iainmaoileoin
Experienced Member
I have been running a couple of mfm emulator boards (http://www.pdp8online.com/mfm/) for a while now. Most things working very well. At present all on 11/73 and 11/83 with BSD2.11 as the OS - but I have plans to move to older kit once I get an understanding of the MFM and what it does.
First: hats off to some very nice kit. If YOU do what it says on the tin, then IT does indeed do what IT says on the tin.
After that I wandered off into a few areas that gave me trouble - with the old XXDP dec formatters.
Others may have seen these problems from different angles and be able to help.
For those who have not seen them and head in an "MFM emulator" direction it may save you time and frustration.
Background
11/73 with RL02s and an M7555 (RQDX3 controllers).
I have no trouble using the emulator to "image" an existing disk and then use that on the 11/73. Works a dream. I have copied 4 old RD5x type disks onto the beagleboard - and backed them up to my linux system with no problems.
Then I decided to make a "disk" from scratch - without reading in an existing drive,
Ttry as I might I just could not get the dec formatter ZRQCH0 to format the "emulated disk".
DR>STA
CHANGE HW (L) ? Y
# UNITS (D) ? 1
UNIT 0
Enter controller IP Address (O) 172150 ? 172154
What unit do you want to format [0-255] (D) 0 ? 0
Would you like to revector a single LBN only [Y/N] (L) N ? N
Do you want to use the "AUTOFORMAT" Mode [Y/N] (L) Y ? N
Would you like to use the RCT - Revector known bad blocks [Y/N] (L) N ?
**** WARNING ****
ALL DATA ON SELECTED DRIVE WILL BE DESTROYED
Write protect all drives not being formatted.
Please verify that the selected drive is ON LINE
and NOT write protected.
If formatting RX33 media, insert media to be
formatted in the selected drive.
Do you wish to continue [Y/N] (L) Y ? Y
MSCP Controller Model: 19
Microcode Version: 4
Formatting of Diskette on Drive 0 Begun.
ZRQC SYS FTL ERR 00007 ON UNIT 00 TST 001 SUB 000 PC: 105742
Controller has reported a fatal error in the FORMAT program.
Status: LBN format error (drive FORMAT command failed)
Drive 0 was not formatted successfully.
ZRQC EOP 1
1 TOTAL ERRS
(and a thousand other attempts with Y and no and and and)
So errors - some versions of the formatter produced errors about no Unit Information Table.
But other folk on the web had prompts about "make a new one".
So I moved from my trusty XXDP2.5 back to XXDP2.2 - same issue
I went to an XXDP1 disk - no ZRXC?? of ANY sort!
damn it.
rummaged and rurached on the web, dunted my heid off the desk a few times. Perhaps ZRQCH0 I was running was not the unique and only ZRQCH0.
I KNOW that the 0 should be a release and 1 for a different release.
Anyway I found a bunch of other rl02 images on the web, downloaded them and one by one dd'd them into an RL02.
One of these downloads had an image that did more sensible things
DR>START
CHANGE HW (L) ? Y
# UNITS (D) ? 1
UNIT 0
Enter controller IP Address (O) 172150 ? 172154
What unit do you want to format [0-255] (D) 0 ?
Would you like to revector a single LBN only [Y/N] (L) N ?
Do you want to use the "AUTOFORMAT" Mode [Y/N] (L) Y ? N
Would you like to use the RCT - Revector known bad blocks [Y/N] (L) N ?
**** WARNING ****
ALL DATA ON SELECTED DRIVE WILL BE DESTROYED
Write protect all drives not being formatted.
Please verify that the selected drive is ON LINE
and NOT write protected.
If formatting RX33 media, insert media to be
formatted in the selected drive.
Do you wish to continue [Y/N] (L) Y ? Y
MSCP Controller Model: 19
Microcode Version: 4
Do you want to use manufacturing bad block information [Y/N] (A) N ? N
Downline load UIT [Y/N] (A) Y ? Y
UIT Drive Name
_______________________________________________________
0 RD51
1 RD52 part # 30-21721-02 (1 light on front panel)
2 RD52 part # 30-23227-02 (2 lights on front panel)
3 RD53
4 RD31
5 RD54
6 RD32
7 RD33
Enter Unit Identifier Table (UIT) [0-7] (D) ? 5
Continue if bad block information is inaccessible [Y/N] (A) N ? Y
Please type in the serial number [8-10 digits] (A) ? 2222211111
Formatting of Drive 0 Begun.
------------ FORMAT PROGRESS REPORT -------------
1 minute into format ---- Formatting tracks, LBN # 34613
2 minutes into format ---- Formatting tracks, LBN # 68885
3 minutes into format ---- Formatting tracks, LBN # 103242
4 minutes into format ---- Formatting tracks, LBN # 137310
5 minutes into format ---- Formatting tracks, LBN # 171650
6 minutes into format ---- Formatting tracks, LBN # 206007
7 minutes into format ---- Formatting tracks, LBN # 240075
8 minutes into format ---- Formatting tracks, LBN # 274721
9 minutes into format ---- Formatting tracks, LBN # 309061
10 minutes into format ---- First check pass, writing LBN # 35428
11 minutes into format ---- First check pass, writing LBN # 70618
12 minutes into format ---- First check pass, writing LBN # 105808
13 minutes into format ---- First check pass, writing LBN # 140998
Success!
The disk that did the trick for me had an md5sum of 0c5c788d406b3ee6e27c3ebbd13f206a for the 10meg uncompressed file
and a unix sum of 23864 10240
and a dir list of the form
775 ZVTMA0.BIN 19-SEP-81 29 034517
776 ZVTNA0.BIC 19-SEP-81 13 034554
777 ZVTOA0.BIC 19-SEP-81 19 034571
778 WUZ24 .CNF 1-JAN-70 2 034741
779 WUZ24 .MAP 1-JAN-70 2 034743
780 DECX23.BIC 2-JAN-70 66 034747
781 DECX23.CNF 2-JAN-70 2 035051
782 DECX23.MAP 2-JAN-70 9 035053
783 FERRER.LIB 2-JAN-70 2 035064
784 FERRER.BIN 2-JAN-70 73 035066
785 GAMMA .CNF 2-JAN-70 2 035177
786 GAMMA6.BIN 2-JAN-70 95 035201
787 GAMMA6.CNF 2-JAN-70 2 035340
788 GAMMA7.CNF 2-JAN-70 2 035342
789 GAMMA7.BIN 2-JAN-70 95 035344
790 ZRQCB2.BIC 10-MAR-86 28 035503
791 ZRQCH0.BIC 23-AUG-88 73 035537
I dont know where I downloaded the disk from - dulich - too late at night and two tired, and my notebook degenerated into doodles.
Note the 2 files "at the end" of the DIR way out of date sequence.
So,
I can now create a RD disk with 2048 cylinders,16 heads and have a humungous 280Mb disk on the MFM controller.
I hope this saves someone else the time it took me to rummage about.
Soon I will be trying the DX2 controller and then back into the mists of time on older processors ....
First: hats off to some very nice kit. If YOU do what it says on the tin, then IT does indeed do what IT says on the tin.
After that I wandered off into a few areas that gave me trouble - with the old XXDP dec formatters.
Others may have seen these problems from different angles and be able to help.
For those who have not seen them and head in an "MFM emulator" direction it may save you time and frustration.
Background
11/73 with RL02s and an M7555 (RQDX3 controllers).
I have no trouble using the emulator to "image" an existing disk and then use that on the 11/73. Works a dream. I have copied 4 old RD5x type disks onto the beagleboard - and backed them up to my linux system with no problems.
Then I decided to make a "disk" from scratch - without reading in an existing drive,
Ttry as I might I just could not get the dec formatter ZRQCH0 to format the "emulated disk".
DR>STA
CHANGE HW (L) ? Y
# UNITS (D) ? 1
UNIT 0
Enter controller IP Address (O) 172150 ? 172154
What unit do you want to format [0-255] (D) 0 ? 0
Would you like to revector a single LBN only [Y/N] (L) N ? N
Do you want to use the "AUTOFORMAT" Mode [Y/N] (L) Y ? N
Would you like to use the RCT - Revector known bad blocks [Y/N] (L) N ?
**** WARNING ****
ALL DATA ON SELECTED DRIVE WILL BE DESTROYED
Write protect all drives not being formatted.
Please verify that the selected drive is ON LINE
and NOT write protected.
If formatting RX33 media, insert media to be
formatted in the selected drive.
Do you wish to continue [Y/N] (L) Y ? Y
MSCP Controller Model: 19
Microcode Version: 4
Formatting of Diskette on Drive 0 Begun.
ZRQC SYS FTL ERR 00007 ON UNIT 00 TST 001 SUB 000 PC: 105742
Controller has reported a fatal error in the FORMAT program.
Status: LBN format error (drive FORMAT command failed)
Drive 0 was not formatted successfully.
ZRQC EOP 1
1 TOTAL ERRS
(and a thousand other attempts with Y and no and and and)
So errors - some versions of the formatter produced errors about no Unit Information Table.
But other folk on the web had prompts about "make a new one".
So I moved from my trusty XXDP2.5 back to XXDP2.2 - same issue
I went to an XXDP1 disk - no ZRXC?? of ANY sort!
damn it.
rummaged and rurached on the web, dunted my heid off the desk a few times. Perhaps ZRQCH0 I was running was not the unique and only ZRQCH0.
I KNOW that the 0 should be a release and 1 for a different release.
Anyway I found a bunch of other rl02 images on the web, downloaded them and one by one dd'd them into an RL02.
One of these downloads had an image that did more sensible things
DR>START
CHANGE HW (L) ? Y
# UNITS (D) ? 1
UNIT 0
Enter controller IP Address (O) 172150 ? 172154
What unit do you want to format [0-255] (D) 0 ?
Would you like to revector a single LBN only [Y/N] (L) N ?
Do you want to use the "AUTOFORMAT" Mode [Y/N] (L) Y ? N
Would you like to use the RCT - Revector known bad blocks [Y/N] (L) N ?
**** WARNING ****
ALL DATA ON SELECTED DRIVE WILL BE DESTROYED
Write protect all drives not being formatted.
Please verify that the selected drive is ON LINE
and NOT write protected.
If formatting RX33 media, insert media to be
formatted in the selected drive.
Do you wish to continue [Y/N] (L) Y ? Y
MSCP Controller Model: 19
Microcode Version: 4
Do you want to use manufacturing bad block information [Y/N] (A) N ? N
Downline load UIT [Y/N] (A) Y ? Y
UIT Drive Name
_______________________________________________________
0 RD51
1 RD52 part # 30-21721-02 (1 light on front panel)
2 RD52 part # 30-23227-02 (2 lights on front panel)
3 RD53
4 RD31
5 RD54
6 RD32
7 RD33
Enter Unit Identifier Table (UIT) [0-7] (D) ? 5
Continue if bad block information is inaccessible [Y/N] (A) N ? Y
Please type in the serial number [8-10 digits] (A) ? 2222211111
Formatting of Drive 0 Begun.
------------ FORMAT PROGRESS REPORT -------------
1 minute into format ---- Formatting tracks, LBN # 34613
2 minutes into format ---- Formatting tracks, LBN # 68885
3 minutes into format ---- Formatting tracks, LBN # 103242
4 minutes into format ---- Formatting tracks, LBN # 137310
5 minutes into format ---- Formatting tracks, LBN # 171650
6 minutes into format ---- Formatting tracks, LBN # 206007
7 minutes into format ---- Formatting tracks, LBN # 240075
8 minutes into format ---- Formatting tracks, LBN # 274721
9 minutes into format ---- Formatting tracks, LBN # 309061
10 minutes into format ---- First check pass, writing LBN # 35428
11 minutes into format ---- First check pass, writing LBN # 70618
12 minutes into format ---- First check pass, writing LBN # 105808
13 minutes into format ---- First check pass, writing LBN # 140998
Success!
The disk that did the trick for me had an md5sum of 0c5c788d406b3ee6e27c3ebbd13f206a for the 10meg uncompressed file
and a unix sum of 23864 10240
and a dir list of the form
775 ZVTMA0.BIN 19-SEP-81 29 034517
776 ZVTNA0.BIC 19-SEP-81 13 034554
777 ZVTOA0.BIC 19-SEP-81 19 034571
778 WUZ24 .CNF 1-JAN-70 2 034741
779 WUZ24 .MAP 1-JAN-70 2 034743
780 DECX23.BIC 2-JAN-70 66 034747
781 DECX23.CNF 2-JAN-70 2 035051
782 DECX23.MAP 2-JAN-70 9 035053
783 FERRER.LIB 2-JAN-70 2 035064
784 FERRER.BIN 2-JAN-70 73 035066
785 GAMMA .CNF 2-JAN-70 2 035177
786 GAMMA6.BIN 2-JAN-70 95 035201
787 GAMMA6.CNF 2-JAN-70 2 035340
788 GAMMA7.CNF 2-JAN-70 2 035342
789 GAMMA7.BIN 2-JAN-70 95 035344
790 ZRQCB2.BIC 10-MAR-86 28 035503
791 ZRQCH0.BIC 23-AUG-88 73 035537
I dont know where I downloaded the disk from - dulich - too late at night and two tired, and my notebook degenerated into doodles.
Note the 2 files "at the end" of the DIR way out of date sequence.
So,
I can now create a RD disk with 2048 cylinders,16 heads and have a humungous 280Mb disk on the MFM controller.
I hope this saves someone else the time it took me to rummage about.
Soon I will be trying the DX2 controller and then back into the mists of time on older processors ....