By any chance, does anyone have a circuit board from a scrapped
Maxtor XT1140 or XT2140 (apparently interchangeable) that they'd
consider parting with?
mike
------------------------Original Message:
From: "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com>
Subject: Re: PDP11 adventures
At 7:00 PM +0000 12/6/06, Adrian Graham wrote:
>Indeed, it looks like the original boot drive (also an RD53) long gave up
>the ghost, which is a shame because it had RT11 5.4 and one of the systems I
>wrote in the 1980's......
If it's just something like the heads sticking, it might be possible
to revive the drive, at least long enough to get the data off. BTW,
while several other people have done this over the years, I didn't
have any luck the one time I tried to revive an RD53, so you'll want
to ask someone other than me any questions. :^)
I've even heard of people running the drives for years after fixing
the problem.
Zane
-----------------Reply:-------------------------------------------------------------------
I've run "sticky" Seagates for years; just had to give 'em a little push
start every time there was a power failure.
Here's another tip regarding RD53's
mike
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(From http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jmcm/info/rd53fix.txt)
[RD53 spins up and down again]
This is a common failure mode for RD53s. If you have backups of what's on the
drive, then discard that drive and get a new one. If you have critical data on
that drive that you need to save, here's a trick that might let you get it
running for one last time:
1. Remove the drive from the machine. Disconnect the two data cables and the
power cable. If the drive has the plastic "sled" that DEC uses to mount
drives, remove that.
2. Remove the two screws that hold the main circuit board on the bottom of
the drive.
3. Flip the logic board up, taking care not to damage it or any of the ribbon-
like flexible circuits attached to it.
4. Underneath that board is the servo board. On one side of that board is a
small flexible circuit that originates in the sealed drive housing and
terminates in a plug on the servo board; I believe it's got three pins.
Disconnect this plug.
5. With the drive in this partially-disassembled state, re-connect the two
data cables and the power cable. Power-up the system. At this point, the
drive should spin up and stay up, but will not go 'ready'. If the drive
will not stay spun up at this point, then the drive is beyond help and you
are out of luck.
6. If the drive is spinning OK then re-connect the ribbon cable to the servo
board. The drive should go 'ready'.
7. Bring up your system and back up those data!
When replacing the drive, a Micropolis 1325, I suggest replacing it with a
better unit. A Micropolis 1335 will work OK -- all you need to do is jumper
position R7 on the drive's logic board for DEC controllers to recognize it as
an RD53. Better yet, get a Maxtor 2190 which is a DEC RD54. Not only do these
drives hold more, they seem to last longer.
Good luck,
---Bob.
--
Bob Hoffman, N3CVL
hi carlos!
i saw your thread on classiccmp.org. you seem to know alot about hp-ux. so here's my question: do you know of a way/program to convert dos/windows ascii files so they can be read by hp 9153c disk drive running on a hp 9000 series 300 computer. i think what i need is to be able to convert fat/ntfs file system to a lif, right?
thank-you!
philipp
---------------------------------
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Andrew B
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Ian:
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ga Hardware, I've decided it's time for me to retire
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Hi,
I just wanted to let folks know that I've gotten my 11/70 setup with
BSD2.11. It now has 2 Fujitsu Eagles attached to an Emulex SC72. BSD
"thinks" there are 4 RP06 drives attached!
Now that I have enough disk storage on it, I'm going to start to image
the 200+ (yes, that's *not* a typo) RK05 packs. It'll take a seriously
long time to go through all of the packs since before I will put a
"strange" pack into the RK05 drive on the '70 (actually *any* of my RK05
drives), I disassemble the pack and completely clean the enclosure and
the platter. Since there's a fair amount of DEC distribution media
among the packs, I'll be doing the "high" value packs first. I'll let
folks know how it goes and try to put together a catalog of what's there.
I've configured this 11/70 (actually a DS570) to be able to read/write
RL01/2 packs and RK05 packs. It also has a TU80 so I can also
read/write 1600bpi 9-track tapes.
It also has a DELUA ethernet. BSD is configured for TCP/IP and I've set
it up to use one of my static IPs. DNS is pointing to it as
neptune.shiresoft.com. This will allow me to move bits on/off the '70
with relative ease.
I'm also contemplating letting it run 24/7 (I may reconsider once I see
my electric bill) and offering access to individuals. What do y'all think?
--
TTFN - Guy
Hi folks,
A complete IBM 1130 system just surfaced for sale in the midwestern
US. It is reputed to be one of the very first ones sold. It was used
by an architecture/engineering firm until a few years ago. It's an
impressive system: includes the CPU, external disk drives, 1403
printer, multiplex cabinet (interface for the disks and printer),
1442 card/read punch, 029 keypunch, documents and other stuff. We're
working getting more details. Buyer will have to arrange for pickup,
which will be a bit of a job as the machine is in a basement, and the
pieces weigh around 800 lbs each. (The multiplex box could weigh over
1000 lbs). We suspect that a stair crawler might be required.
We (we being Norm and Brian at ibm1130.org) don't know what the
seller expects to get for it. He's under pressure to get it sold and
moved within two weeks. This is a terrific system, but the pool of
interested people is fairly small, and the moving costs are going to
be considerable. (We would guess that the stair crawler alone will
cost $1500 or more to rent for the day, and trucking will cost
another $500 to 3500 depending on where in the US it goes -- overseas
would be much more). He's aware of this, and we hope that he's
realistic about it. We have an idea of what "realistic" might be and
could suggest what you might want to offer, if you want the advice.
If you're interested, contact Norm "at" ibm1130.org or contact me
directly, and we'll put you in touch with the seller. We'd really
like to see this system stay together and go to a person who's
interested in keeping it intact! We'd much rather see it go as a
whole package to a classiccmper than get pieced out on ebay.
Regards
Brian Knittel and Norm Aleks
Referring to people's "collections" or whatever they
may be of course. In particular I'd like to see Tony
Duell's list of, what was it, 170+ machines?? This
isn't the sort of site where a database can be stored
unfortunately. I hope I'm not being too bold...
____________________________________________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta.
http://new.mail.yahoo.com
> Anybody know who 'doctor_death' happens to be? Pseudonym
> for 'dkdkk' maybe :-) ?
He is a 56 year old anesthesiologist in Salt Lake City.
Delightful..
Always a joy to hear of another deep-pockets collector appearing.
On 12/6/06, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote:
> I might be getting it confused with a 3rd party chassis, but I'm
> pretty sure I've seen a metal drive sled, rather than the standard
> DEC Plastic sleds. At the same time, getting the thickness right is
> what will cause problems I suspect.
Hmm... I don't recall ever seeing a metal drive sled for a BA23 (the
OP's expansion box), only black plastic, with maybe one translucent
grey one out of the whole lot.
>From what I remember about them, thickness is, of course, an important
dimension, but really only the edges... the part under the drive can
vary a bit and still leave room for a full-height drive, not that one
is horribly likely to be using anything that large with the abundance
of 1GB and 2GB 3.5" drives from their heyday 10 years ago.
I'd thought of, essentially, taking a plexiglass sheet, cutting the
outlines on a table saw (or whatever saw one has that can make long,
straight cuts (i.e., probably not a hand saw without a bunch of
filing), then using the dado blade and the fence to mill down the long
sides to the requisite thickness to fit down the slides in the BA23.
After that, the only fiddly bits are the drive screw holes and the
latch hole for the front of the plate, unless I've forgotten some
detail. I don't think the bent metal springs on the back of the plate
are _essential_, only nice to have where possible. In case I've
forgotten some detail, I was hoping someone with some experience
fabricating replacements could chime in - I, for one, have no idea
what any of the measurements might be, and I won't have a drive sled
in front of me for a month.
> >Viking and CMD controllers were also common, IIRC.
>
> It has been my experience that the Viking controllers were *very*
> common and rebadged by at least a couple companies. All of my main
> PDP-11's are using Viking QDT & UDT controllers.
I can entirely believe that.
> If he looks for a ESDI controller, I'd recommend the Webster WQESD/04
> controller. Personally it is the one non-SCSI 3rd party controller
> I'd want to run (I did for several years).
I've heard of that one, but I don't think I have any experience with it.
> I've found one of the advantages of SCSI is that it's easy to use
> drive trays to run multiple OS's.
Absolutely - quick swap-in-out, easy to get one drive per OS, etc.
> RT-11 is very nice.
Agreed.
> Somehow
> either RSX-11M or RSX-11M+ seem a bit more appropriate for the system
> in question. I'm not sure I'd recommend RSTS/E as a first OS.
Agreed as well. I have nothing against RSTS/E, but having worked with
all three OSes, I'd suggest learning something about RT-11 before
tackling RSTS, and even then, seeing if RSX11M or M+ had something to
offer before tackling RSTS. It has its place, but that place tended
to be larger systems intended for multiple simultaneous users. The
OP's CPU has plenty of horsepower to go around, but RSTS is complex
enough that it might take a lot of work to get a system to the point
where it's something fun to play on rather than a seemingly-perpetual
exercise in software archaeology. I've done both RSTS and RSX
sysgens... the RSX ones seemed to be more straightforward and resulted
in a running system with less user intervention.
> BTW, another advantage of SCSI is attaching a CD-ROM drive, which can
> make installing an OS easier.
True that. I have zero experience with CD-ROMs on PDP-11s, so owners
of SCSI cards will have to chime in (to date, my only experience with
Qbus SCSI is with MicroVAXen).
-ethan
