On Wed, Apr 10, 2024 at 8:35 PM Jonathan Chapman via cctalk <
cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
1. I have read
that the card and the drives were compatible with the dec
rx02 drives. Why would the CRDS even bother to redesign a card where DEC
had perfectly good working ones? Anyone know if there is any value in
keeping the FC-202 or just keep with the DEC cards?
A lot of the third-party controllers could talk to Shugart-style 8" floppy
drives. They can also usually *format* the diskettes, which the RX01/RX02
systems from DEC can't do -- you have to use preformatted media. This isn't
a *huge* deal since RX01 is just IBM 3740 and you can format it on CP/M
boxes, with ImageDisk, etc. There's an XXDP utility to upconvert RX01 media
to RX02, which is M2FM and very few things can work with it.
Apparently a lot of small shops kept a CP/M box just for the task, the
Alspa ACI-2 I had was supposedly used like that.
2. Any idea on that other card?
https://w2hx.com/?prefix=x/What-Is-It/PDP-11-Thing/Board1/
Looks like a non-DEC Qniverter -- QBus to Unibus converter. If that's what
it is, you'd plug your Unibus cable into that pair of connectors on top and
run it to whatever Unibus device you were wanting to talk to, potentially
another backplane full of Unibus stuff. Commonish upgrade on e.g. CNC
machines that were originally controlled by a PDP-11/05 or something in one
Unibus chassis, with another Unibus chassis full of machine-specific cards.
Thanks,
Jonathan