DSD-440 software

[Vintage Computer Festival]

On Mon, 20 Jun 2005, Doc Shipley wrote:

>    It is a really slick system.  The built-in diags and format utilities
> are very nice, but for mass formats something that runs in the OS would
> suit me better.  You have to power cycle the disk drawer for each floppy
> you format, which is probably OK but it gives me the heebie-jeebies.  :)

The RXV21 clone controller I have in my primary 11/23+ system (an MXV21
made by MDA) allows simple formatting by poking a couple values into the
right registers.  It works great.  A few minutes of coding would result in
a SAV program that does it for you with prompts.

Speaking of which: off-hand, how would one create a binary program under
RT11 and then save it?

>    Another thing that caught me short is that the DSD-440 honors the
> write-protect notch.  The RX02 doesn't (or my RX02s have been modified),
> so it was a little surprising when I got a write-protect error on a
> scratch disk I've been using on my 11/84.

Your RX02s are broken!

-- 

Sellam Ismail                                        Vintage Computer Festival
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International Man of Intrigue and Danger                http://www.vintage.org

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