Maybe I shouldn't speak until I find what I will talk about, but here
goes anyway. I used GRiD computers extensively during their "hey day"
and I have several versions of the GRiDCase models. There was a program
that I have somewhere that allows you to create MS-DOS bootable EPROM
images and put files onto EPROMs for that series. It has about 10 or 15
pages of documentation. I will look for it all, scan it, and make it
available to anyone who would like it. Let me know if it is worth the
effort for me to do this. As long as there are a few who would use it
I'll do that. Just reply to the list and I'll watch for interested folks.
For a while I had a gridcase powering up each night about 3am, running a
program that would recalculate on and off times for a bunch of X10
modules based on sunset and sunrise, and send that new schedule to the
CP292 controller module through the serial port. All that was done on a
simple GRiDCase 3 (the one with the plasma screen) and without any hard
drive or floppy. It was all orchestrated from a single EPROM (or maybe
it was two) that contained the boot code, and autoexec.bat, and the X-10
program. The last command it would issue to the CP292 X-10 controller
was a command to kill the power to the GRiDCase itself. Every night at
3am this sequence would repeat. I thought that was a cool application
for a ROM-based PC.
Over the years Grid eventually removed the capability to store programs
on EPROM, but I think it remained up through some of the 386-based
GRiDCase models.
Joe wrote:
> I don't remember which model Grids I have but I've had them loose
> their settings due to sitting too long and then they they couldn't
> access their hard drives. All of them had a little door on the left
> side above the keyboard with EPROM sockets in them. I finally found
> one that had a EPROM in the socket. With that I could boot any of
> them to a ***virtual*** C: drive and then update the settings and
> then the computer would boot on the real C: drive even with the EPROM
> removed. I've been meaning to make some copies of that EPROM but I
> don't have a working EPROM burned that will burn that EPROM (27c010
> IIRC). FWIW none of my Grids have a floppy drive. The floppy drive
> is external and I've never been able to find one.
>
> Joe
>
>
>
> At 07:04 PM 1/29/03 -0600, you wrote:
>
>> I not too recenly picked up a GRiDCase 3 with 2 "GRiD Disc System
>> 2204" external hard drives. Just yesterday they both started acting
>> up on me. It would initially spin up when you turned it on, but
>> after a few seconds they would just kick off. A few seconds later I
>> get a "1702" message on my screen.
>>
>> I'm lead to believe that there could be a configuration problem
>> somewhere, but I'm not 100% sure on this.
>>
>> My questions are:
>>
>> 1. What is going on here? 2. How do I fix this? -- David Vohs
>> netsurfer_x1_at_fastmailbox.net
>>
>> -- http://fastmail.fm - Choose from over 50 domains or use your own
>>
>
>
> .
>
--
Dave Mabry dmabry_at_mich.com
Dossin Museum Underwater Research Team
NACD #2093
Received on Thu Jan 30 2003 - 07:57:00 GMT