New project, Altos ACS8000-6

[hideehoo]

Took a chance on a local auction site



Ended up with an ACS8000-6 and Winchester drive unit with a Shugart 400B hard drive. Other than disintegrating foam and the usual dust build up, looks to be in pretty good shape.





Going to leave the hard drive alone for now and work on getting the board to boot on the bench with a FlashFloppy. Then back into the case with the real floppy drives.

 

[LiqMatrix]

Thing of beauty. Look forward to seeing this restored.

 

[hideehoo]

Success (so far).



Crimped up a custom power cable and connected it up to an Mean Well RT-65B PSU I normally use with my Ferguson Big Board. Here's the pinout for future reference, pin 1 is at the bottom of the board closed to the memory banks.

Pin 1 GND
Pin 2 GND
Pin 3 -12V
Pin 4 +5V
Pin 5 +5V
Pin 6 +12v

This is the multi user ACS8200 board so terminal 1 is the JY connectors on the right side of the board. This is the wiring to a male DB9 assuming a null modem cable to your terminal (what was on the bench). If using a straight through cable just reverse pins 2 and 3.

Pin 2 TX DB9 - 2
Pin 3 RX DB9 - 3
Pin 7 GND DB9 - 5

Now to make some floppy images. This is the DMA version of the board, so I don't see a lot of options out there for images on the various sites.

 

[hideehoo]

Hmm, no dice getting a (virtual) disk to boot.

Tried both these Teledisk images from http://www.bitsavers.org/bits/Altos...k_images/DMA_Version_-_double_density_format/. Converted to IMG format with the HXC Floppy Emulator tool which gave me a 467,456 byte image (good). Then configured this in IMG.CFG for FlashFloppy to account for the first two tracks being single density FM, and the remaining double density MFM.

[::467456]
cyls = 77
heads = 1
bps = 128
rpm = 360
tracks = 0-1
secs = 26
mode = fm
rate = 250
tracks = 2-76
secs = 48
mode = mfm
rate = 250

On power up/reset the Altos reads track 0, advances to track 1, but then freezes. I tried some of the single density (non DMA) images out there and most of them don't even move past track 0, so it does appear to be doing something here. For single density I'm using the same IMG.CFG that works for the Ferguson.

[::256256]
cyls = 77
heads = 1
secs = 26
bps = 128
mode = fm
rpm = 360
rate = 250

 

[Kurt Meyer]

Did you finally get this running? I used to have one of these back in the day with the SA4004. Those
were monsters!. but if you didn't lock the heads in transport, didn't have a good life expectancy!

 

[ldkraemer]

hidehoo,
For 8" Drives the RPM is correct at 360, but the Rate should be 500 not 250.

# 22DISK
BEGIN ALT1  Altos - SSSD 8" - 128 x 26
DENSITY FM, HIGH
CYLINDERS 77 SIDES 1 SECTORS 26,128
SIDE1 0 1,7,13,19,25,5,11,17,23,3,9,15,21,2,8,14,20,26,6,12,18,24,4,10,16,22
BSH 3 BLM 7 EXM 0 DSM 242 DRM 63 AL0 0C0H AL1 0 OFS 2
END

# cpmtools
# ALT1  Altos - SSSD 8" - 128 x 26
diskdef alt1
  seclen 128
  tracks 77
  sectrk 26
  blocksize 1024
  maxdir 64
  skew 6
  boottrk 2
  os 2.2
end

# libdsk
[alt1]
description = ALT1  Altos - SSSD 8" - 128 x 26
cylinders = 77
heads = 1
secsize = 128
sectors = 26
secbase = 1
datarate = HD

# Flashfloppy/GOTEK
[alt1]
cyls = 77
heads = 1
secs = 26
interleave = 1
bps = 128
id = 1
rpm = 360
#rpm = 300
rate = 500
mode = fm
iam = no

# 22DISK
BEGIN ALT2  Altos - DSSD 8" - 128 x 26
DENSITY FM, HIGH
CYLINDERS 77 SIDES 2 SECTORS 26,128
SIDE1 0 1,7,13,19,25,5,11,17,23,3,9,15,21,2,8,14,20,26,6,12,18,24,4,10,16,22
SIDE2 1 1,7,13,19,25,5,11,17,23,3,9,15,21,2,8,14,20,26,6,12,18,24,4,10,16,22
ORDER SIDES
BSH 5 BLM 31 EXM 3 DSM 122 DRM 127 AL0 080H AL1 0 OFS 2
END

# cpmtools
# ALT2  Altos - DSSD 8" - 128 x 26
diskdef alt2
  seclen 128
  tracks 154
  sectrk 26
  blocksize 4096
  maxdir 128
  skew 6
  boottrk 2
  os 2.2
end

# libdsk
[alt2]
description = ALT2  Altos - DSSD 8" - 128 x 26
sides = alt
cylinders = 154
heads = 2
secsize = 128
sectors = 26
secbase = 1
datarate = HD

# Flashfloppy/GOTEK
[alt2]
cyls = 77
heads = 1
secs = 26
interleave = 1
bps = 128
id = 1
rpm = 360
#rpm = 300
rate = 500
mode = fm
iam = no

# 22DISK
BEGIN ALT3  Altos - SSDD 8" - 512 x 15
DENSITY MFM, HIGH
CYLINDERS 77 SIDES 1 SECTORS 15,512 SKEW 5
SIDE1 0 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15
BSH 5 BLM 31 EXM 3 DSM 139 DRM 127 AL0 080H AL1 0 OFS 2
END

# cpmtools
# ALT3  Altos - SSDD 8" - 512 x 15
diskdef alt3
  seclen 512
  tracks 77
  sectrk 15
  blocksize 4096
  maxdir 128
  skew 1
  boottrk 2
  os 2.2
end

# libdsk
[alt3]
description = ALT3  Altos - SSDD 8" - 512 x 15
cylinders = 77
heads = 1
secsize = 512
sectors = 15
secbase = 1
datarate = ED

# Flashfloppy/GOTEK
[alt3]
cyls = 77
heads = 1
secs = 15
interleave = 1
bps = 512
id = 1
rpm = 360
#rpm = 300
rate = 500
mode = mfm
iam = no

# 22DISK
BEGIN ALT4  Altos - DSDD 8" - 512 x 15
DENSITY MFM, HIGH
CYLINDERS 77 SIDES 2 SECTORS 15,512 SKEW 5
SIDE1 0 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15
SIDE2 1 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15
ORDER SIDES
BSH 5 BLM 31 EXM 1 DSM 284 DRM 255 AL0 0C0H AL1 0 OFS 2
END

# cpmtools
# ALT4  Altos - DSDD 8" - 512 x 15
diskdef alt4
  seclen 512
  tracks 154
  sectrk 15
  blocksize 4096
  maxdir 256
  skew 1
  boottrk 2
  os 2.2
end

# libdsk
[alt4]
description = ALT4  Altos - DSDD 8" - 512 x 15
sides = alt
cylinders = 154
heads = 2
secsize = 512
sectors = 15
secbase = 1
datarate = ED

# Flashfloppy/GOTEK
[alt4]
cyls = 77
heads = 1
secs = 15
interleave = 1
bps = 512
id = 1
rpm = 360
#rpm = 300
rate = 500
mode = mfm
iam = no

# 22DISK
BEGIN ALT5  Altos Series 5 - DSDD 96 tpi 5.25" - 512 x 9
DENSITY MFM, LOW
CYLINDERS 80 SIDES 2 SECTORS 9,512 SKEW 2
SIDE1 0 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9
SIDE2 1 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9
ORDER SIDES
BSH 5 BLM 31 EXM 3 DSM 176 DRM 176 AL0 0C0H AL1 0 OFS 2
END

# cpmtools
# ALT5  Altos Series 5 - DSDD 96 tpi 5.25" - 512 x 9
diskdef alt5
  seclen 512
  tracks 160
  sectrk 9
  blocksize 4096
  maxdir 177
  skew 1
  boottrk 2
  os 2.2
end

# libdsk
[alt5]
description = ALT5  Altos Series 5 - DSDD 96 tpi 5.25" - 512 x 9
sides = alt
cylinders = 160
heads = 2
secsize = 512
sectors = 9
secbase = 1
datarate = DD

# Flashfloppy/GOTEK
[alt5]
cyls = 77
heads = 1
secs = 9
interleave = 1
bps = 512
id = 1
rpm = 360
#rpm = 300
rate = 500
mode = mfm
iam = no

Larry