test-drb June 2010

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

167 participants
232 discussions

EL display from StorEdge A5000 (was Re: photos from VCF UK etc)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 6/22/10, Philip Pemberton <classiccmp at philpem.me.uk> wrote: > Reverse engineering is a great way to spend a day! :) Many of my nicer ones have been spent thusly. > I've got a Planar EL panel on my desk, "liberated" from a supply of Sun > spares (apparently it's meant for a StorEdge A5000 series box). 160x80 > pixels, and a 6x3 touchscreen. Very cool looking Sounds really cool. > Anyway, I think I spent about three days probing and tweaking it. It's a > standard controller (Epson SED1335) but the touch screen controller is > an ASIC. Turns out it's nice and simple though... Full details (pinouts > and code) on my website if anyone's interested. I'll have to check it out - I've been hacking HD44780 and T6963 and SED<mumble> displays for years for LCDproc. It's especially fun to pull on from some dead bit of technical kit and put the LCD back in service. I've done that with a $8 front panel from a satellite TV converter box (LEDs, buttons and 2x40 HD44780 LCD) among others. -ethan

13 years, 10 months

Slightly OT: Sun Ultra 5 Keyboard

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

I was given a Sun Ultra 5 the other day, not really a vintage machine, at least not yet, hence "slightly OT". I don't know anything about these machines but I expect there will be people on this list who do. The machine came without a keyboard or mouse and I think I need at least a keyboard to get it to boot. I believe I may need a type-5 or type-6 keyboard with a mini-DIN connector. I can't find much on eBay. Can anyone tell me where to find such a keyboard? I don't want to spend a lot because Sun is not my thing really, but it would be nice to get it working. Thanks Rob

13 years, 10 months

M9060

by ploopster＠gmail.com

Rob Jarratt wrote: > I have a MicroVAX 3400. It uses quite a lot of power compared to my other > MicroVAXen (about 180-200W). It has an M9060 Load Module installed and I > understand that this is needed to give the power supplies enough load to > work correctly. However, if I have enough stuff already in the machine then > it would seem that this module is just sucking up power needlessly. How much > stuff do you need in the machine to make the M9060 redundant? At the moment > I have a KA640 CPU and a KA655 CPU, two 16MB memory boards a DESQA and the > TK70 controller. I do not yet have any DSSI disks for it, nor do I have a > KFQSA, but the KA640 has DSSI built in. Just remove it and see if the machine stays powered up. Peace... Sridhar

13 years, 10 months

M9060

by arcarlini＠iee.org

Rob Jarratt [robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com] wrote: > I have a MicroVAX 3400. It uses quite a lot of power compared > to my other MicroVAXen (about 180-200W). It has an M9060 Load > Module installed and I understand that this is needed to give > the power supplies enough load to work correctly. However, if > I have enough stuff already in the machine then it would seem > that this module is just sucking up power needlessly. How > much stuff do you need in the machine to make the M9060 > redundant? At the moment I have a KA640 CPU and a KA655 CPU, > two 16MB memory boards a DESQA and the TK70 controller. I do > not yet have any DSSI disks for it, nor do I have a KFQSA, > but the KA640 has DSSI built in. Each of the two PSUs needs to be sufficiently loaded to work and if either is not happy the system shuts down. So if you arrange to have enough load in slots 7-12 you can put the load board to one side for now. However, the CPU and memory need to be in the first few slots (iirc) and I very much doubt that a DESQA and a TQK70 are enough to keep a PSU happy. If you had a KDA50 in there you'd be fine, I would guess. > Incidentally, anyone know why this machine has two PSUs if > they are not (as I have read somewhere) redundant? I assume that there was not a single PSU around that could supply all 12 slots. There are at least two BA200 series enclosures: the 12 slot one you have and a smaller 6 slot one. I assume that a single power brick is enough for the smaller enclosure and that it was simpler to have two power bricks in the bigger enclosure rather than go off and design a more powerful brick. Remember that when these things were new 180W was chicken feed compared to the more powerful machines of the day (like the VAX 6000 series). Antonio

13 years, 10 months

photos from VCF UK etc

by coredump＠gifford.co.uk

Rob Jarratt wrote: >>I suspect the PERQs you >>mentioned were the ones that were in the NMoC anyway > > I failed to find these, and I think they also have a Cray on display, which > I also failed to find. I should have asked someone I suppose. The PERQs and Cray are in the "Scientific Computing" room in H Block. There's a lot of DEC hardware in there, such as VAX, PDP and the like. I think the TU77 tape drive that I took to BP is in that room, too. -- John Honniball coredump at gifford.co.uk

13 years, 10 months

M9060

by glen.slick＠gmail.com

On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 1:08 PM, Rob Jarratt <robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com> wrote: > I have a MicroVAX 3400. It uses quite a lot of power compared to my other > MicroVAXen (about 180-200W). It has an M9060 Load Module installed and I > understand that this is needed to give the power supplies enough load to > work correctly. However, if I have enough stuff already in the machine then > it would seem that this module is just sucking up power needlessly. How much > stuff do you need in the machine to make the M9060 redundant? > > Incidentally, anyone know why this machine has two PSUs if they are not (as > I have read somewhere) redundant? The power planes of a BA213 backplane are split into a left half (slots 7 to 12) and a right half (slots 1 to 6). Each power suppy only supplies its half of the backplane. If you look at the bare backplane there are power bus bars at the top and and bottom of the slots which are visibly split into a left half and a right half. The BA213 Enclosure Maintenance manual (EK-189AA-MG-001) says that a M9060 load module must be installed in one of the backplane slots 7 through 12 if the continuous minimum current drawn on the second power supply is less than 5 amperes. If the minimum current of 5 amperes is not reached, the power supply enters an error mode and shuts down the system.

13 years, 10 months

M9060

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

I have a MicroVAX 3400. It uses quite a lot of power compared to my other MicroVAXen (about 180-200W). It has an M9060 Load Module installed and I understand that this is needed to give the power supplies enough load to work correctly. However, if I have enough stuff already in the machine then it would seem that this module is just sucking up power needlessly. How much stuff do you need in the machine to make the M9060 redundant? At the moment I have a KA640 CPU and a KA655 CPU, two 16MB memory boards a DESQA and the TK70 controller. I do not yet have any DSSI disks for it, nor do I have a KFQSA, but the KA640 has DSSI built in. Incidentally, anyone know why this machine has two PSUs if they are not (as I have read somewhere) redundant? Regards Rob

13 years, 10 months

yet another pdp-11 in fgpa

by bqt＠softjar.se

"Walter F.J. Mueller" <W.F.J.Mueller at gsi.de> wrote: > Hi there, > > Brad Parker just posted about his FPGA implementation of a PDP-11, > which boots so far RT-11, RSTS V4, BSD 2.9 and Unix V6. There was a > question how fast an FPGA solution might be compared to a PDP-11/93. > > I've also implemented a PDP-11 on an FPGA. It is a full 11/70 with > split I&D, MMU and cache. No FPP so far. Available peripherals are so > far DL11, LP11, KW11L, PC11, and RK11. All I/O is channeled over via > 'remote-register-interface' onto a single bi-directional byte stream > interface, so the FPGA board needs a backend PC with a server program > to handle the I/O requests. Cool! Nice! > The design is FPGA proven, runs on Digilent S3 and NEXYS2 boards, the > former with 1 MB 10 ns SRAM, the later with 16 MB 70ns PSDRAM. > > Resource consumption is > S3 board xc3s1000 2471 slices or 33% > NEXYS2 board xc3s1200e 2624 slices or 30% > > The implementation was verified against many XXDP maindec's. There are > some open issues, especially some details of trap and double error > handling aren't correct yet. In practice this is of little importance, > the FPGA system happily boots and runs BSD 2.11, a system using 22bit > addressing and split I&D space. {Note: you need patch 447 for 2.11BSD > to get FPP emulation and RK support working} Any plans on the FPP? It would be really nice and useful to have. As for traps and double errors, feel free to ask. I don't know if I have all the answers, but I might be able to figure them out. Besides, I also have access to one (or three) functional 11/70 machines. > On Performance: The design runs at 50 MHz. I've run parts of the > Byte Unix benchmark on the FPGA systems. Given that the FPP is only > emulated by the 2.11BSD kernel it makes only sense to look at the integer > benchmarks. The Dhrystone benchmark 'dhry2reg' gives about '11500 lps' > on both boards. For comparison see Michael Schneiders page > http://www.vaxcluster.de/mambo/bench2.php?mach=pdp11 which gives about > '830 lps' for a 11/53. There is little Dhrystone difference between > the two boards despite the very different memory access times. The > 8 kB cache with 32 bit cache lines really helps on the NEXYS2 board. The 11/53 is a really slow machine. Not that helpful to compare with. But you seem to push a nice number anyway. But 50MHz... The J11 in an 11/9x machine runs at 20 MHz, which would suggest that you should only be able to push about 2.5 times the performance, unless you do some more clever tricks. (The 11/9x machine runs all memory as cache.) > I'm in the middle of homogenizing some internal interfaces and of some > code cleanup, also the backend handler needs a re-write in C++ (currently > perl). When that's done I'll make the whole package (VHDL sources, test > benches, backend) available on 'OpenCores'. > > Finally a comment to Dave Mitton's remark >> > Now what would be really cool would be to make 4 CPUs and re-create >> > an 11/74 quad. >> > http://www.miim.com/faq/hardware/multipro.html#castor *Sigh* I wonder if anyone is ever going to be able to set Bruce Mitchell right on his facts. CASTOR didn't disappear. I talked with Dave Carroll about it not so many years ago, and the machine was still around, altough at that time with a hardware problem causing it to be down. (There are plenty of other small errors on Bruce Mitchells pages as well, but from my small dealings with him in the past, he don't seem to be interested in listening.) > The reason why I picked a 11/70 and not a J11 as target is because my > goal is a 11/74. I've implemented the IIST already and tested against > the IIST Diagnostic I could find in XXDP (riiab0). A dual core will > fit into a single xc3s1200e of the NEXYS2 board. The work needed is > quite clear and doable (changes on cache, mmu, and cpu core for asrb). > However, I've no plans to implement the CIS, so it will always be a > subset of a 11/74. But for sure fun to do and run. You do know that the J11 is already designed for mP usage, except that DECs testing of that was even more secret than the 11/74? The 11/74 definitely don't need CIS though. I don't think any prototype 11/74 even had it. It was planned for the next generation of the machine, that never got built. Anyway, it was to be an option for the CPU as far as I know. Just as FPP. IIST is needed for RSX to be happy (the only OS that supports the 11/74), and you also need to implement parts of the memory bus behaviour with interlocking. You can ignore the MK11 box CSRs, even though it will look a little funny, but you do need separate DL11s for each CPU core, along with the rest of the I/O bus, or else things will probably not work. The 11/74 is a shared memory machine, but not shared I/O bus. Johnny

13 years, 10 months

Vintage Computer Festival Midwest 5.0 (USA!)

by jack.rubin＠ameritech.net

Vintage Computer Festival comes to Chicago! The fifth edition of VCF Midwest will take place in Chicago (OK, Lombard is a suburb) this fall - join us on September 18 in conjunction with ECCC as we once again coax vintage electrons into motion. The show will run from 8:00 AM on Saturday on into the night, coming to an official close at 1:00 AM Sunday morning. Early setup will be available on Friday evening from 5-6:30 PM, at which time the exhibition area will be locked until the show opens on Saturday morning. In addition to exhibitions of eclectic electronica, we will feature speakers, vendors and a Vince Briel workshop (come ready to homebrew!). Admission is FREE to all whether you come to show, look, build, talk or sell. Exhibitor and session info to follow shortly, but save the date NOW! Join us! Jack Rubin chiclassiccomp Rooms are available at a reduced rate at the adjoining Fairfield Inn. Ask for "ECCC" or "vintage computer" rates. http://marriott.com/property/propertypage/CHIFS Our Facebook Page - http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=137065072974225 ************************************************************** Please feel free to share this information with others who might be interested. Thank you.

13 years, 10 months

photos from VCF UK etc

by jws＠jwsss.com

PDP 8/L about 2 years ago at TRW. everyone was looking at it and marveling at how old it was, and I was counting the 12 front panel switches, and getting out my $1. TRW (Northrup / Grumman, LA)swap meet has a combination of computer users (like me with more than one PC in the house, and potentially a big pile running), HAMs with their junk (sometimes bring in old computer stuff), people dumping tailings from local DMRO (or whatever) sales, or just scrappers with odd bits of stuff. The computer scrap stores around are pretty much gone now, you have to know the scrappers and deal with them. And I"m not talking about "recyclers" though they might yield some things. Jim On 6/22/2010 12:05 AM, Rob Jarratt wrote: > Would you say that a radio rally was a potential good source for computer > equipment for someone who is not interested in radio, or were you just > lucky? I have had a look to see what is on in my area and there is a radio > rally coming up near me quite soon and I am wondering if it would be worth > going along. > > Regards > > Rob

13 years, 11 months

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test-drb June 2010