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DECmate III floppy disk images?

Hi Tom,

So you have a DECmate III as well... Here are some DECmate images online. Let me know how things work out.

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/...rx50/teledisk/
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/...s/rx50/labels/

The last time I've worked on my DM III , I got error 32 when starting the system.
So I guess I didn't make the right disk for the machine or my floppy drive is broken.

Please let me know if you have success and with which image.
When I have a known good image it would help to generate the right disk.

Regards, Roland
 
I selected three of those images to have a look at.

CPM80SYS.TD0
CPMBASIC.TD0
OS278WC.TD0

I used the Imagedisk Utilities TD02IMD, IMDA and IMDU to get more information.

Code: 
$ TD02IMD CPM80SYS.TD0 > CPM80SYS.TXT
$ IMDA CPM80SYS.IMD >> CPM80SYS.TXT
$ IMDU CPM80SYS.IMD CPM80SYS.RAW /B /E /D >> CPM80SYS.TXT

The three .RAW files are:
409600 Jul 20 04:48 OS278WC.RAW
409600 Jul 20 04:47 CPMBASIC.RAW
409600 Jul 20 04:47 CPM80SYS.RAW

DEC DECMate II - SSDD 96 tpi 5.25" - 512 x 10

0/0 250 kbps DD 10x512
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
D D D D D40 D40 D D D D
1/0 D D D D D D D D D D
2/0 D DE5 D DE5 D DE5 DE5 D DE5 D

IMageDisk Analyzer 1.18 / Mar 12 2012
IMD TD 1.5 5.25-96 LD MFM S-step, 1 sides 5/06/1994 10:17:20

BL-N353C-BV 045208

CP/M-80 V2.1 INSTL BIN RX50

Serial No. PC2-637-409038

COPR (c) 1984 DIGITAL EQUIP. CORP.

Required cylinders: 80
Required heads : 1
Data rate : 250kbps
Est. maximum track: 6055 bytes

Possible drives/options to write CPM80SYS.IMD :

5.25" QD 80-track
Double-step: OFF

5.25" HD 80-track
Double-step: OFF
250 kbps -> 300 kbps

3.5" DD 80-track
Double-step: OFF

3.5" HD 80-track
Double-step: OFF

Code: 
BEGIN DEC1 DEC DECMate II - SSDD 96 tpi 5.25" - 512 x 10
INSERT 22DISK DEFINITION HERE
END

# DEC1 DEC DECMate II - SSDD 96 tpi 5.25" - 512 x 10
diskdef dec1
seclen 512
tracks 80
sectrk 10
blocksize 2048
maxdir 128
skew 2
boottrk 2
os 2.2
end

# libdsk data below
[dec1]
description = DEC1 DEC DECMate II - SSDD 96 tpi 5.25" - 512 x 10
cylinders = 80
heads = 1
secsize = 512
sectors = 10
secbase = 1
datarate = DD

#Flashfloppy/GOTEK
[dec1]
cyls = 80
heads = 1
secs = 10
interleave = 2
bps = 512
id = 1
#rpm = 360
rpm = 300
rate = 250
mode = mfm
iam = no


$ cpmls -f dec1 -D CPM80SYS.RAW
Name Bytes Recs Attr update create
------------ ------ ------ ---- ----------------- -----------------
ABIOSW .BIN 4K 24
ABIOSW .SV 24K 180
ABIOSX .BIN 4K 21
ABIOSX .SV 20K 156
BOOT .COM 4K 23
BOOT2 .SV 2K 12
BOOT2A .SV 4K 20
BOOT2X .SV 4K 20
BOOT3A .SV 2K 16
BOOT3X .SV 2K 16
CPM62 .BIN 10K 68
CPM63 .BIN 10K 68
DISKCOPY.COM 4K 25
DISKINIT.COM 4K 25
DISMOUNT.COM 2K 16
ED .COM 8K 52
GREETING.COM 2K 13
HD .COM 24K 190
MAKESYS .COM 28K 214
MENU .COM 4K 23
MOUNT .COM 4K 21
PIP .COM 8K 60
PRSETUP .COM 26K 197
SETSTART.COM 2K 9
STARTUP .COM 2K 4
STARTUP .USR 2K 4
STAT .COM 6K 41
SUBMIT .COM 2K 12
WPSCONV .COM 38K 290
XBIOSW .BIN 4K 24
XBIOSW .SV 24K 184
XBIOSX .BIN 4K 21
XBIOSX .SV 20K 160
XSUB .COM 2K 8

User 15:

Name Bytes Recs Attr update create
------------ ------ ------ ---- ----------------- -----------------
CPMIMAGE.SYS 70K 560 RS
35 Files occupying 380K, 6K Free.



$ cpmls -f dec1 -D CPMBASIC.RAW
Name Bytes Recs Attr update create
------------ ------ ------ ---- ----------------- -----------------
INSTALL .SUB 2K 2
MBASIC .COM 24K 190
MTEST .BAS 2K 15
RFILE . 4K 20
4 Files occupying 32K, 354K Free.



Larry
 
Roland Huisman said:
Hi Tom,

So you have a DECmate III as well... Here are some DECmate images online. Let me know how things work out.

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/...rx50/teledisk/
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/...s/rx50/labels/

The last time I've worked on my DM III , I got error 32 when starting the system.
So I guess I didn't make the right disk for the machine or my floppy drive is broken.

Please let me know if you have success and with which image.
When I have a known good image it would help to generate the right disk.

Regards, Roland
Click to expand...

Thanks Roland,

I have downloaded the images and will try a few. They seem to be for DECmate II rather than III but may be close enough.

Best regards
Tom Hunter
 
Roland Huisman said:
Hi Tom,

So you have a DECmate III as well... Here are some DECmate images online. Let me know how things work out.

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/...rx50/teledisk/
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/...s/rx50/labels/

The last time I've worked on my DM III , I got error 32 when starting the system.
So I guess I didn't make the right disk for the machine or my floppy drive is broken.

Please let me know if you have success and with which image.
When I have a known good image it would help to generate the right disk.

Regards, Roland
Click to expand...

Thanks Roland.

I tried the following floppy images from the site you pointed to:

DM1011.TD0
DM1012.TD0
DM1013.TD0
OS278WC.TD0
ADVDSK.TD0
WPCBIFL0.TD0
CPM80SYS.TD0

None of them boot successfully.

After power-on the system says "DECMATE" in the middle of the screen. There is a blinking cursor in the home position of the screen.

When I insert any of the floppy disks I wrote with the images listed above, the text "DECMATE" disappears and the floppy drive does two seeks and then it shows a large graphical image of a floppy disk on the right hand side of the screen. The image occupies about 20% of the screen. The drive then does another two seeks and the floppy image on the screen turns off and then on again. This repeats forever.

The DECmate III looks internally like new and has a Z80 add-on board (that is why I tried the CP/M image). The case looks a bit rough from storage but should clean up nicely.

I suspect that the images are only suitable for the DECmate II and won't work on the DECmate III.

I wonder if this is because of the "slushware" which runs in the control-panel partition of RAM.

If anyone has some insight into this, please speak up.

Could anyone with an ImageDisk or TeleDisk image of a known working (booting) DECmate III floppy please share it?

Thanks and best regards
Tom Hunter
 
Hi Tom,

It sounds like you have more or less the same results. DECmate 3 software is a pain to get.

BBBbbzzzttt!!! :crazy: Wait a minute... I have been given a DECmate III software package a while ago.
Four disks and a manual. I have been busy with other things and forgot about the DM III
I will make images for you from these disks. Please give me a moment to do that.
It seems a good moment to get back to my DM III too :D

Regards, Roland



IMG_20210720_174256.jpg IMG_20210720_174303.jpg IMG_20210720_174300.jpg IMG_20210720_174306.jpg
IMG_20210720_174342.jpg
 
thunter0512 said:
I suspect that the images are only suitable for the DECmate II and won't work on the DECmate III.

I wonder if this is because of the "slushware" which runs in the control-panel partition of RAM.

If anyone has some insight into this, please speak up.

Could anyone with an ImageDisk or TeleDisk image of a known working (booting) DECmate III floppy please share it?
Click to expand...

Years ago, I used PUTR, and I believe I was able to write some floppies and I know that I played with my DM-III a bit. PUTR was a DOS thing, though, and I think I was less successful later using DOSbox in a window. Unfortunately, it was all quite a while ago, so I'm not able to remember any details.

I do suspect the slushware is different between the II and the III, since the firmware seems a bit different. I suppose it is possible that the firmware is trying ot hide the hardware differences, but I don't have a detailed enough understanding of it all yet. (I haven't yet tried to interpret any of the slushware bits yet.)

Vince
 
Thank you Roland for the disk images.

Sadly the floppies created using these images behave exactly the same as the earlier images I tried:

Here are possible causes:
  1. My RX50 drive (or controller) is busted;
  2. The RX50 is fundamentally incompatible with the PC floppy (RPM, modulation or even physical media).
  3. ImageDisk and TeleDisk cannot capture some subtle copy protection used by DEC.
Unfortunately without a known good spare it is hard to prove/dis-prove point 1.

Best regards
Tom Hunter
 
Last edited:
Last days I copyed several diskimages for my Decmate II with success (DOS 2,11, COS310, CP/M80...). My workflow is using a standard PC (486) with 1.2K Drive as A:. Under DOS 6.22 usage of Teledisk or Putr makes disks that work without any problem with the Decmate II. You should use DD disks even though you write with a 1.2K drive.
I prefer Teledisk over Putr in this case, It's faster...

Are Decmate III disk in turn are working on a Decmate II?
 
jdreesen said:
The RX50 is strictly FM, which is not normally PC-compatible...
Click to expand...

Clearly people have successfully written RX50 compatible floppy disks on PCs. PUTR is one program which definitely can write RX50 floppies on a PC. I am very sure that both TeleDisk and ImageDisk can do it too. It is either that the images I tried are all not compatible with my version of the DECmate III or more likely that there is a fault (mis-aligned heads) with the RX50 in my DECmate III. I will try to find another RX50 and will report back.

Best regards
Tom Hunter
 
Roland Huisman said:
I think you could place your newly written disks into your PC system and see if you can mount and read them with PUTR...
Click to expand...

Thanks Roland,

I have tried your DECmate III images and after mounting the written floppies with PUTR the "DIR" command reports "invalid directory" and shows just garbage.

I also tried the following images from http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/...rx50/teledisk/ written with TeleDisk to floppies:

DM1011.TD0
OS278WC.TD0
ADVDSK.TD0

PUTR's "DIR" command works perfectly and you get a list of typical OS/8 files.

This means that the ibiblio.org files are valid RX50 images but I suspect they all have the DECmate II "slushware" rather than the DECmate III versions.

Your DECmate III ImageDisk images may not have correctly captured the contents of your floppies.

Could you please try to image just one of your DECmate III floppies with TeleDisk 2.16?

Thanks and best regards
Tom Hunter
 
Hi Tom,

> Could you please try to image just one of your DECmate III floppies with TeleDisk 2.16?

Yes I will do that for you next week. I will also check if I can read my original disks with putr.

Regards, Roland
 
Roland Huisman said:
Hi Tom,

> Could you please try to image just one of your DECmate III floppies with TeleDisk 2.16?

Yes I will do that for you next week. I will also check if I can read my original disks with putr.

Regards, Roland
Click to expand...

Hi Roland,

I initially only tried one of your images with PUTR and it did not have valid directories so I assumed they are all bad.

I have now tried the other 3 and they do have valid OS/8 directories (at least PUTR seems happy with them).

The following 3 work with PUTR:
  • DM system test dskt drive 0 BL-DA82A-MV PC0173 1984.IMD
  • DM system test dskt drive 0 BL-DA82A-MV GAPC1826 1984.IMD
  • Systeemoverzicht DU Decmate V1.6 BL-EK91A-BV PC189 1985.IMD
This one doesn't work with PUTR:
  • Systeemdiskette WPS V1.58 NL DECmate III.IMD
I tested with this one as it had "DECmate III" in its name and also seems to say "Systemdisk" in Dutch. Maybe it is not a OS/8 disk.

Nevertheless none of the images I have boot with my DECmate III so probably the RX50 drive is faulty.

Best regards
Tom Hunter
 
  • Systeemdiskette WPS V1.58 NL DECmate III.IMD
I tested with this one as it had "DECmate III" in its name and also seems to say "Systemdisk" in Dutch. Maybe it is not a OS/8 disk.
Click to expand...

You're right, WPS-8 (DEC's Word Processing System) is not OS/8. It's a separate self-contained operating system/application. It's able to use RX and RL storage and print to compatible DEC dot-matrix, daisy wheel and laser printers. Does your DM-III keyboard have a 'gold' key?
 
ftcnet said:
You're right, WPS-8 (DEC's Word Processing System) is not OS/8. It's a separate self-contained operating system/application. It's able to use RX and RL storage and print to compatible DEC dot-matrix, daisy wheel and laser printers. Does your DM-III keyboard have a 'gold' key?
Click to expand...

The plastic has "yellowed", but I don't think that can be called "gold" key. :)
 
IMG_20210817_155827967.jpg

IMG_20210817_155742993.jpg

IMG_20210817_160627870.jpg

IMG_20210817_160727822.jpg

I picked up a good RX50 floppy drive and the system booted Roland's System Test disk without any problems and ran diagnostics which claim everything is working fine.
The display suffers from ugly screen cataracts, but after my VR14 adventure I know how to fix this. At least DEC were consistent in using rubbish glue between the CRT and the protective glass panel. :)
The system also includes the Z80 based CP/M board.
As time permits I will try other floppy images including the DecMATE II images on Ibiblio.
So these RX50 drives are suspect. I have now 3 of which only one works. If I get very bored (unlikely) I will investigate further what the exact problem is with the faulty drives.

Best regards
Tom Hunter
 
I am glad you got it to work. My suspicions have been that the DECmate II and III are compatible at the software level so the same OS/278 will work on both. I will be very interested to hear if the DM II diskettes work on your III.

Vince has a VR-201 display with no cataracts. It is an amber display, not the green. Until I saw a photo of another yellow one without cataracts I just figured he was lucky. Now I suspect the difference is that the yellow ones were made in a different factory. Vince's monitor was made in Spain. There were also white ones but I have not seen one of those in person. The one recent photo I saw looked like the center of the display at least was not affected by cataracts. In that photo there might have been cataracts in the upper left corner but since no text was being displayed there I might have been seeing dust. That monitor was made in Hong Kong. My once cataract ridden VR201-B was made in Hong Kong. I found reference to the three phosphor colors in the Rainbow 100 Technical manual on page A-2. The VR201-A is white phosphor, VR201-B is green phosphor, and the VR201-C is the amber phosphor.
 
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