TRW Acquisitions, VCF/building s100 systems

From: Joe <rigdonj_at_intellistar.net>
Date: Wed Feb 4 07:57:49 1998

Allison,

   Somehow I missed this message.

At 05:05 PM 2/2/98 -0500, you wrote:
>
><>They may work muost just pull the 360k drives from an XT.
><
>< Aren't SA 400's single density? XT drives are Double Density. Yes,
><they'll probably work but the media wouldn't be interchangable.
>
>Sa400 would do FM (single density) and MFM (double density). the 360k
>drive also do single density.

  Do you mean that XT drive will run SD whn run off of a SD controller and
the disks will be compatable? They would be great. I knew a XT drive
would read and write but I thought the disks would be incompatible with a
disk from a SA 400.

It's the 1.2m 5.25" drives that are weird.

   Yes, 17 sectors and odd number of tracks. The track spacing is 1/2 of
that of the 180 and 360K drives and the first track is in a different
location.
>
>< Do you have the old NS* software that will run on the Alrair?
>
>By default yes.. and no. The stuff will run on an altair but the IO
>which is personalized for my NS* with it's two serial ports. there
>is no way I can personalize it for the altair as I have no clue of the
>IO (serial boards used and their addreses). The NS* motherboard
>(backplane) has two serial ports and a parallel port plus a few
>other useful things so their configurations were easier to be certain
>of.

   Just tell me where it expects them to be and I'll set mine to that
address. I have 2 serial on one card and 1 serial and 1 parallel on another.


You need to track down a set of NS* manuals or copies.

    Not a problem. I have a bunch of them, just no software.

>
>FYI: NSdos requires a minimum 16k of ram starting at 2000h it does not
>use ram below 2000h (or care). Also it assumes the ports start at 00
>and the port devices are 8251s with hard jumpered baud rates.

    RAM is not a problem. The 8251s are. One of my boards is a MITS 2-SIO
and it has a 6850. The other is a Jade Computer Products JP/S-1 card. It
has two strange chips on it. The logo on the ICs looks like an integral
sign running through a circle. The number on the is TR 1602-B. Do you know
anything about this card? I have no docs on it.
 
   BTW I also have a couple of Vector Graphics 8K Static RAM memory
boards. Do you have any info on them?
>
>If you are going to configure an altair you need manuals, more manuals

  I have manuals, manuals and more manuals. But still don't have manuals
for everything. Biggest problem is I don't have the software.

>and it doesn't hurt to be able do digital design to understand what they
>did.

   Been there, done that, got the degree (two of them in fact)

  You see the docs with early altairs were not amoung the best. Most
>of what you may need to know often had to be extracted from the printsets
>by understanding the logic.

   I wish all manuals were that "bad". I'd rather have schematics or logic
diagrams instead of the trash they print now.

then you have the non-altair boards plugged
>in that manuals are very handy for too. If the boards require extra or
>specific software (some terminal interface or video display boards) the
>hadware and software manuals may be needed.


   Yes, I know.
  
   Joe
    
>
>Allison
>
>
Received on Wed Feb 04 1998 - 07:57:49 GMT