[Techtoolslist] FYI: 9100A/FT - writes HD floppies

[John Robertson]

David Shoemaker wrote:

> I wonder if we could "field" upgrade from a to ft?

>   


I'll post pictures of the 68030 guts in a  day or two - one would pretty
much have to do a replacement motherboard...

Alternatively, some clever person (with time on their hands) could
possibly make a CPU plugin module that replaced the original 68000 with
a 68030 and onboard RAM and better floppy interface...

This machine has a 40mb SCSI drive, vs the original 20. The 40mb upgrade
documents (under 9100A/Fluke 9100 Floppy Images.zip) mention that the
base ROMs need to be 5.0 or higher, and it looks like the operating
system is 6.0 or higher. The sectors are now 512 as well after the 40mb
upgrade. The original 20mb SCSI drives were 256 sectors.

Note this upgrade can be done for either the 9100A or 9100A/FT

The directory labelled 20mb drive files has been renamed to
Diagnostic-files - looking at the files showed that they are tests for
Vector I/O pods, etc.

...Speaking of upgrades....

Continuing digging through the 9100 files - 9100-SERV1_4.zip - turns
out to be a self test script for the 9100 series. Appears to be at least
6.0 and possibly for the FT - can someone with a 9100A test this on
a non-FT machine?

Looking through the source code (text viewer, but a lot is binary) it
appears there were several controllers and HDs available for the 9100:

(damn, lost 1/2 the message - will try to reconstruct - 2nd attempt, 
found illegal characters, should be fine now…)

Interesting text in this file:

Select Type Of Unit:     9100    9105     9050 (JR - 9050???)

Currently: SCSI 256) Select Hard Disk: (Currently: SCSI 512)

Select Floppy Disk Type:
Currently: CANON
Currently: SONY F17
Currently: TEAC FD235
Currently: MITSHUBHISI MF355C
Currently: CANON High Density

ormating: SCSI drive  256 bytes/sector fmt512 -p=/hdr formating: SCSI 
drive  512 bytes/sector fmt512

Western Digital/Miniscribe MS8425 SCSI - 256 byte sectors SCSI - 512 
byte sectors

controller type 6 or 7

Controller: Adaptec 4000 series controller
Controller: Western Digital WD1002S
Controller: Konan DS2001
Controller: Adaptec 5500 series
Controller: SMS 3100

Drive: NEC D3126
Drive: Tandon TM362
Drive: Microscience HH-325
Drive: MiniScribe 8425
Drive: Rodime SCSI drive

ending configuration data Are there any bad bytes marked by the 
manufacturer on the disk? enter <y/n>     head number of bad track (0 - 
3>?     cylinder number of bad track?     Any more bad bytes? <y/n>

Sure looks like 6.0 at least and possibly 6.1 service disc.

John :-#)#