A PERQ T-2 Workstation
NOTE: To add information to this FAQ, please contact R. D. Davis (rdd@perqlogic.com). This FAQ deals primarily with the POS operating system, although there are some mentions of Accent, PNX and FLEX. If there is something that you'd like to see added to this FAQ, or if you notice any errors, please send e-mail to R. D. Davis.
The HTML version of this FAQ, along with some minor editing and the addition of a graphics or two, was done by Bill von Hagen. If you notice any formatting abberations, please contact vonhagen@vonhagen.org.
All of the other known PERQ operating systems require that the hard disc be formatted using POS. Although the PNX operating systems cannot co-exist on the PERQ's hard disc along with POS and Accent, it is still necessary to format the hard disc using POS prior to installing PNX. I'm going to guess that this also goes for FLEX, since FLEX can reside on the same hard disc as PNX.
If you are running PNX, or FLEX, and never experienced a hard disc crash, then you may never need to know anything about POS, unless, however, curiosity gets the better of you. PERQ disc crashes can, and will, occur, particularly if one's PERQ is using certain types of 5-1/4" hard discs.
It is only during the boot process that the PERQ's diagnostic display system (DDS) contains valid information about the status of the system. After the system has successfully booted, a program may make a call to SetDDS, which will set the DDS to whatever value is specified by the program.
Users should be aware that there is a DDS bug that possibly can cause the display to be one digit off while the system is being booted. So far, it does not seem to appear very frequently.
The file SYS:Boot>disk.params contains a list of disc drives that can be used with a PERQ T2. These are all MFM, ST-506 type hard discs (with the exception of one ST-412 that requires a different controller board). Additional MFM disc types may be added to this file, on one condition: do NOT add them to the end of the file; place them anywhere *before* the last drive description.
It is possible to replace the PERQ-1's 14-inch hard disc with an 8-inch hard disc without too much difficulty. This requires some hardware hacking; I have a document that describes the theory of this, but there are no schematics. I did hear that some PERQ-1 systems were modified to use a 5-1/4" hard disc, but I have no information on this.
Yes, if you have a PERQ-2, T2 or T4. One caveat: the second drive cannot be used with POS. However, POS is used to format the drive before Accent or PNX can be used. There is also some information about this addition in the PERQ-T2 Service Guide.
Daisy chain cable: This is a flat straight-through connected cable; doesn't get "twisted" like the daisy chain cable for PC's. For example, if ribbon cable is laid flat out, and one socket has the connectors showing, the others will also; If one socket is face down, they will all be face down with no pin connectors showing.
Notes:
Only one controller (disc interface board) is needed for two drives.
POS will only recognise the first drive, except for the POS utilities which are used for disc formatting, etc. The first drive (or only drive) in a PERQ should be jumpered as the first drive (either a 1 or a 0, depending upon manufacturer's notation) and the second drive should be jumpered as the next one.
Remember that if using a drive that is not in the disk.params file, and you add it to this file, do not place it in this file as the last line! The EOF marker in this file must not be disturbed!
In order to do this, you will need several programs that were not normally distributed to PERQ customers. These programs are: BadSector, DiskTest and NewPart. Note that there were two varieties of the DiskTest program: one was primarily for internal use at PERQ Systems and the other was released to some customers. The version released to customers was a crippled version of DiskTest, and could only perform non-destructive tests. The version that you will need to use is the version used internally at PERQ Systems.
The following steps are necessary to format a disc and make it ready for use. The following example is for a PERQ-T2 with a Toshiba MK-56 hard disc.
NOTE: You will need to make some minor changes to some of the following parameters if you are using a different disc drive. the parameters that you will need to change should be self explanatory, such as the number of heads, cylinders, etc.
In order to format the disc of a PERQ-1 or a PERQ-2, a few other things may need to be done differently; if so, please notify me and I'll add these to the next FAQ. For example: Does the 14" Shugart use write precompensation? Are there some utilities mentioned below that won't work with a PERQ-1 or PERQ-2?, etc. If you've successfully reformatted and partitioned a PERQ-1, or PERQ-2, system please send a note explaining what, if anything, you've done differently.
Boot the system from a boot floppy, fast-boot floppy or auto-boot floppy.
Dismount the boot floppy:
Insert a load floppy and mount it:
Run the badsector program to check the hard disc's bad blocks. If a bad sector map is not found, you will need to tell badsector which sectors are bad, manually (you will need the factory disc defect list for this). Use the help command to see what other commands are available.
The bad sector map must be read into a buffer if it exists:
List the bad sectors and compare these, if any, with the defects listed in the list provided by the hard disc's manufacturer. If they match exactly, go to the last step below, the 'q' (quit) command.
Insert the known bad blocks into the bad sector map using the defect list.
Before you can actually insert the bad blocks into the map, you will be prompted for the type of disc drive that you are using (in this example, a Toshiba MK-56 is used). If the type of drive that you are using is not listed in disk.params, you will need to press [RETURN] and enter all of the disc parameters manually.
You will also need to answer the following prompt. You will normally enter 'b' to enter bad spots by byte (4 digits) as listed on most disc manufacturer's defect lists. You will then be prompted further (not shown here... will be self explanatory when you go to do this) for the bad sectors.
After you have finished entering the bad sectors, continue with the following to list the bad sectors in the buffer to make sure that you have entered them correctly:
Write the bad sectors from the buffer to the bad sector map:
Write the bad sectors to a text file named BadSectorFile.Text (or whatver name you want to give it), so that you can read or print out this listing later.
Quit the BadSector program:
Run the DiskTest program, Note that running format with checking on is slow; running format with checking off, and then using scan, achieves the same results, and is faster. The 'help' command may be used to obtain a listing of commands.
Tell DiskTest what area of the disc is to be formatted. These numbers depend upon the disc type and upon whether pre-compensation is used. Again, these parameters are for a Toshiba MK-56 drive.
Tell DiskTest that it is permitted to proceed with something that can make permanent changes to your disc:
Proceed with the format. This will take a while, so take a break. Fix a cup of tea and grab a handfull of cookies to snack on (or, if you're Bill von Hagen, have a cigarette or two), order a pizza to be delivered and wait for it to arrive, then go back to the PERQ so you can watch the little boxes appear on your screen as the disc is formatted:
When the format has finished, scan the disc for errors:
Quit the program. The disc has been formatted.
Run NewPart to initialise the disc drive, give it a name, and partition it. If you are running an older version of NewPart, you will need to tell it what type of drive you are using. If using the newest version(s), it will guess the type of disc drive automagically.
Initialise the drive and give it a name:
At this point, you are ready to partition the disc. Refer to the next section for information on how to do this.
Use the NewPart program instead of the Partition program. If you are using an older version of NewPart, you will need to specify the type of hard disc, or enter the parameters for the disc. If using the newest version(s), NewPart will guess the disc type automagically. Use the 'help' command to obtain further help with using NewPart.
After selecting the disc type, if necessary, create the necessary partitions. This example is for a partition named Boot with 10,080 blocks. Use whatever partition size you wish, with the following restrictions: the partition must contain fewer than 32,768 blocks and it must be a number which is the ending of a cylinder boundary. Don't worry too much about the number that you enter, as far as the cylinder boundary goes; if you enter a number that is incorrect, NewPart will suggest the nearest numbers which are the endings of cylinder boundaries. If you have less than 2MB of memory, you should keep the size of partitions 10,080 or fewer blocks ...unless you want to wait a l...o...n...g time when you use Scavenger.
The following creates the partition, initialises the pages and then tests the pages:
Quit NewPart:
NewPart will prompt you to find out if you want the disc re-mounted.
You should normally respond with yes, the default; just press Destroying partitions is even easier; however, you must start with
the last partition created. You will be prompted to verify that
you actually want to destroy the last partition. Respond with 'y'.
Scavenger to the rescue! Run Scavenger for the partition where the
problem exists and answer yes to to the prompts including, and
following, the one that asks if you wish to rebuild the directories.
First, you will need to create two partitions, one for the Accent
OS files and one that Accent uses for paging. It matters not what
you name the partition used for the OS, but you must give the paging
partition the name of 'paging'. The minimum size needed for the paging
partition is 10,080 blocks, and a size of 15,000 blocks is preferable. The next step is to load the Accent files onto your hard disc.
Although Accent can reside in parts of your hard disc that are beyond
the reach of POS, you still need to load these files into a partition
that POS can Access (unless you already have another version of Accent
running on your hard disc, in which case you will need to use the
BindBoot program provided with Accent). If you have created a
partition beyond the reach of POS, you will see a message that says
"Using partition relative fillers" (or something like this). Use BindBoot (this is for the POS version) to make the partition
bootable. The following example is for use with a 'b' boot on a
PERQ-T2: This is fairly self-explanatory; run the Accent BindBoot program to
see for yourself. In order to create a bootable Accent partition that
is outside the range of POS, it is necessary to use this program.
Under POS, there is a program named Undelete that can be used to
undelete deleted files. Note that the longer you wait to undelete
a file, the lower your chances are of undeleting it; that is, if
you've performed many disc writes before using Undelete.
Yes. You'll need an appropriate streaming tape drive (an Archive QIC-2
drive that uses DC-300 tapes; further specs for the required drive
will be included in a later FAQ.) and, unless you have a Multibus
board, you'll need to get out the wire-wrapping supplies and wrap your
own board, assuming that you have a PERQ wire-wrap board that fits in
the card cage. If you don't have such a board, you can always tap
into the wire-wrap connectors on the PERQ's motherboard/backplane.
Schematics are available, but only request them if you are sure that
you can undertake this project and know what you're doing. I've done
it, and it wasn't too difficult. Beware that if you make a mistake,
you could fry something that you don't want to fry, and you could kill
your PERQ.
For those who do have a tape drive and controller:
Streamer tape drive software: there are basically two, very similar,
programs that you can use: Stut and Stut2. Stut2 is just a version of
Stut that I modified to write the directory listings of a tape to a
file.
The streamer tape drive is used mainly to copy entire discs, or
partitions, to a tape. However, it can be tricked into copying
only a subdirectory if you tell Stut (or Stut2) that the directory is
a partition. You cannot, unfortunately, use a similar trick to
restore data to a subdirectory on the hard disc.
Each DC-300 (or DC-300XL) tape will hold a maximum of about 20
megabytes of data, no matter what the length of the tape is.
WARNING: Backing up, or restoring, data using the version of Stut
provided with Accent S5 is not reliable. If the partition to be
backed up is accessible by POS, or if you have another version of
Accent on your machine, by all means use the other versions of
Stut. Otherwise, you may be in for a lot of error messages, such as
those referring to buffer allocation problems, errors reading buffers,
etc. Don't be misled by these errors into believing that you are
using a bad tape! This problem normally occurs with very large
files, such as the SPICE LISP core file.
IMPORTANT: Prior to using a new tape, you should use the erase command
to remove any glitches that may have been put on the tape by stray
magnetic fields.
Additional information on other tape drives: there were also some tape
drives (9-track) used with the PERQ's GPIB port and for a MultiBus.
Other than the software, and the name of the manufacturer of the
interface, no further information seems to be available.
Yes, use the programs (again, these are programs not supplied to most
PERQ Systems customers) named Duplicate, DupBoot, and PNXDup. All
three of these run under POS. Duplicate is used to duplicate either RT-11 format floppies or PERQ
POS and Accent file-system floppies (except for "fast-boot" floppies). DupBoot is used to duplicate boot floppies, including the
"fast-boot" floppies. PNXDup is used to duplicate PNX file-system floppies, including the
PNX boot floppy. There are primarily two alternatives here (although other varieties
of UNIX are rumored to exist for PERQs): PNX and QNIX.
PNX is a completely separate operating system that cannot co-exist on
a hard disc with any other operating system. This is a version of
UNIX from ICL that is based on a combination of AT&T System III and
Version 7 UNIX. The newest versions will not run on a PERQ-1.
QNIX is a UNIX environment that runs under Accent and uses it's own
separate microcode. It can run in an Accent window alongside other
Accent programs, as well as alongside the SPICE LISP environment.
This came from Spider Systems and is based upon AT&T System V UNIX.
Stray magnetic fields from the monitor can do some things, that aren't
very nice, to the data on your hard disc. If you still insist upon
abusing your PERQ in this manner (as I do :-), then you should
periodically run a non-destructive re-format on your hard disc, to
avoid data-corruption. Even if you don't keep your monitor sitting on
top of the PERQ chassis, you should still run this from time to time.
Basically, the non-destructive re-format reads all the data from your
hard disc and writes it back. It is a good precaution to take against
disaster! Another CAUTION: Use this on PERQs running PNX at your own risk!
I've never tried doing this to a system runing PNX. However, it would
seem to me that this should not cause any damage to a PNX filesystem,
but I can't be certain. Please don't attempt to do this unless you
have a good backup! :-) WARNING: Be very careful what you enter, as this has the potential
of hosing your hard disc's data if you make a mistake. How to run a non-destructive re-format on your hard disc: The Pepper editor is similar to the EMACS editor (but has far fewer
features and capabilities), and comes in two varieties: the standard
Pepper editor from PERQ Systems and the version from Igloo software
that comes with IDOCS (this version uses different key bindings and,
to an EMACS user, is more difficult to use). If you have SPICE LISP, you can use the Hemlock editor, which is a
very nice implementation of EMACS. 3Prose, Mint and QED. 3Prose, loosely based on DEC Runoff. This is for creating
text-only documents. It is said to be possible to use multiple fonts
with this, but no one seems to recall how to do this. This is from
PERQ Systems. No written documentation appears to exist, other than
the guide that I wrote for it by hacking around with 3Prose and some
example .prose files. If anyone knows of the existance of 3Prose
documentation, please send me e-mail. Likewise for anyone who is
familiar with using 3Prose... there are still quite a few questions
about its use. Mint (from the Igloo IDOCS software package). This is similar to
Scribe and can be used to create large, complex, documents that
include graphics, various fonts, etc. (such as books). QED seems to be used with with the PERQ AUDRE software package and
appears to be some sort of WYSIWYG editor that can include graphics in
a document. Is anyone who is reading this familiar with QED? More
information is needed. Although I have a copy of QED, I can't use it
since it asks for a password before it will work! Does anyone know
how to get around this password protection or know what the format of
the password for it is (number of chars, all letters or all chars,
etc.)? 3Prose, loosely based on DEC Runoff. This is for creating
text-only documents. It is said to be possible to use multiple fonts
with this, but no one seems to recall how to do this. This appears
function exactly as the POS version. This is from PERQ systems.
Refer to the above POS description. Scribe possibly ran under Accent. Does anyone know anything about
this? Mint possibly ran under Accent. Does anyone know anything about
this? There are two solutions, depending upon the exact cause of the
problem. Both are simple, and one requires no spare parts. One possible solution is to tweak the appropriate pot on the left
side, from the front, of the monitor (refer to the Moniterm monitor
schematics for a better description). If you don't have the monitor's
schematics, the pot to be tweaked is P9, used to adjust vertical D.C.
centering. There are about 6 or so small square pots in a row at the
edge of the PC board. The last of these, from the front, before the
first pot with a large adjustment knob, is the one to tweak. If you're not familiar with working with high-voltage circuits, read
this paragraph. Since you have to do this with the monitor turned on,
you could risk being fried, zapped across the room, or you can end up
with a radical new hair-style! :-) Proceed with caution; high voltages
are inside the monitor. Be sure to use a non-conductive tool to
adjust the pot and don't touch anything other than the adjustment tool
(e.g. such as the type of tools used to make adjustments to TV sets;
yo can get these at any _real_ electronics store... Radio Shack also
sells them. Remember, hazardous voltages remain inside the monitor
chassis even when the power has been turned off (beware of large caps
and the CRT which acts as one humongous high-voltage cap! zap, Zap,
crackle, ZAP! The other possible solution is to replace the PLL chip if the above
solution doesn't solve the problem. ONLY use BYE/OFF or /WAIT with a PERQ-1. If you use it with a T2, it
will move the heads to the wrong position on the hard disc. On a
PERQ-1, track 0 is where the boot information block resides, and it is
close to the center of the disc. On the T2's 5-1/4" discs, this track
is near the outside of the platter. You do not want to park the disc
heads in the wrong place. POS, MPOS, Accent, PNX, Spoonix, QNIX and FLEX (and possibly others). POS is the original PERQ operating system. It is a single process
operating system. The latest known version of POS is G.7, but that
was primarily used only with the 24-bit PERQ-T4 systems. G.6 was the
most commonly used later version of POS. G.7 is said to have a lot of
bugs in it. MPOS is a multitasking version of POS, but it will not run on
newer PERQs. A special PROM is needed to use it. This is the
same situation for POS versions F2 and earlier. Accent is a multitasking operating system developed at CMU and is
the successor to RIG and predecessor of MACH. The latest known
version of Accent is S7 (and is said to have some bugs in it) with
S6 being the most commonly used later version. PNX is a version of UNIX from ICL. It was not widely available in
the States, but was used by many in the U.K. and Europe. The latest
known version is 5.02, which only ran on PERQ's with 5-1/4" and 8"
hard discs. Only versions before 3.0 ran on PERQ-1's with 14" hard
discs. QNIX is a version of UNIX that runs alongside Accent and uses
Accent's Sapphire window manager. It was developed by Spider Systems. FLEX is RSRE's research opersting system. It was designed around
1978 and implemented on a PERQ around 1981. FLEX is a single-user
multitasking OS with a graphic user interface that feels similar to a
SMalltalk or hypertext environment. This OS was implemented in
microcode and uses Algol 68 as the system language. Note that this
implementation was developed by the same people who implemented Algol
68R and 68RS. Although FLEX can reside by itself on a hard disc, it
can live within a single large PNX file and be booted seperately from
PNX. Spoonix. Does anyone have any information about this? There was also another version of UNIX, but the name of it excapes me
at the moment. It was not widely used. Pascal, FORTRAN, BCPL and possibly C (some C code was found on a PERQ
POS hard disc). PASCAL, Fortran, C and SPICE LISP (Known today as CMU Common LISP. The
PERQ ran separate microcode for this while still running Accent;
hence, you can have a LISP machine using one window and Accent
programs running in another (you can also have UNIX (QNIX) running in
another window). Does anyone know of the existance of SPICE LISP version M3 that
runs under Accent S6? The only thing that still appears to exist is
version M2 that will only run uner Accent S5. Another question: does
anyone know if version M3 will run under Accent version S6 as well as
S7? C, Pascal, FORTRAN and MicroSoft BASIC. Algol 68. Under POS and Accent, the FontEd program is used. MetaFont may
also be used with POS. There is also a PNX utility for this. Under POS and Accent CursDesign is used to create, edit, and
display .cursor and .animate files. MetFont has been used to edit
.cursor files. Under PNX, cedra is used. For editing .pic files, several commercial progams were available:
Paint (from Advent Imaging Ltd.) and Picasso (from Prolog Software).
Other commercial picture editing programs include MetaForm (from ?)
and ? (from ICL). These are the .pic files used most frequently and
were used by programs such as Mint (IGLOO software) and created (from
a scanner) by programs such as AgfaScanner (IGLOO Software). A program named (the one used on the Audre); this created a
different type of .pic file and was not usable by other PERQ
programs. There is also a program used to view .(what?) picture files; this
are not compatible with either of the above types of .pic files.
Only a few .(what?) files appear to be available and are primarily
scanned in images of attractive women (I should mention that they do
have their clothes on.). For CAD purposes, the program DP is used (creates .dp files). A
program PicToDp is available to convert .pic files to .dp files...
howver, this does not appear to work properly. There have been
several different versions of DP in use, including one that came with
IDOCS and crashes the PERQ very easily when the tablet or bitpad
buttons are pressed (especially when making menu selections). There is also several programs named Sketch. One of these looks
like a very simplified version of Paint and Picasso. This can create
graphics on the screen; however, no one seems to know how save the
pictures to a file, or retrieve pictures from a file, using this. Good question. Does anyone have an answer to this? There are two CAD/CAM programs, from ICL (DIAD and something else).
These programs use a huge amount of disc space! The PNX demo includes programs that can display .pic, .rle and .dp
files. If not mistaken, a demo program can be used to convert .pic
and .rle files. Has anyone successfully ported PBM-plus to PNX or Accent? Very carefully. It is necessary to use the MakeBoot utility. For best
results, and to avoid the possibility of making your PERQ unbootable,
test the font that you intend to use on a different bootable partition
or on a boot floppy. The font should be size 13 for best results. There are several programs, such as Talker, that read .spk files. The
programs used on PERQ-2, and T2, systems are not compatible with the
PERQ-1 systems. Known .spk files play music as complex as that from
Handel (sounds fairly good through the PERQs speaker!). The voices of
people speaking have also been recorded. Does anyone have the
schematics to the circuitry, and software, used to record information
into these files. There is also a program named Organ that can play simple tunes. It is necessary to perform some hardware hacking. Some pins on the
cip used for the real-time clock, on the EIO board, need to be shorted
together while a special diagnostic program is run. A special
test-clip was used, but I imagine other methods can be used. There are two ways to do this under POS (both requiring the same
hardware hacking). The first requires a special boot floppy containing
a program to set the clock. The second method requires two PERQs to be used; one used as a testbed
and both systems must have a "link" board installed. To do this,
one of the systems uses ODTPrq to load in a microcode used to set
the clock. Under PNX, it appears to be a bit simpler. The date command can be
used, by root, to set the real time clock. However, this still
requires some hardware hacking. Does anyone know the proper way to perform the above? There are basically three types of printers that can be used with
PERQs: printers with serial ports (RS-232), printers that connect to a
GPIB (IEE-488) and laser printers with a raw interface (a special
board in the PERQ is required to drive these Canon CX printers). The printers with an RS-232 or IEE-488 interface appear to work with
POS, Accent and PNX (except for some IEE-488 connected printers). All
three of the above mentioned operating systems also support the Canon
CX laser printer, with the following exceptions: for POS and Accent,
one must have the appropriate driver software. Note that the early
versions of PNX do not support the laser printer. For the RS-232 and IEE-488 printers, use the printing utilities
supplied with your OS or the (?) program [the one Malcolm
uses/wrote]. For laser printing, there are a few additional options for the POS
and Accent operating systems. For POS, the two known printing utilities are CPrint and CXPrint.
CPrint prints a banner page for each printout and can cause your PERQ
to crash if you invoke it again before the printer is complete
finished printing a previous print job. CXPrint won't crash your
PERQ; it prints no banner page, but it can, optionally, print a header
at the top of each page (CPrint can't do this). Additionally, for printing documents processed by Mint (which produces
a document in XPress format), the Capri program is used; this allows
the XPress files to be viewed either on the screen, or printed on a
laser printer. Individual pages may be selected for printing. For Accent, a version of CPrint is used. I should add that for POS one can enter Shift-Ctrl-P tp produce
screen-dumps to the laser printer and to some IEE-488 connected
thermal printers when appropriate driver software is installed. For
Accent screen dumps, one needs to open a separate window and run the
CXDump program. There are two ways to do this; one way is relatively quick and
painless, but may not be possible for some to perform. The quick and easy way to create a filesystem floppy: The not so quick and easy way to create a filesystem floppy: Where grog is the device name and foo is the name of the partition to
create. Use whatever you wish in place of these, but remember that
the names that you choose must be less than eight characters in
length. There are two ways to do this. One is relatively quick and easy. The
other is a bit slower and slightly more complicated. The quick and easy way to create a boot floppy is to already have
access to a useable boot floppy and use the DupBoot utility to
duplicate it. The less than quick and easy way to do it is for those who don't have
a boot floppy for their system, or for those who don't have the
DupBoot utility. Masochists and people with nothing better to do
with their time may also prefer to create boot floppies in this
manner. Note that this method of creating a boot floppy also applies
to those who wich to customise their boot floppies for whatever
reason. Here's how to create a boot floppy: Notes: the above steps need to be changed if you want to create a boot
floppy for a system with a landscape monitor or wish to use a
different default font, etc. In such cases, you'll need to run
MakeBoot without the /build switch. While the above may still be used with a landscape monitor for some
purposes that do not require a full screen display (the bottom hald of
the screen is unuseable), it is not suitable for all purposes. To
gain use of the entire screen, refer to the File System section of the
manual where the MakeBoot utility is explained. Run MakeBoot with no
switches or arguments and follow the default prompts as shown, with
the following exceptions: I've posted a file named MakeBootFloppy.Cmd to alt.sys.perq and to the
PERQ-Fanatics mailing list. This file simplifies much of the above
and eliminates the possibilities of making mistakes that can render
your PERQ unbootable. Several things that one should be careful of are (but may not be
limited to): Hazardous voltages are present inside the PERQ-1 chassis, which is
one of the reasons for the design of the PERQ2 systems. Be especialy
careful poking around with the back cover removed. Of course, one
should also be careful with other PERQ models as well. It is a good
idea to shield these large capacitors with a plastic casing to avoid
capacitor oil being sprayed all over the inside of your PERQ. Motor starting capacitors on the hard disc of the PERQ-1 systems
have been known to explode. Apparently this is more common with PERQs
that run on 220/240 VAC than those that run on 110/120 VAC. One of the capacitors on the EIO board of PERQ2 systems has been
known to spark and burn. Power supplies have been know, on occasion, to catch on fire
(possibly due to dust?). At present, there is a Usenet newsgroup for the PERQs as well as a
mailing list (uucp/Internet) for them. The newsgroup is alt.sys.perq. If you don't receive this
newsgroup on your system, ask, beg, plead, nag or (as a last resort)
threaten your system adminisrator to get him to carry this newsgroup!
When I sent out the control message to start this group, I wasn't sure
if it would be read by more than a handful of people, but thanks to
many people who post regularly, it's become an active newsgroup!
Malcolm Shute helped write the proposal for this newsgroup. The mailing list is the PERQ-Fanatics mailing list, presently
maintained on a system named hicom.org. Jamie L. Jones started this
mailing list after the original PERQ mailing list started by Chris
Lamb met an untimely end. To subscribe to the PERQ-Fanatics mailing
list, send a message, consisting of the word "SUBSCRIBE", to
perq-fanatics-request@hicom.org. After you've been subscribed, send
mail to perq-fanatics@hicom.org. Presently, there's no gateway between the newsgroup and the mailing
list, although one is badly needed. A.R. Duell has written an excellent hardware FAQ for the PERQs, and
has posted it to alt.sys.perq. There are future plans to merge his
hardware FAQ with this FAQ, and to add a few more bits of PERQ
hardware related information. The above list was provided by Bill von Hagen (I made a few very minor
changes and additions to some descriptions). Additionally, there were PERQ-3 and PERQ-5 systems (I'm not exactly
sure what the differences between the two systems are offhand. I'll
have to check some notes and the schematics when I get a chance).
These were completely different from the other PERQs. Totally
different architectures based on the Motorola 680?0 CPU. These
systems were being designed when PERQ Systems went out of business.
Extremely fast, high-resolution, color displays and 8MB of memory.
They are (were?) manufactured by Crosfield Electronics as the Studio
9500 series systems. The best way to preserve these systems is to post to
alt.sys.perq whenever you see one that is about to be
discarded, or know of any parts, software, or documentation for PERQs
that someone doesn't want. Describe what you have, and provide an
email address at which you can be contacted. Someone from the list
will contact you, asking for these, and thanking you effusively.(Back to Table of Contents)
There are files listed in a directory that I cannot
access or delete. Other than the directory listing, POS seems to
think that these files don't exist. What do I do to read or delete
them?
(Back to Table of Contents)
How do I install Accent on my PERQ?
(Back to Table of Contents)
How do I use BindBoot under Accent?
(Back to Table of Contents)
How do I undelete a file?
(Back to Table of Contents)
Can I use a tape drive with my PERQ?
(Back to Table of Contents)
Is there a faster/better way to duplicate floppies,
other than using the s...l...o...w duplicate function of the Floppy
program?
(Back to Table of Contents)
Is there a version of UNIX for the PERQs?
(Back to Table of Contents)
Why shouldn't I leave my monitor sitting on top of
the PERQ chassis? Is there a way to keep my hard disc from getting
hosed if I do this?
(Back to Table of Contents)
What other text editors are available for the PERQs?
What other text editors, other than Editor, are
available for use with POS?
(Back to Table of Contents)
What other text editors, other then Editor, are
available for use with Accent?
(Back to Table of Contents)
What text/document processing software runs of the PERQs?
What text/document processing software runs of the
PERQs under POS?
(Back to Table of Contents)
What text/document processing software runs on the
PERQs under Accent?
(Back to Table of Contents)
My monitor has developed a "wraparound" problem.
How can I fix it?
(Back to Table of Contents)
Why should I, or *shouldn't* I use BYE/OFF or
/WAIT?
(Back to Table of Contents)
What operating systems are known to run on
PERQs?
(Back to Table of Contents)
What languages were available for PERQs?
What languages have been available for PERQs
running POS?
(Back to Table of Contents)
What languages have been available for PERQs
running Accent?
(Back to Table of Contents)
What languages have been available for PERQs
running PNX?
(Back to Table of Contents)
What languages have been available for PERQs
running FLEX?
(Back to Table of Contents)
How can I create and edit fonts?
(Back to Table of Contents)
How can I create and edit .cursor and .animate files?
How can I create and edit .cursor and .animate
files POS and Accent?
(Back to Table of Contents)
How can I create and edit .cursor and .animate
files under PNX?
(Back to Table of Contents)
What programs have been used to create/display graphic designs
on the PERQs?
What programs have been used to create/display
graphic designs on the PERQs under POS?
(Back to Table of Contents)
What programs have been used to create/display
graphic images under Accent?
(Back to Table of Contents)
What programs have been used to create/display
graphic images under PNX?
(Back to Table of Contents)
How do I change the default font using POS?
(Back to Table of Contents)
How do I make a PERQ play music, and other noises,
and talk, under POS?
(Back to Table of Contents)
My PERQ's real-time clock always displays the wrong
time and I can't get to stay set to the correct time. How do I
correct this problem?
(Back to Table of Contents)
What types of printers and printing software are
available for the PERQs?
(Back to Table of Contents)
How do I create a filesystem floppy for POS?
(Back to Table of Contents)
How do I create a boot floppy for POS?
(Back to Table of Contents)
What types of hazards should I be aware of when
using a PERQ?
(Back to Table of Contents)
What are the best ways to contact other PERQ users?
(Back to Table of Contents)
Where can I find some more hardware-specific
information about the PERQs?
(Back to Table of Contents)
Where can I find a lot of additional information
about the PERQs, PERQ history, etc.?
Bill von Hagen (vonhagen@vonhagen.org) and I have been researching the
PERQs for the past few years and are working on a book about the
PERQs. It will be very interesting and informative reading! :-)
(Back to Table of Contents)
What are the differences between the various PERQ
models?
(Back to Table of Contents)
What is the best way for to preserve as many PERQs,
and PERQ bits, as possible from being scrapped by companies and
institutions?