Dunedin clean out

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Dunedin clean out

Postby Matt on Wed Dec 10, 2014 1:46 pm

Some guy down here is having a clean out (computers->vintage otago).

Atari both 6502 and 68k, plus a bunch of other stuff. I'll be following along out of interest, a lot of it will be out of my league though.
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Re: Dunedin clean out

Postby acsi on Wed Dec 10, 2014 6:27 pm

Oh Oh... You've peaked my interest :D

Will have to keep an eye on this.
'acsi' on trademe
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Re: Dunedin clean out

Postby Matt on Sat Jan 17, 2015 10:17 pm

I was determined to win something out of this lot and finally today I picked up a couple of 8088 portables.
Chatted to the guy for quite a while. He's a top bloke and it wouldn't surprise me to see one or two more
items up on tm in the next while.

Here is what I got:

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing ... =831785946
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing ... =831787090

Some info on the olivetti is here:
http://www.vintagecomputer.net/fjkraan/ ... 5spec.html

Haven't found much on the sharp so far.

The sharp has a hdd and it boots to a login screen which I haven't got past yet since it requires
a password for every account. Suggestions?

The only floppy image I've had any success with so far is a cpm86 one which gets me to an
A> prompt on the sharp but won't boot all the way on the olivetti. At the A> prompt none of
the cpm commands I've read about seem to be recognised except dir which worked as expected
some times but not others.

I'd be grateful if people can direct me to 720k floppy images for versions of dos or cpm86 which would
have been extant circa 1987 or any others which might be worth a try on these sorts of machines.

Also my internet budget doesn't stretch to videos so can someone please watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T2Ctbzuo5o
-maybe it mentions where he got the cpm image from?

More generally I'd like to hear from anybody who has experience with similar machines - what they've done
and how?

Cheers, Matt.
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Re: Dunedin clean out

Postby Clym5 on Sat Jan 17, 2015 11:26 pm

I have the exact same, or similar Sharp laptop. 20mb HDD. I used this for putting DOS on a 720k disk. http://www.retroarchive.org/dos/disks/pcdos330_720k.exe Handy little utility.

Mine runs MS-DOS 3.x on the HDD, as that's what it came with. I'll edit this reply into a better one tomorrow, or to be precise, later today.
Amiga 4000: Apollo Turbo 040, 128MB Fast, 40gb HDD, CD-ROM (needs internet)
C64: 1541U-II, MixSID, WiFi, LumaFix64
ZX Spec, A1200, CD32, MacPlus/SE, A500, BBC Turbo Master (NASA), 2600, Acorn 4000, VIC-20, IBM 5155, GameBoy
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Re: Dunedin clean out

Postby Matt on Sun Jan 18, 2015 6:47 pm

clym5:
>>> I used this for putting DOS on a 720k disk. http://www.retroarchive.org/dos/disks/pcdos330_720k.exe

That didn't like any of my disks:-( Strangely a disk that failed for pcdos330_720k.exe
worked fine for the cp/m86 image. Anyway I'll keep looking.
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Re: Dunedin clean out

Postby Clym5 on Sun Jan 18, 2015 9:53 pm

Odd! I put in a 1.44mb disk, formatted to 720k and the hole covered, and it just went. Does your drive support 720k?

I did this under DOS though. Not sure what you are using.
Amiga 4000: Apollo Turbo 040, 128MB Fast, 40gb HDD, CD-ROM (needs internet)
C64: 1541U-II, MixSID, WiFi, LumaFix64
ZX Spec, A1200, CD32, MacPlus/SE, A500, BBC Turbo Master (NASA), 2600, Acorn 4000, VIC-20, IBM 5155, GameBoy
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Re: Dunedin clean out

Postby Matt on Mon Jan 19, 2015 6:08 pm

>>> I put in a 1.44mb disk, formatted to 720k

Tried that didn't work. Did you cover the hole before or after formatting?

>>> Does your drive support 720k?

Yes.

>>> I did this under DOS though. Not sure what you are using.

FreeDos 1.1
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Re: Dunedin clean out

Postby Clym5 on Mon Jan 19, 2015 6:46 pm

The hole was covered before formatting. I had used the disk for my Amiga earlier that week, so it was already formatted to 720k. It still had data on it when I ran the program, and I don't believe the program formats it. Maybe that had something to do with it?
Amiga 4000: Apollo Turbo 040, 128MB Fast, 40gb HDD, CD-ROM (needs internet)
C64: 1541U-II, MixSID, WiFi, LumaFix64
ZX Spec, A1200, CD32, MacPlus/SE, A500, BBC Turbo Master (NASA), 2600, Acorn 4000, VIC-20, IBM 5155, GameBoy
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Re: Dunedin clean out

Postby Matt on Wed Jan 21, 2015 6:14 pm

Do you have access to a GNU/Linux system with a floppy drive? If yes would you mind
putting in your pcdos disk and issuing the following at a bash prompt:

Code: Select all
clym5@gnulinux:~$ cat /dev/fd0 > file_for_matt


If there is no output ie:

Code: Select all
clym5@gnulinux:~$ cat /dev/fd0 > file_for_matt
clym5@gnulinux:~$


then I'd like to have a look at file_for_matt.

Any unix would do but device files may be named differently. Obviously your account needs permissions
for /dev/fd0. On debian add yourself to group "floppy". If you have problems just do it as root.

Cheers, Matt.
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Re: Dunedin clean out

Postby David on Wed Jan 21, 2015 6:48 pm

Matt wrote:>>> I put in a 1.44mb disk, formatted to 720k

Tried that didn't work. Did you cover the hole before or after formatting?

>>> Does your drive support 720k?

Yes.

>>> I did this under DOS though. Not sure what you are using.

FreeDos 1.1


use this to format a 720k floppy disk
FORMAT A: /T:80 /N:9
use it on a amiga disk with a msdos computer like 486 or something or try windows

David B
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Re: Dunedin clean out

Postby Clym5 on Wed Jan 21, 2015 8:16 pm

Matt wrote:Do you have access to a GNU/Linux system with a floppy drive?


Shamefully, I don't. I would set one up if I wasn't going to Arrowtown for a week or so too.

David wrote:use this to format a 720k floppy disk
FORMAT A: /T:80 /N:9
use it on a amiga disk with a msdos computer like 486 or something or try windows


Good idea. Maybe the software has issues formatting. It sure didn't seem like it formatted my disk when I ran it, but it might of done a format and write at the same time. The software does say "Insert a formatted disk and press any key to continue" or something like that.

Matt, if you run out of ideas, I'll just post a disk or something like that.
Amiga 4000: Apollo Turbo 040, 128MB Fast, 40gb HDD, CD-ROM (needs internet)
C64: 1541U-II, MixSID, WiFi, LumaFix64
ZX Spec, A1200, CD32, MacPlus/SE, A500, BBC Turbo Master (NASA), 2600, Acorn 4000, VIC-20, IBM 5155, GameBoy
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Re: Dunedin clean out

Postby RonTurner on Wed Jan 21, 2015 10:22 pm

For cracking the sharp login screen pass word try "password", its pretty common.
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Re: Dunedin clean out

Postby SpidersWeb on Thu Jan 22, 2015 11:28 am

Also if it's in AUTOEXEC.BAT, just keep going CTRL+C or CTRL+BREAK as fast as you can while it's starting. Should drop you to the DOS prompt.

For 720K:
- DSDD and DSHD media is physically different, so while we often get away with it, results may vary** - I recommend using DSDD disks
- FORMAT A: /F:720 /U (or the /T method posted earlier)
- rawrite3.com

http://www.tux.org/pub/dos/rawrite/

** I tried this for making Apricot boot disks, but often had failures or weird format issues (Track 0 bad on perfect disks etc), so I resorted to that disk box of old Amiga magazine cover disks and found the most boring one I could - no issues after that.

You should be able to use any 360KB or 720KB image, and rawrite will pop it on the formatted disk. Only difference between 360KB and 720KB is the number of tracks where data is present - since booting starts from Track 0, not Track 79, it shouldn't be a concern. Being able to use 360KB images gives you a much larger selection of boot disks - especially MS DOS 3.3 etc.
Wanted - Dead or Alive - Reward $$$: Compaq Deskpro 8088 / 286 / 386 - IBM RT 6150/6151 parts - AT&T 3B2 parts
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Re: Dunedin clean out

Postby Matt on Thu Jan 22, 2015 9:43 pm

Thx guys. I have been formatting the disks - didn't help. Anyway I'll sort it out sooner or later.

matt
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Re: Dunedin clean out

Postby SpidersWeb on Fri Jan 23, 2015 6:39 am

If you don't get any progress, I can sacrifice a few more magazine cover disks and pop them in the post.
Wanted - Dead or Alive - Reward $$$: Compaq Deskpro 8088 / 286 / 386 - IBM RT 6150/6151 parts - AT&T 3B2 parts
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