DECmate III floppy disk images?

[tradde]

My green VR201 was made in Hong Kong too. It shows no signs of cataracts. But it's possible Lou Ernst fixed that as this was his system before being mine. So I can't say with an absolute here. But I believe this one never had cataracts. I think Lou spent most of his time on other projects that his Decmate II.

 

[vrs42]

Until I saw a photo of another yellow one without cataracts I just figured he was lucky.

I am indeed lucky (when it comes to screen cataracts, at least). I think the only screen I ever got which had or developed cataracts was the Soroc IQ-120. Which is also the only one I bought new. (Over $1000, at a Byte Shop in the late 70s. It was a big deal for me, as I was an impovershed student then. Had to come to PDX (the "big city") too, and me with no car back then.)

Vince

 

[Roland Huisman]

Good to hear that the image works. If the others work as well, then I think these can be sent to Al for Bitsavers. I wonder how the other disks work.

 

[bsdimp]

The RX50 is strictly FM, which is not normally PC-compatible...

It's MFM, just like all the other PC floppies at the time. It's format is the same as the 40 track drives, but at 80 tracks, single sided and 10 sectors per track instead of 9... But it's not the same density as the 1.2MB floppies on PCs, which can lead to trouble if you aren't careful (though the various RX-50 drivers for the PC are careful).

 

[thunter0512]

Good to hear that the image works. If the others work as well, then I think these can be sent to Al for Bitsavers. I wonder how the other disks work.

I finally cleaned up my work bench again to make room for my disk imaging setup. I have now tried all previously failing images on my DECmate III with the new RX50 and here is a list of the results.

First Rolands ImageDisk images:

• DM system test dskt drive 0 BL-DA82A-MV PC0173 1984.IMD - works - diagnostics and setup
• DM system test dskt drive 0 BL-DA82A-MV GAPC1826 1984.IMD - works - diagnostics and setup
• Systeemoverzicht DU Decmate V1.6 BL-EK91A-BV PC189 1985.IMD - works - system tutorial in Dutch
• Systeemdiskette WPS V1.58 NL DECmate III.IMD - works - word processor in Dutch

Next the Teledisk images downloaded from Ibiblio:

• DM1011.TD0 - does not boot
• DM1012.TD0 - does not boot
• DM1013.TD0 - does not boot
• OS278WC.TD0 - works - nice looking OS/8 system
• ADVDSK.TD0 - works - Adventure game
• WPCBIFL0.TD0 - works - Introduction to word processing tutorial
• CPM80SYS.TD0 - works - CP/M for DECMATEs

Here are some photos of the screen in the same order as my lists above:





















The last photo is after creating a CP/M system disk and booting with it.

Basically the system is fully functional, so it makes sense to invest some time and cleaning it up to make it more presentable.
I am glad that OS/8 is working.

Best regards
Tom Hunter