I have a 128D which died (due to an LtK upgrade gone wrong).  I replaced the affected 74Ls08PC IC (u3) and it seemed to work again.  As I understand it this chip is responsible for memory bank control.  Well it's still acting flaky with the IEC bus, and I presume it's due to this chip mishandling the serial to RAM calls....  I'm going to pull it and resolder my socket and try again but would like a main board as a backup.  So anyone have a 128D with a dead drive, I'm your guy!

you willing to ship, well minus the 1902...

not yet, but I just got a new EEPROM eraser and will give it a shot!

Quote from: Justin on July 16, 2009, 10:40 AM
Wow, the parts for doing this are prohibitively expensive now, 141 for the cga to rbg converter?  Has anyone come up with a solution that is less ridiculous?  I ran into this when poking around: http://www.ambery.com/rgbcgatovgac.html but I suspect it would require a similar mod to make it work with the RGBI input.

I tried one of those and the output was quite poor, granted I was trying it on an LCD but it was nearly illegible.

Welp after an entire evening I'm sorry to report that I've been unsuccessful.   I can get the ROM file loaded (confirmed) but every time I try to write it to an EEPROM it dies after a few bytes....  I started to think I had a bad C1, but I did confirm (2 times) that I could read an 8Kb 2764 ROM from a 1541 into RAM and write that back out (granted I did cheat and use Promenade-AID 4.2).  The Servant BIN at 32K doesn't seem to work with Promenade-Aid (hangs when loading on the C64) and on the PROMOS 2.0 just dies when trying to write the EEPROM.  Anyone able to do this???  I'd love to know how... I mean I know I can buy a "knock off" for $5 on eBay, but it'd just be nice to make my own....

Tomorrow's project is to copy my old 1581 JiffyDOS ROM (ie, trying a 16KB image as I've only gotten 8Kb's to work)

Quote from: BigDumbDinosaur on July 11, 2009, 12:32 PM

QuoteThe security "fuse" has been intentionally blown in the PLDs (not PLCs) to prevent copying.  Back in the day, pirates tried several times to steal the design but never succeeded.

Yeah that's really a shame - as it would be lovely to reproduce "new" versions of these HBAs!  Just kills me to think that when one of these PLD's go because of old age or my "effup" that it's a done deal!

Cool, looking forward to that!  What did you write it in?  I've played with BBSServer 1.4 source in an effort to make it work with Color64.....  Unfortunately I only got it to work once!   Color does all communication with the modem at 300 BPS, and jumps after it sees a HS connection.... Emulating that, thus far, hasn't been something I've been able to pull off.... Though admittedly it's be tough as BBSserver is written in VB6 which I'd had to convert to VB.Net, which hasn't been fun!

Quote from: BigDumbDinosaur on July 10, 2009, 12:59 PM
Any time you add or subtract physical storage to a Lt. Kernal system you must edit the SYSGEN disk and SYSGEN the system to make the new driver parameters take effect.  It isn't necessary to perform a physical format on the drive, as all SCSI drives are formatted at the factory.

Are you sure you read http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ckb/ltk/drives_edit.htm in its entirety?

Yeah I've read thorough it several times (initially becuase I was trying to find a way to reverse engineer the PLC's - It's be supurb to be able to create new host adapters, becuase it is an AMAZING system.  I owned a CMD back in the day and while it was a lot easier to install, etc it can't touch the speed of the LtK.  I'm truly impressed as my BBS loads modules so fast, that you can't really tell the difference between this and when they were in the 1750.  I don't have a port expander unfortunately, so it' was one or the other.

And thank god it doesn't disturb existing LU's!!  In prepping my SYSGEN disk and verifying it worked it just "went" didn't realize it wouldn't prompt any sort of are you sure kinda deal.  I'll have to say I panicked a bit when reinstalled DOS, but was presently suprised that all of my data was still there.  I just had to redo the config settings is all.

Turns out the two 160MB units I got won't work because I can't disable parity....  So I just got a 4GB SCSI unit (of which I'll only use 160MB worth) and what I think I'll do now that I've seen how to add a drive, is add it, and copy the data over then remove the old 20 megger.....  Only thing though, is I presume you can't change the LU's, so I'll prob make a temp LU and use the different USERS to separate the data up during the whole backup / transfer process.

Hey all,

Looking for anyone who's owned a Lt Kernal HDD subsystem...

I've acquired a 20MB unit recent and picked up a couple of 140MB 50 pin units to replace the existing 20MB unit with...  The reason I'm calling all hands is that I need to figure out how to format the 2nd unit..... I've read through the SYSGEN stuff online, but that seems to all be "start from scratch" kinda stuff and my goal is to add a 140MB unit and copy the data off the 20MB drive.... Mainly, honestly, because I hope the 3.5" unit will be quieter....

Anyone done anything of the sort?

Thanks!

Yeah, well now it's randomly causing freezes and crashes when running in 1Mhz 40 column mode.  I've bumped it to 2Mhz in 80 column mode which appears to be stable, but AABBS switches to some custom font when it loads up on the LtK in that mode (ie, "smart quotes" and the like) which unfortunately and poorly rendered on my "Foitos inspired VGA converter" and my LCD TV set.  I mea it's legible but ugly.....  Time to start digging through source code again... Yippee (sarcasm at 100%)

Thanks to all for the help, looks like I have a project this weekend!

Hooray!  I finally got it to work.... Pulled down an old 1541 from the Attic that didn't have a JiffyDOS ROM in it, and recopied everything (AGAIN) and it finally works.... Got the clue when I was reading a text file off disk and it got garbled half way through.....  Some sort of corruption issue I suppose!

Now to invest in a bunch of Dynamat to quiet this thing down.... Lorddy old 5.25 spindles make a lot of noise!

I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a 20MB Lt Kernal, Host Adapter, and still sealed 128D daughterboard..... I've gotten it to work on a 64C and a 128 without issue (though despite older claims of JiffyDOS compatibility I'm not finding that true).  I'm trying to get it to work with AABBS128 12.5 without any luck.  I'm running a BBS with that software on a few 1581's and 1571's without issue, but despite trying to  start from a clean install, as soon as it tries to load (from autoload or autostart, can't remember this very second) I get a device not found error...

Unfortunately the source is compiled with blitz so when I get the device not found error (after it loads AAPARAMS...) the line number it reports I can get from "LIST"ing and it doesn't match the source....

Anyone here run that version of AABBS with an LtK?  If so, any pointers?  I did get my hands on the source of AABBS and am recompiling the 12.5b version (I'm running 12.5c) to see if that works any better, but I'm not holding my breath..... The wife was surprisingly forgiving of my "birthday purchase", but if I stuff it in a closet I suspect that'll change....

Thanks!!!

Any clues on where to get heat sinks now?  None of these links still work (big surprise), and with a 128 on 24x7 running a BBS and a 64c and 128D in line, this has renewed importance..... 

Thanks!!!!

Anyone know of websites with hints on this bit of HW?  I finally got a Promenade C1, and have the sotware (using Promenade-Aid) but that's as far as I've gotten....  For example, I'm trying to burn the SERVANT ROM (32K) to  a 32C256 EEPROM and it prompts me for a first and second 16K section in addition to a "program type", at which point I'm lost???  I'd love to play around with SERVANT and have a load of EEPROMS just dying for some use, any hints?

Thanks!!!

I've had great luck using WarpCopy with RR-Net....  I just wish it did 1571 images!!!

I've found the "best" solution is a LCD TV, with a VGA input.  I got a 15" LCD TV (which handles the composite input) and then to a CGA-VGA conversion with the Arcade board (details on this site).  Good news is that I found that board on eBay new for about $50 and then with $4 in parts from radio-shack....  All good!

+++

Just an FYI that I got this to work, now that I finally got around to the final modification posted earlier.  All colors display now!!  I actually got one of these boards off of eBay for around $50.  Another $10 in parts and viola.  I was using a Veg Lite as indicated by an earlier poster but contiued to run into LCD scaling issues as my LCD was a 16:9 (off my Mac) so it didn't do a great job.  The 80 col only runs perfectly crisp on 640X480 derivative LCDs', (such as 800x600, 1025X768, etc).  the multiplier on my screen makes it less than square and therefore not perfect. 

However, I've found that I can get perfect 40col output on a little Dynex 15" LCD TV, and the 80 col works pretty darn well.  So for $160 it's a TV/Commie Screen 40/80 and I'm quite happy with the setup!

Thanks to Fotios for the "hack"!

PS, this lovely gem is making me smile now that I can run my 128 Telnet BBS in 80 col mode!!!
maraud.dynalias.com (port 6400)