6 ms·

This is an amazing milestone! I have to ask, why did we need a separate boot disk sent over instead of flashing the previous disk with the contents of a boot di

by tiles 10y ago

This is an amazing milestone! I have to ask, why did we need a separate boot disk sent over instead of flashing the previous disk with the contents of a boot disk? I suppose swapping out parts is an expected part of restoration though.

DigitalJack 10y ago
Interesting use of the word flash here. It's a magnetic disk though, no flash chips, so you would just say write. I imagine the issue was a lack of working drives, and Alto systems to run them.
- astrange 10y ago
  And "flash memory" itself can't be flashed anymore. Isn't it called that because you could erase an EEPROM with a light?
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    No, flash is called flash because of the speed, relative to other programmable memories that can be erased.
    - ago 10y ago
      "Flash memory (both NOR and NAND types) was invented by Fujio Masuoka while working for Toshiba circa 1980. According to Toshiba, the name "flash" was suggested by Masuoka's colleague, Shōji Ariizumi, because the erasure process of the memory contents reminded him of the flash of a camera." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory#History
      - jacquesm 10y ago
        That's really weird and not what I remember being written back in the day when flash was invented. There is no 'flash' (optical erase process using UV) to go with flash memory, the erasure is electrical. The 'eWeek' article that that paragraph was sourced from doesn't contain any explanation of why the association between the two was made, maybe early 'flash' memory did have an optical erase process? Here is the quora link for the question why 'flash' is called 'flash': https://www.quora.com/Why-is-flash-memory-called-so https://www.quora.com/Why-is-flash-memory-called-so Which is apparently sourced from a book about FPGA's, not directly accessible but roughly what I remember being written about flash at the time it came out. http://www.linfo.org/flash_memory.html http://www.linfo.org/flash_memory.html Gives a similar definition. Optically erasable memories existed but I'm not aware of any that have erasure times < several 10's of seconds in ideal conditions and minutes in more practical settings, certainly nothing in the sub second range that would justify the term 'flash'. Eeproms (electrically erasable eproms) already existed well before 'flash' came along and flash is an improvement in speed on those, not a re-vamp of the optically erasable eproms. It would be interesting to contact Toshiba to see if that quote from the inventor of flash memory can be substantiated and how to determine what the association with photography is if it does not refer to optical erasure.
  - ansible 10y ago
    And "flash memory" itself can't be flashed anymore. Isn't it called that because you could erase an EEPROM with a light? That would be EPROM, not EEPROM. The 'EE' meant Electrically Erasable, so it didn't have (and didn't need) that little window on the top of the DIP package to shine the UV light upon the chip itself of EPROM. Which was still a vast improvement upon PROM, which was write-once. My first encounter with that stuff was a 2nd gen version of the floppy disk controller for my RS Color Computer. The newer version wasn't compatible with the Deft Pascal [1] compiler I had purchased, so some guys at the user group helped me to program the older 1.0 version of the firmware to see if that would work. It didn't. :-( The text editor was still handy though. I eventually got OS-9 Level III running and picked up a C compiler on sale though. [1] http://www.kenandmartha.com/coco/DEFT.html http://www.kenandmartha.com/coco/DEFT.html
makomk 10y ago
They don't currently have any way of writing to the disk except using the Alto itself, which would require booting it first. Once they get it working they should be able to create their own boot disk.
- simcop2387 10y ago
  They had that test jig in the previous video that could drive the disk and read it (and i think write it). That would have allowed them to do so, i would think, regardless of how slow it might have been.
  - baobrien 10y ago
    The FPGA disk emulator/interface isn't quite working yet. http://www.righto.com/2016/09/restoring-ycs-xerox-alto-day-7.html http://www.righto.com/2016/09/restoring-ycs-xerox-alto-day-7...
- linker3000 10y ago
  That's a bit like my old soldering iron - the heating element was soldered to its wiring, so you needed a soldering iron to fix the soldering iron.
kragen 10y ago
To "flash" the previous disk (terribly amusing choice of anachronistic terms there) you need a working disk drive to drive the disk with. (You also need a disk controller, but you could probably cobble one together out of an Arduino and some TTL shift registers or something. Surely Ken could.) It turned out that their disk drive wasn't working reliably, so that would have been tricky.
kens 10y ago
We're building a FPGA-based disk emulator that we could connect to the Drive to rewrite the junk disk, but we don't have that ready yet. The Living Computer Museum could have rewritten our disk for us, but that would have required sending our disk to Seattle first so they just sent us a new disk. (The Living Computer Museum has been extremely helpful, so visit them if you're in the Seattle area!)
- raldi 10y ago
  Their assistance was really shrewd; I've been to the CHM in Mountain View before, but had never heard of the LCM and probably would never have gone before this, but now I'm definitely going to go the next time I'm up in Seattle.
  - kens 10y ago
    I don't think they're assisting because they are shrewd, but because they are genuinely nice and helpful people, and like to see old computers running.
    - raldi 10y ago
      Oh, of course! I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. I'm just saying, it's also great publicity in addition to everything else.
  - jschwartzi 10y ago
    Yeah, I'm going to wrangle up some nerds and see if we can make a day of it.
  - vvanders 10y ago
    I can highly recommend it. A team I was on did it as a team-building exercise and it was by far the best one of my career.
- djsumdog 10y ago
  Recycle PC is another Seattle shop with a cute little museum. It has old Amigas, Apples, Xerox, et al systems. Unlike the Living Computer Museum, they're not functional (or they might but, but they're turned off). You can't look inside any of the bigger units (you'll be asked to leave if you do), but you can press the keys on the older mechanical and non-mechanical keyboards if you're a keyboard nerd.

by tiles 10y ago

DigitalJack 10y ago

Interesting use of the word flash here. It's a magnetic disk though, no flash chips, so you would just say write. I imagine the issue was a lack of working drives, and Alto systems to run them.

astrange 10y ago
And "flash memory" itself can't be flashed anymore. Isn't it called that because you could erase an EEPROM with a light?
- jacquesm 10y ago
  No, flash is called flash because of the speed, relative to other programmable memories that can be erased.
  - ago 10y ago
    "Flash memory (both NOR and NAND types) was invented by Fujio Masuoka while working for Toshiba circa 1980. According to Toshiba, the name "flash" was suggested by Masuoka's colleague, Shōji Ariizumi, because the erasure process of the memory contents reminded him of the flash of a camera." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory#History
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      That's really weird and not what I remember being written back in the day when flash was invented. There is no 'flash' (optical erase process using UV) to go with flash memory, the erasure is electrical. The 'eWeek' article that that paragraph was sourced from doesn't contain any explanation of why the association between the two was made, maybe early 'flash' memory did have an optical erase process? Here is the quora link for the question why 'flash' is called 'flash': https://www.quora.com/Why-is-flash-memory-called-so https://www.quora.com/Why-is-flash-memory-called-so Which is apparently sourced from a book about FPGA's, not directly accessible but roughly what I remember being written about flash at the time it came out. http://www.linfo.org/flash_memory.html http://www.linfo.org/flash_memory.html Gives a similar definition. Optically erasable memories existed but I'm not aware of any that have erasure times < several 10's of seconds in ideal conditions and minutes in more practical settings, certainly nothing in the sub second range that would justify the term 'flash'. Eeproms (electrically erasable eproms) already existed well before 'flash' came along and flash is an improvement in speed on those, not a re-vamp of the optically erasable eproms. It would be interesting to contact Toshiba to see if that quote from the inventor of flash memory can be substantiated and how to determine what the association with photography is if it does not refer to optical erasure.
- ansible 10y ago
  And "flash memory" itself can't be flashed anymore. Isn't it called that because you could erase an EEPROM with a light? That would be EPROM, not EEPROM. The 'EE' meant Electrically Erasable, so it didn't have (and didn't need) that little window on the top of the DIP package to shine the UV light upon the chip itself of EPROM. Which was still a vast improvement upon PROM, which was write-once. My first encounter with that stuff was a 2nd gen version of the floppy disk controller for my RS Color Computer. The newer version wasn't compatible with the Deft Pascal [1] compiler I had purchased, so some guys at the user group helped me to program the older 1.0 version of the firmware to see if that would work. It didn't. :-( The text editor was still handy though. I eventually got OS-9 Level III running and picked up a C compiler on sale though. [1] http://www.kenandmartha.com/coco/DEFT.html http://www.kenandmartha.com/coco/DEFT.html

makomk 10y ago

They don't currently have any way of writing to the disk except using the Alto itself, which would require booting it first. Once they get it working they should be able to create their own boot disk.

simcop2387 10y ago
They had that test jig in the previous video that could drive the disk and read it (and i think write it). That would have allowed them to do so, i would think, regardless of how slow it might have been.
- baobrien 10y ago
  The FPGA disk emulator/interface isn't quite working yet. http://www.righto.com/2016/09/restoring-ycs-xerox-alto-day-7.html http://www.righto.com/2016/09/restoring-ycs-xerox-alto-day-7...
linker3000 10y ago
That's a bit like my old soldering iron - the heating element was soldered to its wiring, so you needed a soldering iron to fix the soldering iron.

kragen 10y ago

To "flash" the previous disk (terribly amusing choice of anachronistic terms there) you need a working disk drive to drive the disk with. (You also need a disk controller, but you could probably cobble one together out of an Arduino and some TTL shift registers or something. Surely Ken could.) It turned out that their disk drive wasn't working reliably, so that would have been tricky.

kens 10y ago

We're building a FPGA-based disk emulator that we could connect to the Drive to rewrite the junk disk, but we don't have that ready yet. The Living Computer Museum could have rewritten our disk for us, but that would have required sending our disk to Seattle first so they just sent us a new disk. (The Living Computer Museum has been extremely helpful, so visit them if you're in the Seattle area!)

raldi 10y ago
Their assistance was really shrewd; I've been to the CHM in Mountain View before, but had never heard of the LCM and probably would never have gone before this, but now I'm definitely going to go the next time I'm up in Seattle.
- kens 10y ago
  I don't think they're assisting because they are shrewd, but because they are genuinely nice and helpful people, and like to see old computers running.
  - raldi 10y ago
    Oh, of course! I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. I'm just saying, it's also great publicity in addition to everything else.
- jschwartzi 10y ago
  Yeah, I'm going to wrangle up some nerds and see if we can make a day of it.
- vvanders 10y ago
  I can highly recommend it. A team I was on did it as a team-building exercise and it was by far the best one of my career.
djsumdog 10y ago
Recycle PC is another Seattle shop with a cute little museum. It has old Amigas, Apples, Xerox, et al systems. Unlike the Living Computer Museum, they're not functional (or they might but, but they're turned off). You can't look inside any of the bigger units (you'll be asked to leave if you do), but you can press the keys on the older mechanical and non-mechanical keyboards if you're a keyboard nerd.