Update: My Z2 (Re: Cromemco boot disk maker & images are available)

[Jay Jaeger]

Normally following up on one's own message is probably a bit of bad taste, 
however, this appeared to be the last message of the thread, and I have an 
update.

FYI, I did manage, earlier this spring, to try and bring up my Z-2, but so 
far not so good.  I got the power on (and measured it for general 
reasonableness).  Once I hooked it up, it immediately blew a power filter 
capacitor on one of the floppy drives (this was not really a shock -- I had 
re-formed the main electrolytics, but didn't do that on each board or 
drive), which I replaced.

So, I thought I might test the Z-2's floppy controller and CPU in my Altair 
chassis.  I did get that running, but then I got distracted -- it was an 
obvious chance to snag the images of all of its disks (Micropolis-I, 
Micropolis-II and 8"), which I did, though the old beast was a little 
cranky from time to time.  (Long ago I had written an imaging program I 
called "XMT" which used a little protocol I developed to transfer files and 
disk images reasonably reliably.  All I had to do was write up the PC 
side.  Uses a serial port).

The system is not saying anything, but I was also short on docs, so after a 
few hours I kind of gave up on it for a while late in April / early in May.

HOWEVER: I just stumbled on a big box full of stuff that came with my 
Cromemco.   (Happy, happy, joy, joy).  I had had the inkling that I had 
some stuff for the Z-2, but this spring I was looking just for a little 
floppy box.  Today I am doing some cleaning, as things had gotten pretty 
out of hand in the finished part of my basement.  After I got that cleaned 
up to the point where there were some electonic hardware things (PIC 
programmer, parts for a PIC project, etc.) that I wanted to put onto a 
shelf, I turned my attention to a shelf I had stuck some stuff on while we 
had some work done on our house *last* summer (over a year ago).  On top of 
that shelf was a "copier paper box" chock full of manuals, doc -- and 
floppies -- all for the Z2!.  So, now I guess I'll have to get motivated 
later this fall (probably late October before I can get to it) and find out 
what is making the Z2 unhappy and get it working again.  Docs will make it 
a lot eaiser.  ;^)

And, of course, I may well still need the CDOS image -- I don't know if the 
two boxes of 5" floppies I have for it are any good (though my recovery of 
old Altair floppies was well over 95%, and most of the ones that were bad I 
knew were bad years ago -- my basement is cool and dry so things tend to 
keep remembering).

The moral of the story:  House cleaning is a good idea once in a while.  8^)

At 10:09 AM 4/30/2005 -0500, Jay Jaeger wrote:
>Thanks a bunch.  I have been really busy the past couple of weeks, but 
>hope to fire up my Z-2 and give this a try over the next week or two.
>
>Jay Jaeger
>
>At 04:16 PM 4/16/2005 -0400, Dave Dunfield wrote:
>>Hi Guys,
>>
>>I've just posted my utility which allows you to make Cromemco BOOT disk
>>via a serial cable and RDOS to my site:
>>
>>    http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html
>>
>>Go to the very bottom of the main page, and select "disks and images",
>>the utility is called RT050410.ZIP (I'll think of a better name later).
>>
>>I've also posted CROMDISK.ZIP which contains:
>>
>>   CDOS disk configured for dual 5.25" drives
>>     (It's easy to make an 8" disk from this)
>>   Cromix in both 5.25" and 8" formats.
>>
>>Please refer to the RT.TXT file enclosed for information on how it
>>all works.
>>
>>NOTE: So far this has been tested and found to work on only my one
>>Cromemco system, which is a System-3 with ZPU, 256KZ and 16FDC (plus
>>a bunch of Tuarts, PRI and WDI boards which don't matter for this).
>>This machine has dual Tandon 8" drives, and I've got a pair of Teac
>>5.25" drive attached externally ...
>>
>>The RDOS on the 16FDC is version 2.52 ... it is possible/likely that
>>I have done things which may not be compatible with other versions
>>of RDOS, please report your findings to me.
>>
>>I'm supposed to be picking up two more Cromemco systems next week,
>>one of which I know has a 4FDC (I think the other is another 16FDC),
>>so I should be able to verify/fix operation with the 4FDC shortly.
>>
>>If anyone happens to have a spare 64FDC, I would love to have one
>>available so that I can get it working with the full set.
>>
>>Regards,
>>Dave
>>
>>PS: Mike S. reports that the CDOS/INIT problem with 32k occurs only
>>when you are running it in 64k - on a true 32k only system, he says
>>it works OK - if you have only 32k, you may be able to skip the
>>intermediate disk - hopefully we can dig up a version of CDOS & INIT
>>which will resolve this little oddity.
>>--
>>dave04a (at)    Dave Dunfield
>>dunfield (dot)  Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
>>com             Collector of vintage computing equipment:
>>                 http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html
>
>---
>Jay R. Jaeger                                   The Computer Collection
>cube1 at charter.net
>
>

---	
Jay R. Jaeger					The Computer Collection
cube1 at charter.net