IMS Series 8000 (5000SX?) Project

[twmiller]

Hrm. Okay, I think I've done all of that correctly, but no joy. When I do a G100,0 to go to 100 without setting a break point, I see no activity on the drive or the system in general. After I did the L100 command and transferred the file, I did verify via a hex editor and the D100,200 command that (at least the first part) of the file copied without any issues. The memory at location 100 looks exactly like what's in the OSLOAD.COM file in the hex editor.

 

[new_castle_j]

I am seeing something that I had missed, I need to generate a new operating system with different drivers for the older 8" floppy controller that you are using. The default config on the OEM boot disk assumes the newer model 930 floppy controller. I believe I have the driver files and will post back when I have something to share.

 

[twmiller]

I am seeing something that I had missed, I need to generate a new operating system with different drivers for the older 8" floppy controller that you are using. The default config on the OEM boot disk assumes the newer model 930 floppy controller. I believe I have the driver files and will post back when I have something to share.

Ah, okay. (And, again, thanks so much for the amount of time and effort you've been putting into helping me get this thing going. It's *greatly* appreciated.)

 

[new_castle_j]

After a wild goose chase and a dig into the deep freeze archives, I got TurboDOS 1.2 booting on the exact same hardware set that you have, it is also booting from the Gotek using the IPLALL ROM. I don't know what specific settings allowed it to work, but here is a copy of what's on my Gotek running Flash Floppy. Try this and report back your results.

 

[twmiller]

After a wild goose chase and a dig into the deep freeze archives, I got TurboDOS 1.2 booting on the exact same hardware set that you have, it is also booting from the Gotek using the IPLALL ROM. I don't know what specific settings allowed it to work, but here is a copy of what's on my Gotek running Flash Floppy. Try this and report back your results.

Closer closer closer! :D It seems to stall out after this. Jumps back to track zero and stops reading the drive. (I had to rename 'boot.img' to 'boot.ims.img' so that it would use the IMG.CFG file. The non-renamed boot.img just cycled over the first few tracks on repeat.) Does the (4/645) refer to the processor board? (I know there's a 645 CPU card.) My system has a 451 in it.

.

 

[twmiller]

My gotek has ONLY the DS0 jumper selected. I'm currently running Flashfloppy 3.42, and I've tried two different Goteks: one with an STM32105, and one with an STM32415. They both behaved the same way. As I mentioned above, creating a copy of that Boot.IMG and renaming it to Boot.ims.IMG will get the output above, but the boot seems to stop there. I get nothing from the Boot.IMG without renaming it. I created a blank key with only your FF.CFG, your IMG.CFG, and the boot.img and boot.ims.img for testing.

I have ONLY the motor control jumped to ground on the fd50to34 card. None of the other jumper blocks on the 50-to-34 widget are jumped. (WITHOUT the motor control jumper, the drive select light never comes on by default. This can be changed by setting pin34 to 'rdy' in the FF.CFG file, while does cause it to boot off the floppy, but it doesn't get any further along than the system does when motor is pulled to ground on the fd50to34.)

Right now I have only the 451 CPU card, one 464 memory card, one 442 IO card, and the 400 FDC card installed in the system.

I've tried both memory cards, shunted as defined in the 'IMS_Board_Shunting' document. (Both pass the initial memory test, which is good!) I also have the FDC shunted as defined in that document, though I've tried it with the motor jumper on and off, and there was no change. (I also experimented with different pre comp settings, but it didn't change anything, so I set it back to default.) I've also tried both IO cards with different copies of the IPL ALL ROM image on them. They're also shunted as the 'sole IO card' as defined in the shunting guide. They both behaved the same way with regards to booting off of the gotek.

While I was a bit bummed that it didn't boot all the way, I've got to be honest, I was THRILLED to see something on the screen that came off of the floppy! I feel like this is progress!

 

[new_castle_j]

I had to rename 'boot.img' to 'boot.ims.img' so that it would use the IMG.CFG file. The non-renamed boot.img just cycled over the first few tracks on repeat.) Does the (4/645) refer to the processor board? (I know there's a 645 CPU card.) My system has a 451 in it.

Yes, in my haste I failed to preserve the .ims in the file name before posting the .zip, I figured that you would catch that. The 4/465 is the serial number of the TurboDOS operating system.

 

[new_castle_j]

My gotek has ONLY the DS0 jumper selected. I'm currently running Flashfloppy 3.42, and I've tried two different Goteks: one with an STM32105, and one with an STM32415.

My Gotek has FlashFloppy 3.41, I don't know which chip is inside of it though. At this point I think we should both post pictures of our hardware and try to find any differences.

 

[new_castle_j]

Here is the set of boards and configuration that I'm using

 

[twmiller]

Here are mine. I think the only differences I see are where you have the front panel switch set on your memory card, and a couple of jumpers related to the parallel port on block JC on the IO card. I can only get mine to boot as far is it does with ALL of the jumpers off of the FE50to34 if I edit the FF.CFG and set pin 34 to 'rdy' (the FF.CFG that you provided has that commented out. does yours work without it?), otherwise I have to jump the motor control line to ground. JB is hooked up to a buzzer on your Gotek? My revision of the IO card is older than yours, so the JJ, JK, and JL jumpers are set differently. It also looks like your 400 floppy controller has some blue wire rework on it? (I changed the few differences I could find to match yours and it still seems to halt after the memory test.)

 

[twmiller]

@new_castle_j Did you make the .IMG from a .IMD, by any chance? If so, can I get a copy of the IMD? I can try to copy it to a 5.25" disk using IMD and see if that gets any further than the Gotek.

 

[new_castle_j]

I didn't make the .img from an .imd file. I wrote the .img to the gotek by copying a physical floppy onto it. I see one thing that I would like you to try. The 4116 RAM chips in my memory board are the faster 150ns type, the chips in your memory board are 200ns. There is a jumper "JA" at the upper right (two chips left of the parity error light). Your jumper is set to "H" currently which is for high speed chips, can you switch that to "L" on yours and see what happens?

 

[new_castle_j]

If I set pin 34 to RDY in my FF.CFG file, everything still works and boots as normal, it appears to make no difference. I would suggest that you reset your Gotek to factory defaults though before powering it up with my FF.CFG. It should force the Gotek to re-read all the parameters from FF.CFG.

 

[twmiller]

I didn't make the .img from an .imd file. I wrote the .img to the gotek by copying a physical floppy onto it. I see one thing that I would like you to try. The 4116 RAM chips in my memory board are the faster 150ns type, the chips in your memory board are 200ns. There is a jumper "JA" at the upper right (two chips left of the parity error light). Your jumper is set to "H" currently which is for high speed chips, can you switch that to "L" on yours and see what happens?

Neither memory card works when it's set to L. The parity light comes on and stays on. IPLALL never resets it, and there's no floppy access.

Edit: This is from the 464 manual I have: "The JA shunt controls the timing of the memory board. The H position is for 200NS RAMS and the L position is for 250NS RAMS. This shunt is factory installed on the H position and normally should not be changed. High speed operation is required for the Z80 processor."

 

[twmiller]

If I set pin 34 to RDY in my FF.CFG file, everything still works and boots as normal, it appears to make no difference. I would suggest that you reset your Gotek to factory defaults though before powering it up with my FF.CFG. It should force the Gotek to re-read all the parameters from FF.CFG.

Reset Gotek to factory defaults with your original FF.CFG on there. Gets to the same point in the boot and then stops, with or without the motor control jumper on the fd50to34, and without any changes to the FF.CFG.

 

[new_castle_j]

Neither memory card works when it's set to L. The parity light comes on and stays on. IPLALL never resets it, and there's no floppy access.

Edit: This is from the 464 manual I have: "The JA shunt controls the timing of the memory board. The H position is for 200NS RAMS and the L position is for 250NS RAMS. This shunt is factory installed on the H position and normally should not be changed. High speed operation is required for the Z80 processor."

Thats funny because...

 

[twmiller]

Thats funny because...

Heh. Mine is from here:

I guess something changed between August of '80 and July of '83? I dunno. lol

 

[new_castle_j]

Well, I don't have any brilliant ideas at the moment, but I will meditate on this for a while. Since I have nothing better to suggest, perhaps try using this attached Boot ROM in place of the IPLALL. This is an earlier ROM and it's for TurboDOS floppy only booting. It is a 2716

 

[twmiller]

Well, I don't have any brilliant ideas at the moment, but I will meditate on this for a while. Since I have nothing better to suggest, perhaps try using this attached Boot ROM in place of the IPLALL. This is an earlier ROM and it's for TurboDOS floppy only booting. It is a 2716

That ROM seems to behave exactly like the IPLALL ROM. Does the memory test, says no error, then nothing else.

 

[new_castle_j]

OSLOAD.COM starts at track 17 and gets deposited into memory and ran -- that's where you are seeing the memory test. After OSLOAD, the floppy should seek back to track 0 and lookup OSMASTER.SYS which occupies tracks 19-20 on the image. Does your Gotek ever get to track 20 on the floppy image and return to track 0?

I'm just thinking that if your Gotek gets all the way to track 20 and returns to track 0, that would be a successful boot. I'm wondering if your terminal is getting an unhandled character sent to it and chokes, maybe it's booting and you're just not seeing it. I'm using ZOC terminal emulator with either Televideo or Wyse emulation set.