Enhanced diagnostic disk image for use with freebee?

[Aharon Robbins]

Hello all. I started to play with freebee (the 3B1 emulator yesterday).
Looking at the install doc sure shot me back in time!

Anyway, it's not 100% clear how to get a floppy image of the "enhanced"
diagnostics disk. Has someone already done that who could outline
the steps? Or better yet, simply mail me the image I can use with
freebee?

I'd like to get a system installed and up and running. The nostalgia
is incredible; I had a 3B1 for 5-7 years and spent many (many!) happy
hours writing code and documentation (for gawk) on it. It was the first
computer that I owned.

Many thanks,

Arnold
--
Aharon (Arnold) Robbins arnold AT skeeve DOT com

[DoN. Nichols]

On 2020-11-06, Aharon Robbins <arn...@skeeve.com> wrote:
> Hello all. I started to play with freebee (the 3B1 emulator yesterday).
> Looking at the install doc sure shot me back in time!
>
> Anyway, it's not 100% clear how to get a floppy image of the "enhanced"
> diagnostics disk. Has someone already done that who could outline
> the steps? Or better yet, simply mail me the image I can use with
> freebee?

Well -- to search the web, the file in question is part of the
"FOUNDATION" subdirectory of a "3B1-IMAGES-US" -- which I can't tell you
where I downloaded it from -- because I don't remember, and am not sure
whether it is still present or not. But the file name is:

01of12b-Enhanced-Diag

and there is also the standard diag, named:

01of12a-Std-Diag

You boot one or the other of those, format the hard disk, and install a
minimal part of the OS from that. Then you boot that and install the
rest of the foundation set (02of12 through 12of12). If you already have
those, you may have the Enhanced Diag image already.

Hmm ... using strings on the image, I find this at the end
(presumably a file included there)


======================================================================
Enhanced UNIX PC Diagnostic Disk
o Allows multiple partitions to be created when doing hard disk format.
o Entries for larger hard disks in the format table, Maxtor XT1140 and
Maxtor XT2190
o Allows the hard disk format to format more than 1024 cylinders
o The loader on this disk is a special loader. It will allow you to boot
from the second hard drive if the machine is upgraded to P5.1. Otherwise
the second drive doesn't even show up as a viable option. You can copy
the loader to the hard disk with:
# /etc/ldrcpy /dev/rfp020 /dev/rfp000
The special verbose loader will boot /unix from drive 0 if no input
is given at the "Enter load device option or Load what program option"
in about 60 seconds. This gives the user the option to boot different
programs but still give the machine a chance to auto-reboot if no
user is available.
Distributed by Lenny Tropiano, ICUS Software Systems, le...@icus.islp.ny.us
======================================================================

Note that I used the final option listed to boot various
diagonistics directly from the hard disk at need.

These images are dd copies of the floppy they represent. I note
from the size that even the std diag is on a 360K floppy, unlike the
original.

That directory contains a few things other than the foundation
set, and a cpio image of the foundation set installed.

======================================================================
01of12a-Std-Diag 04of12 08of12 12of12 foundation.cpio ROOT
01of12b-Enhanced-Diag 05of12 09of12 ATE-1of1 GSSDRV-2of2 TEL-MGR-1of1
02of12 06of12 10of12 COMMPT-1of1 GSSDRV1of2 TIDB-1of1
03of12 07of12 11of12 CURTI-1of1 Notes
======================================================================

Note the "ROOT" directory in here is where I recently extracted
a bunch of information to re-discover the format images for other disk
drives than the ones which the original systems came with. (Most of
that is hiding in /usr/lib/iv.)

> I'd like to get a system installed and up and running. The nostalgia
> is incredible; I had a 3B1 for 5-7 years and spent many (many!) happy
> hours writing code and documentation (for gawk) on it. It was the first
> computer that I owned.

I'm not sure how one installs them into the emulator, but
hopefully you have that info.

> Many thanks,
>
> Arnold

Good Luck,
DoN.

--
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--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

[J Booth]

> Anyway, it's not 100% clear how to get a floppy image of the "enhanced"
> diagnostics disk. Has someone already done that who could outline
> the steps? Or better yet, simply mail me the image I can use with
> freebee?

If you are just trying to get things up and running, you can use the directions on the github for creating the 64MB hd.img and use that with the standard diag disk 01 (01_Diagnosic_Disk_Ver_3.51.IMD). If you were trying to make a bigger HD image, then yeah it sounds like you might need that Enhanced diag disk.

Jesse

[Aharon Robbins]

In article <9aedc852-33ac-4b2f...@googlegroups.com>,

Well, it'd have been nice to not have to set up a system, create the
enhanced diagnostics disk to make a bigger one, and go through all
the setup a second time with a bigger disk.

I assume that option 9, the miniscribe, is the right disk to use?

However, I'm having trouble just getting a regular system up. It gets
through the install, but when it's done and should go to the login
prompt, it just hangs. It's doing something, usnig 20% - 30% of the
CPU, but I have no idea what it's doing.

I also don't see any way to boot to a single-user shell prompt.
Any and all pointers would be appreciated. Probably best in offline
email...

Thanks,

[J Booth]

Just following up on this in case anyone else is interested.

>
> I assume that option 9, the miniscribe, is the right disk to use?
>

Yes option 9 (64MB) drive is the one to use if you created a 67108864 byte hd.img using the directions on the github.

As Arnold and I found out, you can make a custom drive a little larger. You can make an hd.img 91750400 and then choose option "12 - Others" to initialize the drive with the following params:
1400 cyl (max supported by the OS)
8 tracks/cyl (aka 8 heads)
17 sec/track (you do an extra sector versus 16 sec/track which is used for the hd.img file size calculation)
This can be done with the standard diagnostics disk (disk 01), the enhanced diagnostics disk is NOT required as the head count is still only 8.

> However, I'm having trouble just getting a regular system up. It gets
> through the install, but when it's done and should go to the login
> prompt, it just hangs. It's doing something, usnig 20% - 30% of the
> CPU, but I have no idea what it's doing.
>

Yeah the problem here is .phinit in the rc file hangs the emulator so botches the end of the install :( I hexedited disk 08 of the install set to change ".phinit" to all spaces in the rc file which allows for a proper install! I spent a lot of time trying to get .phinit to work in the emulator but was unable to come up with a solution. So went the alternative path of hexediting disk 08.

Jesse