> -Original Message-
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of tony
duell
> Sent: 10 June 2015 05:46
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> Subject: RE: Front Panel Update
>
> > Interesting. Varian is a microwave equipment company; I have one of
> -Original Message-
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chuck
> Guzis
> Sent: 10 June 2015 06:07
> To: gene...@classiccmp.org; discuss...@classiccmp.org:On-Topic and Off-
> Topic Posts
> Subject: Re: 80 column (un)punched cards
>
> On 06/09/2015 08:52 PM, Mi
I was looking at a couple of documents describing the Pertec tape interface;
the manual for my Kennedy 9610 tape drive, and a nice reference by a fellow
with a rather familiar name:
http://www.sydex.com/pertec.html
According to my Kennedy manual, issuing a read command causes the drive to
On 2015-06-10 09:34, Mark J. Blair wrote:
I was looking at a couple of documents describing the Pertec tape interface;
the manual for my Kennedy 9610 tape drive, and a nice reference by a fellow
with a rather familiar name:
http://www.sydex.com/pertec.html
According to my Kennedy manual,
Mark,
Traditional 9-track tapes are always written block-by block with a "short"
gap between the records, WikiPedia say 0.6" for 1600BPI which sounds about
right. From what I remember as tapes are not the most reliable medium the
process was to have the read head after the write head so the tape
They breathe better if you do not have them sealed when you are baking
them..ed _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org)
(resent due to error message)
Original message
From: Chuck Guzis
Date: 06/09/2015 9:46 PM (GMT-07:00)
To: gene...@classiccmp.org, "discuss...@cl
What is best place to buy new 1/2 tape ? (recent datecodes)
thanks for advice
Ed# _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org)
Read carefully the subject above and the contents below. change one of the two
to match.
please.
On 10-06-15 09:15, Dave G4UGM wrote:
-Original Message-
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of tony
duell
Sent: 10 June 2015 05:46
To: General Discussion: On-T
On 2015-06-10 09:47, Dave G4UGM wrote:
Mark,
Traditional 9-track tapes are always written block-by block with a "short"
gap between the records, WikiPedia say 0.6" for 1600BPI which sounds about
right. From what I remember as tapes are not the most reliable medium the
process was to have the
On 6/9/2015 8:08 AM, Adrian Graham wrote:
Folks,
Trying to source a non-DEC fan for a 4100 CPU since getting them in the UK
is more and more tricky as time goes on. The originals are 12V 0.17A 60mm
3-wire and I've found some almost-identical-but-not-quite 0.18A variants.
Needed to rewire the plu
> -Original Message-
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Johnny
> Billquist
> Sent: 10 June 2015 09:39
> To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
> Subject: Re: Pertec Tape Drive Interface Musings
>
> On 2015-06-10 09:47, Dave G4UGM wrote:
> > Mark,
> >
> >Traditional
On 29 May 2015 at 16:09, Chris Osborn wrote:
> In fact, when I got OSX (aka OPENSTEP 5) running on a beige G3 tower for the
> first time, I couldn’t understand why it was so absolutely unusable, since
> the performance of OPENSTEP 4 on my NeXT was very snappy.
It *really* did not benefit from
What memories that brings back. I worked in chatsworth at Pertec on them
tape drives as a Tech on the assembly line.
they were a pain in the butt to make work perfectly. Glad them tape
drive days are over.
On 6/10/2015 12:34 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote:
> I was looking at a couple of documents descri
> 1 box (2000) normal light buff (off-white) colour,
> around 500 of same with blue stripe, and several
> dozen of various colours, all with the normal
> numbers printed and "all unperforated - ha ha ha!"
> (obscure and lame reference to a line in Flanders
> and Swann's 'Have some Madeira, M'dear!
Lowboy rack, two RL0X drives and one 11/23. From the pictures it looks a bit
dirty, but we know RL0X and 11/23's are pretty solid even after age.
Location is Newbury, UK
Email me off-list if interested.
Best,
J
See, thats what I love about this list: Ask a question and get not only good
answers, but also an anecdote from somebody who worked at the company. Thanks,
everybody!
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X
http://www.nf6x.net/
> I don't think it really is that you have a long gap when you rewrite
> a "bad" block per se. But you get long gaps when you stop/start. And
> a rewrite implies that you will get a stop/start situation. But in
> case you already were going stop/start, the gap will not be extended
> any longe
This hypothetical interface + matching software would be intended for archiving
old tapes and/or making new copies from archived file (i.e., to make new boot
media for bringup of an old computer). Key features would include preservation
of block sizes (even if varying arbitrarily) and file marks
> According to my Kennedy manual, issuing a read command causes the
> drive to return one block of data. I can see how that would be used
> in block-oriented applications in which blocks may be randomly read,
> written and re-written on the tape. But most of my magtape experience
> has been us
> This hypothetical interface + matching software would be intended for
> archiving old tapes and/or making new copies from archived file
> (i.e., to make new boot media for bringup of an old computer). Key
> features would include preservation of block sizes (even if varying
> arbitrarily) an
On 06/10/2015 05:06 AM, wulfman wrote:
What memories that brings back. I worked in chatsworth at Pertec on
them tape drives as a Tech on the assembly line. they were a pain in
the butt to make work perfectly. Glad them tape drive days are over.
Mainframe/vacuum column drives were pretty darned
> On Jun 10, 2015, at 08:05, Dennis Boone wrote:
>
>> This hypothetical interface + matching software would be intended for
>> archiving old tapes and/or making new copies from archived file
>> (i.e., to make new boot media for bringup of an old computer). Key
>> features would include preservat
On 06/10/2015 03:39 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
On 2015-06-10 09:47, Dave G4UGM wrote:
Mark,
Traditional 9-track tapes are always written block-by block with a
"short"
gap between the records, WikiPedia say 0.6" for 1600BPI which sounds
about
right.
My recollection is that the 0.6" gap w
> > Using dd to read tapes to disk discards the block size information.
> And that is precisely why I'm thinking of an ad-hoc interface rather
> than just plugging a SCSI drive into a UNIX box.
It's eminently possible to image tapes sanely on a unix box. See e.g.:
http://www.brouhaha.com/~er
On 6/10/15 8:15 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote:
And that is precisely why I'm thinking of an ad-hoc interface rather than just
plugging a SCSI drive into a UNIX box.
It also has the advantage that you can return the CRC/checksum and partially
read blocks. Most SCSI tape drives don't
return the data
On 6/10/15 8:40 AM, Dennis Boone wrote:
> > Using dd to read tapes to disk discards the block size information.
> And that is precisely why I'm thinking of an ad-hoc interface rather
> than just plugging a SCSI drive into a UNIX box.
It's eminently possible to image tapes sanely on a unix
> On Jun 10, 2015, at 08:46, Al Kossow wrote:
>
> On 6/10/15 8:15 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote:
>
>> And that is precisely why I'm thinking of an ad-hoc interface rather than
>> just plugging a SCSI drive into a UNIX box.
>
> It also has the advantage that you can return the CRC/checksum and parti
Another issue with SCSI tape interfaces are in the details. Al has
pointed out the lack of data returned with error conditions. There are
also niggling little differences between implementations that don't
exactly follow ANSI X3T10. For example, is a tape mark considered a
block? I've got dr
On 06/10/2015 09:12 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote:
Ok, now three more questions come to mind:
1) Is it ever acceptable to mix densities on a single tape? I'm not
sure that my Kennedy drive will even allow that, but I don't know if
that is universal.
Acceptable? I don't know about that. Otherwise,
On 6/10/15 9:12 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote:
Ok, now three more questions come to mind:
1) Is it ever acceptable to mix densities on a single tape? I'm not sure that
my Kennedy drive will even allow that, but I don't know if that is universal.
It happens. Len Shustek's copy of APL/360 has JC
> -Original Message-
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Mark J.
> Blair
> Sent: 10 June 2015 17:13
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> Subject: Re: Pertec Tape Drive Interface Musings
>
>
> > On Jun 10, 2015, at 08:46, Al Kossow wrote:
So I'm working with a group of 'busted' DZQ11's (the symptom is that Master
Clear - 020 - bit in the CSR stays set, even if I write a 0 to the CSR), and
so I need access to a set of prints for this card; they are MP-01795. They
don't seem to be online anywhere, though.
(They may not be fixable, be
Update: TZ30 located and ordered.
And now I'm thinking that I ought to build a custom Pertec interface (as is
being discussed in another thread) that's particularly suited for archival
work, though I might still be interested in a SCSI magtape drive or SCSI/Pertec
adapter anyway.
--
Mark J. B
On Tue, 9 Jun 2015, Adrian Graham wrote:
> Trying to source a non-DEC fan for a 4100 CPU since getting them in the UK
> is more and more tricky as time goes on. The originals are 12V 0.17A 60mm
> 3-wire and I've found some almost-identical-but-not-quite 0.18A variants.
> Needed to rewire the plugs
On 06/10/2015 09:40 AM, Al Kossow wrote:
It happens. Len Shustek's copy of APL/360 has JCL that switches from
1600 to 6250 after the label is written. None of my drives can deal with
that, incl the 9610.
I've never tried programatic density switching on the 9610, which is
supported.
Just stick
On 06/10/2015 11:12 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote:
On Jun 10, 2015, at 08:46, Al Kossow wrote:
On 6/10/15 8:15 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote:
And that is precisely why I'm thinking of an ad-hoc interface rather than just
plugging a SCSI drive into a UNIX box.
It also has the advantage that you can ret
> On Jun 10, 2015, at 11:16 , Chuck Guzis wrote:
>
> Just stick another BOT marker somewhere within the label area, take the drive
> offline and hit LOAD, setting your new density accordingly. AFAIK, no drive
> pays attention to the BOT status while reading.
Brilliant!
Note to self: Make sur
> I need to figure out why this program also doesn't deal with tape
> errors well. If you get an error, it will go into an endless loop
> creating -1 byte records.
Any block length with the high bit set is an error mark. The loop part
is a good question, though.
The discussion of .tap forma
> I particularly like the idea of being able to extract questionable
> data and CRC/checksum.
That _would_ be really nice.
> 1) Is it ever acceptable to mix densities on a single tape? I'm not
> sure that my Kennedy drive will even allow that, but I don't know if
> that is universal.
As oth
On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 12:11 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> Not complete off-topic, but I just received an email from Shaun Halstead
> that he's looking to get rid of a CDC Keystone drive (vertically mounted)
> (read: TU80 family, with Pertec interface) that was apparently used on a
> Xerox system.
>
>
On 6/10/15 11:25 AM, Dennis Boone wrote:
The discussion of .tap format to which I referred earlier largely seemed
to revolve around the question of representing errors. Block length
markers occur at the beginning and end of data records, unless they're
file marks (length 0). On a read error, s
On 2015-Jun-09, at 4:07 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
> Varian bought the design of the 620. I forget the name of the original
> firm, but I have a brochure on it.
>
> Weird things happen. CDC rebadged small VAX machines and Nova 3s, for
> example, even with their minicomputer line intact.
> On Tue
On 2015-06-10 11:00, Dave G4UGM wrote:
-Original Message-
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Johnny
Billquist
Sent: 10 June 2015 09:39
To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Pertec Tape Drive Interface Musings
On 2015-06-10 09:47, Dave G4UGM wrote:
Mark,
On 2015-06-10 16:32, Dennis Boone wrote:
> I don't think it really is that you have a long gap when you rewrite
> a "bad" block per se. But you get long gaps when you stop/start. And
> a rewrite implies that you will get a stop/start situation. But in
> case you already were going stop/s
On 2015-06-10 17:05, Dennis Boone wrote:
> This hypothetical interface + matching software would be intended for
> archiving old tapes and/or making new copies from archived file
> (i.e., to make new boot media for bringup of an old computer). Key
> features would include preservation of
Hi Guys
I have started to ship 8/e front panels as of to-day.
I took some
to the shippers to-day and more will go to-morrow
Everybody who placed an order will get at least one from the first batch.
The next batch will be twenty panels.
Type B will be available and both round holes
On 06/10/2015 12:36 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
One problem with "preserving errors" is that actual tapes do not have
any indication that you have a tape error. In fact, many times you can
recover a tape block by repeatedly read it. Eventually you might read it
without errors. Not to mention how
Thanks for the input everyone. In summary, I got recommendations for:
- HP 16500C (lesser a 16500B, but not a 16500A) (mainframe)
- HP 16700/16900/17500 (mainframe, bigger-faster-stronger, still pretty
expensive, can use 16500 cards)
- HP 166x or 167x (portable, modern, look for hard drive)
- HP
> I guess it could possibly be useful to indicate a bad block on a
> tape, in order to preserve the numbering of all the blocks, and
> constantly giving a read error when used in a simulator. But it's
> kindof a weird reflection of a physical error into a virtual one.
Unless you've corrected t
> Earlier, I discussed how I've begun appending metadata to tape image
> files after the EOM indicator. Thus far, no simulator chokes on
> it. I really need to extend it.
I've seen software that doesn't understand EOM marks, though I think
it's never been one of the major simulators.
With tha
On 06/10/2015 02:07 PM, Dennis Boone wrote:
With that in mind, it might be worth having the putative new spec use a
different name and file extension for itself.
Well, it could be, but if it were my show, I'd greatly extend the file
format to accommodate not only the occurrence of a tape erro
On 06/10/2015 01:13 PM, Richard Loken wrote:
On Tue, 9 Jun 2015, Adrian Graham wrote:
Trying to source a non-DEC fan for a 4100 CPU since getting them in the UK
is more and more tricky as time goes on. The originals are 12V 0.17A 60mm
3-wire and I've found some almost-identical-but-not-quite 0
> "all unperforated - ha ha ha!" (obscure and lame reference to a line
> in Flanders and Swann's 'Have some Madeira, M'dear!' that was
> apparently too risque for the American sensibility ;-).
The Limeliters covered it in the US in 1961, so apparently not. :)
De
- Original Message -
From: "Dennis Boone"
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic
Posts"
Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2015 8:15 PM
Subject: Re: Madeirs (was 80 column (un)punched
cards)
> "all unperforated - ha ha ha!" (obscure and
> lame reference to a line
> in Flanders and S
One thing on which I must disagree: you don't need 'an external HPIB
controller' to use the HP 1630. It's nice to be able to save configs and
traces to floppy, but I don't know if the PC software to actually move it
to a host for analysis has survived. I've never controlled my 1630G with
anything
I might have a set and will try to check tomorrow.
On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 12:08 PM, Noel Chiappa
wrote:
> So I'm working with a group of 'busted' DZQ11's (the symptom is that Master
> Clear - 020 - bit in the CSR stays set, even if I write a 0 to the CSR),
> and
> so I need access to a set of
> The 'All unperforated...' line (my favourite) was in the English
> versions but for some reason they (and the Limeliters) left it out of
> the American version.
For the Limeliters, I don't believe I've ever heard it without. I'm
hardly an encyclopaedic reference to all their performances and
- Original Message -
From: "Dennis Boone"
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic
Posts"
Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2015 10:31 PM
Subject: Re: Madeirs (was 80 column (un)punched
cards)
> The 'All unperforated...' line (my favourite)
> was in the English
> versions but for s
Hey all --
I'm assisting in the restoration of an Altair 8800 system which includes
the MITS 88-HDSK ("Altair Hard Drive Controller") and Pertec D-3422
removable pack/fixed platter drive and after cleaning everything up,
rebuilding supplies, etc, the drive spins up and goes Ready but all
att
Bingo!
DZV11 FIELD MAINT PRINT SET MP00462
USERS GUIDE DZV11-UG-002
TECH MANUAL DZV11-TM-001
CVDZCB0 ECHO TEST DIAG
DVDZD-A-0 INTERPROCESSOR TEST DIAG
CVDZAD0 DIAG PART 1
might be more in there- too much fine pri
Asof now I know of two variations
1,Selector switch positions 1 and 6 lines can be vertical or
at an angle to the vertical
2,Vertical divider between groups of three lamps
Anybody seen an 8/e panel with anything else?
Rod
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