Nekochan Net

I had three various Wangtek drives and I was sure at least one wouldn't suffer to the liquid rubber syndrome but, alas they did. Soon as I ran a tape in each the roller turned to a liquid state even though it appeared perfect before.

Anyone have a old Wangtek drive they want to get rid of ? Just need the roller but, if its easier I'll take the whole drive.

I am pretty sure every Wangtek qic drive had identical capstan rollers. Unfortunately, Archive and others wont work.

I had one of those years ago. Pretty junky then, I can't imagine they improved with age

Even a new old part isn't going to fix your problem. Measure one and go to a shop or find a friend with a lathe, make a new one. You can machine rubbery stuff fairly easily by using SHARP tools and freezing the workpiece. Otherwise you're just going to be right back where you started.

I wish I still had one left to measure. One of the reasons I'm trying to find one. I probably should have stopped after two went down. People told me that many still work and it all depends on how it was stored over the years. I figured no way I could I could get three in a row bad. Guess that's why I don't gamble anymore when I go to Vegas. That never turned out well for me either.

I just need a working one for 30 minutes to install this bloody 3B2 that's been sitting here for a year. Then I can try and get another tape drive working in it. The install tape doesn't know about anything but, the wangtek drives so, even though it boots fine off other drives as soon as the kernel loads it forgets it exists.

Cool - I've got one of those (3B2-1000/70). How'd you write out the 5.25QD "super diags" disks to label a drive (assuming you needed a new HDD)? I don't have any QD references, and I'll have to find some way of testing/writing them out on either DD media or HD media using a HD drive.

I should be able to get a caliper and mic the drive spindle in either that one or another Wangtek.

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Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Systems available for remote access on request.

(single-CM)

Mines a 3B2/600G-GR (not sure what GR stands for. It sure isn't graphics) with a couple of the multiprocessor cards. I guess our boxes should be pretty much identical. The 3B2/1000 3B2/600G supposedly were the same thing. Not sure what your -70 is either. There are two 340mg full height scsi drives in mine. I messed up and formatted them before I looked to see what I could save. Might have been something there I'll never find again. They didn't boot and I remembered 'magic mode' too late. Oh well. Been years since I played with a 3B2.

I have images of the diag disks (idtools) and I just used a 1.2mb drive on a dsdd disk and used dd under linux to write them. I would think a HD disk might not work because its dsdd based format. At least in 3.5" land the media isn't compatible. That said, I had another 1.2mb floppy drive that couldn't write them at all. Being able to write 720k format is probably drive dependent in the HD drives. Then you just need to use the /dev/fd0h720 device which none of the newer linux dists make by default. You have to MAKEDEV fd0 in the /dev directory. I think I used bs=512 but, I was playing around a bit. You need to fdformat /dev/fd0h720 first. If it doesn't format its the disk or drive. Maybe both. I had to use new dsdd disks to get it working 100%. New being relative. I can send you a diag disk if you need one. It isn't actually good for a whole lot. Well except diagnostics or booting a system that has a strange boot path. Essentials disk 1 is the one for booting into a shell if you need to hack the root password. You can also do that from the OS tape.

I have a huge number of images of the various OS tapes, floppies, and mess of cpio images I have no idea what they include or if anything actually works. I am hoping somewhere in the collection are drivers for the multiprocessor cards. I'll need them for all the massive computing I'll be doing on my 22Mhz WE32200 cpu. The FAQ claims it should be 24mhz. I'd be curious what the clock is on your cpu card. If you have a chance to look let me know.

I have what I think are images of the R3.2.1V3 and R3.2.3V3 install tapes but, I'm not sure yet. I have something that may be R4 floppy images but, I think that might make them for the non-scsi boxes. Won't know until I can get a working system.

What I don't have and really need is an ethernet card as well. If anyone knows of a source of one of those please let me know.

I used to do a lot of work at the old Western Electric plant (Bell Labs) on Union Blvd. in Allentown, Pa. We used to do a lot of renovation work in the labs when the company would change (Western Electric -> AT&T -> Lucent -> Agere -> LSI). I've seen a lot of 3B2's end up in the recycling pile as well as a lot of DEC gear. Makes me wish I would have grabbed one or two. When I had my DEC systems I used to frequent the garbage pile at lunch and pull unibus and q-bus cards from whatever I could before the stuff ended up at the scrap yard. Pitty to see stuff end up like that.

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-ks



See them all >here<

Great. I have Billy Joel stuck in my head now

The /600G models are 1000/80s that came from a government contract.


The final number (-60, -70, -80) indicates processor speed and features. the -60 is the slow model without cache, the -70 has cache, and the -80 is a bit faster (I thought it was 24MHz). Rumor has it that they rejigged the multiprocessor stuff for the -80 as well to some extent (the bus is called PBus versus BµBus (buffered microbus)). Mine's an odd duck - -70 mainboard with a -80 backplane, so I've been trying to figure out what slots I have (Pbus vs BµBus). I have a Pbus multiproc card, so I'm hoping it's Pbus.

from Yahozna? I have some images from him (got my 3B2 from him.), but I'm not sure if it's the idtools or not.

Me too, although I'd settle for some EPORTS cards now (to try and get SLIRP up)

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Systems available for remote access on request.

(single-CM)

Makes sense since I got mine from a ebay auction company that I am pretty sure is a front for one of the intelligence services.



The faq says its 24mhz too but, the cpu and clock are clearly marked 22. Maybe the military thought 24mhz was too wild and crazy for them.

Mine has BUB slots with two MPB cards. Of course, all I get from the install tape kernel is:
Driver not found for *VOID* device (bubus board slot 0)
Driver not found for *VOID* device (bubus board slot 1)

I wonder if the actual installed kernel has the drivers and they just didn't bother on the tape boot. The yahozna site has MPBE.CPIO.GZ and MPB1.CPIO.GZ cpio archives I am hoping might be drivers if not.



I think I got the idtools images from somewhere else though I think what yahozna had as SCSI-FMT is the same thing. It acted identically anyway when I tried it. I thought it was the unixwiz site but, I don't see it there now. Hard site to navigate though. I've been grabbing every single 3b2 file I come across and I sort of lose track where I found what.

Here's a question for you. How do you get the EDT to stick ? I replaced that battery and and have run filledt but, everytime I turn it off it forgets the EDT.

I haven't fixed the battery yet. I just run filledt on every startup.

I'll try to find time to measure the capstan rollers soon.

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Systems available for remote access on request.

(single-CM)

This eports card has been on ebay awhile now. Looks new but, you never know if they replaced a bad one and stuck the bad one in the box.

Anyone tried the services from this guy?

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Oh!, let me write that!


Octane / Dual Head

http://twitter.com/GeekTronixShop

I have a couple Wangtek 5099 QIC-24 drives from Sun-2 shoeboxes. IME these are more robust than their Archive equivalents (except my Archive drives all still have good capstans!). The OD on the capstan is 5/8". This happens to be the same as the maximum diameter of the metal core.

I've been doing research in preparation for repairing mine. Thought about calling Terry (of terrysrubberrollers.com) but found a CA company selling rebuilt capstans for these drives. Search eBay for 'wangtek capstan'. Seriously. If you do it before I get to it, let us know how your experience is.

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Interesting... I'm always interested to hear from new sources for rebuilt pinch rollers. Specially because as one of my hobbies I refurbish sometimes reel to reel recorders, and the rubber rollers are one of the more troublesome parts to get (that was the way I've noticed the services from Terry, but I've not purchased any parts from them yet)

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Oh!, let me write that!


Octane / Dual Head

http://twitter.com/GeekTronixShop

I just noticed that my wangtek cart drive in my sun 3/160 had this roller rot problem. 5/16" id rubber fuel hose seems to
make a near perfect replacemnt for it. It stretched enough to make a tight fit over the already gummy brass spindle and
measured just shy of 5/8" and seems to engage the tape cart well. Brand was Goodyear, and from common auto parts
supply store.
The capstan is under mild spring tension from beneath and held to its shaft with a small clip. Depress the capstan a bit
and carefully remove the clip. Do this in an area where if it pops off, you can find it.