blarson@skat.usc.edu (Bob Larson) (07/03/88)
I bought a qt20x motherboard from FHL. This is my horror story about
it, with a mostly-happy ending. It came with a full set of OSK
documentation, and none on how to hook it up! A call to FHL got them
to send me out a 2-page flyer with the pinout for the 8-pin phone
connectors used for the serial ports, and the switch settings for the
cosole baud.
It took a long time for me to figure out why it wouldn't boot from a
floppy. After talking with Frank on the phone, I found out that "AT"
style drives don't work, even if they are jumpered for 720k (DSDD 80
track) operation. (I got one from a place out of teac 55f I had
planned to purchase.) Unfortunatly, this didn't explain why the Teac
55f that was /d1 on my QT+ wouldn't work. Had my 20x blown my spare
drive? Becoming desperate, I took my QT+ apart and tried its /d0
teac. Still no luck. Hmm, put it back in my QT+ and it works! I've
already used two different cables, (one of which I knew worked for /d1
on my QT+) time for a third. Finally success, I can boot my 20x from
my spare Teac.
Now it's time to make the system usable -- add a hard drive. The
short version is: the $60 Xebec controler (matches the picture of a
1410) doesn't work. The Shugart controler (purchased much earlier for
my homebrew hard drive for my coco) sort of works, but not completly
since it expects instructions the 20x driver doesn't supply. The 32
Meg CMI drives I had purchaed for this don't work. The 5-Meg drives
(from the coco project do work). The 1410A and 20 megger from from my
QT+ work fine. Time to button up my QT+ and get more parts for my
20x. What's this flashing light on my 20 megger and why won't my qt+
boot? Awk, the 20 megger went out! At lease I had made backups
before messing with my qt+. 5+5 won't fit 18 megs of data very well,
I guess I need a new drive. Several hundred dollars later, I come
home with a Micropolis "71" meg drive. Raid the 1410A from my QT+,
take guesses on the drive jumpers. (Glossy booklet, but why does it
assume there are only two kinds of systems: PC/XT or AT?) Nice fast
drive, 28 ms, 67 meg formated. I stuck one of the 5 meggers in to
fill the hole I had planned for the second 32 meg.
Now I need to figure out if I can get the system keeping time (it
looses several hours a day) (setime -s puts it right) and get the
battery backup working. I'm pretty sure the funkey nicad module didn't
survive the dirty water from the broken pipe upstairs, maybe the traces
of stuff left on the board that wouldn't clean off are effecting the
clock frequency.
I need more memory and serial ports. Time to spend more $ on this
beast.
--
Bob Larson Arpa: Blarson@Ecla.Usc.Edu blarson@skat.usc.edu
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