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Daryl Tester | 1 Jun 02:08
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Re: Line across screen

Ron Hudson wrote:

> I have heard this of the apple ///, heat would cause the chips to work 
> their way out of their sockets.

Yeah, this was commonly known in my serviceman days (sometime last
century).  Not so much the heat but the cycling of heat and cold
(causing metallic expansion and contraction) could cause chips to
"walk" out of their sockets, at least to the point of becoming
intermittent.  Reseating the chips was typically the first action
performed on an intermittent fault.

--

-- 
Regards,
  Daryl Tester

"A long time ago, I stopped thinking that 'User must click OK to
 scary-looking message' was any sort of road bump for malware."
  -- Valdis Kletnieks
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John Meshelany Jr. | 1 Jun 02:43
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Re: Line across screen

yea, back when that original apple /// was released apple also suggested tht
customers drop their machines to reseat the chips

On Sat, May 31, 2008 at 4:31 PM, Ron Hudson <hudson.ra@...> wrote:

> http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Percussive+Maintenance
>
> John Whitton wrote:
>
>>   I actually saw this in a manual for a piece of equipment..., it was a
>> brand name too...., don't recall, but it was HP, Tektronix...,one of the
>> biggies. I also don't recall what the device was.., but it was a desktop
>> piece of  gear..., maybe a logic analyzer(?). Anyhow, in the event of a
>> malfunction, the first thing the user was supposed to do was "..lift the
>> front edge of the chassis approximately 2", and release it."
>>
>
> I have heard this of the apple ///, heat would cause the chips to work
> their way out of their sockets.
>
>
>>   It also reminds me of one of the great moments in television for our (to
>> remain nameless) ham radio club. It was Field Day and the local TV station
>> had sent a news guy and video cameraman out to shoot a short segment on our
>> activities. We have a pretty impressive van outfitted for emergency
>> communications and always roll it out as part of the FD exercise. Among
>> other things there are a couple of computer monitors mounted up above the
>> desk space. Well, one of our older members was demonstrating to the news
>> folk some mode or operation that made use of one of the monitors.
>> Unfortunately, that monitor had become flaky and we just hadn't done
(Continue reading)

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Gary Lee Phillips | 1 Jun 21:02
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Teeny equivalent for Starlet (PC-8401a) or PC-8500?

I'm thinking about making a small utility similar to TEENY for the
CP/M environment found on the NEC models. Not something so extensive
as to fool CP/M into actually using the drive as such (which would
require really significant work I'm afraid) but just enough to allow a
TPDD to be used as an auxiliary storage device. (Copy file in, copy
file out, list disk directory and file sizes.)

I haven't seen such a utility, but I might have overlooked it. Has it
already been done?

--Gary
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Chris Fezzler | 1 Jun 21:40
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Re: Teeny equivalent for Starlet (PC-8401a) or PC-8500?

Other than using term program and internal Xmodem (aka
Modem7) in NEC 8401A / PC 8500, I am not aware of a
Teeny-like program.  

Now the CP/M EPSON PX-8 has some options.  Don't know
if they work or could be ported to NECs.

I'm restoring my PX-8 and it is a slick little
computer.  Here is the file transfer options.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~fjkraan/comp/px8/

--- Gary Lee Phillips <tivo.overo@...> wrote:

> I'm thinking about making a small utility similar to
> TEENY for the
> CP/M environment found on the NEC models. Not
> something so extensive
> as to fool CP/M into actually using the drive as
> such (which would
> require really significant work I'm afraid) but just
> enough to allow a
> TPDD to be used as an auxiliary storage device.
> (Copy file in, copy
> file out, list disk directory and file sizes.)
> 
> I haven't seen such a utility, but I might have
> overlooked it. Has it
> already been done?
>
(Continue reading)

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John R. Hogerhuis | 1 Jun 22:06
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Re: Teeny equivalent for Starlet (PC-8401a) or PC-8500?

On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 12:02 PM, Gary Lee Phillips
<tivo.overo@...> wrote:
> I'm thinking about making a small utility similar to TEENY for the
> CP/M environment found on the NEC models. Not something so extensive
> as to fool CP/M into actually using the drive as such (which would
> require really significant work I'm afraid) but just enough to allow a
> TPDD to be used as an auxiliary storage device. (Copy file in, copy
> file out, list disk directory and file sizes.)
>
> I haven't seen such a utility, but I might have overlooked it. Has it
> already been done?
>

Already exists.

http://web8201.com:8080/default.asp?content=filedirlist.asp

It's called STARDISK.LBR

I've never used it, and I don't know what an LBR file is. But
presumably it works since I've seen archive messages about it.

Actually the thing of value would be to create exactly what you said
you didn't want to do :-) . The reason is that when you have a CP/M
driver then you can boot the unit into CP/M mode and run all the third
party stuff that requires a larger TPA. Pascal compilers, C
compilers... there's a lot of stuff in the CP/M archives.

In particular, that is the big missing piece for the mtcpm (Model T
CP/M project) which is ongoing.
(Continue reading)

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Gary Lee Phillips | 1 Jun 23:13
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Re: Teeny equivalent for Starlet (PC-8401a) or PC-8500?

Except of course that the Starlet already boots CP/M from its own ROM.
So in that case, there's no need to boot from the TPDD. Getting the
BIOS to recognize a TPDD as a drive, though, would be labyrinthine
indeed, since it's all set in ROM rather than patchable memory I
think. I agree, to get a Model 10x to run CP/M from a TPDD seems
possible, but requires some major code to be written, and that wasn't
my goal. I just want to be able to share the TPDD disks between M100
and Starlet. I'll have a look at the STARDISK.LBR and see what it
actually does. "LBR" is an archive format, for which you need
DE-LBR.COM. One of the nasty things about old CP/M archives is the
fact that they often contain files archived in dozens of different
formats... Thanks for the tip, I'll report back on how well/whether it
works. If it doesn't, I'm sure I can still make my own.

--Gary

On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 3:06 PM, John R. Hogerhuis <jhoger@...> wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 12:02 PM, Gary Lee Phillips
<tivo.overo@...> wrote:
>> I'm thinking about making a small utility similar to TEENY for the
>> CP/M environment found on the NEC models. Not something so extensive
>> as to fool CP/M into actually using the drive as such (which would
>> require really significant work I'm afraid) but just enough to allow a
>> TPDD to be used as an auxiliary storage device. (Copy file in, copy
>> file out, list disk directory and file sizes.)
>>
>> I haven't seen such a utility, but I might have overlooked it. Has it
>> already been done?
>>
>
(Continue reading)

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Gary Lee Phillips | 2 Jun 02:10
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Re: Teeny equivalent for Starlet (PC-8401a) or PC-8500?

Well, here's the preliminary assessment:

After downloading STARDISK.LBR and DE-LBR.COM, and then finding that
once STARDISK is unpacked you also need USQ.COM to "unsqueeze" the DOC
file so you can read it, I find that STARDISK works only with a TPDD2.
So, I presume, it would work with DeskLink or Laddiecon, but not with
a real TPDD of the earlier variety. (The latter is what I have and
what I'd like to be able to use.)

Another file on the same site, called TDISK.ZIP, contains files
intended to work with the original TPDD. After reading the
instructions that come with that, though, I'm not very excited about
it. It appears to have been so minimalist an attempt that a single
wrong keystroke while feeding a file name to the program can lock up
the PC-8401A so as to require a cold restart. Not very friendly, eh?
The author asks for "real programmers" to help him improve his code,
but no source code is provided in the archive.

So, back to my original intention. Obviously, this can be done. It's
been halfway done before, at least twice. ;p

--Gary

On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 4:13 PM, Gary Lee Phillips
<tivo.overo@...> wrote:
> Except of course that the Starlet already boots CP/M from its own ROM.
> So in that case, there's no need to boot from the TPDD. Getting the
> BIOS to recognize a TPDD as a drive, though, would be labyrinthine
> indeed, since it's all set in ROM rather than patchable memory I
> think. I agree, to get a Model 10x to run CP/M from a TPDD seems
(Continue reading)

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John R. Hogerhuis | 2 Jun 02:28
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Re: Teeny equivalent for Starlet (PC-8401a) or PC-8500?

On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 5:10 PM, Gary Lee Phillips
<tivo.overo@...> wrote:
> Well, here's the preliminary assessment:
>
> After downloading STARDISK.LBR and DE-LBR.COM, and then finding that
> once STARDISK is unpacked you also need USQ.COM to "unsqueeze" the DOC
> file so you can read it, I find that STARDISK works only with a TPDD2.

FWIW, it might work. The TPDD-2 protocol is virtually identical to the
TPDD-1. The main difference is the way sector-access mode is used
(irrelevant here) and the fact that the TPDD-2 can access both sides
of the disk ("banks").

>
> So, back to my original intention. Obviously, this can be done. It's
> been halfway done before, at least twice. ;p
>

A lot of old computers including the Amiga and Z88 had TPDD clients
written by enthusiasts. I've never written a TPDD client. Just a few
servers.

Let me know if you get stuck I may be able to help. In any event let
us know when you have something working. I can send you your "TPDD
Cabal" induction certificate and membership card.

-- John.
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John R. Hogerhuis | 2 Jun 02:33
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Re: Teeny equivalent for Starlet (PC-8401a) or PC-8500?

On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 2:13 PM, Gary Lee Phillips
<tivo.overo@...> wrote:
> Except of course that the Starlet already boots CP/M from its own ROM.

Well hopefully those PDFs you made will shed some light. I am not sure
how this works. I know that if you boot with an external drive
(ramdisk or floppy) then you can get the CP/M to all-RAM mode. I don't
know at that point whether you're running BDOS off of the ROM or a
replacement loaded from the floppy. Anyway, I know it is possible
since in CP/M mode you are running all RAM, so it can be patched one
way or another.

> So in that case, there's no need to boot from the TPDD. Getting the
> BIOS to recognize a TPDD as a drive, though, would be labyrinthine
> indeed, since it's all set in ROM rather than patchable memory I
> think. I agree, to get a Model 10x to run CP/M from a TPDD seems
> possible, but requires some major code to be written, and that wasn't
> my goal. I just want to be able to share the TPDD disks between M100
> and Starlet.

Sounds like your "extra work" deflector is in working order ;-)
Message received and ack'd.

-- John.
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Gary Lee Phillips | 2 Jun 02:48
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Re: Teeny equivalent for Starlet (PC-8401a) or PC-8500?

Well, I tried STARDISK with DLPlus, but it doesn't seem to work.
DLPlus in verbose mode does announce that it received a command from
STARDISK, but STARDISK just hangs. Of course there's no source for
STARDISK either.

On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 7:33 PM, John R. Hogerhuis <jhoger@...> wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 2:13 PM, Gary Lee Phillips
<tivo.overo@...> wrote:
>> Except of course that the Starlet already boots CP/M from its own ROM.
>
> Well hopefully those PDFs you made will shed some light. I am not sure
> how this works. I know that if you boot with an external drive
> (ramdisk or floppy) then you can get the CP/M to all-RAM mode. I don't
> know at that point whether you're running BDOS off of the ROM or a
> replacement loaded from the floppy. Anyway, I know it is possible
> since in CP/M mode you are running all RAM, so it can be patched one
> way or another.
>
>> So in that case, there's no need to boot from the TPDD. Getting the
>> BIOS to recognize a TPDD as a drive, though, would be labyrinthine
>> indeed, since it's all set in ROM rather than patchable memory I
>> think. I agree, to get a Model 10x to run CP/M from a TPDD seems
>> possible, but requires some major code to be written, and that wasn't
>> my goal. I just want to be able to share the TPDD disks between M100
>> and Starlet.
>
> Sounds like your "extra work" deflector is in working order ;-)
> Message received and ack'd.
>
> -- John.
(Continue reading)

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