At 12:51 PM 11/25/04 +0000, you wrote:
>On Wed, 2004-11-24 at 22:15 -0500, Joe R. wrote:
>> OK I just finished posting some pictures of the Masscomp machine that I
>> took apart. Here they are:
>
>Thanks for those! That's very different to our machine - ours is a big
>tower setup; going from memory about 10" wide, maybe 24" deep and 36"
>tall. If it weren't an hour's drive away I'd go take a look at it now
>and see what it has inside...
That sounds like a pedistal system. They also made a table top and rack
mount systems but the manual mostly talks about the pedistal systems.
>
>> In no particular order these are: (1) this card that I can't remember
>> what it is <http://www.classiccmp.org/hp/masscomp/unknown.jpg>.
>
>Not much in the way of large chips on that - given that and the size of
>the connectors, it suggests some sort of data aquisition again to me, or
>parallel output to something...
>
>> (6) The last card in the system (topmost) is a XMC (hard)disk/floppy/tape
>> controller
>>
<
http://www.classiccmp.org/hp/masscomp/XMC%20disk-floppy-tape%20controller%2
>> 0xylogic%20431.jpg>. I believe this actually a XYLogics 431 card.
>
>Hmm, that looks vaguely like NCR's Mass Storage Controller - quite
>possibly the same board. I'll have to have a look; I've got an MSC
>culled from a Tower 400 but it's not to hand at the mo (God knows *why*
>I've kept it; it's of no use in my Tower 700 as that has a SCSI
>controller)
The manual says that there's also a XMD controller for LARGE (ESDI?)
hard drives that only controls HDs. It uses an 8031 microcontroller and has
a large connector (34 pin?) in the top center of the card and two smaller
ones (20 pin?) on each side of it. And also a XMT card that can be used to
control up to two Pertec 1/2" tape drives. That card also uses an 8031 and
it has two large connectors on the top edge. I'm pretty sure that all three
of the cards are XYLogics cards. The interesting thing about them is that
they use I/O Parameter Blocks to communicate with them just like the Intel
MDSs do. I'm not that familar with the structure of Intel's IOPBs but this
manual has a detailed description of ones that these cards use so someone
could check them against the Intel description and see if they're the same.
If you'll post a picture of your card I'll compare it against the drawings
in the manual and see if it matches.
>
>cheers!
>
>Jules
>
>
Received on Thu Nov 25 2004 - 08:17:52 GMT
