4-Nov-82 19:56:00,430;000000000000 Date: 4 Nov 1982 2156-EST From: ELIOT at MIT-DMS (Eliot Scott Ramey) To: northstar-users at MIT-MC Subject: NS Disk controller Message-id: <[MIT-DMS].248526> Is there ANY way to read a softsectored disk with the NS disk controller? I imagine that the BIOS would have to be modified to make sense out of it, but there must be someway to at least look at a softsectored disk? Any suggestions? -Eliot at Mit-DM 5-Nov-82 15:11:00,429;000000000000 Date: 5 Nov 1982 1711-EST From: ELIOT at MIT-DMS (Eliot Scott Ramey) To: northstar-users at MIT-MC Subject: Standard I/O ports Message-id: <[MIT-DMS].248657> The standard I/O ports of the North Star Horizon are Intel 8251 USART's. 8251's are VERY nice chips and among the capabilities, it is supposed to have software baud rate control. NS has not implemented this, is there any way to do so? -Eliot at Mit-DM 6-Nov-82 09:51:00,1074;000000000000 Date: 6 November 1982 11:51-EST From: Greg Heise To: NORTHSTAR-USERS at MIT-MC, eliot at MIT-DMS The North STar motherboard does not do baud rate switching. There is however, an 8251 usart option to scale the baud rate selected by a factor of 1, 4 or 16 -- so a kluge should be possible if you want to switch to any multiple of those from one of those. In any event, the 8251 is a stupid chip in some ways, and the 9551 by AMD (among others) is a real win; NorthStar now supplies Horizons with 9551s instead of 8251s. In addition, you can make a N* motherboard run 19K baud (shakily) by putting a jumper on the motherboard; you HAVE to have a 9551 for this. One of the tech support guys at N* told me years ago that it is possible to run the N* controller in soft sector -- they didn't do it because the software development (one guy, at that time) was lazy and it was real easy to think in ten sectors...oh well. In my opinion, it would be difficult to get the controller to read other format disks, if that's your aim. --Greg 6-Nov-82 10:46:00,562;000000000000 Date: 6 November 1982 12:46-EST From: Frank J. Wancho To: AUTHOR at MIT-MC cc: FJW at MIT-MC, NORTHSTAR-USERS at MIT-MC, eliot at MIT-DMS A "recent" issue of COMPASS, the magazine of the International North Star Users Association, describes a kludge that doubles each of the speeds available on headers. Thus, it is possible to run at 19.2 instead of a top of 9.6, and no mention was made of not being able to do this with the existing 8251. Note that the HSIO-4 cards come with 8251's and are programmable up to 19.2... --Frank 6-Nov-82 17:41:00,396;000000000000 Date: 6 November 1982 19:41-EST From: Devon S. McCullough Subject: NS Disk controller To: ELIOT at MIT-DMS cc: NORTHSTAR-USERS at MIT-MC take a look at the schematics. The double density board at least, counts holes in hardware to tell what sector is coming up....not sure that this makes what you want impossible, but it may be impossible to get initial bit synch. 6-Nov-82 17:44:00,313;000000000000 Date: 6 November 1982 19:44-EST From: Devon S. McCullough Subject: Standard I/O ports To: ELIOT at MIT-DMS cc: NORTHSTAR-USERS at MIT-MC You must be confusing these chips with some similar part number, since of course N* would have used software baud rate generation were it possible. 6-Nov-82 18:31:00,386;000000000000 Date: Saturday, 6 November 1982 20:31-EST From: Mike Blackwell To: Northstar-Users at MIT-MC Subject: Take me off the list There doesn't seem to be any Northstar-Users-Request, so... I seem to be getting Northstar-Users mail, but I never asked to be added to the list. Could you please remove my name? Thanks, -mike- (Blackwell at CMU-20C) 27-Nov-82 17:33:00,425;000000000000 Date: 27 November 1982 19:33-EST From: Frank J. Wancho Subject: Wanted: FC00H PROM To: NORTHSTAR-USERS at MIT-MC I need to find one or more suppliers for the FC00H PROM set for the MiniDisk Controller, other than from NorthStar. I had found one at a since misplaced address in either Tustin or Irvine, CA. I need either four sets, or the HEX file to burn my own, if necessary. Thanks, Frank