FRUSTRATION THAT THE RESTORATION WAS SO DELAYED BY TOOLCHAIN ISSUES
The 1130 has been sitting idle for months now while I fought with toolchains to try to get my design to testing. I am confident that my logic for the design will be relatively easy to debug and get working, as I have done this for Xerox Alto and Altair/Pertec disk drives quite successfully.
The problems were with uusable Xilinx toolchain program under Windows 11 and then after a switch to Intel/Altera, with a maddening inability to create a working bootloader to get Linux to run on the board where my FPGA logic is already partly debugged. These were the issues that chewed up weeks and weeks.
Originally I believed that the value to the owner of having the working Virtual 2315 Cartridge Facility was so high, making their machine far more useful to exhibit. Enough so that I focused solely on the new facility and left the machine sitting patiently in my workshop.
However, I feel unhappy that it is not back in the hands of the owner already and increasingly frustrated that my problems with the bootloader and having such an impact on the restoration. Therefore, I resolved to instead get the 1130 ready to go back in full working order but prior to having the new facility.
WILL DEBUG THE VIRTUAL 2315 CARTRIDGE FACILITY ON MY OWN 1130
Since I have a working IBM 1130 of my own, I will also modify it to use the virtual cartridge facility, then do all the debugging on my own system until it is ready to install elsewhere. I will build more than one copy of the facility, so that it can be made available to other machines once it works here.
INTENT IS, IF OWNERS WANT IT, TO FLY OUT AND FIELD INSTALL THE FACILITY
I have already installed the modification that allows the heads to remain safely above the disk surface while the drive believes it is working, so that installation of a fully debugged Virtual 2315 Cartridge Facility involves mounting a box, battery for data protection, interface logic board and installing some wire wrap to the drive electronics.
I am happier doing this on site at its home rather than holding up the machine during the debugging. I can fly up with the parts and do the install and checkout locally. That assumes the owners want to pay for the boards, box, battery and other parts involved in the facility, since I am not charging any labor or markup.
PARALLEL WORK, NOT GIVING UP BUT PRIORITIZING 1130 REMAINING TASK
The tasks remaining before the IBM 1130 system can be returned to its owner are:
- Finish and install the new cover for the rear of the pedestal display panel
- Finish testing console typewriter device controller logic
- Finish repairing the 1053 console printer
- Do partial testing of the built in disk drive controller logic
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