test-drb June 2005

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

221 participants
681 discussions

by brian＠quarterbyte.com

Hey, does anybody remember SDE, an editor for RSX-11M? SDE stood for Small Dumb Editor. It worked on VT100's only, and it really was tiny. I used it at Lawrence Berkeley Lab in the early 1980's on a PDP-11. It might have come from DECUS, but I haven't been able to find it on the decus archives online. Any info appreciated. I'd like to get a copy. thanks brian =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- _| _| _| Brian Knittel _| _| _| Quarterbyte Systems, Inc. _| _| _| Tel: 1-510-559-7930 _| _| _| Fax: 1-510-525-6889 _| _| _| Email: brian at quarterbyte.com _| _| _| http://www.quarterbyte.com

19 years, 6 months

PDP11/23+ goes on

by aek＠bitsavers.org

For a real DEC Qbus PDP-11, the RQDX3 controller and an RX50 floppy drive might be an alternative. -- There are literally dozens of Qbus cards and vendors for disc and tape (Dilog, Emulex, et al.) with RL/RK/RM or MSCP emulation for MFM ESDI or SMD discs. Some of the less popular ones go fairly cheap on eBay. There has, of course, been talk off and on about IDE boards for Q and Unibus for a long time now. The RQDxx controllers are a bit clunky to use with their breakout panel if you aren't putting it into a box designed for it. I still say that the simplest thing to do is just to find a used Qbus MSCP SCSI conroller though.. If you can find someone scrapping Qbus microvaxen, they often have them hiding inside (that's where I got the ones that I have).

19 years, 6 months

DEC PDP PROGRAMMING STATION...pdp8/a, LOWER PRICE!

by rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com

FYI, <http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1247&item=5210358381> BONUS...use Buy It Now and I'll include a Decwriter to complete your work station!

19 years, 6 months

PDP11/23+ goes on

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> What is the "modern way" to get software into the PDP11? I use a ZIP drive and a Qbus MSCP disc controller. A software-only solution (though much slower) is to use the TU58 simulation software that is around

19 years, 6 months

VTSERVER booting

by hachti＠hachti.de

Hi again, after removing all other cards from my 11/23+ my serial console seems to work error-free. Now I can bootstrap the copy utility which comes with vtserver. I can also copy something onto a formatted diskette. When I copy from diskette to the virtual tape, the copying seems to ignore the disk's end... is that correct? I simply tried to copy the copy binary itself to an rx02 and boot that. Did not work. I verified the disk contents i put on it - they're ok.... I also have tried the 2.11BSD stub which came with vtserver (boot.dd, disklabel etc). Boot.dd gave me only A LOT of: > Trap in Boot,illegal instruction at loc Trap in Boot,illegal instruction at loc Trap [...] Continues several screens and then the cpu hangs (still running) after outputting > ....instruction at loc Trap in Boot,illegal?Q?Q`?Wf? What have I done wrong? Where can I get more information about different boot roms, bootstrapping the 11/23+ and my RX02 drive (nothing on bitsavers...!?!)? What does the (which one?) boot prom put where and where does it start execution etc.? There must be cool docs which I don't know yet.... Regards, Philipp :-)

19 years, 6 months

HP info and corrections

by aek＠bitsavers.org

Finally, I've typed out the DIO bus pinout from that HP9826/9836 Pascal system manual that's on bitsavers (this being the piece of info that's going to be the most useful to me at the momnent). -- http://www.blobulent.com:16080/hp300/peripherals/ have a few interesting scans, like the schematic for the 98625A SCSI interface.

19 years, 6 months

HP info and corrections

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

A few things relating to HP machines, particularly the 9845 that I'm working on. Firstly, a correction about dismantling the tape drive (this also applies to the 9825 drive that Sellam was working on). I mis-remembered how the motor is fixed -- the screws don't go in from the bottom, they go in from the top (cartridge side), go through the chassis and tap into the plastic disk that holds the motor. Two of them are obvious, where you'd put the cartridge. To get to the other two, you have to remove the head (outside 2 screws on the mounting block, this shouldn't muck up the alignment) and remove the microswitches (tape inserted, write protect), again 2 screws, but the actuating pins fall out, so be careful. When you've done that, it's easy to remove the motor. Secondly, the keys do seem to work as I dsecribed, with one correction. There are 2 lopps through the torroid, and there is a magnet that affects the magnetic properites of that torroid, and thus the coupling between the wires. But the magnet is normally near the torroid and moves away when you press the key. Makes sense, I would have guesed that the magnet saturated the torroid and reduces the coupling between the loops, so this way, uou get a signal when the key is pressed. Thirdly, if you're working on the keyboard encoder board, note that the keyboard controller chip (with a custom number on my board) seems to have the same pinout as the chip in the HP250 (schematics on bitsavers). The LM311 comparator (8 lead TO99 case) is nothing to do with detecting the return pulse from the key matrix, it's used as a relaxation oscillator for the contoller clock. The return signal is detected by a couple of transistors in the CA3046 array (long tail pair circuit). Finally, I've typed out the DIO bus pinout from that HP9826/9836 Pascal system manual that's on bitsavers (this being the piece of info that's going to be the most useful to me at the momnent). If anybody wants this (a plain text file) to avoid downloading/reading the whole pdf, I can post it here. -tony

19 years, 6 months

DEC collection rescue...Dallas, Tx]

by tponsford＠theriver.com

For some reason, I don't see this posted after sending, so my apologies if this was posted in the meantime. This was from the comp.sys.dec newsgroup. this morning. Anybody in Dallas? > I am going to get rid of 7 or 8 VAX 6400 and 6500 machines, including > many spares, some SF-200/900 storage, and alot of other doo-dads. Some > machines have DSSI, some CI. Some have BI bus. > > All were removed from computer rooms. Most recently, a pair of hevily > loaded 6410's with BI and SF900 fresh from Sony's decommissioned fab > in San Antonio. > > Have also a couple three top-load 9-tracks like the one on the right > in this picture: > http://blues.uab.es/~enllac/enllac7/ForaOrbita/microvax.jpg > > and 6 LA120's or LA-120-like DEC consoles. Several boxes/lots of old > dec parts also. > > What's my best bet for getting one entity to come take them all, in > one lot, load them up and move them out? > > Bring two bobtail trucks with liftgates, and a couple big boys to help > load. > > Located in Dallas, Texas > > (I suppose this might be of more interest to a reseller, even if they > live on as parts, but they have to go, and I can't bear to push them > to the curb, if you understand.) > > I also have, on separate deal, about an 8' high stack of VAXstations > and storage expansion as well as about a 6' high stack of > lunchbox-style microvax 2000 stuff like this: > http://world.std.com/~mbg/mv2000f.jpg > > also CRT's for the vaxstations, extra parts, pedestal-type vaxen like > this: > http://h18002.www1.hp.com/alphaserver/vax/images/vax4000_4_5_600.jpg > and Q-bus boards and keyboards, VT terms, etc. > > also, much 'classic' PC stuff, very old PC/XT laptops, and enough > parts to carry you through the apocalypse after which VMS and DOS will > be the only two things still running. > > All must depart. No time for ebay. > > -- > rest begards, > Patrick Jankowiak > > - reply to r e c y c l e r AT s w b e l l DOT n e t

19 years, 6 months

Several comments on crashed drive in PDP-11/23

by bqt＠Update.UU.SE

On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 Philipp Hachtmann <hachti at hachti.de> wrote: Hi. > > RSX (don't know if the other OSes do the same) write a special boot block > > on non-bootable disks. This boot block basically just prints the above > > message, and halts. All that fits fine into 512 bytes. > Aha. I also have an RSX-11M license..... But no media or a clue how to > get it into my machine. Media is usually on TK50 or 1/2" tape. > >>What is the "modern way" to get software into the PDP11? > > Phew. Tape normally. Small, modern PDP11s usually have TK50, and software > > is distributed on TK50. > TK50...??? You might know it under the name DLT. TK50 was the original DLT. It's plain and simple just a tape. > >>Is there anything like a RIM or BIN loader? > > Yes, but that is very old technology. People don't have paper tape on > > PDP-11, and haven't for a very long time. > Hm.... But I'm a paper tape enthusiast..... I just think about giving > the 11 away again - perhaps it's too modern for me..... :-) If you look for old diagnostics, old systems like DOS-11 and the like, you'll find that paper tape plays a role. RT-11, RSX and RSTS/E (as well as Unix) are still current products, still being sold. Of course they have moved on from paper tape. They actually never were paper tape based, even though you have device drivers for that medium as well. > > If you're on a bare system, with only disk drives to play with, then your > > options are limited. > I have a RX02 double diskette drive and a lot of disks.... Well, your problem is one of how to get something in there in the first place. > > The best might actually be to pretend you have a > > TU58, which speaks through a normal serial line, but is a block device, > > which most PDP11 can boot from. > May the original bootstrap code boot from a serial port directly?? Quite possibly. You can probably boot from a number of devices. Which one is selected by a block of switches on the CPU board, or if you talk interactively with the CPU, you tell it which device to boot from. > > Yes. The TU58 is a cheap block device, for which the hardware on the > > PDP-11 side actually is just a serial interface. Most boot roms know how > > to boot from one, and an emulator for the actual TU58 exist. > > The standard ROM in my 11/23+ does not boot from tu58? I would suspect it does. > >>Can I boot RT11 or RSX11 from floppy??? > > Yes. > Ok. that's the point where I try to start. I will make a floppy. Need an > image and then I'll try to put the image to onto a floppy. That can be a problem. How do you get the image onto a floppy before you have a system in which you can access the floppy? > > Oh, and I would probably try to align the drive correctly if I fooled > > around with it. You never know when another pack shows up which you might > > want to read. > > I can't realign the drive because I don't have the alignment tools, > control panel for the drive and an alignment pack. But I did not change > the head alignment when I removed the heads. Left them together without > moving relatively to each other.. Well, if you can't, then you can't. > Does anyone have experience with that "vtserver" program? > It puts it's bootcode into the pdp (via odt) and then the CPU stops. > Sometimes a single 'r' character shows up. And sometimes I see an error > message (non-existent record 13).... > I start to think about a problem with my serial port.... Are there known > issues with the console port? I have tried 300,2400,9600 and 19200. > Always errors. But NEVER while vtserver puts its startup code. Always > after vtserver has started the pdp. Can't help you there. I just play with big hardware, and have tape drives. Never tried vtserver. > And a simple question: How does the addressing in pdp11 work? R7 seems > to be only 16 bit wide. And when I boot up the system, the MMU should be > off and the memory mapping should be direct. How do I access the upper > bits of my PC (i.e. "changing the segment")? Yes. The PDP-11 is a 16-bit machine. There are no "upper" bits to the PC. The PC is plain and simple just 16 bits. Here is how it works. The MMU can be disabled or enabled. If enabled, it can be in 18-bit addressing or 22-bit addressing. When an address is gated onto the bus, it's mapped from the virtual address to a physical address. If you MMU is disabled, addresses 0-157777 (octal) gets mapped to the same physical addresses. Address 160000-177777 gets mapped to physical 17776000-17777777. If the MMU is enabled, the high three bit of a virtual address selects the PAR/PDR register pair used to relocate the virtual address to a physical address. That means your memory is divided into eight pages, and each page can map anywhere in physical memory. In 18-bit mode, only parts of the PAR register is used, while in 22-bit mode, the full content of the PAR is used. To get the physical address from a virtual address, you do: (written in C) (PAR << 6) + (VA & 017777) And the right PAR is (VA >> 13) PAR is also 16 bits. This will tell you that the page will start on a multiple of 64, and that the 6 low bits of a virtual address is unchanged. Johnny Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at update.uu.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

19 years, 6 months

Archiving MFM and RLL drives (Was: Re: Default password for Pick system on an AT?)

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> I'm not sure, but dd does. As long as you don't hit a bad block.

19 years, 6 months

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test-drb June 2005