Cromix, floppies, XMM, etc.
r...@speakeasy.net
As far as a hard drive is concerned, I don't have any of the Cromemco S-100 controllers, BUT I do have a GIDE that I've used on a ZPU. I've not incorporated it into a CP/M CBIOS yet, but I have run some diagnostics in the TPA (from CP/M) and can read and write to the IDE drive. Do you think that would work with Cromix? It just looks like a block of ports to the Z80. Not sure if it would be visible to an XPU, or how difficult it would be to write Cromix drivers for it. Anyone know? Anyone used one with Cromix?
As far as the "ideal" version of Cromix, do you think 172 would work with 4 HD 5.25" drives? I can do that pretty easily. I have run Cromix-L rel. 8 (serial # 10431). That works fairly well. I'd really like to write some 68k code and experiment with that CPU. I've never had a chance to work with a 68k (other than on early Sun Workstations).
It's been a while, so I may not remember correctly, but the problem I've always had is that the Cromix software I've tried to use is on 5.25" 360k diskettes. I always get stuck trying to copy it over to HD, because the 360k drives don't play nice with the HD ones (that the hardware thinks are 8"). How do you get past that?
Roger
MikeS
Sorry, no idea what would be involved in using a GIDE with Cromix.
There is driver info for the Z80 versions, but I think it was only for
character drivers and not block drivers like an HD. Most Cromix
versions can use the 34-pin IMI interface drives and the later
versions have drivers for the STDC ST-506 controller, but that is
actually a Z80 coprocessor with 64K RAM and an 8K ROM, and it handles
disk I/O a full 10K track at a time; they never had a 'normal' ST-506
controller. Ask Marcus, he's been looking for a (reasonably priced)
ST-506 drive replacement for some time.
Cromix-L release 8 sounds like the 8" version of Z80 Cromix-7 (don't
ask), version 11.22. I think that version did support the Tandon
TM-848, but I'd upgrade to release 11 (version 11.27) just in case;
they should fit on a single 5 1/4HD drive no problem.
Like I said, for 68K Cromix on floppies I'd try something around 31.51
or so which should fit on two of your HD emulated 8" drives; I think
Marcus has most of these on his site, if not I could probably send you
something.
As to running DD and HD drives together, it shouldn't be a big problem
but there are a few gotchas. What make/model are the HD drives, and
are they connected on the 34-pin bus or on the 50 with an adapter?
You'll probably have to dig out the Cromemco and get it running that
Z80 Cromix so we can get some more info, i.e what software are you
copying, what errors, etc.
What would be nice is a 32MB or so battery-backed memory card and use
that as a RAM disk with an interface to copy to/from an SD card;
shouldn't be too hard with modern components for someone who knows how
to do that stuff. Lots of stuff like this is being developed out there
for other systems, why not a Cromemco...
C'mon, Marcus: let's hear what you have to say about this!
mike
mountaintop
homebrew Z80 system.
M H Stein
m
*********************
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From: mountaintop[SMTP:khar...@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, June 21, 2009 2:34 PM
To: Cromemco
Subject: Re: Cromix, floppies, XMM, etc.
M H Stein
would want 32 bits, so maybe it's not as simple and useful as I thought.
****************
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From: M H Stein[SMTP:dm...@torfree.net]
Sent: Sunday, June 21, 2009 10:11 PM
To: 'crom...@googlegroups.com'
Subject: RE: Cromix, floppies, XMM, etc.
Well, if it could handle 16 bits, be a reasonable size (>=32MB), Cromix-compatible and not too expensive it would be interesting indeed...
m
*********************
----------
From: mountaintop[SMTP:khar...@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, June 21, 2009 2:34 PM
To: Cromemco
Subject: Re: Cromix, floppies, XMM, etc.
I'm sure Roger could do the ram drive as he designed one for his
homebrew Z80 system.
<snip>
Marcus Bennett
Hello there. (My late response was due to mini holiday) ...
First, I was trying to put together a list of versions in this file
http://maben.homeip.net:8217/static/S100/cromemco/SUDS/cromemco%20versions.xls
To all let me know if anything is wrong ...
---------
I am quite sure that with a 64FDC controller Cromix 68K versions for sure will handle any combination of 4, 5.25 or 8" logical drives.
8" logical drives means wither
a) an actual 8" drive
b) a 5.25 HD diskette pretending to be an 8"
c) a 3.5" diskette pretending to be an 8"
Although for (c) even a Samsung SFD-321 won't do because it is hard wired to be a B: diskette [I recently got more than 5 new drives and need some time to study the jumpers on the floppy board to see how for example the DS3 jumper I saw could possible help matters. As of today I can only use as a B: drive]
The overall process for getting things going for a HD system might be
0) make sure the interrupt cable from the CPU to ST506 to 64FDC is connected in right order. I recall that from 16 to 64FDC to order of the interrupt connector got reversed on some boards (check the board legend for out and IN)
a) get a cromix boot diskette
b) write protect it, at least initially
c) boot up on floppy
d) Do the inithard and makfs to get the hard disk formatted (clearly you got the track and head information before right?)
e) to a readall on the hard disk to make sure it is really there!
f) next copy the floppy boot disk, or if you cant do that reboot with it read/write
g) on reboot make sure to update the /dev directory with the correct entries for all of
/dev/sfda ... /dev/sfdd ; 360K cromix format diskettes A: D:
/dev/fda ...../dev/fdd ; 1.2MB cromix on 8" A .. D
h) create a mount point and copy over all the files from your floppy
create /hd0
mount std0 /hd0
d /
mode -pa
cptree -fv / /hd0 ; go for a coffee
---------------
Before I could afford a ST506 disk controller (about 800 USD I recall in 1984) I used to run a 4 floppy disk system with eventually cromix 162 (release 8 no less!)
A: 5.25 360K i.e. /dev/sfda
B=C=D 8" 1.2MB i.e. /dev/fdb /dev/fdc /dev/fdd in my case
A: boot floppy containing just /cromix.sys and the boot loader written out by the wboot program
B: /bin only
C: the rest of the OS
from RDOS I'd always BA to boot from A: (though in principle BC would have worked)
The /cromix.sys on the A: was set to auto boot onto the C: drive. In the startup script a mount was made to mount -r /dev/fdb /bin ( I think inside /etc/startup.cmd)
Once up and running the D: drive was the spare drive on which data could be stored or code written.
I had the OS on the C: drive
This 4 drive setup worked very well and 2 x 8" drives was a pretty good fit for the Cromix OS in 68000 genre plus some application programs like wordstar and a few compilers.
-------------
Some tips for diskette drive setups ....
you would need to make a 4 x IDC flat cable to connect the four 5.25 HD drives on the mini disk controller interface
Then of course do the 64FDC controller mod as described earlier
If you can find a diskette that works with head always loaded then this will probably increase your sanity level as else disk copying and general operation will be a succession of fast and slow diskette head loading and unloading clicks and bangs!
---------------
Uniform ..
When Uniform came out (back in the day) I did make a great effort to create all I could in that format. The device driver needed to be included by something like
d /gen
ce sysdef ; make the edit shown in the next line
BDEV 02 uflop % Suggested uflop
crogen 20090622cromix
boot /gen/20090622cromix # do a test boot first and if works move to my A: /dev/sfda floppy
I then modified my 4 drive system so
A. /dev/sfda - contained a boot disk that would auto boot to the C. drive
B: /dev/ufdb - diskette in uniform format containing just /bin files
C: /dev/fdc - Cromix 68K OS files but no /bin. Did contain a /cromix.sys which did not auto boot so from RDOS a BC command would boot this OS loader from where you would have to choose a boot target
D: /dev/ufdd - Drive normally used in Uniform format for data
So now the boot process would normally be
power on
in rdos BA - this boots the OS on diskette A: that is set to autoboot the 8" diskette in /dev/fdc
As /dev/fdc boots via a startup file it automounts
mount -r /dev/ufdb /bin ; via /etc/startup.cmd I think?
Now the binary files are mounted
then login etc.
------------
And finally Mike had a superb summary email about what would be needed to boot cromix. I agree with all his points, which in summary are
XXU 68020 would need the XXU version of the OS, 172 is the latest I have
68000 or 68010 sitting on a DPU or XPU processor card might best use Cromix Plus-7 which is release 10 or 31.68 or version 168 (all terms are equivalent). I dont have a 172 level to run on the 6800/68010
Fairly obviously the 68000/68010 cromix does not run on the XXU card since the z80 code of the OS cant be run ? And the reverse is true the 68020 machine code cannot be execute on a 68000/68010
No version of Cromix needs the memory management card to run
I can currently create any bootable or cromix diskette in 360K or 8" or 3.5" format. Postage might take some time if the destination is not Europe.
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And now, rather unfortunately back to work: I still have 1141.25 GB of memory to allocate on the AIX system that I am building !
regards marcus
M H Stein
From: Marcus Bennett[SMTP:amo...@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, June 22, 2009 8:27 AM
To: crom...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Cromix, floppies, XMM, etc.
Roger,
Hello there. (My late response was due to mini holiday) ...
First, I was trying to put together a list of versions in this file
http://maben.homeip.net:8217/static/S100/cromemco/SUDS/cromemco%20versions.xls
To all let me know if anything is wrong ...
---------
I am quite sure that with a 64FDC controller Cromix 68K versions for sure
will handle any combination of 4, 5.25 or 8" logical drives.
8" logical drives means wither
a) an actual 8" drive
b) a 5.25 HD diskette pretending to be an 8"
c) a 3.5" diskette pretending to be an 8"
Although for (c) even a Samsung SFD-321 won't do because it is hard wired to
be a B: diskette [I recently got more than 5 new drives and need some time
to study the jumpers on the floppy board to see how for example the DS3
jumper I saw could possible help matters. As of today I can only use as a B:
drive]
<snip>
Marcus:
Thanks for the extensive detailed instructions; I thought you'd be better qualified
to advise Roger since I've never run Cromix from floppies except for installation,
diagnostics or repair.
As to using different drives (i.e. 3.5 and 5.25 emulating 8") I don't think it should
be a problem anywhere except perhaps with very old versions that only knew
about the Persci drives and not the Tandons.
I'm still not clear why you're using uniform format, although I suppose it might
be less troublesome on a PC? And you've checked that it doesn't cause any
problems, even in CDOS?
Roger:
So, what do you need to get started?
m
r...@speakeasy.net
>> So, what do you need to get started?
>> m
Roger
M H Stein
>> m
>Roger
-----------------
I think you said that you'd had them working as 8" drives so they're probably OK, but just for info what are the make/model of your 5.25" HD drives?
The next question would be whether you can successfully recreate an HD disk from one of the image files, like Marcus' 693CR168 or my CX168X1B, and boot from it. If so, you're away to the races; most versions are imaged on Marcus' site and if you have trouble configuring it to run on floppies I'm sure he or I could do it and send you the configured disk images.
Have FUN!!!
r...@speakeasy.net
>> I think you said that you'd had them working as 8" drives so they're probably OK, but just for info what are the make/model of your
>> 5.25" HD drives?
The jumper options for the Mitsumi D509V3 are:
drive select (I know what to do there *smile*)
HD/LD "HIGH" or "LOW" at terminal 2
"MOTOR ON" control of DD motor operation vs "Drive Select" controls
pin 34 is "disk change" vs. "ready"
360 rpm motor speed vs. dual speed mode (300/360 rpm)
The delivery defaults are DS1 (B:), HD, "MOTOR ON", "disk change", and 360 rpm
>> The next question would be whether you can successfully recreate an HD disk from one of the image files, ...snip....
That remains to be seen! I have a vague idea of what to do, but the devil is in the details!
M H Stein
Sent: Friday, June 26, 2009 12:36 AM
>> I think you said that you'd had them working as 8" drives so they're probably OK, but just for info what are the make/model of your
>> 5.25" HD drives?
>Yes, I use them with CP/M (4 of them). They are Mitsumi D509V3. I just put a shorting block across the 50-pin header on the FDC (real 8" drive interface) at the 11th row (ground pin 22 ("ready"?)). So, always "ready". The 5.25" HD drives are on the 34-pin interface. Obviously that isn't going to work real well with an actual 8" drive plugged into the 50-pin connector. So I think that I need to jump the 5.25" drive(s) to return "ready" on pin 34, and install a wire between pin 34 of the 34-pin header and pin 22 of the 50-pin header?
>The jumper options for the Mitsumi D509V3 are:
>drive select (I know what to do there *smile*)
>HD/LD "HIGH" or "LOW" at terminal 2
>"MOTOR ON" control of DD motor operation vs "Drive Select" controls
>pin 34 is "disk change" vs. "ready"
>360 rpm motor speed vs. dual speed mode (300/360 rpm)
>The delivery defaults are DS1 (B:), HD, "MOTOR ON", "disk change", and 360 rpm
-------------
Yup. Remove the strap grounding pin22 on the 8" FDC connector, replace it with a jumper to pin34 of the 5.25" connector,
and change the RY/DC jumpers on the D509V3s (Labelled "DCH" IIRC) ; Bob should be your uncle.
-------------
>> The next question would be whether you can successfully recreate an HD disk from one of the image files, ...snip....
>That remains to be seen! I have a vague idea of what to do, but the devil is in the details!
Indeed...