rgt@LANL.GOV (Richard Thomsen) (12/03/87)
This is for all the people who have been interested in my changes for
DEC Rainbow system code. I have changed IO.SYS and other parts of the
Rainbow Version 2.11 system code to allow me to put in two Shugart
double-sided, double-density disk drives. They are still 100% Rainbow
compatible, including Rainbow single-sided disks, IBM 8- and 9-sector
single-sided disks, but now also do both IBM 8- and 9-sector double-sided
disks as well as double-sided Rainbow disk drives (which give me over 800KB
of disk space on one floppy).
To do this, I replaced my standard Rainbow disk drives with the two
Shugart disk drives. This was the ONLY hardware change.
The software changes were to the IO.SYS file, the MS-DOS Bootstrap file,
the hard disk primary and secondary bootstrap files (done because I am
running with a RD52 33 Meg disk), and the floppy disk primary bootstrap
file (done so I can boot from double-sided disks). I also changed the
FORMAT program so that I could format double-sided disks. Then I obtained
a copy of the FORIBM.COM program that formats IBM single-sided disks on
the Rainbow for use on MS-DOS (it runs on CP/M). I modified this program
to format IBM double-sided disks for my system.
While I was at it, I put in code to extend the Rainbow keyboard buffer,
and to allow CONTROL-CANCEL to clear the typeahead buffer, and to allow
CONTROL-SHIFT-CANCEL to kill any process currently running. These can be
changed to any desired key, although I never wrote the system code to
actually do it. Then I put in the hooks for disk caching, and wrote some
of the code to do that, but never finished.
All the work was done after I typed in the BIOS code from the Rainbow
listings in the documentation set, and then fixing it by adding the files
that DEC did not bother to print in the set (and apparently commented out
of the listings themselves). The other files I obtained by disassembling
the Z-80 code and 8088 code that I needed (when just reading the
documentation was not good enough). I can assure you, debugging all this
was a real pain!!!
I need to emphasize that the changes are 100% compatible with the existing
Rainbow disks and operating system - I have had no problems. I have a
Rainbow at work that is unmodified, and I still exchange programs and disks
between that one and the one I have at home that I did modify.
I wrote to Digital Review magazine about this and got no response.
I wrote to DEC Professional magazine offering to write an article on
how I did this and to provide patches. They said that they no longer
print articles on the Rainbow, and would forward my letter on to
Ted Needleman who prints a Rainbow magazine.
I had already written to him offering the same deal, but got no response.
I was going to write to Digital Review again with the same article,
but have not yet done so.
I wrote to DECUS, and my letter was published in the newsletters back
in April or so, but no other response.
I sent a set of DIFFERENCE files between my code and standard DEC code
and sent it to Bernie Eiben, who used to provide Rainbow files on the DEC
MARKET machine. He was going to make them available somewhere, or do
something with them, but I have heard nothing.
Since it is DEC copyright code that I have modified, I cannot make the
complete source available without their permission. I have never received
any sort of reply from DEC for any letters or anything else I have written.
I had some hardware ideas for upgrading the Rainbow also, and have written
many letters to many groups about this. I have yet to receive ONE reply.
These ideas included putting an Intel 80186 and 8087 into the Rainbow,
as well as putting in a SCSI interface for the machine, multiple
processors, and possibly even an 80386. I wrote to Microsoft about building
my own computer and obtaining permission to port MS-DOS onto my new creation,
and was told to "see my machine's hardware manufacturer". Very useful.
I started my own company to develop some of these ideas, and was told that
I should forget about the Rainbow and concentrate on the IBM PC, since
that is where the market is. Now I am trying to close the company (state
bureaucracies are just as bad as federal ones), and will probably forget
the whole thing. Even if I sell my Rainbow, I am not allowed to sell my
modified software or include it in the sale.
I have received some requests for information and other things, but I
have not done anything else yet about this, including writing the
articles (since no-one seemed to care about them anyway, and I have been
busy with other projects).
What I may end up doing is writing the article and posting it to the net,
along with another set of difference files. But I am open for suggestions.
Note that difference files without associated source code is not very
useful. Especially when the source code is not even printed correctly
in the (expensive) documentation books.
And then DEC wonders why people who used to own Rainbows will not buy
VAXmates. Or any other DEC products.
I bought a PIXY-3 plotter cheap from mail order, and wrote a version of the
GKS graphics standard to run it. It runs the plotter as one device, and
I was going to make it write to the Rainbow screen in both high- and low-
resolution modes as two more devices. I obtained the DEC-written library
that writes to the screen and mean to (someday) modify it to work with my
package. I also need to make a few changes to the device-independent part
of the package to make it a bit faster. Since it uses floating point,
and I do not have a floating point chip, I never worried too much about the
speed of things. I only use it for caligraphy anyway, since I put in the
Hershey fonts that I got off the net.
This is another project that I have never finished, especially since my
Rainbow screen lost its blue gun, and so does not do graphics very well.
My frustration level with computers (actually computer companies) has risen
very high, and I have not been motivated to do anything with computers
on my own time for quite some time.
Richard Thomsen
Mountain Route Box 234
Jemez Springs, NM 87544
This is in response to some of the questions I received. I tried to respond
via mail to many of these, and never succeeded.
From D-ROGERS@EDWARDS-2060.ARPA Fri Sep 18 09:51:57 1987
Richard,
Have you put together a patch package for io.sys yet? Did DEC say
anything negative? I am interested in the patches, if you still care to
them. ADVthanxANCE [dale]
From obrien%obrien.decnet@venus.ycc.yale.edu Fri Oct 23 07:09:33 1987
I'd be curious to see how you did bios mods for the Rainbow. Did you rig
it so that you could just connect 2sdd drives directly? (i.e. is it a cheap
alternative to Idrive?) I have Idrive - I'm just curious about the insides
of my machine. As far as I know, DEC released the 2.11 BIOS to anyone who
wrote and said they wanted it - I have a listing at home! Or were you speaking
specifically about the 3.1 version of the BIOS? If you're a hardware expert,
do you know of anyone who has connected a Multisync monitor to a Rainbow?
Regards
Jim O'Brien
Department of Chemical Engineering
Yale University
P.O.Box 2159 Yale Station
New Haven, CT 06520, U.S.A.
+1 203 432 4382
Return Addresses (all equivalent):
OBRIEN@YALEVMS BITnet
OBRIEN-JAMES@YALECS BITnet
OBRIEN%OBRIEN.DECNET%VENUS@YALECS BITnet
OBRIEN@VENUS.YCC.YALE.EDU internet
OBRIEN-JAMES@YALE.EDU internet
OBRIEN%OBRIEN.DECNET@VENUS.YCC.YALE.EDU internet
------
From art@mitre.arpa Thu Oct 29 07:53:42 1987
As you indicated in your previous note. You can distribute changes to the
BIOS without violating any copywright laws. You can not however distribute
a full copy of your modified bios without DEC's permission. I did write
to Ron Gemma (Rainbow product manager) on several questions. I included
your question as part of the letter. After a wait of 6 months I finally
received a form letter that made it very clear that DEC had never even read
my letter. The form letter was an answer to the form letter that appeared
in a year old WARUG newsletter asking for MS-DOS 3.10, networking kit etc.
Thru other verbal communications I have been told that MANY MANY of the form
letters were received by DEC and anything that looked like it came as the
result of the C. Mack/ T. Needleman generated letter writing campaign was
answered by this form letter. At this point you could write an article
telling how to do it. DEC Professional or Ted Needleman would probably
be willing to pay for such an article. I would like to obtain the information
on how to do it, and probably would make the changes.
*
*---Art
*
*Arthur T. McClinton Jr. ARPA: ART@MITRE.ARPA
*Mitre Corporation MS-Z305 Phone: 703-883-6356
*1820 Dolley Madison Blvd Internal Mitre: ART@MWVMS or M10319@MWVM
*McLean, Va. 22102 DECUS DCS: MCCLINTON
*
From D-ROGERS@EDWARDS-2060.ARPA Thu Oct 29 15:13:27 1987
After reading the last msg on this subject on the net, sounds like
you are free to distribute the list of changes. If you are not inclined to
sell an article to Needleman's newsletter, i'd be most grateful to get
whatever patching info you can supply. The DIF files might be all that's
needed. advTHANXance [dale]
-------
From art@mitre.arpa Mon Nov 16 10:35:05 1987
Jim Wolfe (301) 765-8743 is very interested in getting your mods to the
drivers and BIOS. He indicates he would have time to convert the changes
to the format acceptable by DEC for widespread distribution. DEC will allow
people to distribute difference files.
I gave him you name but did not have your phone number.
*
*---Art
*
*Arthur T. McClinton Jr. ARPA: ART@MITRE.ARPA
*Mitre Corporation MS-Z305 Phone: 703-883-6356
*7525 Colshire Drive Internal Mitre: ART@MWVMS or M10319@MWVM
*McLean, Va. 22102 DECUS DCS: MCCLINTON
*
From D-ROGERS@EDWARDS-2060.ARPA Fri Nov 20 09:38:48 1987
Richard, have you yet resolved the problem with the color monitor?
I'm still interested in your changes in the Rainbow BIOS to support the DSQD
floppy drive (it sounds like same-same RX33, is so?) [dale]
-------
From @po3.andrew.cmu.edu:rl1b+infodec.errors.arpa@andrew.cmu.edu Wed Dec 2 05:21:45 1987
- Anyone notice that the disk drivers in Rainbow MS-DOS can handle
a double-sided floppy disk? Anyone experimenting with adding a
TEAC drive (can't remember the model) to replace the RX-50s?
Workable patches to the driver to support it?
Alan
Alan I. Vymetalik @ {allegra,seismo}!rochester!ritcv!iav1917
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300 Main Street | 44 Arborwood Crescent
East Rochester, New York, 14445 | Rochester, New York, 14615-3807
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DISCLAIMER: The above statements and opinions belong to the author.
Any resemblence to statements found in actual reality is purely coin-
cidental. And, as always, the above opinions have absolutely nothing
to do with the little, fat man putting $100 bills in my pocket.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: IBM and IBM PC are trademarks of Internation Business Machines, Inc.
DEC, RD52, Rainbow, and VAXmate are trademarks of Digital Equipment
Corporation.
MS-DOS is a trademark of Microsoft, Inc.
CP/M is a trademark of Digital Research, Inc.
Z-80 is a trademark of Zilog, Inc.
8088, 80186, and 80386 are trademarks of Intel, Inc.
Richard Thomsen
Mountain Route Box 234
Jemez Springs, NM 87544