Does anyone recognize the (presumably) DEC power supply on the front half of
the rack-bottom in the 11/44 listing at:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/363640137050
Blurry photo, but it looks like there are a 4x3, a 3x3, and a 3x5 Molex
connector, and two brown mini-modules protruding from the right side.
If so, then what purpose did it likely serve?
It appears that the 6U immediately below the 11/44 was likely occupied by an
RX02 given the presence of an M8256 in the 11/44 backplane (and skinny
mounting rails, although I thought those were usually at the bottom of the
RX02), and that included its own power supply (which wasn't very beefy
either, nor did it need to be).
What went into the 6U immediately above the power supply is unclear; there
is a HEX Wespercorp TC130 Tape Controller as well as three unknown QUAD
modules in the 11/44 backplane. Perhaps there was a horizontal autoload
tape drive mounted there that required a separate power supply?
Curious!
paul
I am trying to format a couple of SCSI drives on the Alpha.? They are
connected using the external cable and are mounted in an Open Storage
Systems (OSS) box. The drives were working when removed from a PC.
SRM shows only one of them coming up as DKA200.? I have set the two
drive ID switches to 2 and 3.
Lack of info is hampering me, I have gleaned form various sources that
the following command should work:
>>>t scsi format a 2 0
which just returns
>>>OK
immediately, without doing anything.
VMS allows me to ini the disk, but then when I try to mount it, I get an
operator services message saying it is offline, please mount volume in
_$3$dka200:
Anybody with experience here?
cheers,
Nigel
--
Nigel Johnson, MSc., MIEEE, MCSE VE3ID/G4AJQ/VA3MCU
Amateur Radio, the origin of the open-source concept!
Skype: TILBURY2591 nw.johnson at ieee.org
Power Supplies, due to their Weight, are placed at the bottom of Racks (prevent tip overs ? weight distribution).
https://avitech.com.au/?page_id=366
The PDP-11/70 Maintenance and Installation Manual (EK-11070-MM-002) explains that the basic PDP-11/70 system components are located in a double cabinet as shown in Figure 1-1 of that manual.
https://i0.wp.com/avitech.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/major-assemblie…
greg
> Date: Sat, 4 Dec 2021 19:28:01 -0800
> From: Marc Howard <cramcram at gmail.com>
> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org>
> Subject: Need picture of power supply mounted in 11/40 cabinet
>
> Hi,
>
> I've got an 11/40 I'm going to start working on. Problem is that there are
> two power supplies (H742 and H7420) that came with it but neither was
> mounted in the rack.
>
> Could someone post/send/etc. photos of how the power supply mounts in the
> rack? Also how is the power cabling routed (I think I'm missing this part)?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Marc Howard
I am in need of some disk cartridge storage racks. The kinds I am
looking for are the ones used for front-loading cartridges (IBM 2315,
DEC RK05, etc.) as well as the ones for top-loading cartridges (IBM
5440, DEC RL02, etc.).
They were typically made of welded wire, and stored the cartridges
on edge. I could use either the free-standing ones that sit on a shelf,
or the ones that were designed to go in a Wrightline cabinet.
I am in northwest Oregon and am willing to drive anywhere in the
neighboring states to pick them up, or pay for packing and shipping.
Thanks,
Alan Frisbie
I've been trying to fixup NetBSD to build usable X servers from up to
date Xorg for Alpha and MIPS based DECstations, and wondered if anyone
on list had any machines to hand on which they might be willing to
test?
There is a full distribution (individual set files and bootable ISO
image) in http://sync.absd.org/xwsfb/ - the README from that directory
is included below.
If anything is non obvious, or it would help to have test images in a
different format, just let me know
Thanks
David
xwsfb - v1.2
This contains wsfb Xorg builds for NetBSD/pmax and NetBSD/alpha from
2021-12-03 sources
Changes from stock NetBSD tree:
- Add WSDISPLAYIO_GET_FBINFO to dev/tc TURBOchannel display adaptors
- Enable building Xwsfb X server for pmax
- Switch alpha from Xorg 1.10 to 1.20 (plus tweaked bsd_ev56 from 1.10)
- (diffs in xwsfb.diff)
Things to test:
- Any and all framebuffers, TURBOchannel (and also PCI on alpha)
- Confirm if keyboard mapping is correct (and does console match x11)
- Does uxterm work on alpha
pmax issues:
- uxterm and LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 in general do not work
- Escape does not work on gxemul console (not a regression from stock)
To install and test pmax in gxemul
- Install gxemul :) - eg pkgsrc/emulators/gxemul
- Create a 2GB disk image: dd if=/dev/zero of=pmax.img bs=1m count=2048
- Run: gxemul -X -M 256 -e 3max -d pmax.img -d b:NetBSD-9.99.92-pmax.iso
- Follow prompts to install
- At the end - select 'Add a user' and make sure it is added to wheel
- Exit and halt
- Run: gxemul -X -M 256 -e 3max -d pmax.img (wait ~forever for fontcache)
- Login as root, edit /etc/X11/ctwm/system.ctwmrc and change "uxterm" to "xterm"
- Run: startx
- Optionally: (if user is in wheel group), enable xdm=YES in /etc/rc.conf
To upgrade an existing NetBSD-9.99.92 install
- Ensure you have the following from this location (where arch is alpha or pmax)
- ${arch}/binary/kernel/netbsd-GENERIC.gz
- ${arch}/binary/sets/xbase.tgz
- ${arch}/binary/sets/xcomp.tgz
- ${arch}/binary/sets/xetc.tgz
- ${arch}/binary/sets/xfont.tgz
- ${arch}/binary/sets/xserver.tgz
- Copy /netbsd to /onetbsd, then extract netbsd-GENERIC.gz as /netbsd
- Wipe /usr/X11R7 then extract x*tgz from /
- For pmax only: edit /etc/X11/ctwm/system.ctwmrc & change "uxterm" to "xterm"
- Run: startx
- Optionally: (if user is in wheel group), enable xdm=YES in /etc/rc.conf
Can we please return to discussions of actual classic computers, before our
long-suffering list host shuts the list down _again_ for this sort of
argument, this time perhaps forever? Thank you.
Noel
Anyone sitting on a pile of these or know where to find some? These were
originally Dialco 507-3917 or Drake 11-507 based on what was installed in
mine. 24V, 40mA, white.
A total of 23 bulbs were dead on my TC01's panel. I've installed a pile of
electrically/physically compatible bulbs that I happened to have, but
they're yellow/orange and have a different visual design (the yellow lens
sticks out 1/8" or so, whereas the orginals were flush). I'm honestly fine
with using them but it'd be nice to have something that looks original.
And a small progress update: Found that the IOT decode for READ STATUS B
wasn't working, which is done on the W103 decoder at E/F19. With that
resolved the diagnostics are behaving much more rationally. This took me
much too long to trace down, but I learned a lot about how the controller
works and found a fun (but ultimately harmless) bug in the Basic Exerciser
diagnostic that threw me off for a couple of days...
The Search Scope loop diagnostic shows block numbers going by in both
directions so a lot of the drive and controller are working, but there's
some glitchiness in bits 2, 5, 8, and 11 of the data so I need to trace
that down; I hope it's not the tape head.
- Josh
A very, very long time ago, when dinosaurs still roamed the earth (or at least the computer rooms) there was a guy on usenet who called himself "Altair Bob" and offered to buy Altair computers. This was back when they weren't worth all that much (mid to late 1980s). He must have bought a dozen or so (as I remember). Does anybody know who he really was and what became of his (what I'm assuming was a) collection?
Just idle curiosity brought on by a recent discussion of collections being destroyed by widows.
Bill S.
--
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
I've decided it's time to fix my second pdp8/L. First one is missing (I
think it's at the bottom of the closet) so I'll work on this one for awhile.
First problem: Testing the lamps and switches. If the switches don't
work or the lamps are out it's not going to be easy to troubleshoot.
Currently I'm missing 5 of the plastic switches, and I have 2-3 switches
with a broken pivot.
Since I was going to need new plastic switch covers I fired up the 3d
printer, downloaded the STL file for making them (thank you for putting
that up!) and ran off a few for testing. It helps a lot to set the
bridge angle value to 60% or so, that allows a nice solid bridge for the
two "teeth" that engage the rocker switch. Also don't bother with PLA:
The plastic pivots are too weak and break pretty quickly. Use PETG,
which requires higher heat (240 instead of 200 at the head and 70
instead of 60 at the base) but it is more than strong enough for the
pivots to go in without issues.
Testing the switches I found that one of the data/address switches was
reading high ohmage (20) when closed in the down direction and two of
the data entry (spring loaded) switches were intermittent. Sprayed in a
bit of Deoxit, and they now switch cleanly and without bounce. That
would probably have driven me crazy if I tried to test with that.
Next step: Check out the power supply.....
C
