SCSI (OK SASI) are about the same age but had different 
adoption and growth rates.


Earliest SASI/SCSI was AmproLB+ and Visual 1050 with adaptor.  I have 
both with hard disks.

FYI the Z80 powered AMPROLB+ was 1984 introduction.
Did it simply come down to pressure from vendors, wanting to 
distinguish between expensive workstation-class drives and something 
cheaper which could be associated with the lowly PC?


It was price...  ATA-IDE was cheaper and PC industry was working hard to 
push the price down.

SCSI always remained more costly.

Allison

cheers

Jules

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

2017-10-02 Thread william degnan via cctalk 
>
>
> ATA-IDE and SCSI (OK SASI) are about the same age but had different
> adoption and growth rates.
>
> Earliest SASI/SCSI was AmproLB+ and Visual 1050 with adaptor.  I have both
> with hard disks.
> FYI the Z80 powered AMPROLB+ was 1984 introduction.


The Commodore D9060/D9090 pre-dates these and was a SASI derivative,
right?  Not that it matters which was first, but just wanted to mention the
CBM hard drive too.  I have worked with the Visual and CBM drives, but
never seen the AMPRO.

Bill

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

2017-10-02 Thread Alan Perry via cctalk 



On 10/1/17 1:22 PM, Fred Cisin via cctech wrote:

On Sun, 1 Oct 2017, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote:
I've looked for but cannot find any WD or Compaq documents publically 
using IDE to describe what ultimately issued as ATA-1.  My search 
included various Compaq maintenance manuals.


Thank you very much for doing those searches!
My first encounter with one was in a Compaq, without having previously 
heard any mention that they were going to do anything like that.  And 
no prior mention of "IDE" NOR "ATA".

It was a surprise, but seemed to make sense.

So, the PR and naming bodies of the relevant companies let it go into 
use without massive prior bragging!  I hadn't been paying close 
attention to CDC nor Connor, but I seemed to have missed whatever WD 
or Compaq had advertised about it at Comdex.


And then, later, I heard "IDE", before I had heard "ATA", but that was 
presumably just due to the circles that I dealt with.



The earliest public use of ATA and AT attachment that I can find is 
March 1969 at the CAM committee 

Would that be 1989?

My recollection (possibly flawed) is WD tried to have the responsible 
committee change the name to IDE and failed.


especially interesting
Standards committees are always being pressured by individual 
companies to use the specific structures and terminologies of those 
companies.


I do have a confidential WD document from 1965 which does use the 
term IDE for "Integrated Drive Electronics" referring to their chips, 
a drive built with these chips was called an "Integrated Drive" or an 
ID.

Would that be 1985?

The CAM and ANSI committees have since March 1969 defined ATA == AT 

Would that be 1989?
(In 1969, it would certainly NOT be a reference to the IBM PC/AT (5170)!)


I did my own searching.

There was a call to form the CAM (Common Access Method) Committee of 
X3T9.2 (SCSI-2) on 30 Sept 1988 and they first met on 19 Oct 1988. The 
primary goal was to come up with a SCSI subset to facilitate it support 
in multiple OSs and BIOS on PCs. At the first meeting, two items 
mentioned in the minutes seem relevant. 1. Jim McGrath of Quantum was 
interested in embedding SCSI in the drive without a physical SCSI bus 
and described problems with reference to the PC/AT. 2. Bob Snively of 
Adaptec is described as indicating that everyone at the meeting has the 
problem of "attaching to systems" and this aspect of the committee's 
work was described as "attachment problems".


Unfortunately, I can't find CAM Committee minutes after that first 
meeting. If anyone here is a member of ANSI Technical Committee T13, 
perhaps they can check to see if the minutes or early drafts of ATA 
documents hidden away in the member only areas of the web site.


The next thing that I found was June 1989 X3T9.2 minutes indicating the 
the CAM Committee had almost completed the "ATA document". It mentioned 
two CAM Committee meetings (10 May 1989 and 8 June 1989), but was not 
clear on at which one of those meetings it was reported on the status of 
the ATA document. I read somewhere unofficial that the first draft of 
the ATA document came out in Mar 1989.


alan