dougm@madnix.UUCP (Doug McIntyre) (08/14/90)
Okay, with all this talk I've started on the WD2010B, I've decided to
go out and price them..
The WD2010B is really outdated, in fact the distributer I've talked to, said
he only had a few left, (less than 100 for them I guess..)
But since, this is a distributer we have to go through, we have minimum
order and stuff like that..
The minimum order would be $200, and the chips cost $54 each..
This is through the local Hallmark Electronics Corp here in Minneapolis..
The mail messages I've recieved quoted about the same price, so this isn't
that great of a price shock..
So does anybody want to go through a group buy on these things? I really only
want people that are comitted to buying these, as I don't want to be stuck
with $54 parts lying around here..
Respond with mail if you are interested...
=================================
Second, can anyone who has the source, (or re-constructed/ and figured it out)
what exactly the program /etc/ph has to do? This is the one
leaving all the 15k .phdir file droppings around in my user directories, and
the one that tries to keep up the ua style file directory structure, which
is pretty useless for somebody not even running ua..
This is a pretty huge program to sit and figure out.. The disassembled
text part alone is 405k or so.. The data and BSS is over 1M.. (disassembly
output..)
From what I've looked at in /etc/ph, (the 1st 100k or so) is sits and parses
the file /usr/lib/ua/phnum.. (also pretty useless for me..)
Has anybody done just the important parts that the other programs seem to
need? (and won't run if /etc/ph isn't installed?
Why do they need /etc/ph in the first place? )
===================================
Third:
I'm having problems with a Minniscribe 3085 I installed,
(and started all the talk on the WD2010 on).. I'm getting weird errors
all over the place. Whenever the drive hits these regions, I get a
re-callibration, and the process being killed that tried to read this
region in the first place..
Its not like a head crash, because I've been running for two weeks without
an error now.. But whenever I put something big on the drive, (ie. unpacking
a GNU piece of software or so), it will run into an error..
Some of the cylinders that have had trouble are: (all on head 0)
346,30,9,35,34,25,50,467,247,33,132
Is this a major problem with the drive? Should I attempt to
return/replace this drive? Or is it something I've done? I did a low
level surface test when I installed the drive, (about a month ago) and
it passed perfectly, (except for the bad blocks already entered in the
bad block table of course..) I haven't tried a new low level surface
test, but I don't think that would help much..
===========================================
Lastly,
Where does the code that can print graphics on the different
printers live? (ie. a screen dump)... Is it in the wmgr someplace?
(for all the printers supported?!?)
--
UUCP: {harvard|rutgers|ucbvax}!uwvax!astroatc!nicmad!madnix!dougm
{decvax|att}!crimmins@csli.Stanford.EDU (Mark Crimmins) (08/14/90)
In <1476@madnix.UUCP> dougm@madnix.UUCP (Doug McIntyre) writes: >I'm having problems with a Minniscribe 3085 I installed, >(and started all the talk on the WD2010 on).. I'm getting weird errors >all over the place. Whenever the drive hits these regions, I get a >re-callibration, and the process being killed that tried to read this >region in the first place.. >Its not like a head crash, because I've been running for two weeks without >an error now.. But whenever I put something big on the drive, (ie. unpacking >a GNU piece of software or so), it will run into an error.. >Some of the cylinders that have had trouble are: (all on head 0) >346,30,9,35,34,25,50,467,247,33,132 Sounds a lot like the problem many of us had, that is cured, believe it or not, by cleaning the 20-pin (or so) molex ribbon connector on the power supply board. Clean it well. When the pins are dirty, the p.s. has to work to hard, and voltage everwhere (including the h.d.) is affected. Mark crimmins@csli.stanford.edu
thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) (08/15/90)
All the discussion about the WD2010 and the UNIXPC is interesting. As I stated a few weeks ago, I'm looking into this matter since several people have reported problems with the WD2010 from the group buy I arranged last year. If he hasn't already (postings are slow to return back to PORTAL), Chad Netzer will post some preliminary findings re: WD2010, a Miniscribe 3085, and several revisions of the UNIXPC motherboard. In summary, all of the 3085, the WD2010, and the motherboard(s), are good and OK in and of themselves, but some combos simply do NOT work. The highest motherboard rev level tested so far is ``C''. Just before the fire here (July 1), I was looking at the UNIXPC schematics in the vicinity of the 26LS31 and 26LS32 chips (data I/O from/to the HD), and there are some significant differences depending on the motherboard rev level. Since my books are still in storage, I cannot examine them, but hopefully they'll be back by this weekend, and I'm going to run some experiments. Since I'm operating several 3B1 systems with a WD2010 and a 6085, it's my "gut feeling" that all that's needed is to upgrade the motherboards to current specs (just some wire and stuff). But, we'll see. Other differences (on my systems) include the 3B1 power supplies adjusted to 5.20VDC and 12.4VDC, Cramolin-preserved connectors, operation on UPS systems, and everything properly grounded. Thad Floryan [ thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]
yarvin-norman@cs.yale.edu (Norman Yarvin) (08/18/90)
In article <32819@cup.portal.com> thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes: >Other differences (on my systems) include the 3B1 power supplies adjusted to >5.20VDC and 12.4VDC, Cramolin-preserved connectors, operation on UPS systems, >and everything properly grounded. Why the higher power supply voltages? For higher speed to cure flakeys? Are you normally overloading the power supplies, to bring them back to normal? -- Norman Yarvin yarvin-norman@cs.yale.edu
chad@cup.portal.com (Chad The-Walrus Netzer) (08/18/90)
In a previous article (Thad Floryan) writes:
)If he hasn't already (postings are slow to return back to PORTAL), Chad Netzer
)will post some preliminary findings re: WD2010, a Miniscribe 3085, and several
)revisions of the UNIXPC motherboard. In summary, all of the 3085, the WD2010,
)and the motherboard(s), are good and OK in and of themselves, but some combos
)simply do NOT work. The highest motherboard rev level tested so far is ``C''.
Here are the preliminary results of my testing:
Equipment:
WD2010B disk controller chip
WD1010A disk controller chip
ATT 7300 w/ motherboard upgrade to 2 megs (Rev B. Motherboard)
ATT 7300 (Rev C.) motherboard
Miniscribe 3085 hard disk
Miniscribe 10 meg drive (model number unknown, came standard
with certain machines)
UNIX 3.51m operating system
Enhanced diagnostics disk with support for larger drives
Basic Problem:
WD2010 should allow formatting and use of drives with greater
than 1024 cylinders. Should replace WD1010 on motherboard
with a simple chip swap.
However, WD2010 does not work correctly in all situations
(detailed below).
Description of tests and results:
After the failure of my WD2010 to work properly, I did some simple
tests. By swapping the WD2010 and the 3085 drive under all
possible configuarions (with available hardware), I was able
to chart which combinations worked, and which didn't. This
chart is detailed below.
WD1010A | WD2010B
------- | -------
Rev B Motherboard |
w/ Stock 10 meg WORKED | WORKED
drive and 2 meg |
ram. |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rev C Motherboard |
w/ Stock 10 meg WORKED | WORKED
drive and 512 K |
ram. |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rev B Motherboard |
w/ 3085 drive WORKED | * FAILED *
and 2 meg ram. |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rev C Motherboard |
w/ 3085 drive WORKED | * FAILED *
and 512 K ram. |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Symptoms of failure:
The symptoms of failure remain consistant across motherboard
revisions. Upon booting up on systems with both the WD2010 and
Miniscribe 3085 installed, when trying to boot off the hard
disk, which prints out the "Searching for Hard disk" message
followed by printing of successive asterisks, it will silently
fail and simply start to boot off the floppy disk again. It
doesn't reset the machine or clear the screen. It simply skips
down the screen and tries to boot off the floppy again, then
the hard disk, then the floppy, etc. over and over. The
failure when booting off the hard disk occurs at different
times and is not particularly consistent. Occasionally it even
gets past the asterisks stage, but fails later.
Note that this is version 3.51m of the operating system, and
it does correctly print out that a WD2010 is installed when
started up.
If I proceed by booting up the diagnostics disk, and doing
a hard disk subsystem test, an initialize, or any disk
operation, I get (variations on) this error message:
"Subtest: format"
"Error: Winchester: Can't Recal: Response = 10"
or:
"Subtest: read all the disk"
"Error: Winchester: Error on check read: Response = 10,
startblock = 10"
The "Response = 10" is pretty consistent. Also, when
formatting the drive, it actually appears to go through all the
cylinders and initialize them, but after the last cylinder, the
above type error messages appear when attempting to do a
surface test. But the format itself seems to work.
Summary of tests:
The tests show that the two cases where the combinations
didn't work were with both the WD2010B and Miniscribe 3085.
This may lead one to believe that these two items are
incompatible, but I know of cases where the combination of
WD2010 and Miniscribe 3085 do work perfectly together. (As Thad
Floryan will attest to.) Also, I have tried with two separate
WD2010B chips, and they both exibited the exact same symptoms.
I have not tried it with either the WD2010A or WD2010C chips.
Speculations and general notes:
Because I know that the WD2010 and 3085 are not inherently
incompatible, I suspect the problem to be due to an obscure
motherboard bug that was fixed in later revisions. I would
therefore like to know what motherboards are being used in
those machines that have been able to get the WD2010 and 3085
to work.
It may be due to an incompatability between the "B" model of
the WD2010, which may not be present in other moodels (ie. the
"A" or "C")
It may also be due to improper setup of 3085 somehow. It came
with only one jumper, the drive select, which didn't work when
set to the (shipped) default of "2". Setting to one fixed the
problem (before installing WD2010). Do any of the other jumper
selections on the drive need to be set (highly unlikely I suspect).
Perhaps it is a problem with the power supply not giving
enough output. But since the 3085 (should) use less power than
the older drives, I would suspect the failures to be reversed
if that were the case, and it should also fail with the WD1010A.
Request for help and experiences:
If any of you have working, (or non-working) combinations of
the WD2010 and the Miniscribe 3085, please E-mail me your
motherboard revision if you know it, and anything else you
might consider helpful. I initially want to try and get as
wide a range of data on which motherboards the combination will
or won't work. If there is a pattern, it may help us find a
fix for ALL cases. Also indicate what rev. level of the WD2010
chip you are using, ie. "A", "B", or "C". This letter should
appear after the number "2010" on the chip itself.
I have tested on Rev. B and Rev. C motherboards, with only
the "B" chip so far. In the future, I may be able test with
the "A" chip, on higher Rev. level motherboards, once Thad
Floryan has more time to spare, and his Lab is restored from
the fire damage. This may yet be quite a ways off if ever,
however, and the sooner we start tabulating data, the better.
So please send in any facts, or suggestions you might have. If
the problem ever gets fixed, it WILL be made available for all.
Send all correspondence to:
chad@cup.portal.com (until the end of September)
chad@slugmail.ucsc.edu (From October onwards)
PS. As an aside, I noticed someone offering to sponser a group buy
for the WD2010 chips, for about $50 apiece. Just to let you
know, I got my first WD2010 off an IBM XT hard disk controller
which cost about $40 list (that is for the whole controller
board, from which you can desolder the chip like I did.),
although I got the board for free. I got the second chip at
Ace Electronics in Santa Clara, Ca. for $11, and they had about
20 or more at the time. The stock was rapidly depleted by a
person who will remain nameless :-), But the point is that they
should NOT be that hard or expensive to get if you just shop
around, even if you have to avoid the "mainstream" outlets...
Just some friendly advice for prospective buyers.
If you are interested, the number of Ace Electronics is:
(408) 730-4660
(408) 730-2145 FAX
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chad Netzer -> chad@cup.portal.comthad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) (08/19/90)
yarvin-norman@cs.yale.edu (Norman Yarvin) in <25832@cs.yale.edu> writes: In article <32819@cup.portal.com> thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes: >Other differences (on my systems) include the 3B1 power supplies >adjusted to 5.20VDC and 12.4VDC, Cramolin-preserved connectors, >operation on UPS systems, and everything properly grounded. Why the higher power supply voltages? For higher speed to cure flakeys? Are you normally overloading the power supplies, to bring them back to normal? The specs call for (+/-) 5% on both the +5VDC and +12VDC supplies. This means that an "in-spec" system could have: +5.25 VDC through +4.75 VDC, and +12.60 VDC through +11.40 VDC I used to manufacture 15,000 to 20,000 power supplies a month for several noted modem manufacturers, and it's my experience that operating at the high end (within spec) promotes cooler power supply operation and more reliable overall operation of connected systems. I still manufacture a (smaller) quantity of power supplies for use with one of my own products and I still operate the voltages at the high end (and this product is used in a "Hi-Rel" application by, interestingly enough, many of the phone companies and the DoD, and is GSA-qualified/-certified). Resistive losses (PC board traces, connectors, cabling) and "marginal" part problems are offset by the slightly higher voltage operation. Considering that I operate my systems and other equipment 24 hours/day (and have for years) and simply have NO problems should be testimony to my theory. For the record, I've seen 3B1/UNIXPC systems which operated erratically; a simple adjustment to the power supply caused the systems to function flawlessly . I've seen the "+12 VDC" as low as 10.2 on some UNIXPCs, and those same systems had erratic HD operation which was cured by the power supply adjustment. Vibration, shock of transporting, oxidation of the contacts in the adjustment potentiometers themselves, and component aging and burn-in, can cause the power supply voltages to drift over a period of time. I have to check AND adjust the supplies on my VAX and DEC-20 systems every several months, and I check the supplies on my UNIXPCs and other systems every 6 months or so when I clean out the fans. If anyone IS having problems with their system(s) and hasn't checked the power supply voltages, do YOURSELF a favor and check/adjust them, especially if you've bought your system "used" and/or it's over a year old (yes, there still ARE brand-new, factory-sealed systems to be found (though they were manufacture d in late 1986). CAUTION: do NOT measure the voltages with your power supply free-standing, it MUST be connected to a load. To set the +12 voltage it's best to use a "Y" connector attached to the HD so that the voltages are available on the unused connector for easier measurement; you don't want to, say, sneeze or slip, and short the probes against something and destroy your system(s). If anyone needs the pinouts and specs of the UNIXPC's power supplies again, I can repost the info (I don't know if the info is archived at osu-cis). Thad Floryan [ thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]
mco@slimer.UUCP (Mark C. Otto) (08/20/90)
In article <32963@cup.portal.com> thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes: > >If anyone needs the pinouts and specs of the UNIXPC's power supplies again, >I can repost the info (I don't know if the info is archived at osu-cis). I don't see them on osu-cis. Maybe Lenny can confirm this. At any rate, you have peaked interest here and there enough to warrant a repost, I think. I know I could use thie info, since I'm definately going to take your advice and reset my supply voltages toward the upper range of safe operation. -- Mark C. Otto EMail: mco@slimer, {teemc | hpftc}!slimer!mco Voice: 1-313-441-4264 USnail: 5133 Heather #208, Dearborn, MI. 48126 Quote: "Yeah. Right. Kermit my a*s." - Mark C. Otto, '90
jbm@celebr.uucp (John B. Milton) (08/22/90)
In article <32963@cup.portal.com> thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes: >yarvin-norman@cs.yale.edu (Norman Yarvin) in <25832@cs.yale.edu> writes: ... >If anyone IS having problems with their system(s) and hasn't checked the power >supply voltages, do YOURSELF a favor and check/adjust them, especially if >you've bought your system "used" and/or it's over a year old (yes, there still >ARE brand-new, factory-sealed systems to be found (though they were manufacture >d >in late 1986). > >CAUTION: do NOT measure the voltages with your power supply free-standing, it >MUST be connected to a load. To set the +12 voltage it's best to use a "Y" >connector attached to the HD so that the voltages are available on the unused >connector for easier measurement; you don't want to, say, sneeze or slip, and >short the probes against something and destroy your system(s). Watch out here. Always clean off the power connectors FIRST. If you are having an intermittent problem because of oxidation, you could OVER adjust your power supply. The next time you bump your machine, the connector scrapes, the oxidation falls off, the resistance drops and all of a sudden the system is getting way too high a voltage. This can cause all sorts of damage all over the motherboard. Adjusting the power supply is like tuning up your car, fix everything else before you try any adjustments. HD2 production is still proceeding at EDA. I cashed the first 30 orders worth of checks to pay EDA. Since they have to assemble boards by hand, I will get finished boards from them in dribbles. As I test and verify, I will ship them out. I still need to order more 26LS3[12] chips, and I need to find someone with a ribbon cable press to assemble the motherboard to HD2 connectors. Work is progressing slowly on the IBM to UNIXpc BussBridge John -- John Bly Milton IV, jbm@uncle.UUCP, n8emr!uncle!jbm@osu-cis.cis.ohio-state.edu (614) h:252-8544, w:469-1990; N8KSN, AMPR: 44.70.0.52; Don't FLAME, inform!