jcallen@maxzilla.encore.com (Jerry Callen) (08/12/90)
Chalk up another live one; now the REAL work begins (blowing the latest EPROM image, getting Minix and loading it, etc.). I just want to say thanks to Dave and George (and, soon I hope, Bruce!); I'm a happy hacker right now. There were a few minor glitches; the 50MHz oscillator had to be thunked gently to get it running (really!), and I had pins 2 and 3 flipped on my lash-up terminal cable. George, the 32532 REALLY runs HOT! I'm not leaving this puppy powered up very long at a stretch until I get an enclosure and a fan. -- Jerry "onward to Minix" Callen jcallen@encore.com (617) 876-5330 (home)
george@wombat.bungi.COM (George Scolaro) (08/12/90)
[In the message entitled "Another one lives!" on Aug 11, 23:35, Jerry Callen writes:] > > Chalk up another live one; now the REAL work begins (blowing the latest Congratulations. So far it seems that we have 100% success rate on getting boards up (unless some of you have been real quite about failures?). > lash-up terminal cable. George, the 32532 REALLY runs HOT! I'm not leaving > this puppy powered up very long at a stretch until I get an enclosure and > a fan. REALLY HOT means that the skin on your finger should fuse in a second or two followed by a scream of pain and many @#)(&%(*#$&*(&@. If on the other hand (tee hee) you can leave your finger on the chip for many seconds before deciding that it is 'hot' and then removing said finger without screaming then the chip is still cool! It seems that many of you are worried about the 32532 running hot, at 25 MHz NS does not require any airflow over the chip at normal temperatures (i.e. <70 C ambient). At 30 MHz they recommended fan cooling - last time I checked any how. All the boards that Dave & I have run (for many days on end while checking the design out) were never fan cooled and were just run on the bench in the open - so don't panic too much. best regards, -- George Scolaro george@wombat.bungi.com [37 20 51 N / 122 03 07 W]
loeliger@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu (Jon Loeliger) (08/13/90)
> > Chalk up another live one; now the REAL work begins (blowing the latest > > Congratulations. So far it seems that we have 100% success rate on getting > boards up Well, here's the live list as I have gleaned it so far: The Few, The Proud, The Living ------------------------------ Who Really Who --- ---------- Jerry Callen callen@maxzilla.encore.com John Connin tarpit!manatee!johnc Ian Dall ian@sibyl.eleceng.ua.oz.au Sverre Froyen mips!fesk.seri.gov!sverre Bdale Garbee bdale@col.hp.com Jordan Hubbard jkh@meepmeep.pcs.com Ron Irvine ron@hcr.com Neil Johnson niel@skatter.USask.ca Robbin Johnson rjohnson@kiwi.mpr.ca Jon Loeliger loeliger@convex.com Garry Lowell glowell@well.sf.ca.us Peter P pp@prosys.se Ben Pan (2) bpan@chips.com Dave Rand dlr@daver.bungi.com Fred Schneider K0YUM, k0yum%winfree.uucp@col.hp.com Karl Swartz uunet!apple!zygot!ditka!kls George Scolaro george@wombat.bungi.com Robert D. Vincent bert@Shiva.COM Tatu Yl|nen (8) ylo@ngs.fi Desmond Young des@dtg.nsc.com Bruce Culbertson culberts@hplwbc.hpl.hp.com> some other German board noted by Jordan (who's?) As usual, if you aren't on the list and you want to be and your board suddenly springs to life one dim 3 AM, send me a piece of mail or post your exuberance to the pc532 list and I'll add you to the list of The Few, The Proud, The Living. > (unless some of you have been real quite about failures?). I need to do another round of search-and-debug on this board of mine... I still think it works and it's just that I get no console I/O. Is it possible that the console's 2681 is holding the chip enable pin high? Like, the 2681 itself is fried? Should I attempt to swap 2681s? Should I remove the 2681 itself, then test to see if the 74F138 is actually trying to pull the /DUART0 line low but is somehow being held high? Anyone have a clue what I am talking about? > before deciding that it is 'hot' and then removing said finger without > screaming then the chip is still cool! Glad to see that mine is still running cool! jdl ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jon Loeliger | loeliger@convex.com Convex Computer Corporation | I'm the thirteenth at your table, 3000 Waterview, Richardson TX 75080 | I'm the uninvited guest. - Marillion
phil@Shiva.COM (Phil Budne) (08/13/90)
I have mine up (with Minix even) but only at 10Mhz! -p
jvh@robin.hut.fi (08/15/90)
Hello Jon, I notice we Finns have been a bit silent so I'll try to somewhat complete your list. >Well, here's the live list as I have gleaned it so far: > Tatu Yl|nen (8) ylo@ngs.fi These are the ones I know of in approximate order of appearance (All the six from hut (Helsinki University of Technology) came to life within one day. There still are one that does need some rewelding plus at least two uncompleted ones. Only two of the boards came to life immediately. The others did need some rewelding. We had serious problems in getting some parts so it took quite some time to get them running. After getting the last parts we got six boards running within one day. In fact I'm almost sure my list is incomplete. The greatest performance was by cessu, who touched his board for the first time one evening. The next morning the board was running! Jukka Virtanen jtv@kampi.hut.fi Antti Louko alo@kampi.hut.fi Johannes Helander jvh@cs.hut.fi Tatu Yl|nen ylo@ngs.fi Johan Myreen jem@cs.hut.fi Kenneth Oksanen cessu@niksula.hut.fi # Then one I know of from Tampere Markku J{rvinen mta@tut.fi Regards, Johannes
phil@unicorn.wwu.edu (Phil Nelson) (08/25/90)
The subject says it! Another pc532 LIVES! This time in Bellingham, WA. Thanks to ALL! Phil Nelson (phil@unicorn.wwu.edu) P.S. It came up the first time. No debugging needed.
mea@mea.utu.fi (Matti Aarnio) (09/03/90)
> Hello Jon, > > I notice we Finns have been a bit silent so I'll try to somewhat > complete your list. I add another one: Matti Aarnio mea@mea.utu.fi I guess it works - but not having 9600 bps terminal at home (or maybe having - its just too difficult to use - one of my older selfmade micros) I looked signals with 20MHz scope. Came up at once. Two days later I went to summer vacation trip, now I might have time to check it again with a terminal and be sure... > Regards, > Johannes /Matti Aarnio <mea@utu.fi>
bdale@hpcsos.col.hp.com (Bdale Garbee) (10/25/90)
John Conner, WD0FHG, arrived to have lunch with me today with the news that his pc532 is now alive and well! A few minutes ago, he called to say the board is now mounted in his mini-tower case, with 80meg disk drive, and is still working fine. John reports two common problems bringing his board up. He didn't have the processor and fpu in their sockets far enough, and he had a bad solder joint "somewhere in the memory section". For the record, John is empire!conner, or if that won't resolve right, he can be reached as conner%winfree.uucp@col.hp.com. Bdale
news@daver.bungi.com (11/11/90)
Yippee! My PC532 is up! Thanks to Robert Vincent for his no-FPU patches. The exact addresses to patch in the ROM are as follows: 01E1: 04 -> 02 01FE: 02 -> 01 0288: 02 -> 01 02EB: 04 -> 02 5C00: F7 -> F5 (initial CFG lsb) I debugged the problems with a logic probe only. In so doing, I uncovered two Hidden Mysteries of the PC-532: 1. The console connector is CONN3. The baud rate is 9600. 2. If only 4 SIMMs are used, they must be installed at U6, U8, U10 and U12 - every *other* slot, *Not* the first 4!! (How did I figure that out? Call it intuition.) The rest is denoument. I even wrote a downloader for PC-DOS and got Minix up and running. But nothing could exceed the thrill of seeing that monitor prompt for the first time. (Well, almost nothing.) While I have the podium, extracting the 532 chip from the Designer's Kit board was incredibly difficult. It took me almost an hour. No way am I going to try that again. Is anyone interested in a DK-532, minus 532, in PS/2 cabinet with power supply, including all bipolar RAM, 16550s, etc.? And by the way, what a great monitor!! And of course, thanks to Dave Rand, George Scolaro, Steve Ligett, Bruce Culbertson, and all the rest of you fine folks out there who have done such a terrific job designing a great computer. Throw out your glitter boxes! The PC532 has arrived!
bobm%pixel@uunet.UU.NET (Bob Miller) (12/28/90)
My pc532 runs! I finally bought a power supply, finished the soldering, populated the board, and turned it on. It took me about 12 hours to realize I had a bogus RS232 cable, but now all the hardware is functional (as far as I can tell). I've got it talking to the canonical Miniscribe disk, and packed into a neato box, and I'm working on getting Minix up on it. Gee, thanks, George, Dave, Karl, Steve, Bruce, Jon, and Lee! I never owned my own computer before. I like it. K<bob>