Curious Mark (YouTube), Kern Sherif, and soon Tube Time are debugging a
model 77 that died on them.

There are currently two videos with hints at a third. I suspect this
video series will end up being interesting. They will likely go to
great lengths to get the model 77 working.

They may punt and replace it with another MCA system as their stated
goal is to get the S/370 + Bus & Tag interface working so that they can
communicate with some B&T tape drives and printer.

--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Yep, can't wait to see where this series goes. Here are the first two
episodes for those who are not subscribed (you should be!):

https://youtu.be/GjCUsmro2VY
https://youtu.be/CMyKVerpyaI

Marc has some unorthodox delidding methods... :-D

On 15.8.2021 3:15, Grant Taylor wrote:
> Curious Mark (YouTube), Kern Sherif, and soon Tube Time are debugging a
> model 77 that died on them.
>
> There are currently two videos with hints at a third.  I suspect this
> video series will end up being interesting.  They will likely go to
> great lengths to get the model 77 working.
>
> They may punt and replace it with another MCA system as their stated
> goal is to get the S/370 + Bus & Tag interface working so that they can
> communicate with some B&T tape drives and printer.
>

On 8/14/21 7:15 PM, Grant Taylor wrote:
> Kern Sherif

*Ken Shirriff

Sorry for the typo - nay butchering - Ken, no disrespect intended.

--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

On 8/15/21 10:30 AM, Tomas Slavotinek wrote:
> Yep, can't wait to see where this series goes. Here are the first
> two episodes for those who are not subscribed (you should be!):

Agreed. I have always enjoyed watching Mark's and Ken's efforts.

> https://youtu.be/GjCUsmro2VY
> https://youtu.be/CMyKVerpyaI

Thank you for the links. It was problematic for me to get them into my
news client when I originally posted. (Local client had the videos,
where I was RDPed to something to run VNC to my news client. Copy and
what you say???)

> Marc has some unorthodox delidding methods... :-D

~chuckle~

I think my favorite was the end mill and a blow torch.

--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

And for the sake of completeness, here is Ken's blog:

http://www.righto.com/

A lot of IBM goodness, among other things. Borderline p0rnographic...

On 15.8.2021 18:43, Grant Taylor wrote:
> On 8/14/21 7:15 PM, Grant Taylor wrote:
>> Kern Sherif
>
> *Ken Shirriff
>
> Sorry for the typo - nay butchering - Ken, no disrespect intended.
>

On 15.8.2021 18:46, Grant Taylor wrote:
> On 8/15/21 10:30 AM, Tomas Slavotinek wrote:
>> Yep, can't wait to see where this series goes. Here are the first two
>> episodes for those who are not subscribed (you should be!):
>
> Agreed.  I have always enjoyed watching Mark's and Ken's efforts.
>
>> https://youtu.be/GjCUsmro2VY
>> https://youtu.be/CMyKVerpyaI
>
> Thank you for the links.  It was problematic for me to get them into my
> news client when I originally posted.  (Local client had the videos,
> where I was RDPed to something to run VNC to my news client.  Copy and
> what you say???)
>
>> Marc has some unorthodox delidding methods... :-D
>
> ~chuckle~
>
> I think my favorite was the end mill and a blow torch.
>

He has a lot of toys and is not afraid to use them!

(btw Dave and I are in touch with Marc and his team regarding the Model
77 problem)

On 8/15/21 11:05 AM, Tomas Slavotinek wrote:
> He has a lot of toys and is not afraid to use them!

Indeed.

> (btw Dave and I are in touch with Marc and his team regarding the
> Model 77 problem)

Cool.

I tweeted Mark a few times while watching the video. The fact that the
convenience (reference) partition is not required ~> reference disks
will work with or without the convenience partition. The fact that it's
possible to ""bless (for lack of a better word) the reference disk after
Windows (et al.) messes up it's marker.

I got the distinct impression that PS/2s were ... foreign to Mark. So,
being in contact with someone that's more familiar is a good thing. :-)

--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

I surfed both videos. I'm not sure what is going on.

Bermuda, VERY clean looking. If they would drop to this frequency, I'd
be interested. 370 and tape to tape drives. Gung-ho!

On 8/15/2021 12:00, Tomas Slavotinek wrote:
> And for the sake of completeness, here is Ken's blog:
>
> http://www.righto.com/
>
> A lot of IBM goodness, among other things. Borderline p0rnographic...
>
> On 15.8.2021 18:43, Grant Taylor wrote:
>> On 8/14/21 7:15 PM, Grant Taylor wrote:
>>> Kern Sherif
>>
>> *Ken Shirriff
>>
>> Sorry for the typo - nay butchering - Ken, no disrespect intended.
>>
>

Part 3 is up:

https://youtu.be/Nyqo-XOuHK4

On 15.8.2021 3:15, Grant Taylor wrote:
> Curious Mark (YouTube), Kern Sherif, and soon Tube Time are debugging a
> model 77 that died on them.
>
> There are currently two videos with hints at a third.  I suspect this
> video series will end up being interesting.  They will likely go to
> great lengths to get the model 77 working.
>
> They may punt and replace it with another MCA system as their stated
> goal is to get the S/370 + Bus & Tag interface working so that they can
> communicate with some B&T tape drives and printer.
>

On 8/16/21 10:28 AM, Tomas Slavotinek wrote:
> Part 3 is up:

I'm somewhat disappointed by that outcome.

Though I can't say as I'm surprised.

I wonder what they will do / use as an MCA system to interface with the
Bus & Tag equipment.

--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Well, they tried bread boarding.

Why don't they findt a spare Bermuda on flea-buy?

Lacuna would need the correct riser.

The Bermuda IMHO is more stable compared to the Lacuna. 32MB on the
system board is pretty good.

On 8/16/2021 18:52, Grant Taylor wrote:
> On 8/16/21 10:28 AM, Tomas Slavotinek wrote:
>> Part 3 is up:
>
> I'm somewhat disappointed by that outcome.
>
> Though I can't say as I'm surprised.
>
> I wonder what they will do / use as an MCA system to interface with the
> Bus & Tag equipment.
>
>
>

Spare Bermuda system board.

Try not to burn this one.

On 8/16/2021 19:27, Louis Ohland wrote:
> Well, they tried bread boarding.
>
> Why don't they findt a spare Bermuda on flea-buy?
>
> Lacuna would need the correct riser.
>
> The Bermuda IMHO is more stable compared to the Lacuna. 32MB on the
> system board is pretty good.
>
> On 8/16/2021 18:52, Grant Taylor wrote:
>> On 8/16/21 10:28 AM, Tomas Slavotinek wrote:
>>> Part 3 is up:
>>
>> I'm somewhat disappointed by that outcome.
>>
>> Though I can't say as I'm surprised.
>>
>> I wonder what they will do / use as an MCA system to interface with
>> the Bus & Tag equipment.
>>
>>
>>
>

On 8/16/21 6:27 PM, Louis Ohland wrote:
> Well, they tried bread boarding.

Eh ... they bread boarded to read the output from the parallel port.
Mark usually does many things quite a bit more complex on bread board.

> Why don't they findt a spare Bermuda on flea-buy?

There was a scene about that. They showed one for > $250 and made a
comment about not wanting to pay that much.

--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Bermuda system board. Yup, buying a 9577 would be spendy.

On 8/16/2021 23:08, Grant Taylor wrote:
>> Why don't they findt a spare Bermuda on flea-buy?
>
> There was a scene about that.  They showed one for > $250 and made a
> comment about not wanting to pay that much.

Louis Ohland schrieb am Dienstag, 17. August 2021 um 17:36:11 UTC+2:
> Bermuda system board. Yup, buying a 9577 would be spendy.
> On 8/16/2021 23:08, Grant Taylor wrote:
> >> Why don't they findt a spare Bermuda on flea-buy?
> >
> > There was a scene about that. They showed one for > $250 and made a
> > comment about not wanting to pay that much.

Nice one, IBM Museum :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3-krxA3LZ0

On 17.8.2021 19:14, schimmi wrote:
> Louis Ohland schrieb am Dienstag, 17. August 2021 um 17:36:11 UTC+2:
>> Bermuda system board. Yup, buying a 9577 would be spendy.
>> On 8/16/2021 23:08, Grant Taylor wrote:
>>>> Why don't they findt a spare Bermuda on flea-buy?
>>>
>>> There was a scene about that. They showed one for > $250 and made a
>>> comment about not wanting to pay that much.
>
> Nice one, IBM Museum :D
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3-krxA3LZ0
>

Yeah, they are covered, thanks to Dave :).

Hopefully they will have more luck with the replacement board...

> >>> There was a scene about that. They showed one for > $250
> >>> and made a comment about not wanting to pay that much.
> >
> > Nice one, IBM Museum :D
> > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3-krxA3LZ0
> >
> Yeah, they are covered, thanks to Dave :).
>
> Hopefully they will have more luck with the replacement board...

And it has a Trinity "PowerStacker" CPU (based on the AMD 5x86-133) - It sure is fast!

I've gained 120 new subscribers - a third of what I had before - in two days. The planar will arrive on Friday by the USPS, but I think it will be sooner.

Looks like Marc isn't giving up just yet. He asked for some more details
about the planar and the used ASICs/GAs...

On 17.8.2021 6:08, Grant Taylor wrote:
> On 8/16/21 6:27 PM, Louis Ohland wrote:
>> Well, they tried bread boarding.
>
> Eh ... they bread boarded to read the output from the parallel port.
> Mark usually does many things quite a bit more complex on bread board.
>
>> Why don't they findt a spare Bermuda on flea-buy?
>
> There was a scene about that.  They showed one for > $250 and made a
> comment about not wanting to pay that much.
>

On 8/17/21 11:14 AM, schimmi wrote:
> Nice one, IBM Museum :D
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3-krxA3LZ0

Why did he refer to the convenience partition as "IML"?

Wouldn't the system fail to boot if it couldn't find the initial
microcode to load?

I've run the systems without the convenience partitions or hard drives.
So ... why IML?

--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

On 21.8.2021 6:42, Grant Taylor wrote:
> On 8/17/21 11:14 AM, schimmi wrote:
>> Nice one, IBM Museum :D
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3-krxA3LZ0
>
> Why did he refer to the convenience partition as "IML"?

Because that's what it really is in case of the Bermuda-based Models
76/77 - an IML partition.

> Wouldn't the system fail to boot if it couldn't find the initial
> microcode to load?

Yes, there's no fallback Stage 2 code in the Bermuda ROM, so if it can't
find a compatible IML image anywhere (floppy, IBM SCSI) it will print an
error and then halt.
> I've run the systems without the convenience partitions or hard drives.
> So ... why IML?

If there's no IML partition you have to feed it the reference disk and
it will load the IML image from there. Once that's done, you can load
your OS from another floppy (the IML image will stay in RAM until you
power down the system or force cold boot in some other way).

> Why did he refer to the convenience partition as "IML"?

And he is a "big iron" - not necessarily IBM - guy. He's also now aware that I have four System/34s. It's going to be a productive association all around.

Part 4 is finally up:

https://youtu.be/wsLpe4lLhbo

Interesting fault...

On 15.8.2021 3:15, Grant Taylor wrote:
> Curious Mark (YouTube), Kern Sherif, and soon Tube Time are debugging a
> model 77 that died on them.
>
> There are currently two videos with hints at a third.  I suspect this
> video series will end up being interesting.  They will likely go to
> great lengths to get the model 77 working.
>
> They may punt and replace it with another MCA system as their stated
> goal is to get the S/370 + Bus & Tag interface working so that they can
> communicate with some B&T tape drives and printer.
>

On Monday, October 18, 2021 at 1:14:08 PM UTC-6, Tomas Slavotinek wrote:
> Part 4 is finally up:
>
> https://youtu.be/wsLpe4lLhbo
>
> Interesting fault...

Yep - I started to see my subscription count suddenly increase yesterday at this time. At the start of my live-stream on Saturday, I was at 599 subscribers - within 48 hours, it was at 699. What will another 24 hours hold?

Part 5 of the M77 series is up:
https://youtu.be/Y6UprDq8LAQ

And the planar is finally repaired for good... :)

On 15.8.2021 3:15, Grant Taylor wrote:
> Curious Mark (YouTube), Kern Sherif, and soon Tube Time are debugging a
> model 77 that died on them.
>
> There are currently two videos with hints at a third.  I suspect this
> video series will end up being interesting.  They will likely go to
> great lengths to get the model 77 working.
>
> They may punt and replace it with another MCA system as their stated
> goal is to get the S/370 + Bus & Tag interface working so that they can
> communicate with some B&T tape drives and printer.
>
>
>

03:30

pure marketing machines. and you wanted to remove 'captialism' :P

glad, they could save it.

Tomas Slavotinek schrieb am Montag, 15. November 2021 um 19:42:41 UTC+1:
> Part 5 of the M77 series is up:
> https://youtu.be/Y6UprDq8LAQ
>
> And the planar is finally repaired for good... :)
> On 15.8.2021 3:15, Grant Taylor wrote:
> > Curious Mark (YouTube), Kern Sherif, and soon Tube Time are debugging a
> > model 77 that died on them.
> >
> > There are currently two videos with hints at a third. I suspect this
> > video series will end up being interesting. They will likely go to
> > great lengths to get the model 77 working.
> >
> > They may punt and replace it with another MCA system as their stated
> > goal is to get the S/370 + Bus & Tag interface working so that they can
> > communicate with some B&T tape drives and printer.
> >
> >
> >