Epson PF10 problems

[Roy J. Tellason]

On Thursday 22 December 2005 05:55 pm, Tony Duell wrote:
> I am currently working on an Epson PX8 system. I bought this on E-bay, so
> the history is essentially unknown, but I was told it was 'untested'
> which I took to mean non-working.

Speaking of which,  I have one of those I'd forgotten to include in my list I 
posted a while back.  It used to work,  doesn't work any more -- when I 
attempt to turn it on I get a low battery message,  even if it's been plugged 
in to charge for a long time.  Know where I might find some tech info on the 
innards of the thing?

<...>

> With it, I got a PF10 floppy drive. This is a single 3.5" unit, with a
> 38400 baud serial interdace back to the PX8.

I'd love to find a drive for one of those.   :-)

> I had to make up my own cable, but I have checked and double-checked it, and
> anyway it works fine to link a PX8 to a PX4 via the RS232 interfaces
> (essentially the same pinout as the 'high speed' serial interface to the
> disk drive). In fact what I did was make up a cable from the 8 pin nini-DIN
> plug to fit the PX8 to a DB25 plug,, wired as a DTE and a second cable with
> a DB25 socket to a 8 pin mini-DIN, wired to do the right swaps and jumpers.

I got a couple of connectors a while back,  but my eyesight isn't what it used 
to be,  so I never did make up any cables.  Do you have specific cable wiring 
info,  assuming I can get this thing working?

<...>

> Assuming it's like a 68xx processor, with reset and interrupt vectors at the
> top of memory, that looks sane too.

I have a databook around here someplace that details those chips,  there's a 
lot of differences for very small differences in the part number,  but yeah,  
they're basically a variant of the 6800-series parts.  And CMOS.

<...>

> (Yes, I know about PC-based emulators for these drives, but I'd like to
> get the real unit working too).

First I've heard of those.  If I can get mine working,  that would be a nice 
way to store some data.  What pc-based platform do they work under?

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
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