Ampro Little Board questions...

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Sun Dec 16 11:30:01 2001

If you're making up a new cable, use as little cable as you can comfortably make
work. Don't stress the cable, but don't have too much cable, as it interferes
with air movement in the box.

I'm curious about something here ... Was this particular system ever observed to
run as configured? I've never owned a prepackaged AMPRO box/system, so I have
no experience with them on which to base any guesses. With a SCSI drive and no
bridge, the thing should either run or not, though, and if it doesn't there's
probably a good reason.

I'm not in a good situation to help you out with this, at the moment, but I
could send you a bridge controller of the sort that the firmware is supposed to
recognize on its own. With that you can test the Little Board side of things.
The Little Board supports the Xebec controller as well as a number of models
from OMTI, ADAPTEC, and others. You'd have to attach an ST506/412-interfaced
drive that works properly at the other end, though. The Adaptec models I've got
are capable of either RLL or MFM, depending on which model you use and, of
course, which sort of drive you use. If the box is not set up for a bridge
board, I'd try to find a compatible drive from the listed options, however.
It's likely there is an accommodation for a bridge board, or at least that
there's space so that you can attach the bridge board to a half-height or
full-height 5-1/4" drive by means of short (0.25" or shorter) standoffs. Once
you've done that, you merely need to "low-level" (in PC parlance) format the
attached drive with the bridge board in place, and the PREP it so that the
required information is available at power-on, so the system can use it. As I
wrote before, I've not used the SCSI on a Little Board, having used my own
interface to various Western Digital WD100x-series boards instead, since the
SCSI adapter hadn't even been announced when I got my Little Boards.

Dick

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gene Buckle" <geneb_at_deltasoft.com>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2001 10:23 PM
Subject: RE: Ampro Little Board questions...


> >
> > > > From: Gene Buckle <geneb_at_deltasoft.com>
> > > > >belongs with it. Does anyone have a Series 100 box that
> > > > could give me
> > > > >the measurements and connector orientation & location of
> > the floppy
> > > > >cable?
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Nothing magic. the last one I had used was from a PC.
> > > >
> > > I was after the length of the cable and their locations on it.
> >
> > It should not have a twist like a PC cable, and can be a
> > length of 34-conductor ribbon cable, Gene, with a 50-pin
> > female header on each end. What ever length is needed.
> >
> I know I can use any length of ribbon I want. What I'd like to know is
> what it was when it was new. (and it's 34 pin card-edge connectors that
> are needed :) )
>
> >
> > What hard-drive are you using? If it is a SCSI drive? Is it
> > set to ID=0? If so, choose either Seagate or Maxtor and give
> > that a try.
> >
> The drive is a Miniscribe 8425S and AFAIK, it's set to ID 0 with the
> terminating resistors installed. Seagate or Maxtor is not listed as a
> _controller_ choice when HFORMAT is run.
>
> G.
>
>
Received on Sun Dec 16 2001 - 11:30:01 GMT