DECmate III and Rainbow 100+

[Jeffrey Armstrong]

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote:
>
> I'm trying to get either of these systems running in the hopes that I can
> access what I believe to me a 5.25" disk with an RT-11 filesystem on it.
>
> Both systems have a video port and a COMM port.  I tried connecting a
> VT510 to the COMM port on each system but didn't get anything (at either
> 9600 or 19,200 bps).  I can't find my VR201 to check if video is coming
> out either one.
>
> Both systems access drive 0 of the RX50 upon boot-up.  The Rainbow 100+
> has an internal hard drive but I don't hear it booting from the drive.
>
> Anyone have any experience with these guys?
>

I can, at least, speak for the Rainbow 100+.  The Rainbow will not output 
anything on the serial ports at startup.  It is only a personal computer. 
If you want to see what the Rainbow is doing, you'll need a VR201 and one 
of the LK keyboards.  Actually, the VR201 is a composite monitor with a 
screwy connector.  I have split the Rainbow video cable before to get the 
composite signal to pass into a Commodore monitor.

The Rainbow hard drive, in all likelihood, is fine.  When a Rainbow boots, 
the user is, by default, presented with a boot menu.  To boot from the 
hard disk, the user has to select the Winchester option.  You can 
configure the Rainbow to boot from the HD automatically, but it doesn't 
have to.  If you had video, this would be a bit more obvious.

As for reading RT-11 disks on a Rainbow, I have no idea if this is 
possible.  You'd need a program to read this specially since Rainbows only 
understand MS-DOS and CP/M disks under those operating systems.  You'd 
probably be better off with some custom software on a PC with a 1.2MB 
floppy drive.

Good luck!

Jeff Armstrong
jba at sdf.lonestar.org