[cctalk] Re: Current SOA scsi disk emulators for DEC

[Craig Ruff via cctalk]

I'm currently using a version 5 something (5.4 I think) of the SCSI2SD in my 
11/83 to run 2.11BSD, it has worked well.

[cctalk] Re: Gb Ethernet and 10Mb links

[Craig Ruff via cctalk]

> On May 28, 2023, at 14:18, Paul Koning  wrote:
> 
> Dropped support for it on 10 Mb links?  That seems like a crazy change to 
> make.  I know it was defined but basically unused at higher speeds.

No just the half duplex part of the standard. The 10 Mb/s full duplex links are 
still supported. 

[cctalk] Gb Ethernet and 10Mb links

[Craig Ruff via cctalk]

FYI: The Ethernet standards dropped support for half duplex connections a few 
years back, so that if you have something that depends on half duplex links a 
recent Ethernet switch might not support it.

[cctalk] Re: HP9825A for sale

[Craig Ruff via cctalk]

> On Apr 17, 2023, at 11:00, cctalk-requ...@classiccmp.org wrote:
> For the HP, I think it's a fair asking price because of all the cables,
> manuals, and accessories that he's got -- he's got all the SerialIO
> stuff, so it would be a fun project (to me) to try to write a terminal
> program and get that calculator on the internet :) 

The price seems high to me also, but if someone is willing to pay for it. The 
tape drive will almost certainly need work.

That said, I did write a terminal program for a 9825T in college, but it was 
only usable because I had a 9871A printer on which to display the output. It 
was a pain to use, but better than waiting for a terminal in the university's 
computer center.

[cctalk] double cctalk membership

[Craig Ruff via cctalk]

I followed the suggestion in a previous message to logon to the new server and 
set my desired list settings. Now I show up with two subscriptions for my email 
address, one as "nonmember" and the new one as "member". It does not appear 
that I am receiving doubles delivery of messages, so I'm not sure if this is an 
issue or not.

Re: Alphastation 200 login (Wayne S)

[Craig Ruff via cctalk]

> On May 18, 2022, at 11:00, cctech-requ...@classiccmp.org wrote:
> 
> Got my Alphastation to boot but i can?t logon because i don?t the 
> administrator password? Any ideas on how to get past that?

It depends on the OS installed. For Unix-style OS you need to figure out the 
single user boot mode, which may mean passing "-s" or "single" in the boot 
arguments from the ROM. For VMS, if I recall correctly, you set the boot R5 
register to 1. Then obviously the reset of the administrator user password is 
also OS dependent.

Not just slashed zeroes/ohs

[Craig Ruff via cctalk]

Having gone through many mathematics courses it was common to also place a 
slash on the letter Z to distinguish it from the numeral 2. Also for persons 
from Europe where they slashed the numeral 7 to distinguish it from a numeral 1 
that commonly had an initial small upward stroke at the top when hand written.

Re: P112 Floppy Controller

[Craig Ruff via cctalk]

The P112's floppy controller is the one in the SMSC FDC37C665IR SuperIO chip. 
The data sheet states it is a 2.88 MB "Licensed CMOS 765B Floppy Disk 
Controller" and claims 100% IBM compatibility (for what that's worth).

Re: Retro networking / WAN communities

[Craig Ruff via cctalk]

> I'm running into issues with switches not supporting 10 / 100 Mbps management 
> interfaces for other equipment.

Half duplex was apparently deprecated a few years back, and recent switches 
from Cisco (and probably other vendors) no longer support half duplex. We ran 
into this at work for long lifetime medical devices.

Re: External SCSI Drives on DEC2000 AXP

[Craig Ruff via cctalk]

Have you verified that the SCSI bus is terminated properly? A missing or 
improperly configured terminator can sometimes cause those sort of symptoms.

RE: SCSI2SD

[Craig Ruff via cctalk]

I've also used a version 5.1 SCSI2SD on a VAXstation 4000/60 without problem.

Microfiche reader spotted in Longmont, CO thrift store

[Craig Ruff via cctalk]

If anyone along the northern Colorado Front Range is in need of a microfiche 
reader, it was reported to me that a Micro Design model 4010 is sitting in the 
Longmont Community Thrift store. My source didn't notice a price. The condition 
is unknown, but it appears to be reasonably intact, and a cell phone picture 
from the front is available if you send me a message.

Re: Need HP 9114B PROM 09114-15521 Contents

[Craig Ruff via cctalk]

FYI: I've received the PROM image, no need for anyone else to go to the trouble 
to extract it.

Need HP 9114B PROM 09114-15521 Contents

[Craig Ruff via cctalk]

The PROM in my 9114B committed suicide this morning, letting the magic smoke 
out. It was marked with part number 09114-15521, does anyone happen to have 
dumped the contents so I can program a new one? Thanks.

Re: Replacing cables sheaths?

[Craig Ruff via cctalk]

Thanks for the suggestions. I currently have Rescue Tape brand self adhesive 
silicone tape on the cable, but it looks like it is causing corrosion of the 
spiral-wound metal shield wires. The wrap around heat shrink might cost more 
than just buying a new adapter! It looks like there is an 1/8" split wire loom 
that could work, or perhaps Plasti Dip spray would make a reasonable coating.

Replacing cables sheaths?

[Craig Ruff via cctalk]

Does anyone know of an effective technique to replace the sheath of a cable 
without needing to reterminate the ends? On all of the Apple power adapter 
cables I've used the plastic sheath starts to fall apart, but the adapter 
itself and the cable conductors are still useable. Something that results in a 
reasonably flexible coating that doesn't look like a horrible accident happened 
to the cable? :-)

Re: 13W3 to HDMI/DisplayPort

[Craig Ruff via cctalk]

Just bought an Extron RGB-HDMI 300 (A) that handles VGA and other RGB type 
signals and has HDMI output. I've connected it to my VAXstation 4000/60 (very 
successfully), and my IIgs (reasonable but this is at the low end of what the 
unit can manage). Output on either my Sony 46" TV or Apple 1600x1050 monitor. 
Found one (pull from service) at surpluscrestron.com for $53 shipped. It didn't 
come with the power supply (12 V @ 1 A) and needed this connector 
(https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/molex/039502/WM7732-ND/1280583) 
to attach the power supply.

Re: P112

[Craig Ruff via cctalk]

Just in case someone else hasn't already responded, the P112 does not use DOS 
style fdisk partitioning for a hard disk. It is done in the BIOS image, and 
then the logical disks have to be initialized. This is described in the "P112 
GIDE Construction.pdf" document.

I've only used 3.5" floppies, which work fine. You can also attach a PATA 
CD-ROM drive and access disks with a program that escapes my memory at the 
moment.

Re: looking for a program - last gasp questions (Dr Iain Maoileoin)

[Craig Ruff via cctalk]

Perhaps http://www.asciisector.net/  ?

Re: Raised Floors

[Craig Ruff via cctalk]

I should have been more clear in my last response.  The 2x2 grid of the floor 
tiles does not extend to the floor, but to an intermediate layer with wider 
spacing of the supports at the floor level.

Re: Raised Floors

[Craig Ruff via cctalk]

> On May 22, 2019, at 11:00 AM, cctech-requ...@classiccmp.org wrote:
> From: Grant Taylor 
> 
> On 5/21/19 5:33 PM, Craig Ruff via cctech wrote:
>> The NCAR Wyoming Supercomputer Center has raised floors of about 20 feet.
> 
> Did the support posts go all the way down?  Or was there some sort of 
> grid work that supported the raised floor above an open area that 
> contained the PDUs?

It was moderately open below the floor, there are columns that support the 
grid.  I looked, but I don't have a picture in the under floor area when I was 
up there years ago, and didn't see anything obvious on the NCAR or Wyoming web 
sites.  There is a video at https://www.youtube.com/embed/u4H7U5Weopw 
<https://www.youtube.com/embed/u4H7U5Weopw> that shows some of the support 
equipment briefly, but not the underfloor area.

Re: Raised Floors

[Craig Ruff via cctalk]

The NCAR Wyoming Supercomputer Center has raised floors of about 20 feet. The 
auxilary cooling and PDUs are installed down there.  Needless to say, you don't 
pull a floor tile there unless you are on the facility staff!

Q: Plotter bed repair with MonoKote?

[Craig Ruff via cctalk]

> On Feb 18, 2019, at 11:00 AM, dwight wrote:
> 
> There were a couple hp XY plotters that had the mylar plate delaminating. 
> I've reworked these with model airplane mono coat.

Are you referring to MonoKote (www.monokote.com )?  
That looks perfect for repairing the gouged bed of one of my 9872C plotters.  
Is a hot air supply suitable for applying the film, or did you use their 
heating iron?  I'm guessing a bit of pressure to adhere the film is necessary?

Re: Teac Mt-2st/20D-12-u

[Craig Ruff via cctalk]

I used to have a SCSI interface version of that drive type, I made backups of 
my Mac Plus (I think it was) hard drive.  Since I don't have it currently, I 
believe I gave it to a friend along with the rest of my Mac Plus peripherals.  
I don't recall the capacity of my specific drive, but it used a "data 
cassette", which had a notch in the tape case to prevent use of regular 
cassette tapes.

Re: P112

[Craig Ruff via cctalk]

I have a operational P112 with 3.5" floppies, GIDE/CF and CD-ROM.  Do you know 
which ROM you have installed?

Re: DEC 3000 (alpha) faultfinding

[Craig Ruff via cctalk]

On the AXPpci33 board, the SROM is also an 8 bit device. What happens is that 
the CPU reads in a bit stream into cache at power up reset, where the specific 
bit stream is selected by the jumper position on the board. In effect the SROM 
can contain up to 8 bit streams. Some of them will make use of the SROM console 
port.

Re: Information Request: unidentified HP 9825T instructions

[Craig Ruff]

Tony Duell wrote:
> My first thought, and it's probably wrong, is that these instrucitons
> (which differ by one bit, so might be
> setting/reseting something) are NOPs to the CPU, but are interpretted
> by the memory mapping hardware in those
> 9825s that have more than 64K or RAM and ROM total.

This seems likely.  According to your schematics, gate U47 detects the pattern 
0701xx.  This signal feeds into the U43c flipflop, which appears to latch the 
state of the low 4 bits of the MAD bus into register U42, which sets the state 
of the /ForceRAM (bit 3), /ForceROM (bit 2), /DiagRd (bit 1) and ALLROM (bit 0) 
signals.  Thus, these two instructions appear to toggle the state of the 
/ForceROM signal.

If I’ve wrapped my brain around the details it appears that 070113 deasserts 
the /ForceROM signal, and 070117 asserts it?

Information Request: unidentified HP 9825T instructions

[Craig Ruff]

I am working on the disassembly and commenting of the 98228A disk ROM for the 
9825T, and my disassembler flagged two instructions as invalid.  They are used 
inside a routine that copies blocks of words from various banks of the ROM into 
low RAM.  The first, bit pattern 070113, is used immediately after a dir 
(disable interrupt) instruction.  The second, bit pattern 070117, is used 
immediately before an eir (enable interrupt) instruction.  The “invalid” 
instructions do not match any instructions described in the 9825A patent, nor 
are present in the 9835 or 9845 assemblers instruction descriptions.  From the 
surrounding code, it doesn’t appear that these instructions reference any of 
the user visible CPU registers, but are used in some way that enhances the 
effect of dir/eir and ensures the block copy is not interfered with.

Anyone have any ideas?  Possibly a DMA request ignore/resume pair?

Re: Looking to read past EOT on DDS/DLT/LTO

[Craig Ruff]

For the NCAR Mass Storage System, when we upgraded our tape drives to Sun STK 
T1 models, we lost the ability to skip past the EOT mark with standard 
firmware.  We asked Sun to provide a firmware modification that let us issue 
four or so reads after reaching the EOT mark, and the drive would then continue 
on until it found good data again.  We didn’t need it very often, but it was 
handy to recover single copy data.

HP 9875A usable for interchange with 85 or 9825?

[Craig Ruff]

I’m working on getting my 9875A dual DC100A tape drive operational, but have 
come across a strange issue.  This 9875A seems to have the reversed sense of on 
which reel the rewind places the tape as compared to my 85B and 9825T (which 
agree is the left hand one as viewed when inserting the tape into the drive).  
I don’t yet know that the 9875A is operating fully, but it passes the non-tape 
movement selftest.

The 9875A manual mentions it being useful for interchange among systems, and 
the tape structure (Standard Interchange Format - SIL) matches that of the 98x5 
series, and it appears uses the same tape control chip as described in the 
April 1978 HP Journal article on the 9845.  I guess there could be a failure on 
the tape control board that is reversing the motor control direction, as both 
drives behave in the same way, or is causing the firmware to think it is at the 
wrong end of the tape.

Has anyone used the 9875A in this way?  I was thinking it could be a way to 
load binary programs into the 9825.

Re: Flex Disc options for the HP 9825

[Craig Ruff]

Excellent news!  I eagerly look forward to this so I can get my 9825T talking 
to my 9895A!  If you spin a PC board, I will be willing to purchase one or two 
if you end up with extras or are willing to coordinate an order.

HP 9872 Refurbishment

[Craig Ruff]

I hauled out my second 9872C today to clean it of rodent leavings and to 
scavenge the high voltage chart hold power supply board for my first 9872C.

The table has some gouges in the surface, which appears to be a plastic film 
adhered to the table surface.  Does anyone have experience repairing gouges, or 
found a suitable replacement film?

Also, since I have it apart, I thought it might be good to image the firmware 
ROM set.  They are marked Mostek MK36647N-5 and MK36648N-5, along with the HP 
part numbers.  From the schematic, they appear to be 5V 8KB ROMs, so nothing 
fancy should be required to read the contents.  It appears these might be 
MK36000N-5 mask programmed ROMs?

P.S. It appears list submission doesn’t like digitally signed emails.

Re: Looking for HP98034 / HP9895 ROM images

[Craig Ruff]

> On Oct 18, 2016, at 11:00 AM, cctech-requ...@classiccmp.org wrote:
> 
> does anyone of you happen to have the images of the firmware ROM of
> HP98034 module and/or of the HP9895 disk drive, please?

I’ve sent F.Ulivi the contents of the single ROM version from my 9895A, along 
with some preliminary reverse engineering work on the contents that I’ve done 
in conjunction with Eric Smith.

AC Filter Cap Brand Recommendations

[Craig Ruff]

Wouldn’t you know it, the same day I decide to order a ribbon and some paper 
for my HP 82905B (aka Epson MX80) printer, the AC line filter cap (C1 on the 
MFIL board), expelled its magic smoke rather impressively.  After some cleanup, 
the printer has been banished to the garage until the smell diminishes.  It 
appears to be a 250 V, 0.1 µF X type.  What manufacturers have good reliability 
for this application, in your opinion?

Re: Recovering 4mm tar tapes

[Craig Ruff]

> On Sep 12, 2016, at 11:00 AM, cctech-requ...@classiccmp.org wrote:
> 
>  Is the 2nd tape just bad and can't be read?  Or do I need a 
> slightly different tape drive?

It may be bad or perhaps it was written with a larger block size?  I don’t 
recall what tar does if the tape was written with a record size larger than the 
default.  You might try using

dd if=/dev/st0 bs=65532 of=...

on the tape to see if you can read it at all.  I don’t recall what the maximum 
record size on these tapes are, but it seems like it isn’t a full 65KiB.  Also, 
make sure the drive is not configured for fixed block mode.

Re: Virtualizing AIX 1.3 - WAS::::Re: AIX for IBM PS/2

[Craig Ruff]

>> https://sites.google.com/site/rhdisk0/unix/aix/aixps2 
>> 
> 
> Is anyone else having issues with that URL?  I get a quick flash of a 
> legitimate web page before the browser fills up with ASCII garbage.

No, it loaded fine on my browser.

Distilled water (was re: Model 152 PSU dummy loads)

[Craig Ruff]

Just to be pedantic, as this is the Internet after all :-), distilled
water is a pretty good insulator, but not a "perfect" one.  Neutral
(pH 7.0) water always has a very small amount of the molecules
disassociated into H+ and OH- ions.  However, as others have stated,
the effective value of the water resistor, compared to the load
resistor(s), will be negligible.

Re: Structured Fortran

[Craig Ruff]

At NCAR there was a structured Fortran preprocessor named IFTRAN that was in 
use for a long time.  The earlier versions of the NCAR Local Network (NLNET), 
later renamed MASnet (Mainframe and Server network), as well as a variety of 
graphics packages were written in it.  I still have the IFTRAN to C translator 
I wrote to convert everything to C code so we didn’t have to spend money on 
Fortran compilers on the Unix boxes.

MASnet was a Hyperchannel cross bar network used for batch job submissions and 
data transfers to/from the Mass Storage Server (MSS), the supercomputers and 
the front end servers.  Eventually it was migrated to run on top of TCP/IP and 
Ethernet when the Hyperchannel hardware got expensive to maintain and 
comparatively slow.

Re: A tale of woe, including carelessness, stupidity and laziness....

[Craig Ruff]

 On 8/22/2015 4:11 PM, Eric Smith wrote:
 In my mostly misspent youth, I once had the opportunity to visit a
 facility where a now obscure supercomputer was developed. The product
 manager was showing me around.   

Denelcor perhaps?