<Actually, the PDT 11/150 ran quite well once they came out. I ran one fo
<three years under RT11 with FB and multiterminal support. It's biggest
<problem was comm overruns/underruns because the I/O was all handled by a
<8080 (or was it an 8085). The 11/130 used DECtapes and the 11/110 was
<downloaded.
It used an 8085, and the manual stated the limits of the serial ports.
However if the correct handshake was used it could run pretty fast.
<The biggest problem with the PDT was the price, the fact it was not
<easily expandable by third parties (no Qbus) and slow.
Such was the ways of DEC at the time. Then again what would be added?
<DEC repeated some of the same mistakes in the PC line in the 80's. (no
<QBUS on the Pro, special i/o drivers, non-standard OS version).
The pro used a better form factor than Qbus, otherwise it would have been
huge. If you needed Q there was always the ba11 series boxen. POS on the
other hand was strange.
Allison
<There was a small PDP-11 about the size of a MicroVax 2000. It was
<called the PDT. It had an 11/03 CPU, 64KB, 8" floppy (RX01), and some
It was about twice the size of the VS2000. I have one.
As to static sensitivity mine is quite good and most I know of didn't
have a heat problem. What I have encounterd was system with the fans
replaced with quieter low volume fans that didn't do the job.
Allison
Does anyone know William Donzelli's e-mail address?
Donzelli, are you out there?
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
>I am much more bothered by conmans (read my other reply here). I collect
for
>the historical inportance and for the history of design of old electronics
and
>for what they meant in the lives of millions of persons. I don't even care
if
>something is working or not. It is going to end up behing glass anyway. I
I find you sick. Very sick. Keep computers functional, working, cosmetics
should come second. I'm sure that we could find a TRS-80 model 1 CASE
somewhere for you.
>can't possibly USE the more than 140 historical computer I have in my
YES YOU COULD.
>collection and don't even switch them on. I don't collect them for making
them
>work but to display them and help to teach children and people about their
>importance in the hsitory of humanity. The appearance is (nearly)
everything
>to me and so a mumeric keypad where it should not be is a GREAT bother to
me.
So what the hell are you bitching about? You got what you asked for, and
now, it's not a great bother to you. So what the %$&( if it's got a
numeric keypad? It's not a GREAT bother to you, but you've been a GREAT
bother to Cord and everyone else on the list.
Tim D. Hotze
> I've seen a small MicroVAX, but was there a small portable PDP-11?
There was a small PDP-11 about the size of a MicroVax 2000. It was
called the PDT. It had an 11/03 CPU, 64KB, 8" floppy (RX01), and some
serial ports. RT-11 was the only supported OS as the floppy took a
special driver. It was a real lemon, we had a few, proved to be very
unreliable as they would constantly overheat. They were also
susceptible to static discharge on the case, so they didn't work too
well in carpeted offices.
Jack Peacock
Enrico Tedeschi <e.tedeschi(a)ndirect.co.uk> wrote:
>I can't believe that all this is happening and that there are no honest people
>in this list that are letting this happen withour saying anything.
OK Enrico, you asked for it. I'm going to say something.
The recollection I have of what happened (from reading the original
flamefest on the list) is that you and Cord were swapping computers,
with you expecting a TRS-80 with Level I BASIC. And that is what you
got, only when you got it you found that it had a numeric keypad,
unlike the original stock TRS-80. So...no, I don't understand what
you're so upset about, except that you got something that didn't look
like what you expected based on your preconceived notions of what a
"TRS-80 with Level I BASIC" should look like.
Well, as it happens I don't know whether Radio Shack ever took to
manufacturing all Model 1 TRS-80s with numeric keypads after some
date, or whether the numeric keypad was included with the Level II
BASIC upgrade (don't think so, at least not always), or whether it was
available without a Level II BASIC upgrade. So I'd have been
surprised by that keypad too, but for all I know it could have come
>from the factory like that or been upgraded by its original owner, who
wanted to do lots of numeric data entry on a Level I BASIC system.
Really I think there's a valuable lesson to be learned here, namely
when trading in old computers it's a good idea to do some research and
have some idea what the scope of possible configurations is, so that
if you are buying you will have some idea what sort of questions to
ask to find out just what the seller is selling. Or if you are
selling, so you will have some idea of what you are selling.
Don't count on the seller knowing what's important to you, or even
where what he's got fits in that scope of configurations -- he may
not. Even if he's another computer collector and/or familiar with
that manufacturer's equipment, he may not know -- the sorts of
questions I read (and even some of those I write) tell me that most of
us have a lot to learn about these old machines, and none of us know
everything about all of them.
And even with all that in mind, expect some surprises!
For example, a while back I bought a couple of HP 9825s from some guy
in Southern California. Looking at the HP Calculator Museum web pages
and some of my old HP test/measurement catalogs, I expected that one
of them (the 9825B I think) would have a "computer" keyboard with
full-travel keys. I didn't bother asking. Surprise, when it arrived
both had the older clicky desktop-calculator keyboard of the 9825A. I
pointed this out to the seller and he didn't know, though he has seen
9825s with the full-travel keys. Maybe it was an A that got
field-upgraded to a B? We don't know, and I didn't really see any
point in getting bent out of shape about it -- I got what I wanted,
learned something, and now I have a good excuse to get another one!
-Frank McConnell
Doug Yowza <yowza(a)yowza.com> wrote:
>Which one is that? I remember the Teraks being fairly small, and I think
>I've seen a small MicroVAX, but was there a small portable PDP-11?
The Terak main unit is about 18" x 12" x 8" DxWxH, the disk drive is the
same form but about 5 1/2" tall. I remember DEC's MiniMINC, a white
11/03-ish machine roughly the same size as the Terak setup.
- John
Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
On Apr 13, 0:06, Allison J Parent wrote:
> <Which one is that? I remember the Teraks being fairly small, and I thin
> <I've seen a small MicroVAX, but was there a small portable PDP-11?
>
> I have an 11/23, 256k ram, dlv11j and MRV11 in a ba11va shoebox.
> The floppy (RX02) is about 4 times the volume of the CPU!
General Robotics made a single 8" RX02-compatible floppy in a box barely bigger
than the drive itself, complete with carrying handle. A company I once worked
for had one for field servoids. AFAIR it was a standard SA800 50-pin interface
to connect to their own dual-height RXV controller.
I've got an 11/03 (M7270) with MXV11-A and a Baydel dual-height F311 (like an
RXV11, but interfaces to SA800 drives) with a 4-slot dual-width (not quad)
backplane. It's missing box/PSU and floppy, though, so it's not terribly
functional ATM. I'm sure someone has built something even smaller with a
Falcon or similar.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
