test-drb March 2018

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

158 participants
173 discussions

by decguy＠songdog.eskimo.com

The new sysadmin at work is clearing out closets full of junk^H^H^H^H cool old stuff accumulated by the previous sysadmin. There's a big carton full of PATA hard disks. Most of them are in the 4.3 GB - 20 GB range, a few larger, a few smaller. Anyone have any use for these? You can have them for the cost of shipping, or free for local pickup in Bothell, WA. They're going to be recycled as scrap if I don't find a home for them.

6 years, 8 months

Instruction video on laserdisk

by ed＠groenenberg.net

Today I received a PDP-11 instruction video on a laser disk, part 3 & 4. The disk partno. is EY-5537E-V2-0001, the title says 'Introduction to the PDP-11, Internal use Only, (c) 1988' Besides that, no indication if the video stream is NTSC or PAL. Anybody have a clou? I want to have the disk read and put the video on youtube eventually. Ed -- Ik email, dus ik besta.

6 years, 8 months

DEC BA213 and BA213 S-boxes?

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

Hi, All, Watching some of the recent traffic about what newer Qbus boards will and won't work with 2.11BSD, I've remembered a thing I was once looking for. Back when I did DEC hardware for a living, we stopped buying new stuff after we got a MicroVAX-II. As such, I have plenty of LSI-11 to KA630 parts but very little from after that era. I do happen to have 2-3 boards with S-box handles including a KDF-11 CPU and a SCSI card, a great start to a system. What I don't have is the enclosure. I have a BA123 "World Box" and it's great. I know a BA213 is roughly the same size, but I've never had one. The BA215 looks more interesting to me as a match for size and power requirements (1 PSU and 6 slots, half the BA213) but I've never even seen a BA215. Anyone here have much experience with the BA215? Any "gotchas"? So far, from my looking on eBay, I think I spotted one loaded as a VAX. I'm more interested in setting mine up as a PDP-11, so the VAX end of one is not exactly a selling point to me. An empty box would do just as nicely. I'd say 80% of my Qbus work has been with two boxes, the BA-11N and the BA-23, thus all the S-box questions. Thanks for any tips, tidbits and stories. -ethan

6 years, 8 months

DEC 3000 (alpha) faultfinding

by cruff＠ruffspot.net

According to the 21066 HRM, the processor loads its initial I-stream from the SROM. All Icache bits are loaded from the SROM, including the cache block metadata. The blocks are loaded in sequential order starting with block 0 and ending with block 255. For the 20166, the Icache is loaded LSB first filling from left to right (i.e. bit 0 of LW0 will be the first bit loaded). This is the resulting order of each cache block: BHT LW7 LW5 LW3 LW1 V ASM ASN TAG LW6 LW4 LW2 LW0 I thought I had some code do unmultiplex each bit stream from an SROM image and then reconstruct the resulting memory image, but I can't find it or I just thought about doing that.

6 years, 8 months

Looking for opinions...

by useddec＠gmail.com

There are probably no perfect answers to this problem. I am looking for opinions, not criticism. I do not want to start arguments, nor get anyone here, especially Jay, pissed off. I found a stack of DEC microfiche a few nights ago. It's probably about 12 inches tall, and contains PM Procedures, IPBs, Manuals, Tech Info, and several type of Logistics, BOMs, vendors, etc which I will deal with later. Most of it is "company confidential", not that it matters anymore. The bulk of my microfiche is still missing. Several months ago there was a discussion here about breaking up sets. this is not a "set". It is made up of bunches found in different places at different times. I'm guessing a "set" of this would be an inch or two thick. My short list of options for disposal are as follows in order of current preference are: 1 Sort to get several sizable sets, sell the rest as partials. A LOT of sorting 2 Take requests to cherry pick, and sell as few smaller sets. Still a LOT of sorting. 3 Call Al. Oh, he gets a crack at whatever he needs anyway. 4 Sell it as a lot 5 Sell on e-pay. 6 Put it back where I found it. The first 3 are going to take a lot of time. Thanks in advance, Paul

6 years, 8 months

Instruction video on laserdisk

by commodorejohn＠gmail.com

I don't know where you're located, but I'm in the US and have an NTSC Laserdisc player. If someone can hook me up with a video capture card, I'd be happy to copy the video for you.

6 years, 8 months

How to set DZ11 line speeds under RT-11 V4?

by fritzm＠fritzm.org

Hi all, I've now had some success getting MU-BASIC configured and running on multiple terminals under RT-11 V4 in simh, with a hardware configuration similar to that in my real PDP-11/45. I have a serial console + DZ11 in both configurations. When SYSGEN-ing RT-11 V4, the only speed initialization options offered for the DZ11 lines are 110 or 300 baud. Is there a utility or incantation which will allow me to reconfigure these after RT-11 is booted? I scanned the RT-11 V4 docs last night, but came up empty (there is an "unsupported" SPEED.SAV in the distribution, but it looks like it only works with PDTs, and I couldn't find anything tucked away in the SET command or other places either). It looks like I could write some MACRO code to try and set this using the .MTGET/.MTSET programmed requests, but I thought I'd ask here in case there is some known prefab way to do this that I missed looking through the docs? cheers, --FritzM.

6 years, 8 months

RL02 Question

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Aaron Jackson > I have tried three controllers, two r/w modules and two servo > controllers. I'm beginning to think the drive is fine and there is a > problem with the RLV21 controller. Err, think you mean RLV12 QBUS controller board, right? Anyway, you've already tried ("three controllers") swapping that out? If you have, perhaps there's a problem with a cable and/or the terminator? However, at this point, sub-system swapping is probably not going to be the best way to make progress. I think you're going to have to actually debug the problem; i.e. dive in and work out what's happening wrong, and why, and trace it back to the origin. Luckily, for this generation (and before), DEC produced wonderful technical manuals, which go into full detail of how the thing works. With that in hand, the investigative process is a lot easier; you don't have to work out how the thihg works by looking at the prints, it's all laid out in detail. And tech manuals for both the RL02 drive and RLV12 controller (EK-RLV12-TD-001) are available online, as are the prints (MP01282 for the RLV12). So, I'd sit down with the RLV12 tech man and read through the section on the drive<->controller bus (section 3.3). Then start looking at what the two are saying to each other on the bus, and figure out what's actually going wrong. >From there, you'll know where the source of the problem is, and can chase it further. I know this sounds like it would be time-consuming, but when you think about the time/energy you've already put into swapping things around, chasing this problem, it won't be. Noel

6 years, 8 months

towards a working PDP: Anyone has a PDP 11/35 or PDP11/40 panel for $$$ to offer?

by p.gebhardt＠ymail.com

Hello all, As I never came across a complete unit of an early PDP-11 with lights-and-switches console, I decided 5-6 years ago to figure out, if I can't build one of out of different parts. It seemed possible to get there if I focus on parts for a 11/35 or 11/40. 5 years ago, I came accross a backplane for such as system. Two years later, I was lucky to purchase an almost complete board set (one board missing, the M7232) from another classic computer enthusiast. Last year, I got a BA11-F chassis with the power supply. Over all those years, I looked out for a 11/35 or 11/40 panel (KY11-D), but I never was lucky to come accross one.On epay US, somebody is offering the plain PCB, but the seller says that he cannot ship to Europe :-( My frustation pushes me now to ask, if anybody on this list has such a panel with the electronics board that he would consider to offer me for some $$$ to help me building a complete machine? I don't mind the panel color, e.g., if it's from a front-end PDP-11 of some bigger DEC system, or if the silkscreen is damaged or even missing. It would be great for me to get an early PDP-11 up and running and connect it to peripherals such as an RK07 that are in my collection.? I am located in Germany. Contact me off-list, if you have something to offer, please.? Best regards,Pierre ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pierre's collection of classic computers moved to: http://www.digitalheritage.de

6 years, 8 months

Identifying an aluminum panel

by kylevowen＠gmail.com

I feel like I should know what this panel goes to...I found it in my garage when cleaning up. Any ideas? http://i.imgur.com/u4LMNqE.jpg Thanks, Kyle

6 years, 8 months

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test-drb March 2018