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Victor 9000 info

A

astrand

New Member
Joined
Jul 14, 2006
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nige the hippy said:
AAAArghhh, DON'T throw the victor/sirius away!!!!!:eek:nfire:

Still haven't got the boot disk sorted for mine, and you're in europe!!

There was someone in the uk promised me one, and I keep sending him a "ping" every month, but his spare room is apparently still solidly packed with the sirius at the back, I'm being patient because I have enough to be getting on with at the mo.

If the machine still boots up then

********* MAKE A 5 1/4 BOOT DISK (or two!) NOW *******

cos otherwise when the HD goes, you've had it, as no other machine can make one.
Click to expand...

Do you know the command for making a boot disk, and the type of floppy?
 
With your bootdisk in the A: drive, 'FORMAT B: /S', or 'DISKCOPY A: B:' should get the job done under MSDOS 2.1 (DISKCOPY LEFT RIGHT or DISKCOPY R L should work too (& vice-versa)). The two-floppy Victor 9000 will boot from either drive, depending on where it finds the bootdisk (it checks the left-hand drive first). It then assigns drive letters accordingly, A: being whichever drive it boots from.
If booting from a hard drive (C:), then the 'FORMAT A: /S' command should work. Then you'll need to 'COPY' all the DOS files from the hard drive to the A: floppy drive.

Also, the FORMAT command with /D switch will format the disk to double-sided (in a DS drive). Without the switch, it defaults to single-sided.

I don't recall the program the Victor uses under CP/M-86, I think it's 'DISKUTIL' or similar..

If you're trying to create a bootdisk that is compatible with someone else's V9K, you'll need to know which type of drive they have, single or double-sided. A single-sided disk should work on any system. 'CHKDSK A:' will help determine the capacity of the disk, A single-sided disk will be ~640Kb, and double-sided disks are 1.2Mb.

The media to use is standard Double-Density floppies, the High-Density ones don't work as well, if at all.

--T
 
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thanks again terry! will mail you tomorrow, I'm typing standing up, looking at an 8 foot wide screen at the moment! while I put a floor in my basement room.

I thought you'd got rid of all your kit?

have you still got the osborne pcb too?, have replaced the PIO on mine, but still no joy, and it's now into the spaghetti !

Anyway... back on thread.... is "sysgen" not the cpm way of writing a boot disk? Apologies if I'm wrong, but my cpm was never good, and is now very rusty too!
 
Yeah, but these have only recently come to the surface...like the keyboard.

Sysgen works for putting the system files onto a formatted CP/M-80 disk, but -86 is a little different, and the V9K version is even more different than IBM CP/M-86. Even under CP/M-80, the formatting and/or copying programs were supplied by the manufacturer, and filenames & functionality will vary among different systems.

--T
 
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Sirius1 booting at last!!!!

Sirius1 booting at last!!!!

:grin: Guess what........

...... finally ......

......got a boot disk!!!!

Well a small collection actually. couple of cp/m ones, and a couple of dos ones.

The guy selling the sirius1 (victor 9000 for U.S. people) on ebay (uk) ran me a copy of his disks off.

not a 100% success so far, as I think there may be alignment / dirty head probs, but it boots & runs programs.

Still working on workshop infrastructure & going to France for a while next week, but itching to get it going properly. connect a serial cable, and get some fun (?) programs transferred.

p.s. how compatible are single density & double density floppies (I know about the 40 & 80 track business, but the disks themselves?)
 
I still don't understand why a reseller of PETs and some Victor computers could have boxes (200 pcs/box) of sealed 5.25" HD floppies. Maybe he sold those on the side to IBM customers in the last years of business, since neither of the computer brands he sold appeared to work with HD floppies... *confused*
 
don't know. Unused floppies do turn up now and again still. I'm glad to get them...
Right, the V9000 uses DD floppies, but can in fact store 1.2 megs on one due to GCR encoding. Similar to the MAC, it's a system based on a variable speed spindle that stores data on the disk in accordance with that areas density. The outer tracks can store much more data then the inner tracks, so it packs more on those areas. Way ahead of it's time.
 
Today I went to "the place" again and was really close to bringing with me one of the two Victor computers I've seen. I don't know which models they are, but they look different from eachother. I don't know if they're even working. However I decided I already had my car full of more interesting parts, so I let them stay in the basement for another time.

From a usage point of view, are they any more fun than your average old PC semi-compatible? I know they were designed by Peddle and in some aspects technically superior to the IBM PC, but still.. I probably don't have room for a big computer like that. I'll rather fix up one big PET and let it occupy space somewhere. That's also a Peddle-ish artifact. :)
 
For whatever my opinion is worth, yes, it is more fun to operate a V9K than other computers, because of it's unique drives. I used to enjoy just listening to the drives wind-out thru all three speeds when formatting, and watching the blinkenlights going back and forth during a diskcopy operation, etc. Very theraputic...

--T
 
somehow missed all the recent activity "THANKS AL!" ahh day after moving day.

drives are still a little suspect on mine, and still nowhere clean enough to strip & clean them.
 
If its main feature is exciting sounds, I'll think twice before dragging one home. At least until I'm sure I have room for it. My closet is already full of obsolete - non-vintage - computers, and the storage room in my basement is slowly getting crowded with Commodore stuff.
 
Today I finally picked up one Victor 9000, I presume it is. There is no model number on the unit, but the keyboard looks like that one. The computer has one 5.25" floppy and supposedly some hard disk inside. Unfortunately I didn't know which monitor goes with it (or rather, how the original monitor looks like), so I grabbed something that looks like an EGA monitor with the Victor logotype. The monitor is however newish, manufactured in 1990 and may be for a later Victor computer.

Upon power on, the computer emits a high pitched noise that goes quiet after a few seconds. The hard disk spins up, and so does the floppy drive, which goes idle. Nothing displays on the monitor, but I suppose I simply got the wrong kind of monitor.

Would I be able to connect any non-Victor monitor to this one? CGA, EGA? The Commodore 1084 supposedly has a RGB TTL mode that works like CGA (?!), perhaps it could be used? Otherwise I will have to go there later and see if I can find a monitor that looks exactly like the one on pictures I've seen on the Internet. There exists a bunch of at least EGA type monitors, like Commodore 1402 and some other brands.

Oh yes, there is another Victor computer that looks a bit newer, more like a 286. I haven't done my homework regarding which models followed the 9000, but I suppose they moved on to more PC compatibles later on? Perhaps the Victor monitor I found was meant for a such Victor model.

Anyway, the main reason I grabbed it was because the keyboard looks cool, unusual. That is almost good enough for me, although I don't have any place where I can store it.
 
Yep, I looked through Al's docs, which were very technical and so, but at a quick glance I could not see any mention whether the monitor is even partly compatible with something else. Of course, the computer could be a dud even if it makes sounds, hard disk spins up and so on.
 
The monitor is not plug-compatible with anything else (except perhaps an apricot) if you wait a couple of days till I've got the kitchen rewired, I'll give you the pinout. I've got to look at the monitor from the cut-and-shut system I got, next so I'll make a note.
It's pretty straightforward though. 12V power, ground, Hsync, Vsync & video.
I used a sirius monitor on my first PC with a new plug and 12V supply & had hercules mono going into it, but I'd be inclined to try using a generic RGB monitor, as I think scan frequencies etc are more like a TV.

Also....
Brilliant to see the tech ref & THANK YOU AL!!!!!, it's new on the web, and it's even got details of the expansion slots.
Still would like to see a schematic one day :)

Also too...
I have a Victor V24C 286 sitting here (found at the tip) it's a fairly generic 286 with built in (disable-able) EGA That sounds like Carlsson's other one.
 
victor 9000

victor 9000

I have a victor 9000 but need a bootdisk
thanks
wdownard
located in the up of michigan
 
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