jbm@uncle.UUCP (John B. Milton) (01/24/89)
In article <429@limbic.UUCP> gil@limbic.UUCP (Gil Kloepfer Jr.) writes:
[description of what you get (lots of docs), what it does, price $30, address]
I had a long conference call this evening (well, last evening) with Lenny and
Gil. What came across in the phone conversation is that all my postings about
the hard drive upgrade stimulated a lot of interest. The fact that I have been
taking so long getting my board made, and the EXTREAM need for disk space,
made them go ahead and figure out an upgrade. After going through all that,
Lenny and Gil want to publish what they have, be the result of considerable
effort, time and trouble. They also discussed the possiblity of publishing in
a magazine. One conclusion we came to is that if I had whipped my board out
sooner, they wouldn't have gone to all the trouble (what trouble? :)
All of this in no way diminishes what I'm doing. As I said in my last posting,
all the design work on my board is done. The PC board is finished, the PAL
equations have been determined, the physical mounting has been determined (one
possible configuration), the software is already done... Now I have to scare
up the money for tooling charges, for the first set of boards, for the first
set of parts to populate and finish documentation. In case some of you didn't
know, this is my first board. I find it very interesting to be on the other
side of things for change. With all the progress I've made, I'm tempted to
start accepting orders. But if I do that, it would be blatant vaporware, and
sure as shit Murphy would get me, and it wouldn't really work.
Another topic I brought up was the possiblity of some of us UNIXpc owners
getting together and talking about eveything. I brought it up because the
Trenton Computer Fest is coming up in three months. This is a BIG computer
show and flea market, held every year (I think this will be the 14th) in
Trenton New Jersey. It's just like a Ham Fest, only all computers. I would
like to set up a day and time when we can all get together there. I would like
to be selling upgrade boards, just so IBM clone heads can walk up and ask
what it is, and I can say "It's not for junk like that..."
BTW, I have still not come up with a price for my board. This being the first
time for this sort of thing, I'm scared that if I price it too low, I'll lose
money, or if I price it too high, noone will buy it. Please remember that I'm
not doing this to make huge piles of money. I'm just doing it to get the
experience, and to make an upgrade that is as easy as possible to install and
use. If you can tell honestly tell me what the board is worth to you, that
would be a great help.
I am flattered by all the complimentary messages I have received throughout
this project. I will continue to delve into the hardware and software of this
machine. Thanks to everyone for your support, but mostly for you interest.
Coming up after this project will be another quicky board (ha ha) to allow
use of high density (1.2M) floppy drives.
John
--
John Bly Milton IV, jbm@uncle.UUCP, n8emr!uncle!jbm@osu-cis.cis.ohio-state.edu
(614) h:294-4823, w:764-2933; Got any good 74LS503 circuits?pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) (01/27/89)
In article <465@uncle.UUCP> jbm@uncle.UUCP (John B. Milton) writes:
=Another topic I brought up was the possiblity of some of us UNIXpc owners
=getting together and talking about eveything. I brought it up because the
=Trenton Computer Fest is coming up in three months. This is a BIG computer
=show and flea market, held every year (I think this will be the 14th) in
=Trenton New Jersey. It's just like a Ham Fest, only all computers. I would
=like to set up a day and time when we can all get together there. I would like
Great idea, John. Call Alex Czeto or Al Katz at 609-771-2487 and tell
them you would like to give a talk on upgrading the Unix PC. I'm almost
100% positive that they will receive you with open arms. Oh, yes - ask
them to schedule it so that it doesn't conflict with my talk. :-)
Pete
--
Pete Holsberg UUCP: {...!rutgers!}princeton!mccc!pjh
Mercer College CompuServe: 70240,334
1200 Old Trenton Road GEnie: PJHOLSBERG
Trenton, NJ 08690 Voice: 1-609-586-4800jbm@uncle.UUCP (John B. Milton) (01/30/89)
In article <585@icus.islp.ny.us> lenny@icus.islp.ny.us (Lenny Tropiano) writes: >In article <465@uncle.UUCP> jbm@uncle.UUCP (John B. Milton) writes: >|>In article <429@limbic.UUCP> gil@limbic.UUCP (Gil Kloepfer Jr.) writes: >|>[description of what you get (lots of docs), what it does, price $30, address] >|> >|>I had a long conference call this evening (well, last evening) with Lenny and >|>Gil. [...] > >|>All of this in no way diminishes what I'm doing. As I said in my last posting, >|>all the design work on my board is done. The PC board is finished, the PAL >|>equations have been determined, the physical mounting has been determined (one >|>possible configuration), the software is already done... > >Hmmm, maybe I miss understood on the phone, but I thought you said that >you didn't have the software (gdisk driver) to handle the 4 drives, and >it would be a while before something like that existed, if you could >do it at all. Lenny, please don't cross post an internal news group (icus.general) to an external news group. Sorry to mislead. I meant that the software for TWO (2, II) drives is done. I do NOT have the software done to have all four drives working. Well, I couldn't resist... There was room on my board for another pair of connectors... I have a spare input and a spare output in the PAL... I have added another pair of 34 pin connectors to the board so that you can run your floppy drive cable "through" my board and to the box where your hard drives are going to live. As it passes through my board, I add one (1) signal to it. This would, of course be a select line for the second floppy drive. [DAMN! why doesn't he leave that design alone and put the board out] This addition in no way affects the other functions of my board. If you don't want to use it, you don't have to. It requires another wire on the mother board, which, of course you don't have to put in if you don't want to. As with hard drives 3 & 4, there is no software hiding in there somewhere to take advantage of a second floppy drive. This circuit has been on my board for a couple of weeks now, I just forgot :) to post about it. The bit I chose to use is D14. This is used by the internal floppy tape drive to select which stream to use. It is one of 3 bits, and is the regular floppy drive #2 select line. The floppy drive select names are different from the hard drive. They start numbering at 1, the second floppy drive is drive 2, whereas the second hard drive is DDRIVE1. from <sys/hardware.h>: #define TSEL2 0x4000 /* 1 = drive select 2 */ Anybody heard anything about a PC manufacturer called Saturn, based in MI? John -- John Bly Milton IV, jbm@uncle.UUCP, n8emr!uncle!jbm@osu-cis.cis.ohio-state.edu (614) h:294-4823, w:764-2933; Got any good 74LS503 circuits?