Re: Restoring a NorthStar Horizon, problems with SRAM board
- From: lynchaj@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 19:28:06 -0700
On May 31, 6:33 am, Dave.Dunfi...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(Dave Dunfield) wrote:
One thing which surprised me was that I did not expect to get the
machine to fully boot disks this quickly, especially after finding all
the problems on the CPU board initially. However, once the
motherboard problem was fixed, it just fell together like magic.
Excellent! - Just goes to show that you can never assume you
know where the problem is until you have completely tracked
it down.
It
went together so fast that I was taken unaware and I did not know
anything about N* DOS. The only command I know is LI to list the
directory. So I have some homework to do but happy news nonetheless.
I have the complete NorthStar manual (big book) on my site, as well as
many NorthStar disk images containing plenty of software. Once you
can confirmed that the Horizon is reliable, you can use my NST utility
to transfer disk images to physical diskettes.
--
Dunfield Development Services http://www.dunfield.com
Low cost software development tools for embedded systems
Software/firmware development services Fax:613-256-5821
Dave, Herb,
Thanks for the kind words. I am very happy the NorthStar is now
booting reliably. With your help we have made a lot of progress.
Tonight, I can report thanks to Dave's simply awesome simulator and
NST tool kit, I was able to link the NorthStar Horizon to my old
laptop and record an image of my MASTER boot disk for NSDOS 5.1DQ
So I am reviewing the NorthStar manuals and reading up. Definitely I
need to learn NS DOS and also the monitor commands. I am very
interested in getting the NST utility to work as well.
There are several disks which boot. Some are labeled "master backup"
which I would like to use sparingly and there are several disks which
apparently boot into the BASIC applications. I write simple programs
in BASIC and they run OK. Also, I can drop out of BASIC and into
NSDOS with the BYE command. My top priority is to get the NST utility
working so I can make an archival image backup of my MASTER boot disk
in case the NorthStar breaks down and ruins my good boot disk.
I am trying to determine if the computer is reliable or not. Do you
have any suggestions on what I can run from a NS DOS 5.1DQ disk to
verify the computer is working reliably? I have run various monitor
programs and BASIC and all seem to work as far as I can tell. The
system stays up for extended periods but I do not have any way to
really gauge whether it is working well or not. Also, I have many
disks which came with it but I do not know which ones are blank or
not. I can do LI commands from the DOS prompt but that does not work
on all disks. I think these disks are a collage of many systems disks
including a NorthStar Horizon and I am not sure what is in there.
In addition, I am experimenting with NST as I would very much like to
get it to work so I can save these floppies to images I can use in the
NS simulator on my old laptop rather than wear on them on the
NorthStar itself. Also, it is safer that way since I am not sure
exactly what I am doing quite yet.
I read the README.TXT file on the HORIZON simulator and that seems to
work OK on my laptop (266MHz Pentium, with 96MB RAM, Win2K). I am
using COM1: directly connected to the NorthStar's first serial port at
8,1,N,9600. All the instructions seem to work until I get to the
section on the NST utility where things go wrong.
All the monitors on the NorthStar boot disk have been customized to
use the Flashwriter for video output and the parallel keyboard for
input. All except the M5700 monitor which uses the first serial port
for IO. After I review NST.ASM, which appears fully correct for the
default case my machine is, I assemble the NST program using ASMZ80
per instructions and that goes fine. Then I launch the NST program
with default parameters "NST UH NST" which also goes fine.
I am running full screen on my laptop and when I start the M5700
monitor on the NorthStar, I see "MONITOR 5.1" come up on the laptop
screen and a ">" prompt. I can type return and simple commands to the
monitor and it seems to work.
However, here is where the problem occurs: When I type DS 2D00 at the
">" prompt per instructions, I get the prompt for the first value and
I press F1 to send the NST file. Then things start going wrong
because some of the characters are just dropped and the NST file is
never completely uploaded.
Some hex numbers come across fine, others only a single character,
some none at all. Usually, it gets several lines down and stalls out
the entry program. Pressing return at prompt regains control and
returns me to a ">" prompt.
I read the instructions again but maybe I am not understanding what is
happening here. I tried varying the communication parameters but only
C=1:81N9600 seems to work. C=1:71E9600 also works but has the same
characteristics. Changing baud rate does not work for other than
9600. Is there a way to specify hardware flow control of the serial
port? Does it affect serial communications?
When I press F1 at the regular monitor prompt (not in the
instructions, I know, just an experiment) I see the string of hex
numbers being sent but they seem awful slow for 9600 bps.
I tried the W= parameter as it sounded promising that maybe Win2K was
interfering with the serial port somehow but I do not know what a more
reasonable value would be if 18 is the default. Changing the value to
a larger number does not seem to have an effect. I do not know why
and I don't really understand so I leave it alone.
What does seem to solve the problem is the U= parameter. The default
of 2 is apparently not working on my computer so I tried U=0"="~S but
that did not work either. However, when I tried U=1"="~S it seems to
work. Then I was able to get the NST program to upload the NST stub
program on the NorthStar just as I would expect. Once that occurred,
I just followed the directions and did a "JP 2D00" and the monitor
prompt disappeared. I am not sure why this worked but I suspect it
has to do with my old and slow laptop running Win2K and having less
than ideal serial port drivers.
It all looks good so I press F10 to exit the upload terminal and run
the NST command locally on the laptop with "NST RD MASTER". The
computer is busy for a while and the NorthStar is reading sectors and
the laptop is recording them as you would expect. After a while, it
finishes and there is a MASTER.NSI file in my C:\HORIZON directory.
With the new master boot image recorded, I load the HORIZON simulator,
mount the NSDOS50D disk in drive 1 and MASTER in drive 2. Start the
simulator and do a LI command at the DOS prompt. I can see the
simulators boot disk directory. Do a "LI 2" command at the DOS prompt
and I see the MASTER boot disk directory I just recorded. In addition,
I was able to start the M5700 monitor in the simulator and it appears
to run fine.
By the way, I was also able to put some disks in the drive 2 of the
NorthStar and get them to give a directory listing. However, there
are other disks which when I type "LI 2" on the NorthStar NSDOS
prompt, I just get garbage. I do not know if this is another
operating system like CP/M or is it a single density floppy disk or
just a corrupted disk. There are many disks like this and with rather
mysterious contents.
Again, sorry for the long message but I would like to keep you and
anyone else interested up to date on my progress on restoring the
NorthStar Horizon. There are still many things to do on this
wonderful old computer but tonight has been a good night so that is
all for now.
Thanks again for all your help and good humor.
Andrew Lynch
PS, one profoundly ironic thing I noticed is my NorthStar takes about
5-10 seconds to boot from power off to DOS prompt. My laptop running
Win2K and easily 2 orders of magnitude greater processing power, takes
about 10 minutes to boot. This drives me nuts. How is it that
computers actually boot SLOWER as time progresses? :-)
.
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