Greetings to everybody !
supervinx
I'm joining this group because I've found a working AT&T/Olivetti
3B1 ... System5 3.0INTL
This is a new beast ... I'm lucky I know Unix ;-)
The MB has 1MB ... I'd like to expand it but I noticed that expansion
sockets for 256 chips are missing :-(
No expansion cards and no mouse ...
I need some hints...
I downloaded the foundation floppies in the net and a bunch of other
software.
Where can I find the diagnostic floppy images ? Are they contained in
the foundation ones ?
Can I manage the windows through the keyboard ?
Having no manuals I'm trying the keys ;-)
What't the best way to backup the system ? I could use a brute force
method: removing the HD and make a disk image outside ...
Thanks !
DoN. Nichols
> Hi !
> I'm joining this group because I've found a working AT&T/Olivetti
> 3B1 ... System5 3.0INTL
Hmm ... one thing seems wrong in the above. Olivetti did not
make the 3B1 -- they made the 6300 (PC Clone) instead -- a very
different beast in the same time period.
The "INTL" version will lack things with encryption, including
the version of vi(1) which has encryption capability. (Pretty much
forced by the laws covering encryption software at the time.)
> This is a new beast ... I'm lucky I know Unix ;-)
That will be really helpful -- especially when you accidentally
click on a file and it invokes the default editor -- which is ed(1)
until you install the development set (which includes vi as an editor),
or you bought one of the word processing packages.
ed(1) gives you no clue what you program are in, nor how to get
out of it, and there are no online man pages. And the dead-tree man
pages only come with the development set (by which time the default
editor is now vi(1). :-) But if you have other unix systems, you should
have a man page for ed(1) on hand somewhere.
> The MB has 1MB ... I'd like to expand it but I noticed that expansion
> sockets for 256 chips are missing :-(
IIRC -- you need a few other chips as well, along with the
terminator resistor packages to go with them.
There are "Combo" cards for the system which contain 512K of RAM
and two serial ports (RS-232), and an expansion RAM board which contains
1.5 MB of RAM, as well as some early 512K boards which can be modified
to provide 2MB of RAM. (The most which can be put in the expansion
slots is 2MB, and with 2MB in the system board, you have your maximum of
4MB for the system.)
> No expansion cards and no mouse ...
The mouse will be a nasty thing to find. The connector is not
the same as any other mouse.
> I need some hints...
> I downloaded the foundation floppies in the net and a bunch of other
> software.
> Where can I find the diagnostic floppy images ? Are they contained in
> the foundation ones ?
Hmm ... the diagnostic floppy was packaged with the foundation
set in one binder. Note that the diagnostic floppy was formatted at 8
sectors per track, while most of the rest was 10 sectors per track. I
think that the 8 sectors per track was needed for a bootable floppy.
There should be an upgraded diagnostics floppy for download
which allows access to a second hard drive, if you modify the hardware
of the system board.
> Can I manage the windows through the keyboard ?
I don't really remember being able to.
> Having no manuals I'm trying the keys ;-)
> What't the best way to backup the system ? I could use a brute force
> method: removing the HD and make a disk image outside ...
Well ... there is a backup option in the GUI -- but be warned
that it only backs up things added beyond the foundation set -- and it
also does not back up anything which has a last modified date earlier
than the recorded install date. This bit me when I had an upgraded
mkdir(1) program which added the "-p" option which I had compiled on an
earlier install and moved via tar(1) from a floppy. Tar preserves the
last modified date from the archived file, so it was older than the
install date for the system and never got backed up.
It uses a *lot* of floppys to do a full backup.
There was an option for the system called a "floppy tape" which
could back up a lot more, but when you had a 190 MB disk installed (also
needs hardware modification) it still took several tapes. The tapes
were DC-300 (300 MB) tapes, but the system formatted them as though they
were floppy disks, which lost a lot of space to the sector headers, and
slowed things down greatly, because after writing each sector, it would
back up and re-read the sector to verify it.
There was only one SCSI card ever made for the system, which was
owned by one of the regulars in this newsgroup when things were more
active. You won't find much activity here now, except for a short spurt
caused by your questions.
Good Luck,
DoN.
P.S. Probably we will have to communicate through this newsgroup,
because I have a lot of the ".it" domains blocked because of
spaming and attacks against sshd on other computers.
--
Email: <dnic...@d-and-d.com> | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---
supervinx
Thanks for your kind answer ...
I like the 3B1 ... it send me back in the years !
www.supervinx.com/UnixPC/12260001.JPG
www.supervinx.com/UnixPC/12260004.JPG
www.supervinx.com/UnixPC/12240004.JPG
You can see the At&T Olivetti Unix PC 3B1 logo ...
Almost all the PCs I own run Linux and AIX, so Unix is not a
problem ...
Can I find somewhere the mouse connector pinout ?
I have tons of old serial mouses ... I could try to modify some of
them ...
There's a GUI ? How can be run ?
My 3B1 hasn't any led (somewhere I read about them) but has the beeper
volume control ;-)
Happy new year !
supervinx
DoN. Nichols
> Hi !
> Thanks for your kind answer ...
> I like the 3B1 ... it send me back in the years !
> www.supervinx.com/UnixPC/12260001.JPG
> www.supervinx.com/UnixPC/12260004.JPG
> www.supervinx.com/UnixPC/12240004.JPG
>
> You can see the At&T Olivetti Unix PC 3B1 logo ...
So I can -- though that is not present on any of my machines.
Just the AT&T part. (Note that the color of the Olivetti logo is
somewhat different. That must be because it was sold through Olivetti
in Europe, while the 6300 Olivetti PC clone was sold through AT&T in the
USA.
Note that the Unix-PC/7300/3B1 was actually designed and made by
Convergent Technologies, not AT&T. The CPU is a 10 MHz Motorola 68010.
The hard disk controller is a Western Digital chip which is
limited to 1024 cylinders, and the hardware on the system board has only
three lines (to allow selecting one of a maximum of eight surfaces).
There have been published modifications to the system board which
include an upgrade to a different hard disk controller chip (the old one
was the WD1010, and the new WD2010? I really should look that up) to
allow a maximum of 2048 cylinders, and other modifications to allow a
second drive select line, and a fourth surface select line, so larger
MFM drives could be used. The largest was one made by Maxtor (190 MB),
and a clone (which I have, but whose name I forget) which was the same
size. Actual maximum storage as formatted by the 3B1 was 160 MB, as the
OS reserved an extra sector on each track for spares when sectors
started to go bad.
And the back view shows all three modular phone connectors
blocked (under the overhang, near the left-hand fan and under the power
connector). The computer has a built-in 1200 baud modem (using a
protocol not legal in Europe I believe), plus the ability to plug a
phone into the computer and the computer into the phone line's wall
jack, so you can let the computer dial calls for you, and record how
long each call lasted. (It was originally built for businessmen as far
as I can tell.)
> Almost all the PCs I own run Linux and AIX, so Unix is not a
> problem ...
Good. I'm not sure whether linux bothers with installing a
clone of ed(1), but AIX should certainly have one.
OpenBSD has ed(1) at least.
> Can I find somewhere the mouse connector pinout ?
Hmm ... let me check. O.K. The TRM (_Technical Reference
Manual_) does not show separate pins for the mouse, just for the
keyboard, though both use the same connector, and the mouse plugs into
the back of the keyboard. Apparently, the keyboard receives the mouse
data, and passes it on when it can safely do so, interleaved with the
keyboard characters.
Pinout of the keyboard connector:
1 GND
2 GND
3 GND
4 +5V
5 KBRST* (pull low to reset keyboard)
6 KBRXD (Data to keyboard)
7 KBTXD (Data from keyboard (and mouse))
8 +5v
There are no schematics for the keyboard itself, so I can't tell
much more about it.
> I have tons of old serial mouses ... I could try to modify some of
> them ...
Perhaps -- but IIRC the baud rate for the mouse signals was
different from the normal mouse. Note that there is not a line to
provide a baud rate clock to it, so the mouse *has* to be at the right
rate to be usable.
> There's a GUI ? How can be run ?
It normally runs when the system completes booting and you log
in. There are options to run a separate screen for command-line things.
(As well as ones to format floppy disks and similar things.) You can
also log in through the serial port and have a normal command-line
interaction.
There is not enough memory (or even virtual memory) to handle
X11 -- the GUI used in the Unix-PC is a much smaller memory requirement.
There is also another GUI for the system, written by AT&T and
put in the public domain. It requires either a hardware modification to
have direct access to the graphics hardware, or a run-time loadable
driver to experiment with it at a somewhat slower level of operation.
> My 3B1 hasn't any led (somewhere I read about them) but has the beeper
> volume control ;-)
There are several LEDs. One on the front of the floppy drive to
indicate activity (and thus unsafe to remove the floppy), and the
keyboard has a CAPS-LOCK one, and a NUM-LOCK one -- both shine through
dots on the respective keycaps.
> Happy new year !
And the same to you.
Good Luck,
DoN.
DoN. Nichols
I don't know about it, so I can't tell. AFIK, it was never
mentioned in this newsgroup. You'll have to do some serious web
searching to find it, I suspect.
Good Luck,
DoN.
Thad Floryan
> [...]
>> My 3B1 hasn't any led (somewhere I read about them) but has the beeper
>> volume control ;-)
>
> There are several LEDs. One on the front of the floppy drive to
> indicate activity (and thus unsafe to remove the floppy), and the
> keyboard has a CAPS-LOCK one, and a NUM-LOCK one -- both shine through
> dots on the respective keycaps.
There are 4 LEDs at the left side of the 3B1 visible through the vent holes
at the side of the case near the front. Page 3-5 of the TRM shows how to
interpret the LEDs in case there are problems with telephone initialization,
video RAM, map RAM, dynamic RAM, and the boot loader.
A scan of page 3-5: <http://thadlabs.com/FILES/UNIXpc_TRM_3-005.pdf> [27KB]
Hmmm, I thought I already had a scan of the TRM (since I do have two hard
copies of it). I wonder if there's any interest in a PDF copy?
supervinx
> Hmmm, I thought I already had a scan of the TRM (since I do have two hard
> copies of it). I wonder if there's any interest in a PDF copy?
I will surely appreciate it :-D
David Gesswein
supervinx <supe...@libero.it> wrote:
>Where can I find the diagnostic floppy images ? Are they contained in
>the foundation ones ?
>
http://www.bitsavers.org/bits/ATT/unixPC/system_software_3.5/
see 01_diag
supervinx
> In article <62add5f5-57c2-4bab-bdb2-e6ba2cad1...@m16g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>,supervinx <superv...@libero.it> wrote:
> >Where can I find the diagnostic floppy images ? Are they contained in
> >the foundation ones ?
>
> I didn't see this question answered. The diagnostic floppy is in herehttp://www.bitsavers.org/bits/ATT/unixPC/system_software_3.5/
> see 01_diag
I think I have to download the 3.0 since my version is 3.0 ... anyway
I've downloaded everything ;-)
BTW ... the .IMD format is Dave Dunfield's ImageDisk format ...
tlvp
Lovely site. For other salvage-ware, consult their index:
http://www.bitsavers.org/bits/IndexByDate.txt .
Cheers, -- tlvp
--
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP