Northern Europe Norsk Data ND-100 Compact

[pjwtrad67]

Hi Guys.

My first thread. Yay!

I'm trying to put together a working ND-100 Compact (a mini-computer manufactured in the early/mid 80s by the Norwegian company Norsk Data). I have various parts but I'm desperate for a copy of the OS (Sintran III) and the Database (SIBAS II). I also need to source a Tandberg terminal if anyone knows of any sources.

I did an internship for Norsk Data in 1985 and among the many things I hauled back from Norway was a copy of every manual I could carry. I had software on 9 inch floppies but they have degraded to the point of being unusable.

 

[tingo]

Hi, and welcome! Have you checked out NDwiki yet?
It contains the knowledge a few people (myself included) have been able to gather about Norsk Data, the machines and the software.
Also, sintran.com (which is run by an ex-ND employee) contains a lot of great info.

The 8-inch floppies can probably still be read by using either a FluxEngine or a Greaseweazle (and a 8-inch floppy drive of course) connected to a modern machine. This can also be used to write floppy images to real floppies.
I would start by writing a test image, for example ND-10324F to a floppy and see if your machine can read that. This way you can verify that the floppy drive / controller / power supply in your machine is working.
If possible could you compare what you have on floppies to the list at https://www.ndwiki.org/wiki/List_of_software_products
Perhaps you have something we are missing.

Tandberg terminals are hard to find (at least here in the Nordic countries), but there are alternatives. It would be awkward using the NOTIS software suite without the special keys on the NOTIS terminals, but it is possible.
For everything else, any terminal on thsi list will do https://www.ndwiki.org/wiki/List_of_software_products

 

[tingo]

Also, a friend of mine (user RHansen on NDwiki) has made a ND-100 emulator which is working quite well.
And simh has the start of ND100 support https://github.com/open-simh/simh/tree/master/ND100

 

[pjwtrad67]

Hi, and welcome! Have you checked out NDwiki yet?
It contains the knowledge a few people (myself included) have been able to gather about Norsk Data, the machines and the software.
Also, sintran.com (which is run by an ex-ND employee) contains a lot of great info.

The 8-inch floppies can probably still be read by using either a FluxEngine or a Greaseweazle (and a 8-inch floppy drive of course) connected to a modern machine. This can also be used to write floppy images to real floppies.
I would start by writing a test image, for example ND-10324F to a floppy and see if your machine can read that. This way you can verify that the floppy drive / controller / power supply in your machine is working.
If possible could you compare what you have on floppies to the list at https://www.ndwiki.org/wiki/List_of_software_products
Perhaps you have something we are missing.

Tandberg terminals are hard to find (at least here in the Nordic countries), but there are alternatives. It would be awkward using the NOTIS software suite without the special keys on the NOTIS terminals, but it is possible.
For everything else, any terminal on thsi list will do https://www.ndwiki.org/wiki/List_of_software_products

Thanks tingo, this is a lot of good information. I've been using NDWiki and Sintran.com for my schematics and parts list (I was software, SIBAS team rather than the hardware side of the business so it's a learning curve to get this beast back to life again)

When I think back to what was stacked and abandoned in the corridors under the assembly floor, lol. It was an Aladdin's Cave in retrospect.

 

[pjwtrad67]

Also, a friend of mine (user RHansen on NDwiki) has made a ND-100 emulator which is working quite well.
And simh has the start of ND100 support

 

[pjwtrad67]

As far as remote connection goes, I remember the two dev machines our team used (ND-100s named "ROCK" and "ROLL") had something called ND-Connect installed that allowed me to connect remotely to machines at ND Newbury in the UK from Oslo and to some machines at ND Germany and CERN. As it was 1985, I assume it was a ISDN connection. I'll have to do some research to find what protocols it used (is it too much to hope it was TCP/IP stack?)

 

[tingo]

I used COSMOS a bit before tcp/ip became popular.