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xerox diablo 3000 computer and printer

H

harry

Experienced Member
Joined
Oct 19, 2007
Messages
318
Location
United Kingdom
This huge machine together with its diablo 3000 daisy wheel printer, had been
left in an old office,since its purchase in 1980, and I was told, it was used upto year 2000! but since, had become in a very poor state, it has two 8" shugart floppy drives, a huge power supply,built into the whole base of the machine, that at present is not giving 24v to the shugarts,but all other voltages present. I really need some info, manuals, infact any thing to help with it resurection, I don't know what software if any can run on this machine or was it really just for word processing, and accounts? There is very little info available, someone may have, or know, where I can obtain any documentation or shematics to help ?

thanks Harry
 
I worked with a couple of guys who had spent time developing the 3000 series. The 3000 was the little brother of the 3200 (3200 used an 8080 CPU; the 3000 and 3100 used 8085). You could run CP/M on it, but I don't believe that was the supplied operating system.

The 3000 series was sold into the "small business" area, with several "vertical markets"; law firms being one that I remember--and I think medical billing being another.

The business applications were programmed in Diablo's own version of DIBOL, called DACL. Internally, I believe that the 3200 was known initially as "The Merchant".
 
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Thanks for reply Chuck, I am still searching for any technical info, but having
no luck so far! one possible problem that does show up is on the memory board there were two banks of nine mk4116n-4 memory chips, two of these in one bank have been badly replaced with mb8116n chips, and one other replaced with an mk4116j 3, can it be ok to fit the 8116 chips in with the 4116 type, I
would have assumed, replacement would have to be with the same ? one other
issue is on the top of the keyboard are a row of red l.e.d's . when powering up
they all light , on pressing the key marked IPL the l.e.d's go out, except for the one marked parity? this remains on regardless, and nothing progress's. any help or ideas appreciated...... ( somewhere in a dusty corner is a manual! )


.....Harry
 
The Fujitsu DRAM should be okay--back in the day, it wasn't uncommon to mix brands of RAM.

When you press the IPL key, the system should access the disk drives to boot.

But sorry, I don't have a manual for the 3000 or the 3200 any longer. :(
 
Hello Harry,

This is an old thread...
Since a so long time, have you find some informations about the Diablo 3000 ?
 
Hello dhtoulouse,
Well It certainly has been a while since I first obtained the Diablo 3000, and had mostly given up searching for info on its operating system etc. But eventually, and with luck I quess! I discovered another machine compete with user manuals, and 8" system disks etc, I stripped, checked, and cleaned this second machine, it was in good physical condition, it also appeared untouched internally. It finally booted fine! and gave me the chance to try out some of its querky commands with its M7 operating sytem. The manuals I have, mostly cover booting and using its software, and relevant commands, and not technical info which would have been handy.
So do you also have a Diablo 3000 or similar model? what was your interest in this particular machine ?

......Harry
 
Hi Harry,

Happy to hear you from France.
I saved a complete old Diablo 3000 with printer. I'm still cleaning the unit and I will save the eprom before power up.
The unit name is Xerox 510 but seeing the picture it's the same system : 4 boards inside
- CPU 8085 + DMA chip
- 48K with 27*4116
- CRT/serial board
- FDC controler

The only issue is the 20 flopply disks included has been erased (may be) by a accidental contact with the loudspeaker of the car !!
I will have the answer in few days when the machine will be ready to wake up after 30 years spleeping.

I never heard about M7 system... I was supposing the Diablo was running in CP/M world ?

Didier
 
Hi Didier, The info I have on the 3000/3100 and 510/515, only mention using the xerox " M-level" software, and this software has versions which seem to progress with versions from M5 to M8 . the operating software on disk included the CP (control program) that went with the system on disk. I have not found any mention of using CP/M or anything else so far. I have some info on a word processor program but this was not used for booting the machine. It would be interesting to know what you have on your disks, I hope they are still bootable/readable , time will tell!
best of luck

Harry
 
Hi Harry,

Well... I never heard about "M-level" software.
I'm searching about but I cannot find something, have you a web link ?

Have you saved you disks in a image file ?

Didier
 
Hi Didier

I too spent much time trying to find info on these machines, and their operating systems and found nothing! so no web link . (although it was a few years ago). I have not used my machine for quite some time, I should perhaps get it out of storage and see if it still works. I did not save any disk images, but I do recall checking out the drives, and formatting some disks,once it was running.
If I get chance I will dig out the user manuals I have, and confirm some of the info which at present is forgotten in my ageing brain!
What programs do you have on your disks, I am sure you have checked, but are any of them system disks, interesting if they are actually labeled, or marked with the programs on them?
I hope you get your machine working , and have chance to read, and copy some of your disks ,(if they are not perished). I hate inserting old disks with scarce media in the drives on any machine, only to discover rings of death where the media comes off and is deposited on the heads! I recall many of my old trs80 8" disks being the worst for this
result.
How are you progressing with getting your machine running? photos would be good.

...Harry
 
Diablo

Diablo

Is this the Hi-Type II daisywheel printer?

Have some info on that. Made a Centronics interface for one to use as a system printer, coukdn't afford anything else 30+ years ago!
 
Hi Harry,

I understand you don't use your Diablo every day for your email and he's mainly sleepy...

My unit was used by a florist for its accounts. So, floppies should contain system and account software but no specific name is written on.
The printer is a old OKI matrix printer, not daisy wheel.

This machine seems quite rare, a interesting thing may be done by disassembly the 2K firmware.

In few days I will give you more details and pictures when power up.

Didier
 
woodchips said:
Is this the Hi-Type II daisywheel printer?

Have some info on that. Made a Centronics interface for one to use as a system printer, coukdn't afford anything else 30+ years ago!
Click to expand...

Hi woodchips,

The Diablo computer shares its name with the very heavy Diablo printer, I brought a Diablo printer back with me, when I aquired my first Diablo 3000 computer, and struggled carrying it down several flights of stairs. I have yet to do anything with the printer, just kept it, as it was purchased by its owner as a package with the computer. I cannot recall the exact model, I really should take more records of all this stuff, even if its just for reference.
I wonder if other collectors keep records of where, and when stuff was aquired and all the relevant details? It is suprising how easy it is to forget where items came from and dates and locations, may be interesting one day just to look back!

...Harry
 
I suspect that there are still a quite a number of Diablo HiTypes, Qume Sprints, NEC Spinwriters, etc. stashed in closets and warehouses still around. Banks, title companies and law offices used the things by the freight car lot. The things were real workhorses and were available in strange configurations--including extra-wide with multiple printheads.
 
Hi Harry

I saved the 3 eprom and power up the unit.

4 Leds stay on : POWER, 7, KBD, PTR.
The CRT write "READY UNIT 1" and that's all.
See pictures.

I suppose the unit is waiting for a system disk but the drive seems with no relation with the cpu.
Floppy insertion do nothing.keyboard_start.jpgcrt_start.jpg
Any idea ?

Didier
 
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dhtoulouse said:
Hi Harry

I saved the 3 eprom and power up the unit.

4 Leds stay on : POWER, 6, KBD, PTR.
The CRT write "READY UNIT 1" and that's all.
See pictures.

I suppose the unit is waiting for a system disk but the drive seems with no relation with the cpu.
Floppy insertion do nothing.
Any idea ?

Didier
Click to expand...
Hi Didier, good to see you are making progress, that keyboard has had some polish! does the rest of you machine look that good?
When you first switch on and you wish to boot a system disk, normally the disk would be inserted in drive 0 ( default drive) and then the IPL button is pressed and the machine should read or attempt to read the disk in drive 0, It is possible to boot from drive 1 if the F0 key is depressed before the IPL key is pushed,
The lamps you are showing... power... is simply an indicator the machine is recieving power,
most other lamps either single, or upto three indicator lamps at a time, give various errors depending on the lamp code during initial boot
I think you are probably getting lamps 7,2,0 at initial startup which relates to diskette not inserted in either drive 0 or drive 1 which is a good sign that the machine is at least responding . I quess you have tried different disks in drive 0, perhaps you have no system disk?
I assume you have stripped cleaned and lubricated the disk drives and reinstalled them in the correct positions, I would have thought that you would have seen.. ready unit 0, unless key F0 was depressed?
When you insert a disk in drive 0 and the press IPL ( initial program load) does the drive try and read from drive 0 or from drive 1. If the system is loaded you should see a colon prompt,(unless a disk has some program set to auto load),and thats all you get, until you ask it to do something, a simple instruction like .. files.. gives a list of most files on disk, a bit like using.. dir..
I think you are close to having the machine booting, hopefully you just need to find the correct, undamaged bootable disk in your collection of disks.
keep at it ..and good luck.

Harry
 
Hi Harry,

Thanks for your comment, you're right, the F0 button is down.

The fact is the boot is very instable.
It's very difficult to see LED 7, 2, 0 ON.
Mainly, LED 6 stay on 1 second and all leds return off.

But now, all leds stay on, and sometimes Parity led light on ! Not good...
I will investigate.

Didier
 
Hi Harry,

I succeed to boot 2 times on 2 different disks but I can't redo this success.
At least, it means floppys are not completely erased.

Do you know :
- what's the meaning of some LED combinaison like LED 6 alone ?
- to copy a system disk from 0 to 1 (and format) ?

Thanks.

Didier
 
dhtoulouse said:
I succeed to boot 2 times on 2 different disks but I can't redo this success.
At least, it means floppys are not completely erased.

Do you know :
- what's the meaning of some LED combinaison like LED 6 alone ?
- to copy a system disk from 0 to 1 (and format) ?

Thanks.

Didier
Click to expand...

Hi Didier, Thats good news! you are at least getting some success. Did you find out what the system/program is on the disks you are trying to boot with? do you see the colon on screen after you IPL? or any other messages? I can't really help not knowing what system is running.
I have looked up the error lamp codes, the no.6 led on its own, with nothing showing on screen gives...." Reading from memory did not occur, Reinitialize the system" Are you getting the Parity lamp still coming on, as it would then seem to be a memory fault, or maybe just bad connections somewhere on the board or ic sockets, etc. I expect /assume you have removed and cleaned all boards, socketed i/cs, pins, cable connectors etc. etc. these intermitent faults are hard to nail down, but often bad/loose/burnt connection somewhere. Unless you can get the machine stable, I don't think formatting or copying would be very successful.
If you are able to get the machine stable and booting to a colon prompt, try typing FILES and see what's on the disk ,unless the control program is loaded from disk you won't be able to do much. I think best move forward is for me to try and get the user manual files, and any other useful info copied, so you can have them in front of you, so much easier for you to have the manual at hand. Would you be happy for me to get some info sent over to you? ( How is your English reading?) if this would be helpful just send PM. with your details, I will see what I can do.

...Harry
 
Hi Harry,

Thanks for your information about led 6. It confirm it's not a crash but a response to an xerox_510_diablo_3000_cpu.jpginternal check. I prefer.
There is some things more strange than contact issues.
For example, looking at the logic analyzer I saw simultaneous /WR et /RD on the 8085... and some strange synchronous signals.

For me, the real good news is the floppies are not destroyed.
When I booted, it start directly to the account software. I asked for system in the menu and I saw a ":" in a 2 reversed bottom lines.
Somewhere a saw M8 level system. I tried "dir" but now I know it wasn't the right command...

Of course, any help you can do will be precious.
My goal is to concentrate all info to do a site or include informations in a existing site to save this rare system.

Didier
 
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