Northstar Horizon Question

From: Wirehead Prime <wirehead_at_retrocomputing.com>
Date: Fri Apr 10 19:34:12 1998

Ok, so I've got a Northstar Horizon with an MDS-AD3 controller and a Disk
Jockey 8" drive controller. At this point, I've got a copy of NDOS on 5
1/4" diskette so I just want to get the thing to boot NDOS but I want to
feel confident that I've got a good drive/controller before risk the only
copy of NDOS I have.

The behavior is this. When I hook the drive up to the controller and
power the box on, the light stays on and the disk spins and spins forever
but the head never loads. I've tried a couple different drives so it's
not the drive. Out of curiosity I flipped over the drive cable to make
sure I didn't have it on backwards and the light doesn't come on on the
drive and the drive doesn't spin in that case.

What's the deal? I've got the drive jumpered to DS1. I have a suspicion
I'm being extremely ignorant about something here. What would cause the
described behavior?

Anthony Clifton - Wirehead
Received on Fri Apr 10 1998 - 19:34:12 BST