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Wang OIS-50: Help needed

B

braids

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Nov 12, 2010
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I've got an old Wang OIS-50 without any documention and disks. Since there was no original harddisk (probably shred) inside I fitted a seagate ST225. When I switch on the
machine with a workstation on one of the IWS ports (4 available) then the screen shows random blinking stuff but none to help on.

Questions: Is there a maintenance program in the ROM and how can I start it? What type of software does I need to bring this machine back working? Is there Someone that knows these computers?


Sincerly, braids.
 
I know this site, but there's no usable information over OIS-50 and the site is out of care from a few years.
 
I've got the mainteneance manual from bitsaver.org.

It seems like there are missing the printer and the I-Wise cards.
Does i need this cards cogent for producing a switch-on message on screen or does the OS this task?
The 7-geg-displays on front of the box shows 55 if the winchester isn't ready spun up and 91 or 92 dependent of the
floppy knob.

How gan i get a boot disk?

Thanks, Braids.
 
That cass.net site used to be mine. When I moved and closed my account, the ISP never deleted the web space and still hasn't 'gotten around to it'. Anyway, I have all the maintenance manuals and schematics for the OIS-50 series, as well as a functional unit.

There is no ROM routines other than those that do simple tests and display the hexadecimal codes on the front of the unit.

A long time ago, I had cobbled together a boot (OS installation) disk from the files on the hard disk and an OS install for the OIS-140. If you're interested, I can send you a copy of this disk, then you should be able to boot the system and attempt to format the hard disk.

You will need to make sure the DIP switches on the hard disk controller are set properly.

The system will run fine without the IWISE or printer controller cards. The minimal configuration is the RCU, RMU, and a single IWS card.

If you can get the system running, I have a ton of software for it.

Jim
 
Codes '91' and '92' are 'Drive not ready' (and/or I/O error, in the case of floppy). The switch on the front of the unit selects boot from floppy or hard disk - UP is for floppy disk.

If you place the switch in the DOWN position, power the system ON, you should eventually get to one of the following codes:

0 - Invalid volume label
E 1 - Not a system disk
E F - Invalid IPL sector

If you are still stuck on '91' or '92', you will need to verify the DIP switches on the hard disk controller, or the configuration of the ST225 itself. I can dig around and see if I have information on configuring the ST225 properly for the OIS.

Jim
 
Dear Jim,

Thank You for the facts.

The latter is the case; so i need to clarify the dip-switches on the winch and the controller next when i build up the system.

Yes, i'm interested on a boot disk.

Yours Syncerly,

Michael
 
Today, i've done a test session...

I've tried a couple of hard disks with the switchpak on the RCU from 0h to Fh and divert
valid jumper position on the disks but the display always show 9.1 or 9.2 .


Proper sector layout of these disks is doubtful because they'r ran in PC's with 17 sectors of 512 bytes even than the 32 sectors of 256 bytes wanted

by the controller of the Wang. Can that also be a cause for these error messages? Can i also operate this computer without a harddisk for proper set up

of one of these disk with a format tool or must i go the way over verbose formatting equipment on a PC?


Yours Syncerly,

braids.
 
Last edited:
There is a disk 'STARTER F 1' that contains a disk formatting tool and an installer that does nothing but install the bootstrap and the 'real' installer to the hard disk. If you had this disk, you could boot the system from it and see if you could format the hard disk. I have a copy from Release 10.5 somewhere - I'll let you know if I can find it. Do you have the document that describes the proper switch settings on the RCU?
 
Hi,

Possible switch settings for seagate drives can be obtain the website of these
manufacturer. I've got data from these site too. I'm unsure that OIS-50 needs
the resistor pack on the drive or not.


Yours sincerly,

Braids
 
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