On Sat, 8 Apr 2000, Sellam Ismail wrote:
Hello Sellam,
> Y'all may recall I wrote a couple weeks back about needing an NEC APC
> to try to read these disks that a geophysicist sent me so Guatemala can
> find all their precious resources.
>
> Fast forward a few weeks: I spent an hour or so digging around my
> warehouse and managed to locate and then extricate the NEC APC I
> had. Tonight I finally got around to checking it out again (I got it over 4
> years ago and when I played with it then I couldn't get anything to come
> up on it). Well tonight I was fiddling with it and realized the brightness
> knob was turned all the way down. It turns out this thing works after all!
>
> The system came with 2 disks in the drives when I received it. One in
> the A drive is labeled "SYS" and the other in the B drive something else,
> it's not important, since the system is trying to boot from A.
>
> When I first turn it on, the upper lefthand corner of the screen shows
> "[LOD]" and the disk light comes on. Actually, there are two red LEDs
> per drive. The bottom light is always on, and it seems when it's reading
> a disk the top one turns on. It tries the A drive and then displays "[LOD
> C]" and momentarily accesses the B drive. Then I get "[LER]".
When first powered up, but with the A drive door open, mine displays
"[ * ]". When the drive door is closed on the disk, it changes to
"[LOD]", quickly followed by "[LOD C]" - when the bootable disk is
CP/M-86 - or "[LOD M]" - when the bootable disk is MSDOS. Following a
lot of clunking in the drive, a lot of verbiage appears and finally the
"A>" prompt.
If the disk is not bootable, it makes a couple of tries and then
displays "[LER]".
I will mail you a bootable CP/M-86 disk to help you determine the nature
of your problem.
- don
> So I need to know what this all means. I'm assuming that either the
> disks are bad or the drive heads are dirty. Of course there may be
> something worse going on but I'm an optimist (mostly).
>
> So I could use the following if you've got it:
>
> a) information from the system manuals that explain the boot process.
> I've got the manuals but there is no way in hell I'd be able to find them
> without a full-scale re-organization of my warehouse, which I hope to do
> in my lifetime but definitely don't have the time for right now.
>
> b) a known good copy of a system disk.
>
> This is an NEC APC model APC-H02. The floppies are 8".
>
> Any help will be greatly appreciated and if we are successful with getting
> the data off you will be given credit for your assistance!! Remember,
> goats and village women!
>
> As ever, please reply directly to me as I am not subscribed to
> ClassicCmp.
>
> sellam_at_vintage.org
>
> Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Looking for a six in a pile of nines...
>
> VCF Europe: April 29th & 30th, Munich, Germany
> VCF Los Angeles: Summer 2000 (*TENTATIVE*)
> VCF East: Planning in Progress
> See http://www.vintage.org for details!
>
Received on Sat Apr 08 2000 - 17:33:37 BST