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  • Northstar Advantage Disk Images

    From David Jones@21:1/5 to All on Sat Apr 9 18:19:58 2016
    From searching this group, this is probably a dumb question.

    But does anyone know of any archived disk images for the Northstar Advantage? I've searched around on the internet and so far haven't found anything. I have a functioning Sol-20 with a Northstar controller. So, I can use it to create the disks if I
    can ever find some images.

    Thanks
    David

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  • From David Jones@21:1/5 to David Jones on Tue Apr 12 14:37:04 2016
    On Saturday, April 9, 2016 at 9:19:59 PM UTC-4, David Jones wrote:
    From searching this group, this is probably a dumb question.

    But does anyone know of any archived disk images for the Northstar Advantage? I've searched around on the internet and so far haven't found anything. I have a functioning Sol-20 with a Northstar controller. So, I can use it to create the disks if I
    can ever find some images.

    Thanks
    David

    Well I finally found them at: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img54306/system.htm

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  • From roddiwalker@gmail.com@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jun 5 05:22:25 2016
    Well I finally found them at: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img54306/system.htm

    Hi Dave, did you have any luck writing them to physical disks and then using them on your Advantage?
    I'm thinking about buying one from ebay, but I'd like some confidence that I could get it running some software.

    Cheers,
    Roddi

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  • From David Jones@21:1/5 to roddi...@gmail.com on Fri Jul 1 14:45:44 2016
    On Sunday, June 5, 2016 at 8:22:25 AM UTC-4, roddi...@gmail.com wrote:
    Well I finally found them at: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img54306/system.htm

    Hi Dave, did you have any luck writing them to physical disks and then using them on your Advantage?
    I'm thinking about buying one from ebay, but I'd like some confidence that I could get it running some software.

    Cheers,
    Roddi

    Not yet. I haven't found a program to transfer the image from a PC to the Advantage and the write the disk. Right now I've been trying to get the Nothstar floppy controller working in my SOL-20. I've found at least one dead chip so far and suspect
    several other. Then I need to make sure the drive rpm's are right. Then once I've pretty sure all that is right, I can see if my home made hard sector floppys work. I ended up making a jig for punching ( or in my case laser burning ) the hard sector
    holes in standard floppies. So, I'm hoping I'll have time over the long 4th weekend.

    David

    P.S. Does anyone know of a map of subroutines in the Advantage boot ROM? Or a documented source listing of it. If I had that, I'd take a stab at making a version of the NST program for the Advantage.

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  • From David Jones@21:1/5 to All on Fri Jul 1 14:47:42 2016
    Forgot to mention. The hard sector floppy jig was one I designed and printed on a 3d printer. Once I'm sure it works, I'll post it someplace like on thingiverse.com

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