This and that - waiting while moving several projects along

WAITING FOR FILTER FOAM AND MATERIAL TO REPLACE HEPA FILTER ON DIABLO

The Diablo archiver project depends upon the Diablo model 31 disk drive being ready to safely read the pile of 2315 disk cartridges I have with IBM 1130 software and data on them. The heads are not yet mounted but I also have to ensure that the air supply is clean enough to protect the drive from head crashes that dust or other tiny contaminants might cause.

Bits of foam and gasket material have degraded over the years and must be replaced. They have to provide a tight seal for the purified air that comes in through the main filter on the drive. This filter has a HEPA 13/14 level filter to block all the tiny particles, with a foam prefilter to stop bigger junk from reaching the HEPA filter. There are also gaskets where the filter joins the drive body and also where the clean air enters the 2315 disk cartridge - these are degraded and must be replaced.

I have ordered products I can use to replace the gaskets, the prefilter foam and the HEPA filter so that the drive is again able to provide a clean air environment for reading the cartridges.

MUST WAIT FOR NEW LICENSE FROM LATTICE FOR ICECUBE2 TO TEST V2315CF

Having completed the simulation of the improved seek functionality for the Virtual 2315 Cartridge Facility, I started up iCEcube2 to synthesize the Verilog and prepare to program the FPGA. When it started, I was informed that the free hobbyist license had expired. I submitted the email for a renewal/replacement license, but as it is Sunday I expect it to take a day at minimum and probably more. 

WORKED WITH BETTER BRAIDED GROUND WIRE FOR 1130 MRAM

I received this tinned copper mesh ground wire today and began to install it on the 1130 to provide a low impedance ground path from the 1130 MRAM memory substitute board to the 1130 power rails. There is a bit of work to do with the mounting brackets to place the board safely inside gate B compartment C1 which was where the IBM core memory circuitry resided. 

That wire mesh is enormous overkill, but I want the memory to run clean and after fighting mysterious issues due to the ordinary stranded ground wire, I don't want to accept any risk at all of memory problems in the future.