Greetings all;
I picked up an SGI Onyx 10000 RE2 rack ("Terminator") last week from
surplus and, unfortunately, it appears I'm in the same boat as J Blaser -
Boeing used this machine as 'parts' for another.
I'm missing the Power Boards (I believe I need three) and the System
Controller. Also someone removed the Graphics and Main I/O panels...
violently, apparently, as the cable that goes from the DG2 (Display
Generator) to the breakout has part of the breakout PCB still attached to
the cable!
I see a main I/O panel on eBay right now relatively inexpensively, as well
as the graphics panel - but the Graphics I/O Panel is for an
InfiniteReality, not a RealityEngine2, and is no good to me, alas.
Many thanks to all;
JP Hindin
>Has anyone got one online? If so, URLs please...
[snip]
Here is a good one:
http://www.s100-manuals.com/Repairs.htm
I can't say if it is effective or not but I have followed the directions
using a variac several times with some success. At least no
exploding/leaking electrolytics in any of my restored machines.
I have seen some equipment with burst/leaking electrolytic capacitors and
they are very messy. Even if the procedure is marginally effective, it is
probably worth something. Preventing even one burst capacitor saves you a
*LOT* of time cleaning up.
Best of luck!
Andrew Lynch
>
>Subject: Re: these RTL or what?
> From: woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca>
> Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2007 12:11:23 -0600
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>
>Allison wrote:
>
>> RX02 works with PDP-8, WD1793 works with Cmos6120 (PDP-8), VAXen and
>> other long word machines are using floppy and other 8bit interfaces.
>> VAX 780 microcode was loaded from floppy.
>
>I grew up in alas in a PC world.I got to play with a 8 but that
>is about all.
I'd have guessed that. ;)
>
>> Most of those systems had already dealt with the 8bit/n-bit issue
>> and as devices got larger and space less an issue it became less
>> an issue. If it were, then PCs would have 32bit wide HDC rather
>> than 16bit.
>
>I like 16 bits for IDE ... You can cut that down to say 12 bits for
>your PDP-8. 9 or 12 bits for the cpu depending on what cpu I build.:)
True. But since the 386, PCs are 32bit, for that fact since 1978
VAX was 32bit.. You would have thought a wider IDE or data channels
would have happend. But it hasn't.
IO devices often lagged the CPUs or were designed for the devices
convenience or so it seemed. I feel legacy, (not always PCs)
played distinct factor as well.
Allison
>
>Subject: Re: these RTL or what?
> From: woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca>
> Date: Sun, 07 Oct 2007 08:49:56 -0600
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>
>Allison wrote:
>
>> Does it really makes that much differnce the number of bits for a char?
>> Really, Six bits was kinda tight for work where upper or lower case
>> was used but it didn't affect calculating Pi to a 100 places.
>> Wasn't the basic chunk 9 bits for PDP10 and it happened (DEC
>> software) used 6 bit char notation as a carry over from earlier
>> life with friden flexowriter and TTYs on earlier machines?
>
>Floppy disk is 8 bit I/O. That made all the difference when standard
>floppy disk controlers came out. Ben.
RX02 works with PDP-8, WD1793 works with Cmos6120 (PDP-8), VAXen and
other long word machines are using floppy and other 8bit interfaces.
VAX 780 microcode was loaded from floppy.
Most of those systems had already dealt with the 8bit/n-bit issue
and as devices got larger and space less an issue it became less
an issue. If it were, then PCs would have 32bit wide HDC rather
than 16bit.
With that character representation and word size are at best
only loosely associated or an OS convention. If anything ASCII
was a standard as were a few others like IBMs scheme. Converting
>from one coding to another was one of the first apps (code breaking).
Going from one character representation to another is generally
is not a big task so long and it's not language translaton. We as
early users did that often for devices like Seletric printers.
Did character convention used affect system choice or OS choice,
possibly. It was only a piece of a larger picture of how systems
evolved.
Allison
Allison
Allison
>
>Subject: Re: these RTL or what?
> From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa)
> Date: Sat, 06 Oct 2007 08:40:15 -0400
> To: cctech at classiccmp.org, cctalk at classiccmp.org
>
>Allison <ajp166 at bellatlantic.net> wrote:
>> In the end ECL was a way to speed but always at such a high system cost
>> and complexity it was often behind the curve for integration and delivery.
>
>It depends on what you're doing.
>
>ECL was perfect for custom-built lab and military hardware. Follow
>a few simple rules and even a bozo like me could reliably lay out the
>PCB's. Contrast that with 74F technology where you couldn't even figure
>out if ground at the center of the board was the same as the ground at
>the edge of the board :-).
Having used most logic from transistors to ECL100k and some oddballs
inbetween I'd agree. ECL was excellent for mixed signal and fast
front end stuff. My favorite uses were programable /n for PLLs and
frequency counters. ECL was far nicer without ground noise and some
of the transmission line difficulties that the faster/fastest TTL
(and CMOS) were really nasty driving. Ringing and reflections on a
board, bus or interconnect could really ruin your day. That made ECL
nice for fast intersystem connects were the cables were for reasons
coaxial cables or other shielded schemes.
>Above the onesies-twosies level things weren't so clear. There's a big
>leap between a back-projector or array-processor made at the onesies-twosies
>level and the world where VLSI becomes economical. Gate arrays helped
>span this gap but that gap had been pinched to nonexistence by the mid-80's.
The magical thing that really impacted logic design indirectly be
it discrete transistors or the fastest of the fast was simply size.
The faster the logic was the closer all the sourrounding bits had
to be to capitalize on it. Otherwise the rule of thumb of 1nS/ft
took over never minding load capacitances. Witness the Cray round
machine (YMP?). There is a long history of systems compaction,
cooling and speed interactions in computers.
>Minicomputer makers like DEC who also had their own fabs were in an odd boat...
>the process-leading CPU chips couldn't utilize the fabs built to
>deal with them because DEC didn't sell enough CPU's. In the end
>a vast army of interface and peripheral chips seemed to keep things
>churning well enough that they kept their fabs for many many years past
>where I was convinced they couldn't be economically viable.
Bingo there. While a few chips were economically successful it was
only with the help of silicon foundries like WD, SMC and AMD to get
needed volumes. In the end the greatest value of silicon hill was
in its sale with a few licenses kicked in.
Allison
Hello.
As the subject say, I'm searching for one working MFM (not RQDx, better
something like the Andromeda UDC) or ESDI QBUS controller plus cables to use
with one PDP-11/23 PLUS. The ESDI would be a better choice because I have
one 300 Mb HD and one 700 Mb HD, both of full-height (in the terms used with
old PeeCee's).
I have too a couple of RX33 floppies but no controller for them. I would
appreciate to obtain one.
Finally, I am thinking in use one old PC enclosure for disks and floppies.
Someone has did it ? Results ?
Can contact privately with offers.
Thanks and Greetings
Sergio
>
>Subject: Re: Setting up a VAXstation
> From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa)
> Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2007 08:14:33 -0400
> To: cctech at classiccmp.org, cctalk at classiccmp.org
>
>Tony Duell said:
>> I cna understnad why people are interested only in old software, not
>> hardware, and want to run it under emulation on a modern machine
>>
>> My puzzlement is with people who want to run the old hardware (not have
>> to run the old hardware becuase it is part of some machine tool or
>> something) but don't want to understand what's going on inside. What more
>> do you get over running the software under emulation?
>
>In fact, availability of hardware is a huge factor in succesfully
>making an emulator for a machine. All but the simplest processors
>are complicated enough that there are little corner cases all over
>the place where none of the processor/architecture documentation tells
>you what is going to happen.
>
>And outside the central processors, all peripherals but the very simplest
>are filled with complicated and undocumented behavior.
>
>Schematics could answer many of these questions, but in real life
>they end up guiding the search for the answer to the question rather
>than being the actual defining source for the answer.
>
>So in general emulator users and especially developers completely
>grok the need to have hardware working. Sometimes I believe that
>today's emulator developers know much more about the architectures
>than the original architects did :-). (In a couple cases, they are
>the orignal architect!)
>
>Availability of software is also important for making a reliable emulator.
>You could spend years reading the books to write an emulator, but you
>don't trust anything you've read or done until you've booted the simplest
>OS.
>
>Tim.
The best example of this that comes to mind is the Apollo Guidence
Computer (AGC). There was one hardy and persistant soul that not
only researched it, he built a sim and tracked down samples of
software to validate the sim and the later hardware. One great
issues was lack of documentation, apparently much was lost/destroyed
when that chapter of the space program ended around 30 years ago.
The few intact copies of the AGC (Apollo command modules) likely
haven't seen power in at least that long if even complete. I doubt
any of the CM holders could be convinced to power it up assuming
they were even preserved sufficiently to safely do so. So for
those interested in machines that are obscure, unusual or very
rare even generating a sim has to be a huge challenge only equaled
by task of gatherering the needed data to base it on. It is reverse
engineering on a very deep level for a faithful sim.
Allison
>
>Subject: Re: these RTL or what?
> From: "William Donzelli" <wdonzelli at gmail.com>
> Date: Sun, 07 Oct 2007 15:55:57 -0400
> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>
>> Yes, but conductors on substrate are slower depending on substrate used.
>> They are dense but TCMs still have to talk to other TCMs.
>
>So you have never seen the innards of a 3081, then?
Not enough of one to appreciate. I do know that IBM did
some fairly sophisticated stuff to get around the problem.
Allison
>--
>Will
My view is that if you have spent little or nothing on the computer. Then a few pounds on a cable is a good investment. If you do not have experience in making up cables then don't waste time learning for a small number.
Rod
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Pete Edwards
Sent: 03 October 2007 14:34
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Setting up a VAXstation
>
> > here, folks. I'm not going to spend ?20 or ?30 on getting or making
> > a cable for a 99p computer!
>
> Ah, that's right - you're in the UK so the telephone cables won't be
> the same. Actually, you _might_ be able to take an Ethernet cable,
> file off the clip and file both sides to make it fit. If you can keep
> the pins centered properly after filing, it should work.
>
> -Ian
>
There's plenty of telephone kit in the UK that does use RJ11, look on answering machines and especially external modems - they nearly always came with an RJ11-BT adaptor cable.
A lot of modern laptop internal modems seem to have RJ11 sockets too.
--
Pete Edwards
"Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future" - Niels Bohr
