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Victor 9k / Sirius 1 Software

Dear all,

thanks for the input.

As I took out the Xebec Board, unfortunately no Product Number on the Transistors is visible, is anyone able to have a suggestion for me what Transistor to buy? BTW: All four of them are toast..., I hope they are identical.

Best,

Martin.
 
I have a new Xebec 1410A - not from a Sirius (haven't looked in mine to see if it has a hdd as I can't remember, and it is in the box pile somewhere).
It was purchased long ago to be used with the BBC, where I have another operational one.

It looks similar, but the component layout is a bit different, but this might help.

Transistors at Q4 &5 are MPS5771 and Q2 & 3 PN2369
 
Finally found the Sirius and it has a hard disk.

You should have no problem sourcing these, just watch the pinout, as they can be different.
The ones in here are National Semiconductor, mounted flat face towards the closer outside edge


Q4 & Q6 2N3906
Q5 & Q7 2N3904

It is likely these transistors are in matched pairs.

Layout is similar to Q2 to 5 in this (from XT controller)
schematic.png
 
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How did you identify they were bad?
Click to expand...
I was wondering the same thing @djg.

I've been meaning to double check the xebec board that came with my Victor, the transistors at
Q4 & Q6 2N3906
Q5 & Q7 2N3904
do match the values provided by @mark0x01 above. Photo of the values below.

IMG_7722.jpeg
 
Hi all,
I thought they were bad due to the hole of the round side of the transistors, I thought these are cracks and also made a misinterpretation of the colours, looking closer, these are marks.
I disassembled the Victor and made better pictures, attached here.
With this learned, I tend to revise my first thought about the transistors being the cause.
Next step could be following djg’s advise to check the ready signal.
I saw that there is one jumper on the board, does anyone know which purpose this jumper has?
I also tend to take the risk buy the Xebec Board from ebay as the seller states it is NOS.

Best,

Martin.
 

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Dear all, just wanted to whish you all a very happy Christmas and a good and healthy happy new year!
In between the years I will sure have some time to care about my Victor Project, will keep you updated.
Have a great time!
Best regards,
Martin.
1703434576602.jpeg
 

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Merry Christmas Martin!
IMG_7760.jpeg
There's someone in the ClassicCMP discord forum who is trying to create a model of how many Victor 9000/ACT Sirius 1 machines were ever built. He's asking folks for a photo of the serial number from the bottom of their machines. If you have one, can you take a photo? This is located under the main CPU unit. I'm happy to give a link to the discord channel or cross post if it's easier for you to upload here. He's loooking for the number along with place of manufacture.
 
Merry Christmas Paul!

A pleasure to provide the picture, here you are.

Best regards,

Martin.
 

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Thanks Paul for posting my interest in compiling a list of serial numbers.

The current list can be found here:
docs.google.com

VICTOR 9000 / Sirius 1 serial numbers

Serial SerialNo,Offset,MOD,Type,Made in,PSU,Ref VM102959,102,959,VICTOR 9000,Chicago, Illinois, USA,115VAC,eBay VK102806,102,806,VICTOR 9000,Chicago, Illinois, USA,115VAC,<a href="https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/artifact/288721#slide=gs-333345">https://w...
docs.google.com docs.google.com

Serial number analysis is a well known technique for historical inquiry (most will likely know its famous
use from WWII).

I am aiming to narrow down the likely production range for the various models; may manufacturers from that era sought to be a market contender when compared to the juggernaut that was the IBM PC, Sirius Technologies certainly thought they had a chance. A comparison of the number made will add some context.

When providing the serial number it is useful to know which skin it came from: Sirius 1 or VICTOR 9000; date markings from the plastics are useful too. There is usually a MOD number too - still not sure what this means.

thanks
 
Dear all,

I made some progress in making the emulation run, by doing the following:
- Started the emulation manually
=> No Boot from HDD emulation
- Inserted Boot disk with DOS 3.11
=> Booted to DOS from Disk (Much faster than usual as the System seems to search for HDD's available and make a pause with no HDD emu on)
Then I've got a DOS prompt C:\> !!!
No access to Drive B: (seems to be reserved for a second floppy drive?)
=> Access to Drive A: which is the emulated Hard drive :)

Browsing through the HDD I am getting some seek errors:

1704390522646.png

I will try the other emulation file (sirius-1-emulation) and report back.

Very lucky to have some success after so much try and error.

Best regards,

Martin.
 

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1302L said:
...
=> Booted to DOS from Disk (Much faster than usual as the System seems to search for HDD's available and make a pause with no HDD emu on)
Then I've got a DOS prompt C:\> !!!
No access to Drive B: (seems to be reserved for a second floppy drive?)
...

Very lucky to have some success after so much try and error.
Click to expand...
Martin!
Very excited to hear you had some progress. That's good news! Yes, the second floppy is due to me. I have my HDD connected to a machine with dual floppy drives, which is not the standard Victor HDD model that was commonly sold with only one floppy. You can change the drive associations with one of the configuration programs. hdsetup.exe if I'm remembering correctly. You can assign which drive is the boot drive and what letter gets associated with what drive. In the standard Victor setup the HDD was drive A, the single floppy drive B. In the setup I have configured on my machine, the HD is drive A, the left floppy—which you don't have connected—is drive B, and the right floppy which you would have connected is drive C.
 
Hi Paul,
thanks for your quick reply.

Yes, this was quite a surprise yesterday! :) The funny thing is, I didn‘t do anything else than before I disassembled the Victor to have look at the Xebec Controller, exept booting with another (newer) DOS Version (3.11). While I was assembling the Victor again, I installed the emu board into the HDD rack and directed the USB cable to the backside of the machine.

I tried the other emulation file as well and this works also.
But I cannot open most of the executable files on the HDD emulation, most time I am running into reading failures with the question to abort/retry(ignore.
- Are there any parameters to modify to help with this problem? Or maybe it‘s the XEBEC Controller?
I also tried to copy files from Floppy to HDD emu, which works good, but also states the same error message as stated above.
Regarding the drive associations I will try to change this a little bit later, many thanks for the advice an that!

I tried to use Kermit also, but my USB - RS232 - Adapter seems to be not recognised by my WIN10 System, so I couldn‘t establish a connection so far, but this can wait as well! :)

Best,
Martin.
 
Hi,
quick update, the success of the emulation seems to be a random product.
Tonight I made a second attemt but got stuck by starting the emulation with some 'good old' message:
1704490879359.png
Having absolutely nothing changed physically, the emulation does not work today. Tried many times, but no effort.

Am I right, that this is speaking for a malfunctioning Xebec controller?

After restarting the pocess by:

1704491442491.png

Emulation worked again.

Thanks for any input!

Martin.

Thanks for any feedback!

Martin.
 
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I have just been researching this machine as I found some disks in a box that looked interesting but I couldn't read on a PC drive. I've recently got a Greaseweazle and all apart from one (the Gray Research Group one) are readable. If they are of any use to anyone I could images available available over the weekend. No original hardware to test with unfortunately!

victor_sirius_disks_800px.jpg
 
1302L said:
Thanks for any feedback!
Click to expand...
The first picture shows you starting the emulator manually. The second shows you restarting the automatic starting of the emulator. You are only supposed to do one or the other. Either turn off the emulator service and reboot then run it manually or use the service and not run it manually.

How are you running it?

If you are running the 11.7 OS you should either update the emulator software or reflash with new image.

If your are running 7.11 image you should reflash with new image.

cat /etc/debian_version will show what you are running.

http://www.pdp8online.com/mfm/revb/software.shtml

Found some issues that are fixed.
 
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nickb333 said:
I have just been researching this machine as I found some disks in a box that looked interesting but I couldn't read on a PC drive. I've recently got a Greaseweazle and all apart from one (the Gray Research Group one) are readable. If they are of any use to anyone I could images available available over the weekend. No original hardware to test with unfortunately!

View attachment 1270836
Click to expand...
Hi Nick,
Thanks so much for offering this. I would be very interested in these. I'm trying to archive all the various versions of the Victor software and you have several British editions I haven't seen. I'm also quite interested in the Concurrent DOS disk, I've been looking for that one in particular. Any chance you can give me the .flux recording and I can see what I can make of it?
 
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