> From: Jim Stephensn
> I'm looking for a cable or cable pinout to get the console of this
> 11/03 going.
> ...
> It has a M7940-YA DLV11 controller.
Hmm. I can't find anything online about the -YA variant of the DLV11; the
DLV11 prints (MP00055) don't seem to show it.
I don't know exactly wqhat the "extra wires to bring out clock & .. 110/300
speed change" entail - and whether you have to have the right jumpers, etc in
the Berg connector to make it run?
Maybe the easier path would be to buy a different DL-type serial line board
(plain DLV11, DLV11-E, DLV11-F, DLV11-J), they're available on eBait for not
much money, usually - unless you already have one on hand, of course. (Or did
you - for authenticity reasons - _have_ to run the -YA card?)
Those are all a known quantity, pinout-wise; the first three all use the
standard DL11 cable [same as the UNIBUS one, M7800], the last one uses the
smaller header common to the later QBUS machines (e.g. 11/23+, etc).
If you have the Berg female shells and pins (not sure if you do; if not,
definitely worth getting them, since the cables are basically unobtainable,
but fairly easy to make), but don't know the pinout for them, let me know,
and I can supply both null-modem and non-null-modem cable diagrams (for DB25
connectors, already worked out; I have made DB9 serial cables, but not for
direct connection to a DLV11, but could generate those too).
Noel
+2 with Marc !!!!
HP Boards, please, HP boards ;-)
---
L'absence de virus dans ce courrier ?lectronique a ?t? v?rifi?e par le logiciel antivirus Avast.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
Hi all,
I've just emailed Rod Smallwood about a replacement panel, but in the
meantime, I have some chipping and curling at the edges of the panel paint
near the switches which seems to be getting worse and spreading.
Is there a way to seal the curling paint edges to prevent further damage?
perhaps clear nail polish?
thanks,
- Ian
--
Ian Finder
(206) 395-MIPS
ian.finder at gmail.com
> From: Jim Stephensn
> The 9400-YE has the cables that formerly went to the 11-780. I'm not
> sure what it does. ... I'm not sure if the M9400 needs to be pulled or
> not to run the system.
This one I actually can answer, since I've been looking for /780
documentation: found some, but nothing on the hardware config of the console
front end, alas. But I did discover about how the LSI-11 is interfaced to the
VAX!
The M9400-YE is a standard QBUS card for doing QBUS extension boxes; the QBUS
leaves the M9400-YE (at the end of one box) on a couple of cables, which
normally go to a M9401 (the sister card to the M9400) in the first slot of
the next box.
In the /780, the cables from the M9400-YE instead go to a card in the VAX
CPU, an M8236 (the CIB - CPU Console Interface Board, I think). That board
contains i) a bunch of ROM for the LSI-11, and ii) registers which allow the
LSI-11 access to the inside of the /780 CPU - all of which are actually on
the LSI-11's QBUS, logically/electrically.
So, as to the M9400 - you can pull it, or leave it - there are no active
components on it (although it does have termination pull-ups). Do pull the
cables, though - they'd be un-terminated antennas...
> The M9400 seems to possibly be the Floppy boot and some other logic.
There are some versions of the M9400 which contain ROM chips with a
bootstrap. The M9400-YE, which you have, does not have these; it only has the
headers for the cables, and the pull-up resistors.
> The line below that I clipped out, about the M7940-YA is for the
> adjacent card, and has no cable, just the open blue one waiting for an
> IDE cable to the back for serial connections.
Err, it's not an IDE cable, although it is a 40-pin connector; it is used
with special round cables, the wiring of which I described in an earlier
message.
> A post by Tony Duell some years back states that the M7940-YA may have
> both a current loop and RS232 drivers for the port. That ... might
> explain the puzzling extra bit in the Dec module description about
> extra wires.
No, the stock M7940 _already_ has support for both EIA and 20mA; see the
DLV11 prints (MP-00055), pg. 6; the EIA stuff is in the top right-hand
corner, the 20mA in the bottom right-hand.
On that same page, lower left, note the baud rate clock generation; note
that's entirely set by jumpers, so if there's some off-board way to set
it in the M9740-YA, they must have modified this area of the board.
Noel
> From: Jim Stephensn
>> "extra wires to bring out clock & .. 110/300 speed change"
> I am mainly asking if I want to hook up a terminal, can I get it going
> with TD, RD and GND (or 2 3 7 on a DB25), or do I need to loop back any
> of the other pins.
Well, without knowing how those extra pins work, it's very hard to say. Given
that _apparently_ one could change the baud rate externally (which means that
there's something in the cable - or at its other end - to do baud rate
selection), I'd _guess_ that a stock cable probably wouldn't work.
If you find a set of 11/780 prints, that _might_ include the specialized
cable for this beast, but short of that, you're talking signal trace/etc time.
> I have several 4 port DLV boards, but want to go with this as a
> reference. I paid a bit too much for it because it was "working"
Yes, but it doesn't have the cable!
Trust me, swapping to a DLV11-J is a fully known, simple, approach - not like
trying to work with a serial board with an unknown header pinout!
And that 'working' was some decades back! Who knows what the situation is now!
> I don't want to screw it up by replacing cards.
If all you do is replace the M7940 with an M8043 in the same slot, that
shouldn't present a problem (make sure the M8043 is configured properly to be
the console, though; it is, however, very well documented).
> I know even less about loading the backplane than I do about hooking up
> a serial cable.
That's OK, I have recently run both M7940's and M8043's in my QBUS systems
here; they are a straight replacement (albeit using different cables - a
40-pin Berg/DuPont connector on the former, and 10-pin Berg/DuPont on
the second one).
> I was hoping to get some idea whether the correct cable might be
> available from someone on the list first, and buy it, or better, find
> out how to spot them on ebay. I've had a lot of luck with the boards,
> but none with finding listings for cabling.
Like I say, I expect the cable for the M7940-YA is a special item. As for
cables on eBay - fuhgeddabahtit!
Well, that's not quite true: seller 'conflandard' has some console cables for
sale, but I think only DLV11-J/11-23+ type (they are the same cable,
basically - the header pinout on the two cards is the same, the difference is
that the stock 11/23+ cable allows baud rate selection on the back panel -
but an 11/23+ _will_ work with a stock DLV11-J cable, provided the board is
jumpered correctly).
I've _never_ seen a DL11 type cable (with the 40-pin Berg/Du Pont connector)
for sale on eBay - well, not EIA ones. I think someone had an 20mA one for
sale, once.
> and trying the 4 port cards. Most of them came from the cheap scrap
> guy, so I don't know the state of them as well. I've seen some people
> found there were duds in the pile.
_Most_ of the cards I bought from him worked (I haven't been able to try them
all, e.g. I don't have a working UNIBUS machine yet). The one exception was a
DLV11-J on which two of the four serial ports didn't work.
Once you have a working machine/board set, it all becomes much easier, of
course - you can swap boards around and see which ones are working. (If you'd
like, you can send me the DLV11-J, and I'll either send you a known
fully-good one, or test yours and send it back, along with the results. I've
done this for other people here.)
>> I can supply both null-modem and non-null-modem cable diagrams (for
>> DB25 connectors, already worked out; I have made DB9 serial cables,
>> but not for direct connection to a DLV11, but could generate those
>> too).
> I'd love that
OK, let me go unearth the cable diagrams - or I suppose I could just look
at a cable, I have a couple of mostly-finished ones on the workbench at the
moment! :-)
Noel
> From: Johnny Billquist
> I doubt the -YA makes any significant difference here.
> ...
> Note that a -YA normally means it's just a board with a newer revision.
> It do not normally means any change in functionality, except perhaps
> some improvement. But in general totally compatible.
This might be the exception to that rule! Note the description "extra wires to
bring out clock & 110/300 speed change"; if one could in fact change the baud
rate _off the card_, there's probably some special magic in the interface (and
thus the cable). I suggest consulting 11/780 manuals to see how it was used.
Noel
> From: Jim Stephensn
>> I can supply both null-modem and non-null-modem cable diagrams (for
>> DB25 connectors, already worked out; I have made DB9 serial cables,
>> but not for direct connection to a DLV11, but could generate those
>> too).
> I'd love that
OK, here are the bits.
For the 40-pin Berg/DuPont male header, when looking at the _header_ (on the
board) face-on, component-side up, pin A is in the lower left corner; they
then follow the 'DEC Alphabet' (What, you don't have this memorized? For
working with DEC gear, it's mandatory: 'ABCDEFHJKLMNPRSTUVWXYZ' - G, I, O and
Q are dropped), and then repeated, AA-VV.
For the 40-pin connector (M7800 DL11, M7940 DLV11):
A - Ground
B - Ground
E - Interlock IN
F - EIA Serial Output
J - EIA Serial Input
M - EIA Interlock OUT
So for a 'normal' serial cable (i.e. DTE, male DB25), connect J to pin 3, and
F to 2. For a 'null modem' serial cable (i.e. DCE, female DB25), connect J to
pin 2, and F to pin 3. Grounds connect to pins 1/7. Pin E must be connected
to M. For other signals, consult the DL11 User's Manual (DEC-11-HDLAA-B-D),
it has a full table.
For the 10-pin header, when looking at the _header_ face-on, component-side
up, pin 1 is in the upper right corner; pin 6 is missing (interlock), and 10
is in the lower left.
For the 10-pin connector (M8043 DLV11-J, M8189 11/23+, M8190 11/83-84):
1 - Clock input
2 - Ground
3 - Transmit +
4 - Transmit -
5 - Ground
6 - Index
7 - Receive -
8 - Receive +
9 - Ground
10 - +12V
It's set up to do either differential, or single-sided; the usual EIA usage
is to ground the - side of the received data, so you can run single-sided. So
for a cable _with_ null modem (i.e. DCE, to a female DB25), you want to
connect:
Header DB25 Signal
2 7 Ground
3 3 Transmit Data
7 Loopback IN
8 2 Receive Data
9 Loopback OUT
For a normal DTE cable (to male DB25), swap pins 2 and 3 on the DB25 in
the list above.
I don't have notes for the cables to a DB9, to connect up directly to a PC's
serial input port, but if you want, they are pretty easy to put together a
list for.
(I did make a female-female DB9-DB9 cable, with null modem built in, to test
my serial line program, so I have the pinout for those too - just no PDP-11
direct to PC cables; I had a stack of DB25 to DB9 adaptors that I bought on
eBait, and I wanted all my PDP-11 cables wired to DB25's, so I'd be able to
interconnect -11's easily.)
Noel
> From: Henk Gooijen
> As far as my limited PDP-11 knowledge goes, none of them used
> handshake.
I'm pretty sure this is true of all the ones that had a hardwired serial
console - it's definitely true of the 11/23 and J11 chip ones (/73, etc), and
probably the 11/03's too (although it's been 30+ years since I used one of
those, so don't hold me to that :-).
> So, Rxd, TxD and GND is all you need to connect.
Errq, many of them _require_ a loop-back between a pair of pins on the
Berg/DuPont connector to operate - this is true of the DL11 (M7800 - UNIBUS),
DLV11 (M7940 - QBUS), DLV11-J (M8043) and 11/23+, for instance), and probably
the 11/83-84 too. So just connecting up R, X, and Gnd alone won't do it.
> Also, common (?) is *no* parity.
That, and number of bits, I have no idea about - we always changed things to
our local standard (8 bits, no parity, 2 stop bits, IIRC) straight away. Best
to check the hardware, and see what it's set to, and either set it to what
you're using, or change what you're plugging into it to match.
Noel
Those interested can download schematics for the ACI90 / WD9000 PascalMicroengine from my FTP site :
ftp.dreesen.ch/WD9000
You might notice sheet 5 missing, that is just the pinout of the PCB edge connector.
AFAIK these are not available elsewhere. More to follow whenever I get around to it.
And then around 100 / 150 8" floppies to image....
Jos Dreesen
