Problem with MFM Emulator and RQDX3

[cyb 2600]

Hi,

I bought a blank MFM Emu card and populated it myself, installed the software, etc. I've had no luck getting it to work with the RQDX3 controller in my PDP-11/73. 

I set it to use the RD53 image from the website, set the DS to 3, and tried to use Disklabel to format it. On the PDP-11 I see:

Opened disklabel read-write

 rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrBoot: bootdev=06404 bootcsr=0177560

disklabel

Disk? ra(0,0,0)

ra(0,0,0) err op=89 sts=C5

ra(0,0,0) !online

Error opening 'ra(0,0,0)' for writing

Disk?

And on the Beaglebone I see:

[+] Allocated scratch page: b6f0a000

[+] Opened the new tty in the child: 9

[+] Target is not a session leader, attempting to setsid.

[+] Forked a child: 760

[+] Did setsid()

[+] Set the controlling tty

select 1 head 0

  Waiting, seek time 0.1 ms max 0.1 min free buffers 200

select 0 head 0

So I tried to reformat the disk using zrqch0. On the PDP-11 I get:

Opened zrqch0 read-write

 rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr EOF

Boot: bootdev=06401 bootcsr=0177560

DR>START

CHANGE HW (L)  ? Y

# UNITS (D)  ? 1

UNIT 0

Enter controller IP Address (O)  172150 ?

What unit do you want to format [0-255] (D)  0 ?

Would you like to revector a single LBN only [Y/N] (L) N ? N

Do you want to use the "AUTOFORMAT" Mode [Y/N] (L) Y ? N

Would you like to use the RCT - Revector known bad blocks [Y/N] (L) N ? N

                       **** WARNING ****

         ALL DATA ON SELECTED DRIVE WILL BE DESTROYED

         Write protect all drives not being formatted.

         Please verify that the selected drive is ON LINE

         and NOT write protected.

         If formatting RX33 media, insert media to be

         formatted in the selected drive.

Do you wish to continue [Y/N] (L) Y ? Y

MSCP Controller Model:  19

    Microcode Version:   4

Do you want to use manufacturing bad block information [Y/N] (A) N ? N

Downline load UIT [Y/N] (A) Y ? Y

 UIT  Drive Name

_______________________________________________________

  0   RD51

  1   RD52 part # 30-21721-02 (1 light on front panel)

  2   RD52 part # 30-23227-02 (2 lights on front panel)

  3   RD53

  4   RD31

  5   RD54

  6   RD32

  7   RD33

Enter Unit Identifier Table (UIT) [0-7] (D)  ? 3

Continue if bad block information is inaccessible [Y/N] (A) N ? Y

Please type in the serial number [8-10 digits] (A)  ? 11111111

Formatting of Drive 0 Begun.

       ------------ FORMAT PROGRESS REPORT -------------

  1 minute into format  ----   Formatting tracks, LBN # 1

  2 minutes into format ----   Formatting tracks, LBN # 1

  3 minutes into format ----   Formatting tracks, LBN # 1

ZRQC DVC FTL ERR  00013 ON UNIT 00 TST 001 SUB 000 PC: 105742

No progress shown after a command had timed out.

ZRQC SYS FTL ERR  00004 ON UNIT 00 TST 001 SUB 002 PC: 105742

Self Detected Fatal Controller Error.

Status Unknown: 000725

 ILL INTER 154

 PC 124760 PS 000010

DR>

And on the Beaglebone I get: 

[+] Allocated scratch page: b6fdb000

[+] Opened the new tty in the child: 9

[+] Target is not a session leader, attempting to setsid.

[+] Forked a child: 769

[+] Did setsid()

[+] Set the controlling tty

select 1 head 0

  Waiting, seek time 0.1 ms max 0.1 min free buffers 200

  Waiting, seek time 0.0 ms max 0.1 min free buffers 200

  Waiting, seek time 0.0 ms max 0.1 min free buffers 200

select 0 head 0

  Waiting, seek time 0.0 ms max 0.1 min free buffers 200

select 1 head 0

  Waiting, seek time 0.0 ms max 0.1 min free buffers 200

  Waiting, seek time 0.0 ms max 0.1 min free buffers 200

select 0 head 0

  Waiting, seek time 0.9 ms max 0.9 min free buffers 200

  Waiting, seek time 0.0 ms max 0.9 min free buffers 200

  Waiting, seek time 0.0 ms max 0.9 min free buffers 200

  Waiting, seek time 0.0 ms max 0.9 min free buffers 200

  Waiting, seek time 0.0 ms max 0.9 min free buffers 200

  Waiting, seek time 0.0 ms max 0.9 min free buffers 200

select 1 head 0

  Waiting, seek time 0.0 ms max 0.9 min free buffers 200

  Waiting, seek time 0.0 ms max 0.9 min free buffers 200

  Waiting, seek time 0.0 ms max 0.9 min free buffers 200

  Waiting, seek time 0.0 ms max 0.9 min free buffers 200

select 0 head 0

select 1 head 0

  Waiting, seek time 0.0 ms max 0.9 min free buffers 200

  Waiting, seek time 0.0 ms max 0.9 min free buffers 200

select 0 head 0

select 1 head 0

  Waiting, seek time 0.0 ms max 0.9 min free buffers 200

  Waiting, seek time 0.0 ms max 0.9 min free buffers 200

  Waiting, seek time 0.0 ms max 0.9 min free buffers 200

  Waiting, seek time 0.0 ms max 0.9 min free buffers 200

  Waiting, seek time 0.0 ms max 0.9 min free buffers 200

  Waiting, seek time 0.0 ms max 0.9 min free buffers 200

select 0 head 0

  Waiting, seek time 0.0 ms max 0.9 min free buffers 200

select 1 head 0

It just seems to be waiting and seeking. Is there some trick I'm missing? The problem is that I have *no idea* if this RQDX3 controller itself even works in the first place or if it's a mistake I made with the MFM Emulator. Thank you! 

[David Gesswein]

Is this capturing the serial port output with it automatically started
or something? The initial messages aren't like I normally see. I normally
run it manually from the command line until its all set up.

From the messages it looks like the emulator is seeing selects occasionally
but the head select is not changed and no actual seeks. The waiting line
indicates it saw step line but it didn't change the current cylinder. If
cylinder changed you get line containing # -> # for the step.

If you ^c the emulator it will print one line. If dirty is 0 no writes
took place.

If you have test equipment you may want to see what step and dirction
signals are doing. Probably also check select back to controller on the 20
pin.

I don't have an 11 to try to figure out what the errors mean.

Are their any PDP-11 controller or drive diagnostics that may give useful info?

Have any other machine you can use to verify the emulator works?

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[cyb 2600]

Right, I have mfm emu running on startup and used the " reptyr " command to see the instructions. I'm only aware of the "zqrch0" utility for the RQDX3 controller, I don't know if there are any other test utilities. The device itself is supposed to do a test when you boot it up, and an LED is supposed to light up and turn off if successful, which it does.

I do have an ST221 MFM hard disk that I plugged into the MFM Emulator and it was able to read it. I have no idea if the data's "good" since I don't know what was initially on it, if anything, but it makes all the happy clicking noises you'd expect and I don't get any errors on the MFM Emulator side.

[David Gesswein]

On Thu, Aug 05, 2021 at 12:51:06PM -0700, cyb 2600 wrote:
>
> I do have an ST221 MFM hard disk that I plugged into the MFM Emulator and
> it was able to read it. I have no idea if the data's "good" since I don't
> know what was initially on it, if anything, but it makes all the happy
> clicking noises you'd expect and I don't get any errors on the MFM Emulator
> side.
>

If you created an extracted data file a utility that shows text in a file
(string under unix) can give you an idea what the drive was used for.

Is that ST-225? I Didn't get any hits for ST-221.

If you don't care about the contents you might want to try formatting that
as an RD51. I know DEC formatter is excessivly picky so not positive if
that will work. If it does it gives us a baseline to compare with the emulator.

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mfm-discuss/34c52822-f3cb-4fb4-b4d5-c0694161ee15n%40googlegroups.com.

[Ethan Dicks]

On Thu, Aug 5, 2021, 19:23 David Gesswein <d...@pdp8online.com> wrote:

On Thu, Aug 05, 2021 at 12:51:06PM -0700, cyb 2600 wrote:
>

> I do have an ST221 MFM hard disk that I plugged into the MFM Emulator .

Is that ST-225? I Didn't get any hits for ST-221.

The ST-225 _is_ a DEC RD31.

The ST-251-1 is an RD32.

Both should be fine on an RQDX3.

-ethan