Never should have started this project in the first place, but it's too
late now.

Dragged an old 3b1 out of storage (not used in 10 years) and attempted
to boot it. Amazingly, it got all the way to a login prompt and then
crashed with a hard disk error (poor old ST251). Now it will not boot
properly at all. Although the hard disk has not failed entirely, it is
generating ugly read errors. My goal at this point it to extract as much
data from the hard drive as possible, and start over with a fresh one.
I'd like to remove the drive, place it into a Linux or FreeBSD machine,
and dd the data off of it. My problem is that I don't have an ISA-bus
MFM controller. I realize that this is a PeeCee deficiency, and not a
UNIXpc one, but I figure one of you old-timers on here might be able to
help me out. I'm willing to pay a reasonable cost (or trade something)
for your trouble, plus shipping, of course. Anyone?

andrew@lod.com

p.s. Yes, I checked ebay. Currently the only listing is this one for a
lot of 20 (which is 19 more than I need):

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=39967&item=5144837600

From:	DoN. Nichols
Subject:	Re: UNIXpc fiasco
Date:	3 Dec 2004 12:30:34 -0500

In article , Andrew wrote:
>
>Never should have started this project in the first place, but it's too
>late now.
>
>Dragged an old 3b1 out of storage (not used in 10 years) and attempted
>to boot it. Amazingly, it got all the way to a login prompt and then
>crashed with a hard disk error (poor old ST251). Now it will not boot
>properly at all. Although the hard disk has not failed entirely, it is
>generating ugly read errors. My goal at this point it to extract as much
>data from the hard drive as possible, and start over with a fresh one.
>I'd like to remove the drive, place it into a Linux or FreeBSD machine,
>and dd the data off of it.

Hmm ... first check whether those systems can mount the
filesystem format used in the 3B1. I know that the BSD systems use by
default the FFS (Fast FileSystem) which is noticeably different from the
filesystem used on the 3B1 -- and that is somewhat different from the
even older filesystem used by the v7 unix which was the ancestor both of
the SysV and the BSD filesystems.

> My problem is that I don't have an ISA-bus
>MFM controller. I realize that this is a PeeCee deficiency, and not a
>UNIXpc one, but I figure one of you old-timers on here might be able to
>help me out. I'm willing to pay a reasonable cost (or trade something)
>for your trouble, plus shipping, of course. Anyone?

Hmm ... have you considered installing an alternate drive on the
3b1 and installing the OS, then using the system (properly modified) to
access the old disk? The ICUS mod would allow it to access a second
disk drive -- and swapping in a later WD hard disk controller chip would
allow it to access larger MFM drives -- up to 190 MB (160 MB formatted),
IIRC.

>andrew@lod.com
>
>
>p.s. Yes, I checked ebay. Currently the only listing is this one for a
>lot of 20 (which is 19 more than I need):
>
>http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=39967&item=5144837600

Without knowing whether you could mount the different filesystem
structure, this would be a bit much -- but it might be a source of the
WD controller chips for the upgrade.

BTW Your hard disk errors may be induced by oxidized connectors from the
power supply to the main CPU board. I would suggest treating
the connectors with Cramolin (or DeOxit these days, as Cramolin
is very hard to find now.) Otherwise, each time there is a
power glitch while a disk write is in progress, you will have
yet another inaccessible sector or two.

Good Luck,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

From:	Andrew
Subject:	Re: UNIXpc fiasco
Date:	Fri, 03 Dec 2004 15:10:14 -0800

DoN. Nichols wrote:

[..]

> Hmm ... first check whether those systems can mount the
> filesystem format used in the 3B1. I know that the BSD systems use by
> default the FFS (Fast FileSystem) which is noticeably different from the
> filesystem used on the 3B1 -- and that is somewhat different from the
> even older filesystem used by the v7 unix which was the ancestor both of
> the SysV and the BSD filesystems.

Correct. But the idea [moot now: see below] was not to mount the
filesystem, but to use dd to extract data from the partially failed
disk, write the image to a new disk, install that one in the UNIXpc, and
use fsck (from floppy, if necessary) to restore the filesystem to a
consistent state. This works well in situations where a disk has
partially failed and causes system instablity, but still contains a
large amount of readable data. I have used this method in the past to
recover RAID5 arrays which suffered two simultaneous disk failures. It
may be possible to recover much of the data once a filesystem image is
reconstructed on to a properly functioning disk. Note the dd options to
do this (for example):

# dd if=/dev/hda of=disk.img conv=sync,noerror

sync is required in order to fill unreadable sectors with zeros.

[..]

> BTW Your hard disk errors may be induced by oxidized connectors from the
> power supply to the main CPU board. I would suggest treating
> the connectors with Cramolin (or DeOxit these days, as Cramolin
> is very hard to find now.) Otherwise, each time there is a
> power glitch while a disk write is in progress, you will have
> yet another inaccessible sector or two.

I took your advice (sort of). I opened up the machine, cleaned out the
dust with compressed air, re-seated stuff, re-cabled stuff, and now it
boots up cleanly. It amazing how durable these machines are. The disk
drive still scares me, so I'm in the process of transferring everything
to another system (UUCP!)

Cheers,

andrew@lod.com

From:	DoN. Nichols
Subject:	Re: UNIXpc fiasco
Date:	3 Dec 2004 20:14:14 -0500

In article , Andrew wrote:
>DoN. Nichols wrote:
>
>[..]
>
>> Hmm ... first check whether those systems can mount the
>> filesystem format used in the 3B1. I know that the BSD systems use by
>> default the FFS (Fast FileSystem) which is noticeably different from the
>> filesystem used on the 3B1 -- and that is somewhat different from the
>> even older filesystem used by the v7 unix which was the ancestor both of
>> the SysV and the BSD filesystems.
>
>Correct. But the idea [moot now: see below] was not to mount the
>filesystem, but to use dd to extract data from the partially failed
>disk, write the image to a new disk, install that one in the UNIXpc, and
>use fsck (from floppy, if necessary) to restore the filesystem to a
>consistent state. This works well in situations where a disk has
>partially failed and causes system instablity, but still contains a
>large amount of readable data. I have used this method in the past to
>recover RAID5 arrays which suffered two simultaneous disk failures. It
>may be possible to recover much of the data once a filesystem image is
>reconstructed on to a properly functioning disk. Note the dd options to
>do this (for example):
>
># dd if=/dev/hda of=disk.img conv=sync,noerror
>
>sync is required in order to fill unreadable sectors with zeros.

An interesting approach, and it might well work, as long as none
of the corrupted sectors are critical ones -- e.g. the kernel, or in a
directory for something like /, /etc, /usr/bin and /usr/lib (you will
need the shared libs for most programs, at least).

>[..]
>
>> BTW Your hard disk errors may be induced by oxidized connectors from the
>> power supply to the main CPU board. I would suggest treating
>> the connectors with Cramolin (or DeOxit these days, as Cramolin
>> is very hard to find now.) Otherwise, each time there is a
>> power glitch while a disk write is in progress, you will have
>> yet another inaccessible sector or two.
>
>I took your advice (sort of). I opened up the machine, cleaned out the
>dust with compressed air, re-seated stuff, re-cabled stuff, and now it
>boots up cleanly.

Great!

> It amazing how durable these machines are. The disk
>drive still scares me, so I'm in the process of transferring everything
>to another system (UUCP!)

O.K. I would be more likely to use kermit for the transfers in
the absence of the ethernet card and software, or with ftp otherwise.

Kermit is good about dealing with noise or overflows in the
serial link.

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

From:	Ward Griffiths
Subject:	Re: UNIXpc fiasco
Date:	Fri, 03 Dec 2004 20:55:27 -0500

DoN. Nichols wrote:

> In article , Andrew
> wrote:

>> It amazing how durable these machines are. The disk
>>drive still scares me, so I'm in the process of transferring
>>everything to another system (UUCP!)
>
> O.K. I would be more likely to use kermit for the transfers in
> the absence of the ethernet card and software, or with ftp otherwise.
>
> Kermit is good about dealing with noise or overflows in the
> serial link.

Well, I still use uucp between my 2 (working -- I've got another for
parts) 7300 machines and my Tandy 6000 Xenix system to move stuff to
and from my main Linux box the few times per year I actually power up
the old machines (and I'll admit, getting less frequent as the years
pass). But I won't give up my old machines, no matter what La Esposa
says -- they're the things I learned on back in the day (and I may pick
up a "new" TRS-80 Model 4 this weekend).

I think this is the longest thread that was actually Unix PC related (as
opposed to cross-posted from comp.sys.att or someplace) in several
years. Does the heart good, since I voted for its creation back when I
was at Unisys (along with Clarence, but I arrived much later) at the
old CT campus in San Jose.
--
Ward Griffiths wdg3rd@comcast.net http://home.comcast.net/~wdg3rd/

You had to admire the way perfectly innocent words were mugged, ravaged,
stripped of all true meaning and decency, and then sent to walk the
gutter for Reacher Gilt, although "synergistically" had probably been a
whore from the start. -- Terry Pratchett, _Going Postal_

From:	Thad Floryan
Subject:	Re: UNIXpc fiasco
Date:	3 Dec 2004 17:50:19 -0800

dnichols@d-and-d.com (DoN. Nichols) wrote in message news:...
> In article , Andrew wrote:
> >
> >Never should have started this project in the first place, but it's too
> >late now.
> >
> >Dragged an old 3b1 out of storage (not used in 10 years) and attempted
> >to boot it. Amazingly, it got all the way to a login prompt and then
> >crashed with a hard disk error (poor old ST251). Now it will not boot
> >properly at all. Although the hard disk has not failed entirely, it is
> >generating ugly read errors. My goal at this point it to extract as much
> >data from the hard drive as possible, and start over with a fresh one.
> >I'd like to remove the drive, place it into a Linux or FreeBSD machine,
> >and dd the data off of it.
>
> Hmm ... first check whether those systems can mount the
> filesystem format used in the 3B1. I know that the BSD systems use by
> default the FFS (Fast FileSystem) which is noticeably different from the
> filesystem used on the 3B1 -- and that is somewhat different from the
> even older filesystem used by the v7 unix which was the ancestor both of
> the SysV and the BSD filesystems.

'Bout the only other systems that I recall can mount the 3B1 disks are the
CTIX ones (MiniFrame and MitiFrame) also mfd by Convergent. FWIW, I still
have several of them sitting in a shed that can mount 2 (or 4?) HDs. Don't
know if they'll still power up and run, but ...

> > My problem is that I don't have an ISA-bus
> >MFM controller. I realize that this is a PeeCee deficiency, and not a
> >UNIXpc one, but I figure one of you old-timers on here might be able to
> >help me out. I'm willing to pay a reasonable cost (or trade something)
> >for your trouble, plus shipping, of course. Anyone?
>
> Hmm ... have you considered installing an alternate drive on the
> 3b1 and installing the OS, then using the system (properly modified) to
> access the old disk? The ICUS mod would allow it to access a second
> disk drive -- and swapping in a later WD hard disk controller chip would
> allow it to access larger MFM drives -- up to 190 MB (160 MB formatted),
> IIRC.

Also FWIW, I still have a tube (or two) of the WD2010 controller chips and
probably several of the ICUS kits. I had to "clear" my garage awhile back
and all my 3B1/Convergent stuff is outside in a shed except for three 3B1s
which I'm going to have to "let go", too.

> [...]
> Without knowing whether you could mount the different filesystem
> structure, this would be a bit much -- but it might be a source of the
> WD controller chips for the upgrade.
>
> BTW Your hard disk errors may be induced by oxidized connectors from the
> power supply to the main CPU board. I would suggest treating
> the connectors with Cramolin (or DeOxit these days, as Cramolin
> is very hard to find now.) Otherwise, each time there is a
> power glitch while a disk write is in progress, you will have
> yet another inaccessible sector or two.

Good advice.

BTW, if anyone's in Silicon Valley (SF Peninsula) and wants to take my stock
of 3B1 stuff off my hands for some nominal price, lemme know. Otherwise the
stuff will either go to a local museum or the dumpster -- I'm simply out of
room. Among the items are a *LOT* of parts, cards, chassis, (new) 3B1 power
supplies, keyboards, mice, tons of manuals and software, tape drives, etc. and
StarLAN cards, terminal servers, and hubs.

If there's interest and you can pick up the stuff locally, follow-up to this
thread as my email filters are extremely aggressive -- we'll work something out.
I don't have time to pack, box and ship stuff; been with a startup for 5 years
now and we're still working 25/8 :-)

From:	Andrew
Subject:	Re: UNIXpc fiasco
Date:	Fri, 03 Dec 2004 18:46:57 -0800

Thad Floryan wrote:

[..]

>
> 'Bout the only other systems that I recall can mount the 3B1 disks are the
> CTIX ones (MiniFrame and MitiFrame) also mfd by Convergent. FWIW, I still
> have several of them sitting in a shed that can mount 2 (or 4?) HDs. Don't
> know if they'll still power up and run, but ...

Sun Solaris, beginning at least as early as 2.6, includes a mount_s5fs,
which the man page suggests might be used to mount a 3b1 filesystem:

NAME
mount_s5fs - mount s5 file systems

SYNOPSIS
mount -F s5fs [ -r ] [ -o specific_options ] special |
mount_point

mount -F s5fs [ -r ] [ -o specific_options ] special
mount_point

DESCRIPTION
mount attaches a s5 file system (a System V file system used
by PC versions of UNIX) to the file system hierarchy at the
mount_point,

[..]

Some quick Sunsolve searches indicate it supports mounting Interactive
UNIX filesystems -- that apparently being a System, V/386 Release 3.2
derivative. I've no idea if it's the same or similar enough to the
UNIXpc filesystem, but after my UUCP is done I'll give it a try.

[..]

> BTW, if anyone's in Silicon Valley (SF Peninsula) and wants to take my stock
> of 3B1 stuff off my hands for some nominal price, lemme know. Otherwise the
> stuff will either go to a local museum or the dumpster -- I'm simply out of
> room. Among the items are a *LOT* of parts, cards, chassis, (new) 3B1 power
> supplies, keyboards, mice, tons of manuals and software, tape drives, etc. and
> StarLAN cards, terminal servers, and hubs.
>
> If there's interest and you can pick up the stuff locally, follow-up to this
> thread as my email filters are extremely aggressive -- we'll work something out.
> I don't have time to pack, box and ship stuff; been with a startup for 5 years
> now and we're still working 25/8 :-)

Ack! Kindly don't dumpster it. If you're unwilling to ship, I would be
inclined to pick up the items next time I am in that part of California.

andrew@lod.com

From:	Thad Floryan
Subject:	Re: UNIXpc fiasco
Date:	4 Dec 2004 11:35:45 -0800

Andrew wrote in message news:...
> [...]
> Ack! Kindly don't dumpster it. If you're unwilling to ship, I would be
> inclined to pick up the items next time I am in that part of California.

I'm agonizing over a way not to [dumpsterize]. I simply couldn't believe I'd
accumulated so much "stuff" over the years.

There literally was a pile 20 feet by 20 feet by 6-8 feet in my garage. Already
dumped 30+ years' of IEEE, ACM, etc. journals since libraries and local colleges
only want microfiche because of space.

I began the garage clearing this past March and there's still some 20+ boxes of
stuff inside that I need to review. Ugh.

If mini-warehouses weren't so expensive I would have placed everything in one, but
not at almost $200/month. Several colleagues at work mentioned there are 2 local
museums that "might" be interested; I need to look further into that possibility
to keep the 3B1 flame alive.

As Clarence wrote re: his MiniFrame, there is some sentimental value here, and
I'd prefer (almost literally) giving this stuff to someone who could use it or
distribute it to others; I simply haven't the time and I still need to clear 2
bedrooms of old Sun (and other) computers, manuals, parts, etc.

Sigh, if only I could expand the house outwards 50 feet in every direction. :-)

From:	Ward Griffiths
Subject:	Re: UNIXpc fiasco
Date:	Fri, 03 Dec 2004 23:30:48 -0500

Andrew wrote:

> Some quick Sunsolve searches indicate it supports mounting Interactive
> UNIX filesystems -- that apparently being a System, V/386 Release 3.2
> derivative. I've no idea if it's the same or similar enough to the
> UNIXpc filesystem, but after my UUCP is done I'll give it a try.

The Unix PC filesystem isn't SysVr2. It's got a partitioning scheme
rather unique to Convergent. I dunno the internals, and perhaps if a
filesystem itself were dd'd, it could be read by another system, but I
wouldn't want to risk the ranch on that.

I'd love to get Thad's bunch of stuff myself, but I'm nowadays on the
wrong fookin' coast and just started a long contract that _might_ let
me take a few days off next July for my annual unwind in the Rockies
(no place to shoot targets in New Jersey that isn't overrun with LEOs
who look at you funny if you shoot better than they do -- and make note
of your license plate _just in case_).
--
Ward Griffiths wdg3rd@comcast.net http://home.comcast.net/~wdg3rd/

These creatures of the outback are all extremely interesting, but do
remember that no matter how cute they may be, they are wild animals.
The only safe way to encounter them is at Outback Steakhouse.

From:	dold at XReXXUNIXp.usenet.us.com
Subject:	Re: UNIXpc fiasco
Date:	Fri, 3 Dec 2004 21:42:58 +0000 (UTC)

Andrew wrote:
> and dd the data off of it. My problem is that I don't have an ISA-bus
> MFM controller. I realize that this is a PeeCee deficiency, and not a
> UNIXpc one, but I figure one of you old-timers on here might be able to
> help me out. I'm willing to pay a reasonable cost (or trade something)
> for your trouble, plus shipping, of course. Anyone?

I think the drive is directly mountable by the Convergent MiniFrame and
MightyFrame. I have a MiniFrame that hasn't been powered up in 10 years.

What's on the drive? Is it worth it? My wife keeps trying to get me to
toss the MiniFrame, but it has sentimental value. I really do intend to
turn it on one day, to see if it is as fast as I remember ;-)

--
---
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8-122.5