VCF PNW 2019 is this weekend
One last short reminder ... VCF PNW 2019 is this weekend! We have 30 exhibits, 6 presentations, and the consignment area. Admission is free with paid admission to the museum, so come check out both the event and the museum! Details can be found at http://vcfed.org/vcf-pnw . -Mike
Re: Fujitsi 2444AC 9-track tape drive/PDP-11
The pertec-to-SD project sounds very cool. Keep me in mind if you need testers/buyers. 73 Eugene W2HX From: cctalk on behalf of Chuck Guzis via cctalk Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2019 12:10 PM To: Jon Elson via cctalk Subject: Re: Fujitsi 2444AC 9-track tape drive/PDP-11 On 3/19/19 8:26 AM, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote: > On 03/18/2019 10:35 PM, W2HX via cctalk wrote: >> 4. Anyone ever make a pertec to USB project? Might be interesting >> to get access to old tapes on more modern computers? >> >> > I have some CDC (Laser Magnetic Storage) 92185 drives (known as > Keystone, this is the 1600/6250 version, buffered Pertec Interface). I > made a horrible hack of an FPGA board I make to read tapes through a > PC's parallel port. it works, but is real slow. I discovered after doing an interface with some CPLDs that you really need buffer memory to keep things going. My ISA-interface Computer Logics 16-bit card with 256K of memory does a pretty good job with my Fuji. I generally don't like SCSI interface tapes because they must buffer ahead to keep the tape going, so when an error occurs, you have only a general idea of exactly where it is. With a Pertec interface, you can usually pin things down (controller permitting) a bit better. I've got an on-again-off-again project using an STM32F29 MCU running at 180MHz with 256K of SRAM on-chip and 8MB of RAM off-chip to do Pertec interface work. My point is not to interface to any particular computer, but to provide for transfer between SD card flash and the tape drive. Data and control will be USB, but only after a complete tape has been read. I do a similar thing with an HP7970 and an STM32F407 MCU for 7 and 9 track NRZI tapes. Several years ago, I made a simple Pertec interface ISA card using 3 8255 PPI chips. While it worked, it made the need for buffering very apparent. --- On the subject of tapes, I was reminded about how "more is less" in terms of software. The job was to transfer some tar files from DDS tapes. With Linux running on a quad core 3 GHz 64 bit setup, I'd get tape "scrubbing" periodically (the drive was a Sony SDT5000) using dd. On a 450 Mhz K6 system running MS-DOS, the tape streams without interruption using a simple ASPI-interface program. The controller in both cases is an Adaptec PCI UW SCSI controller. --Chuck
RE: SCSI2SD: Is it worth a try?
They are very particular, and you need to be careful. I have one in DVD drive and it won't work with normal single ended SCSI only LVD. Dave > -Original Message- > From: cctalk On Behalf Of TeoZ via cctalk > Sent: 19 March 2019 20:29 > To: Chuck Guzis ; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off- > Topic Posts > Subject: Re: SCSI2SD: Is it worth a try? > > Those are ATAPI to SCSI. > > -Original Message- > From: Chuck Guzis via cctalk > Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2019 3:38 PM > To: Rico Pajarola via cctalk > Subject: Re: SCSI2SD: Is it worth a try? > > FWIW, there are a couple of Addonics AEC7722 adapters (SCSI-to-IDE) > selling for $50-70 on eBay. Don't know a thing about them, though. > > --Chuck > > --- > This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. > https://www.avast.com/antivirus
Re: DECimage questions
On Tue Mar 19 01:49:08 CDT 2019 >On 2019-03-17 20:36, Chris Hanson via cctalk wrote: >>/I recently acquired a DECimage X terminal, which is theoretically a VXT-2000 with an add-on 2D accelerator. Unfortunately while the terminal is badges as a DECimage it didn’t include the board, just a frame buffer. / >>// >>/Does anyone have a spare DECimage board they’d be interested in parting with, or know a reasonable place to obtain one? / >>You have the board number? >>Sometimes if we discuss something here, magically boards show up on ebay. >>Just an observation ;-) Does MA-0270-92A help? got that number out of the VXT 2000 Installing and Getting Started Guide (EK-VXT20-IN), but it might be a two-part kit (accelerator board + DECimage sticker). The VXT 2000 Windowing Terminal and DECimage 2000 Option Service Guide (EK-VXT20-SV) lists VX20A-OP for the DECimage 2000 module. For the twisted pair ethernet module, the same manual lists 54-20482-01.
Re: SCSI2SD: Is it worth a try?
Those are ATAPI to SCSI. -Original Message- From: Chuck Guzis via cctalk Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2019 3:38 PM To: Rico Pajarola via cctalk Subject: Re: SCSI2SD: Is it worth a try? FWIW, there are a couple of Addonics AEC7722 adapters (SCSI-to-IDE) selling for $50-70 on eBay. Don't know a thing about them, though. --Chuck --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus
Re: SCSI2SD: Is it worth a try?
I too have been using these for a few years; also on mostly 90s workstations and servers (Sun, SGI, Alpha, Apple, etc). I think I have about a dozen or so V5 boards. I've not tried the V6, as I've heard numerous stories of poor compability. The multi-mode emulation works fine. I booted my Sun SPARCStation 10 from a Solaris ISO using CD-ROM emulation mode and installed the OS onto an emulated HDD running on the same SCSI2SD. --- Jim Stefanik Dallas Vintage Computing Center From: Sophie Haskins via cctalk Sent: Tuesday, 19 March 2019 07:58 To: Charles Dickman; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: RE: SCSI2SD: Is it worth a try? I've had pretty great luck with using SCSI2SDs in my various mostly-90s workstations (https://blog.pizzabox.computer/, among a few others). In a few cases (VAXstation 4000 VLC, Quadra 610) you need to put the settings to emulate a "real" model of drive, but otherwise compatibility has been pretty good. Someone later in the thread mentioned tape support - I haven't used it, but the configuration utility has the option to set a given SCSI ID to present itself as a tape drive. I have a feeling I'm gonna need to explore this when I get around to trying to get my Sun 3/80 running... Sophie -Original Message- From: cctalk On Behalf Of Charles Dickman via cctalk Sent: Monday, March 18, 2019 10:16 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: SCSI2SD: Is it worth a try? What is the experience with the SCSI2SD with old computers? It looks to be SCSI-1 and SCSI-2 compatible and I see a lot of reports of usage on this list. I am curious about how well it works and which version to get. Versions up to 5 seem to be GPLed and reasonably available. V6 does not seem to have schematics or boards open sourced and I haven't seen a supplier for them. The web page lists some sources, but they don't have the V6 available. It looks like the V6 is not open because someone used the design without following the GPL. V6 claims synchronous transfers, but I don't think most of my hardware supports it. That consists of VAXstations and qbus scsi cards. If I was after speed I wouldn't be using old hardware, but the speed has to be consistent with the era. Chuck
Re: SCSI2SD: Is it worth a try?
FWIW, there are a couple of Addonics AEC7722 adapters (SCSI-to-IDE) selling for $50-70 on eBay. Don't know a thing about them, though. --Chuck
Re: POP-2 silver book
Since the topic of POP-2 doesn’t come up very often… In the early 1970’s I had a listing of “Pop-2 in Pop-2”, a portable compiler written in itself. Over the years I’ve managed to lose it. Would anyone here have a copy? John. > On Mar 19, 2019, at 2:52 PM, W2HX via cctalk wrote: > > Amazing! I saw POP and I recognized it. I used to work for Professor Robin > Popplestone while I was at UMASS Amherst working in their "laboratory for > perceptual robotics" around 1988-89. He was quite a character! Died some > years ago I heard. Interestingly, he never attained his PHd. Rumor was the > had the whole thesis typed up (on typewriters in those days) and was going to > continue working on editing on a boat. Well you know what happened next, > water 1, thesis 0. > > > > From: cctalk on behalf of Don Stalkowski via > cctalk > Sent: Monday, March 18, 2019 7:14 PM > To: cctalk@classiccmp.org > Subject: POP-2 silver book > > Is there anyone out there who could scan page 261 of > "Programming in POP-2" by Burstall, Collins, and Popplestone > for me? > > Also, does anyone have a copy of POP-10? > > Thanks, Don >
Re: SCSI2SD: Is it worth a try?
Is it perfect? No. Is it worth a try? Absolutely! I have both V5 and V6 and they work very well "most of the time". Some machines just don't like them (usually in the form of frequent bus resets). Some machines work better with the V5 and others better with the V6, and sometimes settings need to be tweaked, but overall I am very happy with them. I use them mostly as a CD-ROM replacement for installing the OS, and it saves enormous amounts of time and CD-Rs. Speed is definitely not an issue. On Tue, Mar 19, 2019 at 3:16 AM Charles Dickman via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > What is the experience with the SCSI2SD with old computers? It looks to be > SCSI-1 and SCSI-2 compatible and I see a lot of reports of usage on this > list. I am curious about how well it works and which version to get. > > Versions up to 5 seem to be GPLed and reasonably available. V6 does not > seem to have schematics or boards open sourced and I haven't seen a > supplier for them. The web page lists some sources, but they don't have the > V6 available. > > It looks like the V6 is not open because someone used the design without > following the GPL. > > V6 claims synchronous transfers, but I don't think most of my hardware > supports it. That consists of VAXstations and qbus scsi cards. If I was > after speed I wouldn't be using old hardware, but the speed has to be > consistent with the era. > > Chuck >
Re: POP-2 silver book
Amazing! I saw POP and I recognized it. I used to work for Professor Robin Popplestone while I was at UMASS Amherst working in their "laboratory for perceptual robotics" around 1988-89. He was quite a character! Died some years ago I heard. Interestingly, he never attained his PHd. Rumor was the had the whole thesis typed up (on typewriters in those days) and was going to continue working on editing on a boat. Well you know what happened next, water 1, thesis 0. From: cctalk on behalf of Don Stalkowski via cctalk Sent: Monday, March 18, 2019 7:14 PM To: cctalk@classiccmp.org Subject: POP-2 silver book Is there anyone out there who could scan page 261 of "Programming in POP-2" by Burstall, Collins, and Popplestone for me? Also, does anyone have a copy of POP-10? Thanks, Don
Re: HELP needed on a vocabulary problem ;-)
Sent from my Apple /c > On Mar 18, 2019, at 7:34 AM, Phil Blundell via cctalk > wrote: > >> On Mon, 2019-03-18 at 13:03 +0100, GerardCJAT via cctalk wrote: >> The TECHNICAL problem : I am repairing a not so old electric typewriter. >> I need to replace what I call : a flexible printed circuit ( strip / ribbon >> / what's the "correct" word ??? ) *** AND *** the associated connector > > "FFC"/"FPC" and "FFC/FPC connector" possibly. Are these the sort of things > you mean? > > https://uk.farnell.com/molex/15015-0423/cable-assy-23core-101-6mm-brown/dp/2096098?st=fpc > > https://uk.farnell.com/te-connectivity/1-1734248-9/fpc-connector-receptacle-19-position/dp/1846686?st=fpc%20connector Maybe if there's a repair manual for the typewriter it would have the part/term listed there? I'm not sure without picture and Phil sounds like he has a good technical term but most flexible cables I've just heard called ribbon cables. But I'm probably lumping all flat cables into the same category as a floppy drive/ide type cable.
Re: POP-2 silver book
Thanks, page 261 has been found! Now for POP-2 or POP-10. Don
Re: Fujitsi 2444AC 9-track tape drive/PDP-11
On 3/19/19 8:26 AM, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote: > On 03/18/2019 10:35 PM, W2HX via cctalk wrote: >> 4. Anyone ever make a pertec to USB project? Might be interesting >> to get access to old tapes on more modern computers? >> >> > I have some CDC (Laser Magnetic Storage) 92185 drives (known as > Keystone, this is the 1600/6250 version, buffered Pertec Interface). I > made a horrible hack of an FPGA board I make to read tapes through a > PC's parallel port. it works, but is real slow. I discovered after doing an interface with some CPLDs that you really need buffer memory to keep things going. My ISA-interface Computer Logics 16-bit card with 256K of memory does a pretty good job with my Fuji. I generally don't like SCSI interface tapes because they must buffer ahead to keep the tape going, so when an error occurs, you have only a general idea of exactly where it is. With a Pertec interface, you can usually pin things down (controller permitting) a bit better. I've got an on-again-off-again project using an STM32F29 MCU running at 180MHz with 256K of SRAM on-chip and 8MB of RAM off-chip to do Pertec interface work. My point is not to interface to any particular computer, but to provide for transfer between SD card flash and the tape drive. Data and control will be USB, but only after a complete tape has been read. I do a similar thing with an HP7970 and an STM32F407 MCU for 7 and 9 track NRZI tapes. Several years ago, I made a simple Pertec interface ISA card using 3 8255 PPI chips. While it worked, it made the need for buffering very apparent. --- On the subject of tapes, I was reminded about how "more is less" in terms of software. The job was to transfer some tar files from DDS tapes. With Linux running on a quad core 3 GHz 64 bit setup, I'd get tape "scrubbing" periodically (the drive was a Sony SDT5000) using dd. On a 450 Mhz K6 system running MS-DOS, the tape streams without interruption using a simple ASPI-interface program. The controller in both cases is an Adaptec PCI UW SCSI controller. --Chuck
Re: Fujitsi 2444AC 9-track tape drive/PDP-11
On 3/18/19 8:35 PM, W2HX via cctalk wrote: > http://w2hx.com/x/VintageComp/Fujitsu-2444AC/ > I'm still looking for the schematics for this drive. Unlike many other Fujitsu storage products, the schematics aren't included in the service manual. It's possible they were 11x17
Re: Fujitsi 2444AC 9-track tape drive/PDP-11
On 03/18/2019 10:35 PM, W2HX via cctalk wrote: 4. Anyone ever make a pertec to USB project? Might be interesting to get access to old tapes on more modern computers? I have some CDC (Laser Magnetic Storage) 92185 drives (known as Keystone, this is the 1600/6250 version, buffered Pertec Interface). I made a horrible hack of an FPGA board I make to read tapes through a PC's parallel port. it works, but is real slow. Jon
RE: SCSI2SD: Is it worth a try?
I've had pretty great luck with using SCSI2SDs in my various mostly-90s workstations (https://blog.pizzabox.computer/, among a few others). In a few cases (VAXstation 4000 VLC, Quadra 610) you need to put the settings to emulate a "real" model of drive, but otherwise compatibility has been pretty good. Someone later in the thread mentioned tape support - I haven't used it, but the configuration utility has the option to set a given SCSI ID to present itself as a tape drive. I have a feeling I'm gonna need to explore this when I get around to trying to get my Sun 3/80 running... Sophie -Original Message- From: cctalk On Behalf Of Charles Dickman via cctalk Sent: Monday, March 18, 2019 10:16 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: SCSI2SD: Is it worth a try? What is the experience with the SCSI2SD with old computers? It looks to be SCSI-1 and SCSI-2 compatible and I see a lot of reports of usage on this list. I am curious about how well it works and which version to get. Versions up to 5 seem to be GPLed and reasonably available. V6 does not seem to have schematics or boards open sourced and I haven't seen a supplier for them. The web page lists some sources, but they don't have the V6 available. It looks like the V6 is not open because someone used the design without following the GPL. V6 claims synchronous transfers, but I don't think most of my hardware supports it. That consists of VAXstations and qbus scsi cards. If I was after speed I wouldn't be using old hardware, but the speed has to be consistent with the era. Chuck
POP-2 silver book
Is there anyone out there who could scan page 261 of "Programming in POP-2" by Burstall, Collins, and Popplestone for me? Also, does anyone have a copy of POP-10? Thanks, Don
Re: SCSI2SD: Is it worth a try?
I’m using v5.1 on a PDP-11/23 with an Emulex UC07 and it works well. I haven’t tried it on any other systems though. Get Outlook for iOS On Tue, Mar 19, 2019 at 4:32 AM -0400, "Sven Schnelle via cctalk" wrote: Hi, On Mon, Mar 18, 2019 at 10:15:48PM -0400, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: > What is the experience with the SCSI2SD with old computers? It looks to be > SCSI-1 and SCSI-2 compatible and I see a lot of reports of usage on this > list. I am curious about how well it works and which version to get. I own the V6 of this thing, and mostly used it with my HP9000/300 systems. In the beginning i had some trouble with HP-UX running from it, but there were some updates in the source repo end of last year which fixed these issues. I never had a V5, so i can't compare. > Versions up to 5 seem to be GPLed and reasonably available. V6 does not > seem to have schematics or boards open sourced and I haven't seen a > supplier for them. The web page lists some sources, but they don't have the > V6 available. > > It looks like the V6 is not open because someone used the design without > following the GPL. It's partly open-source. The source code for the ST micro controller is open, but the FPGA part not. Only a binary blob is in the source repository. Regards Sven
Re: SCSI2SD: Is it worth a try?
Hi, On Mon, Mar 18, 2019 at 10:15:48PM -0400, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: > What is the experience with the SCSI2SD with old computers? It looks to be > SCSI-1 and SCSI-2 compatible and I see a lot of reports of usage on this > list. I am curious about how well it works and which version to get. I own the V6 of this thing, and mostly used it with my HP9000/300 systems. In the beginning i had some trouble with HP-UX running from it, but there were some updates in the source repo end of last year which fixed these issues. I never had a V5, so i can't compare. > Versions up to 5 seem to be GPLed and reasonably available. V6 does not > seem to have schematics or boards open sourced and I haven't seen a > supplier for them. The web page lists some sources, but they don't have the > V6 available. > > It looks like the V6 is not open because someone used the design without > following the GPL. It's partly open-source. The source code for the ST micro controller is open, but the FPGA part not. Only a binary blob is in the source repository. Regards Sven
RE: SCSI2SD: Is it worth a try?
> -Original Message- > From: cctalk On Behalf Of Charles Dickman > via cctalk > Sent: 19 March 2019 02:16 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > Subject: SCSI2SD: Is it worth a try? > > What is the experience with the SCSI2SD with old computers? It looks to be > SCSI-1 and SCSI-2 compatible and I see a lot of reports of usage on this > list. I > am curious about how well it works and which version to get. I a pre-V6 one for my Atari but have never used it in the Atari. It is now in my IBM PC Server but its only used for backup. Its in a single ended SCSI-1 card and its noticeably slower than the fast/wide spinning disks in the RAID array. > > Versions up to 5 seem to be GPLed and reasonably available. V6 does not > seem to have schematics or boards open sourced and I haven't seen a > supplier for them. The web page lists some sources, but they don't have the > V6 available. > V5 is GPL and the guy who built it was more than willing to talk about the code. I was wondering about adding tape support but he says that’s harder than you think... > It looks like the V6 is not open because someone used the design without > following the GPL. > Yes, Chinese vendors... > V6 claims synchronous transfers, but I don't think most of my hardware > supports it. That consists of VAXstations and qbus scsi cards. If I was after > speed I wouldn't be using old hardware, but the speed has to be consistent > with the era. > I think a lot of hardware supports synchronous transfers. I think for me it was the narrow/wide that slowed it down. > Chuck Dave
