MDS 225 Update

From: river <river_at_zip.com.au>
Date: Fri Dec 17 03:32:48 2004

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I went and loaded all those docos regarding the Series 2XX. Great stuff.

I cleaned up the connectors to the IO board and now the floppy drive engages upon reset. I ran the diags and all system work and even the floppy drive passed its tests with a scratch disk. However, I get a disk error when I boot the ISIS-II system disk. I tried a few other disks and the ones that are double-density all give a "disk error", yet the single-density ones just say "not bootable".

So, I guess I need to find a single density 8-inch ISIS-II boot disk. I can't use the one from my Series-4 'cos it uses 5-1/4 disks. THe unit also came with a dual disk drive array - yet another amazingly heavy blue box, and an expansion chasis. It appears that there are no cables to attach the disk array. The 225 has the two disk controller cards in the chasis and the cables are routed to the J8/J9 connectors, but I beleive there is a cable that I require to attach from these connectors to the disk array. I'd love to get the 225 fully operational 'cos it came with the ICE-80 (which I cannot use on the Series-4, which has an ICE-85B), ICE-51 and ICE-49. I especially want to use the ICE-80 so I can do some 8080 development (may as well use the stock of chips I got).

I'm gonna see if I can pull out the single-density drive in the 225 and put in one of the double density drives from the array. However, before I do that, does anyone know the cable pinouts - 'cos I might try and make a cable first. Or does anyone know where I can get a cable?

In the final run, if I can't do anything much with it, I can always use the parts for spares and other stuff.

Oh, final question... I also have an iPDS that's been waiting for a boot disk. Can I use my Series-4 ISIS-II disks in this unit? Will it boot, or is this unit doomed to be pulled apart for spares also?

seeyuzz
river
Received on Fri Dec 17 2004 - 03:32:48 GMT