• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Victor 9k / Sirius 1 Software

pdevine said:
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?
Click to expand...
Hi Paul,
Unfortunately it looks as if the Concurrent one has been overwritten at some point. I've scanned all of them with Greasweazle/Fluxbox using an 80-track 5.25 drive (DS/QD not HD).
Hopefully all in the attached zip file.

I'm happy to re-scan to more detailed copies if you suggest what paramenters I should use from GW.

Nick.
 

Attachments

  • Victor 9000 _ Sirius 1 Disks.zip
    3.5 MB · Views: 1
nickb333 said:
Hi Paul,
Unfortunately it looks as if the Concurrent one has been overwritten at some point. I've scanned all of them with Greasweazle/Fluxbox using an 80-track 5.25 drive (DS/QD not HD).
Hopefully all in the attached zip file.

I'm happy to re-scan to more detailed copies if you suggest what paramenters I should use from GW.

Nick.
Click to expand...
Thanks much for posting these Nick, much appreciated! Are you ok if I upload these to the internet archive?
 
Hi djg,
djg said:
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.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the explanation!

Yes, I started the emulator manually (without having the automatic emulation switched on), due to no success (No boot from HDD emu) having the automatic installed. I've done the following:

- Switched on the machine
- Waited till the emu board booted
- Started the emulation manually
-Booted DOS 3.10 from Floppy
- Now having the emulated HDD working (Both images are working)

I am running the 11.7 OS in the BBB, will reflash the device.
=> May this also be the reason for the problems I had, that I couldn't open the executable files on the HDD emulation? I suspected the Xebec HDD controller.

I wasn't fully aware that the restart procedure was just for the automatic process, the funny thing is, that, if the manual emulation doesn't start an I am giving the two commands displayed, the manual emulation starts fine afterwards.

I will reflash now and report back.

Best, Martin.
 
nickb333 said:
Yes please feel free. I'd be interested to know whether they work on real Victor hardware too.
Click to expand...

Hi Nick,
Welcome! I may test them as Paul uploaded them, as the Victor and the other equipment is standing currently on my home office desk. :)

Best,
Martin.
 
Hi,
quick supplement on my last post regarding the reading and writing on the HDD emulation:
Please see screenshot example attached, I am getting a lot of seek and general failure errors.
Thanks for any advice!
Best,
Martin.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_3449.jpg
    IMG_3449.jpg
    742.6 KB · Views: 6

pdevine,​

can you check what version you are running?
setup_emu
mfm_emu --version

1302L, can you reflash with this image and see if it works better? http://www.pdp8online.com/mfm/revb/BBB-mfm-emu_v3.01.img.xz
This is the old OS image so will need to cd to directories and run with ./mfm_emu like my pages say.

If not when we get the version that seems to be working can you get the code from here and put it on your board?
http://www.pdp8online.com/mfm/code/old/
This would be copy the tar.gz file to root on the emulator then login as root
tar -xzf filename
cd emu
make clean
make

The systemctl command just make it run start_mfm_emu script. That runs the
setup_emu and mfm_emu commands. When you get the J2 cable reversed does just rerunning mfm_emu change the message? Does rerunning setup_emu then mfm_emu change the message?

I've had a couple people report strange behavior recently. I'm going to retest on all my machines to see if I can see any errors. Probably will take a few days. If not I'll need you to do some more tests to try to figure out what is going on.
The seek error is probably easiest to try to reproduce and see what is going on. In the one screen shot you showed of emulator running there were some suspicious prints that may be related to seek problem.

Does the Victor implement the standard BIOS INT 13 for accessing the disk? Unless you have something I may need to create a program to seek and read to see if we can trigger the problem with a controlled test.
 
djg,
thanks for this valuable input!
I will update my BBB with the image you posted above.
This may take a few days, I will report back.

Another question, might be quite trivial but I cannot find the 'Backslash' [\] on the Victor Keyboard with German layout, as this is essential for file management, maybe someone can help here? Keyboard Layout picture attached.

Best,

Martin.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_2897.jpg
    IMG_2897.jpg
    1 MB · Views: 6
1302L said:
djg,
thanks for this valuable input!
I will update my BBB with the image you posted above.
This may take a few days, I will report back.

Another question, might be quite trivial but I cannot find the 'Backslash' [\] on the Victor Keyboard with German layout, as this is essential for file management, maybe someone can help here? Keyboard Layout picture attached.

Best,

Martin.
Click to expand...
Hi Martin, It depends on what operating system you're running. With the English DOS, it's the alt-shift # key on your keyboard. With the German DOS I'm not sure where it resides. I didn't see it on the layout screen. You can see the keyboard layouts by OS here:
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/victor/victor9000/Victor_9000_Operators_Reference_Guide.pdf
on page 326 or C-3.

When looking at the diagram, let's take the key to the left of the backspace key as an example. Just pressing the key alone gets you '=' pressing shift gets you '+' and then pressing alt-shift gets you '\'.
1704854763669.png

You can also create new keyboard layouts as you wish with the program keygen. It lets you map any character to any key position and then save the keyboard layout. You can then load the layout with modcon. That's all described here:

so if your default german layout is missing \, you can just assign it to any key you'd like with keygen + modcon.
 
nickb333 said:
Yes please feel free. I'd be interested to know whether they work on real Victor hardware too.
Click to expand...
Hi @nickb333, I'm afraid I have bad news to report. When I wrote out these disks and tried to get them to work on the actual victor hardware, it wasn't able to read them. When I try to open the images in the AppleSauce disk imaging software it doesn't recognize the image format. How did you create these .img files? Is it possible to get a copy of the .flux for .scp?
 
pdevine said:
Hi @nickb333, I'm afraid I have bad news to report. When I wrote out these disks and tried to get them to work on the actual victor hardware, it wasn't able to read them. When I try to open the images in the AppleSauce disk imaging software it doesn't recognize the image format. How did you create these .img files? Is it possible to get a copy of the .flux for .scp?
Click to expand...
@pdevine I used Fluxengine software, Greaseweazle and a 5.25 80track DD drive. I read them single-sided. I just noticed on the Fluxengine page for this format that it needs the disk to rotate at 360rpm which seems to suggest I should be using my HD drive instead.
I have the following drives to choose from:
80T DS DD 80T Mitsubishi M4853-342M. Not PC standard, originally used with Acorn Master and BBC-B micros.
80T DS HD NEC FD1157C
80T DS HD Mitsumi D509V3 (Newtronics).


I'll do some more reads over the next few days and see if I can produce some .scp images. Do you expect the disks to be single-sided or double sided format?
 
nickb333 said:
I'll do some more reads over the next few days and see if I can produce some .scp images. Do you expect the disks to be single-sided or double sided format?
Click to expand...
I'd expect them to be single sided most likely. Usually the distribution disks were single sided to work on machines that had only single-sided drives. Some of the later disks were double sided.
 
pdevine said:
I'd expect them to be single sided most likely. Usually the distribution disks were single sided to work on machines that had only single-sided drives. Some of the later disks were double sided.
Click to expand...
That's what I'm seeing in FluxEngine. This time with the gui, saving .img and .flux files. If I scan single-sided 612kB it runs though rapidly, but if I scan both sides 1224kB, it fails on side 1.

1704928824741.png1704929375585.png

Attached is a zip with one disk (6722) with .img, .flux and .txt logfile of the scan. This time I've used the NEC FD1157C which is a high-density drive.
 

Attachments

  • msdos_6722_victor9k_612.zip
    1.5 MB · Views: 2
pdevine said:
Hi Martin, It depends on what operating system you're running. With the English DOS, it's the alt-shift # key on your keyboard. With the German DOS I'm not sure where it resides. I didn't see it on the layout screen. You can see the keyboard layouts by OS here:
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/victor/victor9000/Victor_9000_Operators_Reference_Guide.pdf
on page 326 or C-3.

When looking at the diagram, let's take the key to the left of the backspace key as an example. Just pressing the key alone gets you '=' pressing shift gets you '+' and then pressing alt-shift gets you '\'.
View attachment 1271094

You can also create new keyboard layouts as you wish with the program keygen. It lets you map any character to any key position and then save the keyboard layout. You can then load the layout with modcon. That's all described here:

so if your default german layout is missing \, you can just assign it to any key you'd like with keygen + modcon.
Click to expand...
Hi Paul,
many thanks, now I see what I have to do, I will work through the programming guide and try to modify the Layout of my German Keyboard. :) I assumed that there was an immanent key combination, but yes, the key allocation is dependent on the software running.
Most time I am running DOS 3.10 which is an US version, if I can get the German Layout for this DOS, would be great as it is not very convenient to search for the right keys all the time.
I have an older (2.11) German DOS Version, is it possible to take the three files necessary (*.kbd / *.kb /*.chr) from there or will this cause a mess? Otherwise I will try to modify the original files on the DOS 3.10 Floppy Disk.
Cheers,
Martin.
 
Just re-reading and realized I missed the request for the version of mfm emulator I'm running. I haven't been good about keeping current, so it's at least 1.5 years out of date. I'm out of town for a couple days but I can check on Monday when I get back.
 
pdevine said:
Just re-reading and realized I missed the request for the version of mfm emulator I'm running. I haven't been good about keeping current, so it's at least 1.5 years out of date. I'm out of town for a couple days but I can check on Monday when I get back.
Click to expand...
Hi Paul,
thanks. I assume that your emulation is running well.
As I am on business travel and hope to do the update on Sunday, maybe it was a little bit premature to install the emu Board in the Victor, now I have to disassemble the machine again in order to get to the board. :)
Best,
Martin.
 
Hi all,
I was able to do the update on the emulation board a little bit earlier.
But, same as before, I am able to load the emulation manually, not automatic emulation.
Version is now 4.14., hope this is the right one.
Please see logfiles attached.
I tried to open Kermit on the emulation, the last two passages on the logfile are showing what is happening when I try to load KERMIT.EXE.
Best,
Martin.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_3467.jpg
    IMG_3467.jpg
    515.6 KB · Views: 4
  • Logfile emu_update 011224.txt
    11.8 KB · Views: 3
  • Logfile emulation 011224.txt
    31.7 KB · Views: 3
Last edited:
Just went through djg's last post, I think, I did the wrong thing...
Thanks for looking into this,
Martin.
 
Can you try the attached seek test programs?

seek 1 5
Seeks between cylinder 1 and 5 reading a sector.
seek 1 5 x
Seeks between cylinder 1 and 5.
seek2 1 340
Seeks between sector 1 and 340. I think your disk has 68 sectors per cylinder.

The test will repeat 1000 times. Control-c will stop.

Emulator should be repeating
Drive 0 Cyl 5->1 select 1, head 0 dirty 0
Waiting, seek time 3.8 ms max 16.9 min free buffers 69
Drive 0 Cyl 1->5 select 1, head 0 dirty 0
Waiting, seek time 3.8 ms max 16.9 min free buffers 69

Seek time shown should have a minimum value around 2.5 ms for your 4 head drive.

Their are a couple odd things in your output
Drive 0 Cyl 280->278 select 1, head 0 dirty 0
Waiting, seek time 3.2 ms max 8.6 min free buffers 75
Drive 0 Cyl 278->277 select 1, head 0 dirty 0
Waiting, seek time 3.2 ms max 8.6 min free buffers 75
This looks like a recalibrate where its stepping back to track 0 but that is normally done by steps of 1. This have variable number of cylinders per step.

Drive 0 Cyl 209->207 select 1, head 0 dirty 0
Waiting, seek time 2.2 ms max 8.6 min free buffers 75
Waiting, seek time 0.0 ms max 8.6 min free buffers 75
Drive 0 Cyl 207->205 select 1, head 0 dirty 0
Waiting, seek time 3.2 ms max 8.6 min free buffers 75
Seek time of 0 is normally not good. You also have some other suspiciously low seek times.

What test equipment do you have for looking at signals? Assuming this shows seek problems looking at the signals would be the next step.
 

Attachments

  • seek.zip
    11.7 KB · Views: 2
Last edited:
djg said:
Can you try the attached seek test programs?

seek 1 5
Seeks between cylinder 1 and 5 reading a sector.
seek 1 5 x
Seeks between cylinder 1 and 5.
seek2 1 340
Seeks between sector 1 and 340. I think your disk has 68 sectors per cylinder.

The test will repeat 1000 times. Control-c will stop.

Emulator should be repeating
Drive 0 Cyl 5->1 select 1, head 0 dirty 0
Waiting, seek time 3.8 ms max 16.9 min free buffers 69
Drive 0 Cyl 1->5 select 1, head 0 dirty 0
Waiting, seek time 3.8 ms max 16.9 min free buffers 69

Seek time shown should have a minimum value around 2.5 ms for your 4 head drive.

Their are a couple odd things in your output
Drive 0 Cyl 280->278 select 1, head 0 dirty 0
Waiting, seek time 3.2 ms max 8.6 min free buffers 75
Drive 0 Cyl 278->277 select 1, head 0 dirty 0
Waiting, seek time 3.2 ms max 8.6 min free buffers 75
This looks like a recalibrate where its stepping back to track 0 but that is normally done by steps of 1. This have variable number of cylinders per step.

Drive 0 Cyl 209->207 select 1, head 0 dirty 0
Waiting, seek time 2.2 ms max 8.6 min free buffers 75
Waiting, seek time 0.0 ms max 8.6 min free buffers 75
Drive 0 Cyl 207->205 select 1, head 0 dirty 0
Waiting, seek time 3.2 ms max 8.6 min free buffers 75
Seek time of 0 is normally not good. You also have some other suspiciously low seek times.

What test equipment do you have for looking at signals? Assuming this shows seek problems looking at the signals would be the next step.
Click to expand...
Hi djg,
thanks for your input.
How and where do I execute the test program?
I trust whilst the emulation running.
Tried to do this during emulation running but the input had no effect.
Thanks for providing a little procedure how to do this.
I have a good Fluke Multimeter and a little (cheap) digital 1-Channel Oszilloscope.
Best,
Martin.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top