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Victor 9k / Sirius 1 Software

Dear Paul and westveld,

many thanks for the pictures and the hints! Those helped a lot! I was able to install everything as it should and soldered the CRT and Keyboard output on the main board, no flickering anymore, but the Keyboard socket is still weak, but with a little bit of fiddling, a minor problem.

I put the machine back together and HDD as well as Floppy drive is working. I doubt you know it, but… :)

I was able to run FACTORYF, it formats the disk, but in the end the Track Zero Check fails and the formatting is aborted, As I do not have all the data of the NEC5126 which is required, I put in default values for

Seek conteol byte (7)
1st red. Write cylinder (128)
1st write compensation cylinder (128)
ECC burst length (11)
Interleave factor (5)

Any thoughts on this or maybe someone is able to provide the correct values?

What I did as well is an adjustment of the CRT monitor, much sharper and brighter picture now and utilizing the full screen. :)

Best regards,

Martin.
 
1302L said:
Dear Paul and westveld,

many thanks for the pictures and the hints! Those helped a lot! I was able to install everything as it should and soldered the CRT and Keyboard output on the main board, no flickering anymore, but the Keyboard socket is still weak, but with a little bit of fiddling, a minor problem.

I put the machine back together and HDD as well as Floppy drive is working. I doubt you know it, but… :)

I was able to run FACTORYF, it formats the disk, but in the end the Track Zero Check fails and the formatting is aborted, As I do not have all the data of the NEC5126 which is required, I put in default values for

Seek conteol byte (7)
1st red. Write cylinder (128)
1st write compensation cylinder (128)
ECC burst length (11)
Interleave factor (5)

Any thoughts on this or maybe someone is able to provide the correct values?

What I did as well is an adjustment of the CRT monitor, much sharper and brighter picture now and utilizing the full screen. :)

Best regards,

Martin.
Click to expand...
Hi Martin,
I'm sorry you're running into trouble with your new hard drive. Those values look reasonable to me. I'm not sure what they would be for the NEC5126. You might try a larger interleave factor. That would give the drive more time to spin before the next sector needs to be ready. If the seek control byte is wrong I could see that giving you trouble as well but I'm not sure what the correct value might be. The two cylinder questions are unlikely to cause the issue you're seeing. I'm not sure about the ECC burst length. I'm a bit stumped at this point. Anyone else have any suggestions?
Paul
 
Interesting Tech bulletin on floppy media.

The Victor Quality control staff recommends that all users use Maxell 96 TPI double density media in the Victor V9000/S1 double sided computer system.
Maxell double sided diskettes are the ONLY approved double sided media.

On the hdd step rate, if it uses a stepper motor, the slowest rate would be a good starting point, and if that solves the problem, try a bit faster.
It might skip tracks if the stepper rate is too fast for the drive to handle.
 
pdevine said:
Hi Martin,
I'm sorry you're running into trouble with your new hard drive. Those values look reasonable to me. I'm not sure what they would be for the NEC5126. You might try a larger interleave factor. That would give the drive more time to spin before the next sector needs to be ready. If the seek control byte is wrong I could see that giving you trouble as well but I'm not sure what the correct value might be. The two cylinder questions are unlikely to cause the issue you're seeing. I'm not sure about the ECC burst length. I'm a bit stumped at this point. Anyone else have any suggestions?
Paul
Click to expand...
Hi Paul,
thanks for this comment, when I run SHOWSTAT after the attempt of formatting the disk, I am getting a lot of ‘0’s, maybe because the HDD isn’t initialized currently, please see picture. I will play around with the values as you advised and see what happens. Will try it with FACTORYF Super..
Best regards,
Martin.
 

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mark0x01 said:
Interesting Tech bulletin on floppy media.

The Victor Quality control staff recommends that all users use Maxell 96 TPI double density media in the Victor V9000/S1 double sided computer system.
Maxell double sided diskettes are the ONLY approved double sided media.

On the hdd step rate, if it uses a stepper motor, the slowest rate would be a good starting point, and if that solves the problem, try a bit faster.
It might skip tracks if the stepper rate is too fast for the drive to handle.
Click to expand...
Hi Mark,
thanks for your post,
Regarding the Floppy Disks, my Drive only wants to have the new Sony DSHD Disks, still the same issue with the DSDD Disks, maybe this a question of servicing the drive, I will read the Tandon service manual during the weekend.

Regarding the HDD, I will try a slower step rate and see what happens :)
Cheers,
Martin.
 
Unfortunately no success with the HDD. I tried a dozen times with various values, but no effort.
I am afraid the only thing I can do now is buy another drive and try again.
Best,
Martin.
 
Another question, would it be possible to LL Format the HDD via DEBUG?
 
1302L said:
Unfortunately no success with the HDD. I tried a dozen times with various values, but no effort.
I am afraid the only thing I can do now is buy another drive and try again.
Best,
Martin.
Click to expand...
I'm sorry to hear that Martin, that's a real bummer. I'm using a Rascsi emulator that I setup quite a while ago. I've also had good luck with the MFM emulator as well. I think a modern emulator is a safer bet than trying to find another vintage drive that will work. Though the sound of the vintage drives is certainly more charming. They're getting quite old at this point from a hard drive's lifespan perspective.
 
1302L said:
Another question, would it be possible to LL Format the HDD via DEBUG?
Click to expand...
Not that I'm aware of. Factoryf is doing 2 things. It's putting a pattern of magnetic bits across the whole drive serface that allow the computer to find the various sectors on the drive. Then it wirtes all the meta data about the disk to the first sector of the disk. If you only wanted to do the second step you might be able to kludge something together. You'd need a mechanism to write the contents of the meta data sector directly to the drive.
 
pdevine said:
I'm sorry to hear that Martin, that's a real bummer. I'm using a Rascsi emulator that I setup quite a while ago. I've also had good luck with the MFM emulator as well. I think a modern emulator is a safer bet than trying to find another vintage drive that will work. Though the sound of the vintage drives is certainly more charming. They're getting quite old at this point from a hard drive's lifespan perspective.
Click to expand...
Hi Paul,
thanks, the idea of an MFM Emulator makes my day! :)
Doing a quick research, a lot of project based emulators are seemingly sold out, but I found this devce:
www.drem.info

DREM - Replace old Floppy & HDD - TECH INFO

www.drem.info www.drem.info
I wrote an e-mail to them and asked if their emulator is suitable for the Victor.
Maybe you have another source in addition to this.
It would be really great to keep the machine working properly this way.
Best,
Martin.
 
pdevine said:
Not that I'm aware of. Factoryf is doing 2 things. It's putting a pattern of magnetic bits across the whole drive serface that allow the computer to find the various sectors on the drive. Then it wirtes all the meta data about the disk to the first sector of the disk. If you only wanted to do the second step you might be able to kludge something together. You'd need a mechanism to write the contents of the meta data sector directly to the drive.
Click to expand...
I did some reading yesterday night, the way of LL formatting a HDD on a XEBEC controller doesn’t seem to work. :-(

Hard Disk Controller / DEBUG / Low Level Format // retrocmp / retro computing

Hard Disk Controller, DEBUG, HDC, LLF, low level format, MFM, SCSI
retrocmp.de
 
The controller formats the drive with the appropriate scsi command, and then writes the drives parameters to a reserved location which is read on startup.
The details are in the Xebec manual.
I have the same controller attached to a BBC B.
 
1302L said:
Hi Paul,
thanks, the idea of an MFM Emulator makes my day! :)
Doing a quick research, a lot of project based emulators are seemingly sold out, but I found this devce:
www.drem.info

DREM - Replace old Floppy & HDD - TECH INFO

www.drem.info www.drem.info
I wrote an e-mail to them and asked if their emulator is suitable for the Victor.
Maybe you have another source in addition to this.
It would be really great to keep the machine working properly this way.
Best,
Martin.
Click to expand...
I have used @djg 's emulator successfully with the Victor. A few days ago I saw on the google group for the emulator a note about getting more PCB's fabricated. https://groups.google.com/g/mfm-discuss/c/t928HglPqBI The information about the emulator is here: https://www.pdp8online.com/mfm/mfm.shtml. @djg was super patient/helpful to me when I was trying to figure out how to get it all going. I can walk you through the steps. This video from Adrian's digital basement was my initial tutorial
.
 
Hi Paul,
that's great, thanks, I just wrote a pm to David and asked if it is possible to purchase on of his emulators. Would be really great and big fun to have a reliable HDD in The Victor!

Adrian's video gave me a good overview of this great device, I just hope, I won't get a Tarantula with my shipment! :)
Best,

Martin.
 
I'm also running one of @djg 's emulators in my Sirius. Works great but I seem to have an early version of the Xebec card that doesn't seem to support any drives over 10Mb. Currently have the emulator configured with 10mb virtual drives.

Cheers,
Dave
 
Hi Dave,

what year and model is your Sirius? Maybe I have the same Issue with the replacement HDD I’ve bought, Initially mine had a Miniscribe III also with 10MB.

Cheers,

Martin.
 
Moonferret said:
I'm also running one of @djg 's emulators in my Sirius. Works great but I seem to have an early version of the Xebec card that doesn't seem to support any drives over 10Mb. Currently have the emulator configured with 10mb virtual drives.

Cheers,
Dave
Click to expand...
Dave, I suspect if it might be the ROM chips that are limiting you. Either the ROM image in the Sirius or on the Xebec card itself. You can update the ROMs to get to larger hard drives. @westveld was selling Sirius/Victor eproms for a while. He could probably hook you up.
 
I was just double-checking the dealer guide. I think @Moonferret is onto something. Page 239 Victor_Dealer_Guide_and_Field_Service_Bulletins.pdf

SUBJECT: DIFFERENCES FOR 30MB HARD DISK MAINFRAMES The V9000 series now has two new model mainframes which utilize the Tandon Model 703 30 MB hard disk drive; The Model 413, 115V Mainframe or the Model 463, 230V Mainframe. The complete system including the Mainframe, the CRT and the Keyboard is designated as the Model 9270.

The Universal Boot Proms which are utilized in the 9270 have been updated. Updated version proms have not as yet been documented, but will have the same part numbers as the current universal boot proms, (FE 106168-01 and FF 106170-01). Updated proms are labelled with a suffix "F3F7" after the part number. These proms will display the message "F3F7" in line 25 of the CRT after depression of the boot switch. Without having these proms installed, it is impossible to boot from the 30MB hard disk drive, and the error "99" will be displayed. The system can be booted from the floppy disk drive, even if the new style proms are not present.

The operating system for the 30MB system is MSDOS 2.11 I/O Subsystem 2.92 (BIOS). The utility AUTOSET.EXE is updated to version 2.3, and the .CFG files which should be used are all labelled 31 .CFG. The Hard Disk Toolkit II has also been updated to Version 2.2. HDSETUP.EXE has been upgraded to version 2.34. Further information is contained in the manuals and DISKID's contained in these software packages.

Diagnostic software HDFIELD D/S version 4.4 should always be used when testing the 30MB drive. Older versions will display the message "DRIVE LABEL IS INVALID" if they are used with these drives. A parts list for the 30MB Hard Disk Controller Assembly is on the reverse side.
Click to expand...
 
My Sirius is a bit of a mash up of parts from different machines. It's currently packed away but will dig it out later in the week and have a look at the Xebec card.
I'm sure I did try a newer ROM on the Xebec board without any luck and I recall reading about a limitation on the earlier Xebec boards although I can't remember where it was I saw that.
I'll have to have another play round with it.

Cheers,
Dave
 
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