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Tektronix 405x GPIB Flash Drive

nikola-wan

nikola-wan

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I’m thinking about designing a GPIB FLASH DRIVE program storage accessory to our 4051/4052/54/52A/54A machines since the tapes are so problematic, and the MAXIPACK only works with the 4051.
And since not everyone has the backpack with serial option.

GPIB advantage is it is on all the 405x series and all the BASIC programs will support it without needing an option ROM.

My thought is to have the device respond to the 405x BASIC commands for the tape drive (TLIST, FIND, OLD, SAVE, MARK, etc).

Someone on the web has a 5V Arduino Uno board directly connected to a GPIB connector - that works as a GPIB controller.

However - the Tek 405x is the controller and cannot be used as the device.

I have all the Tektronix 405x GPIB manuals - that include HW and 6800 assembler code for the tape interface with flowcharts for the logic.

There are also Arduino shields with MicroSD flash cards and libraries for the FAT and FAT32 file systems.

I don't know how many folks still have working 405x computers - that might be interested in this accessory.

Monty
 
Quite willing to help you in this effort ( PCB design etc.)

A killer kriterium is be to have an SDcard that is also read/writable in modern systems. ( ie FAT filesystem )


Jos
 
jdreesen said:
Quite willing to help you in this effort ( PCB design etc.)

A killer kriterium is be to have an SDcard that is also read/writable in modern systems. ( ie FAT filesystem )


Jos
Click to expand...

I totally agree - MicroSD is read/writeable on my PC SD card slot with a MicroSD to SD card adapter.
I have an adapter from SanDisk and use it to transfer print files to my Creality 3D printer.

I like the Thingiverse GPIB / USB shell that holds an Arduino Nano board.
Arduino GPIB-USB Connector Shell

That design needs to be enlarged in height or width to allow room for a Sparkfun MicroSD Transflash breakout board:
Sparkfun MicroSD Transflash breakout board

I bought an Adafruit M0 datalogger board which includes a MicroSD socket - however that board is 3.3V only and would need buffers to connect to 5V GPIB.

I'm going to start with the 5V Arduino NANO connected to GPIB. When I get some code working, I will then add the MicroSD. Looks like just enough pins on the NANO for both functions.

Monty
 
arduino on the gpib is problematic. its not 100% compat, search on eevblog. you need to at least have some transceiver chips on the bus, and the protocol can be a beast, but there is opensource. look up Galvant Industries, they have an open source GPIB usb adapter, you could probably easiy work your design from that.

https://github.com/Galvant

http://www.galvant.ca/#!/store/gpibusb

Last I heard getting GPIB connectors is not easy, unless someone in china made a new batch.
 
GPIB connector is still available - AMP 57-10240

GPIB connector is still available - AMP 57-10240

BloodyCactus,

Thanks for the comments and link to the Galvant website.

The GPIB connector is still available - just not called GPIB anymore.

I found it on Mouser.com in stock for $6.17 after searching for 57-10240 - part number on the Thingiverse page for the backshell GPIB connector 3D model (I guess AMP bought Cinch).
A right angle board mount version is a little more expensive at $11.73 P/N 5554923-2, but more convenient for a custom board like the Galvant design.

AMP drawing for 57-10240 connector

The authors website for the GPIB controller on Arduino says his design is not for a bus full of devices - and should only be connected to a single device.
http://egirland.blogspot.com/2014/03/arduino-uno-as-usb-to-gpib-controller.html

The Tektronix 4051/4052 and 4054 had an 800KHz Motorola 6800 CPU performing software I/O operations to PIA 8-bit registers to control the bus - so pretty slow.
The upgraded 4052A and 4054A used a TI 9914 GPIB controller to get a little more speed, but still very slow by later GPIB standards.

I'll first try the simple Arduino NANO direct wired.

The Tektronix 405x GPIB used the secondary address to send the command instead of messages.

This is documented in the Tektronix GPIB manuals posted on bitsavers.

My first try will be to follow the Tektronix GPIB flowcharts in the manuals and get the Arduino to just report on the serial console what traffic it sees.

If I see data integrity issues with just hooking the 5V Arduino to the Tektronix GPIB signals - I can always add GPIB transceivers like the TI SN74ALS160/161/162 - also available in stock from Mouser.

Monty
 

Attachments

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There are some other GPIB disk emulator projects. Most of them are designed for HP computers employing the Amigo or CS/80 / SS/80 protocol.

For example:

https://github.com/magore/hp85disk
http://www.dalton.ax/hpdisk/

I had the idea to cook my own design based on the very cheap and fast STM32F4xx boards that is available for around $20. But to be honest the project cooks very slowly right now...

I made a small board that had the transceivers and the connector and hooked it to the STM32 board.

MnZiQ28m.jpg


I made a design and shared it on OSHPark. https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/dcqM3OcZ

Please note that I haven't yet got to the point when I have tested the design. I can provide schematics and kicad sources, as well, but it is very simple.


I would be very interested in something that emulates a Tektronix 4907 for my (currently broken, non working deflection board) 4051.
 
MattisLind said:
There are some other GPIB disk emulator projects...

I had the idea to cook my own design based on the very cheap and fast STM32F4xx boards that is available for around $20. But to be honest the project cooks very slowly right now...

I made a small board that had the transceivers and the connector and hooked it to the STM32 board.

MnZiQ28m.jpg


I made a design and shared it on OSHPark. https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/dcqM3OcZ

Please note that I haven't yet got to the point when I have tested the design. I can provide schematics and kicad sources, as well, but it is very simple.


I would be very interested in something that emulates a Tektronix 4907 for my (currently broken, non working deflection board) 4051.
Click to expand...

MattisLind,

I'm glad you would be interested. I have browsed your 4051 website many times :)

Sounds like you should get your 4051 repaired - I suggest you start a thread on this forum like I did to troubleshoot both my 4052 and 4054.
You will get some helpful suggestions.

My 4054 is now a 4054A and working fine including the tape drive - obviously resurrecting old tapes starts with replacing the damaged drive belt.
Another very recent post on this forum covered using plastibelts for the repair of QIC tape cartridges.

I volunteer to get the 405x programs I can recover from tape onto the web - right now we are using the 4051 emulator github site for that - if we get more tapes read we will need to organize them and likely create a new github site.

Here is the link to the Tek 4051 emulator thread post with the github link:

Tek 405x web browser emulator

Obviously all the file in the github Programs folder run on the Tektronix 4051 / 4052 / 4054, in addition to running on the latest version of the 4051 web browser emulator.

Monty
 
MattisLind said:
I would be very interested in something that emulates a Tektronix 4907 for my (currently broken, non working deflection board) 4051.
Click to expand...

Is there service documentation around for the 4907 or 4924 external tape drive?

I don't think I have anything at all on the 4907 at bitsavers. I have a 4924 that I just pulled out of storage to dump the firmware and photograph.
 
This is the documentation I have with my 4051:

PLOT 50 Mathematics Volume 1
PLOT 50 Mathematics Volume 2
PLOT 50 4050A06 General Utility Programs Instruction Manual
PLOT 50 4050A09 Business planning and analysis Volume 1
4907 File Manager Operator's Manual
4051 Option 10 RS-232 Printer Interface 021-0189-00
4051R01 Matrix Functions
4051 Option 1 Data Communications Interface 021-0188-00
Plot 10 4010A0 (4010A10, 4010A11, 4010A12)
Terminal Control System User's Manual
4051EO1 ROM EXPANDER INSTRUCTION MANUAL
4051 Graphic System Operators' Manual
Plot 50 Introduction To Graphic Programming In Basic
4051 Editor 4051R06
PLOT 50 Introduction To Programming In Basic
4051 Graphic System Reference Manual
4907 Installation Guide


Some 4907 related. Hopefully they are useful. (The previous owner of the 4051 saved the documentation for the 4907 but unfortunately scrapped the 4907 itself). I will figure out which is not on bitsavers of the documentation and scan as soon as I can.

TAPES:

PLOT 50 MATH VOL 1 TAPE 1
PLOT 50 SYSTEM SOFTWARE TAPE
PLOT 50 MATH VOL 2 TAPE 1
PLOT 50 MATH VOL 2 TAPE 2
PLOT 50 GEN UTL PROG VOL 1 TAPE 1
PLOT 50 SYSTEM SOFTWARE BACKUP TAPE
PLOT 50 BUSINESS VOL1 TAPE 1
Checkerprogram

I have four cartridges, 4051 File manager, 4051 Editor, 4051 Matrix Functions and 4051 RS232 Printer Interface.
 
nikola-wan said:
MattisLind,
Sounds like you should get your 4051 repaired - I suggest you start a thread on this forum like I did to troubleshoot both my 4052 and 4054.
You will get some helpful suggestions.
Monty
Click to expand...

Yes, I probably should do a thread on this soon. It has been cooking for some time now. Gathering all spare parts. Maybe I soon have the guts to throw myself into the 4051 again. The last time the hard-to-get laser trimmed resistor in the deflection circuitry went into smoke. Since then I have become very careful when dealing with the machine. Need to take all precautions to not screw up again.

Yes, I saw AJ plastibands videos. Just need a reliable source for 6 inch bands now.

I will look into that github link!
 
Al Kossow said:
Is there service documentation around for the 4907 or 4924 external tape drive?

I don't think I have anything at all on the 4907 at bitsavers. I have a 4924 that I just pulled out of storage to dump the firmware and photograph.
Click to expand...

I don't know if I have that service manual - I'll check when I get home.

I also have a 4924 tape drive - looking at the operators manual it says it will respond to 4051 commands - so I should give it a try.

Monty
 
Al,

I checked and the drive I have is the 4923 - with a 25-pin RS-232 connector.

One of the early Tekniques volumes mentioned that the tape format was different than the 4051 and gave a short program for a 4051 to read that 4923 format.

So the 4923 is not going to help me with reading 405x tapes.

I also don't have user or service manuals for either the 4923 or 4924.

Surplussales has a 4923 instruction manual - but I doubt it would help you repair a 4924.

Monty
 
Chuck(G) said:
Those little STM32F4 VE boards are great. I wish there was a corresponding STM32F429/439 board with the same features.
Click to expand...

Yes, they are really nice. I have now completely switched to STM32 for all small projects. The STM32 "bluepill" for smaller projects and then these bigger STM32F407 boards with either 100 pin or 144 pin chip. The bigger chip allows you to solder a 512k16 SRAM chip on the back. (Somewhere it says the board supports SDRAM but it is a SRAM since the 407ZET only have FSMC).

There are Waveshare boards using the STM32F429. https://www.waveshare.com/product/mcu-tools/stm32/core/core429i.htm. These have the FMC instead. Unfortunately they lack a SD card slot which could have been nice. On the other hand it has a 64Mbit SDRAM onboard. Be warned that it is using metric pinout...
 
I have finished wiring my Arduino Nano to a GPIB cable that I had previously wired to a PC LPT port in 2000 to try to communicate with the Tektronix 4052.

My Tektronix GPIB breadboard.jpg

Now I have begun to code the flowcharts in the Tektronix 4051 GPIB manual to emulate a tape drive.

Monty
 
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Al Kossow said:
Is there service documentation around for the 4907 or 4924 external tape drive?

I don't think I have anything at all on the 4907 at bitsavers. I have a 4924 that I just pulled out of storage to dump the firmware and photograph.
Click to expand...

Al,

I think we do have some Tektronix 4924 drive service info.

Check out the 4924 GPIB schematic page B-09-4924 (last page) of 070-2270-00_4051_GPIB_HW_Supp_Jul81.pdf

This is one of two Tek GPIB docs I'm using for my GPIB device code.

I would imagine the 4924 drive interface schematics are same as the 4051, plus connecting 6800 address and data signals according to the upper left corner of the GPIB interface diagram.

This manual describes in great detail the Tektronix 405x use of GPIB - and even has (at least the GPIB interface part) of the 4924 tape device assembler code that communicates with the 4051.

Monty
 
oldcomputerexpert said:
I have a working 4924 and have dumped the ROM's. I also have a 4907 but I don't have the File Manager ROM Pack for the 4051. I have dumped the ROM's and will post images at http://www.archerservices.com/History/Tek4051.htm
Click to expand...

Oldcomputerexpert,

I have loved your site for years.

I did not have the Music program created by Tektronix, but heard about it from the Tek field sales guy with a hint that it had something to do with CALL “EXEC” on the memory test file on the system tape.

I managed to figure out what that undocumented command did - and since I knew 6800 assembly code and the 4051 service manuals, I wrote my own music program - and several other assebly programs by hand.

Until I upgraded my 4054 to a 4054A, I had no way to get into CALL EXEC.

I recently found a Tekniques that mentioned a assembler program for 4052A and 4054A that used the “new” hidden instruction call exec with the e as a control character.

I’ve searched and not found that Tektronix tape. I even found the original 4052 microcode engineer and he briefly looked in the vintage computer microfiche collection and didn’t find anything :(

That command is valid on my upgraded 4054A :)

Monty
 
Al Kossow said:
None of the files in ROMS are accessable.

I just shot a bunch of pictures of my 4924 and put them up under
http://bitsavers.org/pdf/tektronix/405x/4924/pictures

Can all of the roms be read as 2732?

also.. you take the bottom off by unscrewing the four feet.
the top comes off with four philips screws.. the ones that are not recessed on the base plate.
Click to expand...

Al,

My document link in my post on how I used the Data I/O to dump my ROMs will probably help you:

Monty's document on how I used Data I/O to dump my Tektronix ROMs

I opened my 4923 drive to see if any of the boards were the same as the 4924.

Monty's Tektronix 4923 Tape Drive Photos

Looks like the Read/Write board is identical, but I only have one control board with an 8008 and one ROM. Likely because mine only has a serial interface.

Looks like yours is two boards with Motorola 6800 - but I'll bet that makes it more similar to the Tek 4051 hardware design.

Monty
 
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