25-Oct-85 14:08:29-MDT,2793;000000000000
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Date: Fri, 25 Oct 85 16:01:29 EDT
From: Robert Bloom  AMSTE-TEI 3775 <rbloom@apg-1>
Subject: New Horizon questions
To: northstar-users@simtel20
Cc: rbloom@apg-1

     I've recently acquired a brand new, but slightly incomplete, NorthStar
Horizon.  It came, of course, without documentation.  Luckily I already have
an old Horizon with its documentation but of rather ancient vintage.  I would
like to solicit help in configuring it.

     The new Horizon came with ZPB, 64HRAM, Disk controller, one quad disk
drive (half height but with a full height front piece), power supply upgrade
for an hard disk, a HD5 controller but no actual hard disk, no phathom
modification and standard e800 PROM.  (There is a hole where the HD5 would be
- HD power connector is there, signal cables are not.)

Questions:

     Will the $99 6.7 Meg Shugart 604 Hard Disk advertised by California
Digital work, and is it the case that all I have to do is plug the drive in
and use the standard NorthStar HD5DOS for formating and testing?

     Can anyone send me the instructions for setting up the phathom mod (which
my old machine has but on a 32k board) so I can gain the extra 1k working
memory directly above the prom?

     A source (and price) for the FC00 PROM (again which my old machine has)?
Since Al Plehn died, I have no good source for technical info.

(One might ask why not just put the HD and controller in the old Horizon - the
old one has a terrible RF problem, no expansion cable for the disk drives, no
power supply upgrade, but the major problem is no space to fit the HD because
of power supply interference, or even the slightly deeper Teac DSQD floppies.
If the HD won't fit, I'll install two of those like I did in the old machine.)

I tried plugging an HD5 from a NorthStar Advantage into the new Horizon and
running that.  It appeared to format and test properly but afterward, all
accesses to the HD said 'not running'.  What confused me was that the 'in-use'
light on the HD was always on, all the way from power-up.  It was that way on
the Advantage too.  Anyone know if that is correct?  Or if NorthStar does
something funny with their Advantage HDs?  There appeared no obvious
configuration jumpers on the drive.

I would like to be able to put a larger capacity HD in - do I need a new or
different HD controller?  As I only have the HD5DOS and HD18DOSs (version 2.0)
and HD5XDOS (version 2.2), is there support (where?) for larger disks?  I know
N* uses 15 and 30 meg disks - who's?

Any info would be appreciated - I'm just getting into this HD stuff on my
personal machine and feel a bit apprehensive ...

-bob bloom

