[LispM] MicroExplorer Question

[Raymond Wiker]

William von Hagen writes:
 > (I've essentially posted this same message to the lispm-hackers mailing 
 > list - I apologize if this means that you've gotten multiple copies of
 > it.)

	The lispm-hackers list seems interesting - is it an open list,
or invitation-only :-?

 > I own a variety of working LispM's (Symbolics 3620, 3650, and
 > MacIvory II, TI Explorer I and II, and Xerox Dandelion, Dandetiger,
 > and 1186), and am trying to get a MicroExplorer (software version
 > 5.0) working in a Mac II FX (32 MB, MacOS 7.6.1) without any
 > documentation. If anyone could outline the procedure to me (or has
 > the actual docs that they could scan or photocopy), I'd be
 > eternally grateful In the meantime, here's what I've tried to date:
 > The "Host Software" floppy appears to contain the actual binaries,
 > while disks such as the "Development System Software" disks appear
 > to contain slices of the load band. On the "Host Software" floppy
 > is a utility called "MkPFiles" which (according to the online
 > "About MkPFiles") seems to create partitions as disk files that
 > will hold the reconstituted bands, in a directory called "LISPM".
 > However, when I run this and try to create a Partition File, it
 > reports Error(-51) and goes no further. Can anyone tell me what
 > this error means and what I might be able to do about it?

	When setting up my MacIvory II, I had some odd problems with
the "Life Support" software. The cause of the problem was the "large"
disk partition I tried to install on - it was larger than 2GB, and
this caused an overflow in the "Life Support" code.

 > Also, when I run the actual TI MicroExplorer binary, it reports
 > that it can't load the microcode file, even though I've tried
 > putting that in various locations (root of the hard drive, working
 > directory, LISPM subdirectory, etc.). There is a configuration file
 > for the uExplorer software, but I don't know the meaning of most of
 > the entries or the specific syntax. It's just a text file, and I've
 > experiemnted with some of the settings, but can't get past the
 > failure to load the Microcode file.
 > 
 > I'd appreciate hearing from anyone with any suggestions (or the
 > actual docs - I'd be glad to pay postage or FTP scans or PDFs from
 > anywhere!).

	I actually have a TI MicroExplorer myself, bought for the
princely sum of $3.24 at Weird Stuff Warehouse, Sunnyvale,
California. No software for it, yet, and I haven't even been able to
ascertain what clock speed it runs at. Does the MicroExplorer SW
include some sort of diagnostics that could be used to ferret out
basic information about the card (clock speed, amount of memory,
amount of cache memory, amount of microcode memory, ...)?

	//Raymond.

-- 
Raymond Wiker                        Mail:  Raymond.Wiker@fast.no
Senior Software Engineer             Web:   http://www.fast.no/
Fast Search & Transfer ASA           Phone: +47 23 01 11 60
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