test-drb

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101090 discussions

Solid State Disk replacement for RD53, 54, RK05, RL02/02

by spedraja＠ono.com

I would be interested. I got one PDP-11/23 PLUS. If someone develops it for one PDP8E I got one too. Regards Sergio 2010/3/10 Rob Jarratt <robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com> > There was a thread recently on the comp.sys.dec newsgroup which ended up > with the suggestion from David Riley that he would be prepared to build an > FPGA-based board with a QBUS interface on one side and an SD interface on > the other which anyone could then program to emulate any disk/controller > they like. I have been in touch with him to see how much interest he has > had, because he needs a minimum number of about 10 to make it viable, but > so > far there has only been me and one other person showing an interest. David > reckons they would come to a little over $200 each (possibly less if there > is more interest). David is not yet on cctalk so he agreed to let me > cross-post this to cctalk on his behalf, but I have cc'd him so you can > reply direct. > > Regards > > Rob >

16 years, 1 month

Wirewrap boards update

by cclist＠sydex.com

Steve, it's hard to tell. Are all of these boards used? If not, I may be interested in one. Cutting wire out of one of these is a very tedious job! Anyone have any quick-and-dirty suggestions? Thanks, Chuck

16 years, 1 month

Solid State Disk replacement for RD53, 54, RK05, RL02/02

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk- > bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Rob Jarratt > Sent: 10 March 2010 21:49 > To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' > Cc: 'David Riley' > Subject: Solid State Disk replacement for RD53, 54, RK05, RL02/02 > > There was a thread recently on the comp.sys.dec newsgroup which ended > up > with the suggestion from David Riley that he would be prepared to build > an > FPGA-based board with a QBUS interface on one side and an SD interface > on > the other which anyone could then program to emulate any > disk/controller > they like. I have been in touch with him to see how much interest he > has > had, because he needs a minimum number of about 10 to make it viable, > but so > far there has only been me and one other person showing an interest. > David > reckons they would come to a little over $200 each (possibly less if > there > is more interest). David is not yet on cctalk so he agreed to let me > cross-post this to cctalk on his behalf, but I have cc'd him so you can > reply direct. > > Regards > > Rob As David is currently unable to post to the list he has asked me to post the following on his behalf: ------------- So it seems there's at least quite a bit of discussion generated about the board. For those curious, here are the major design points (LONG email ahead): - The main QBUS interface (before the buffers) will be an FPGA (Altera Cyclone III EP3C16 at this point, for cost, but the same footprint will fit a 3C25 or 3C40 as well). This FPGA should be large enough to fit even rather complex devices fairly handily (you can make a soft-core 32-bit processor in less than 1k logic elements, and a 3C16 has 16k). This is, of course, assuming you build it all in the FPGA fabric; you don't have to because... - The FPGA will be bolted to the bus (16-bit, of course) of a Freescale MCF5208. This is a ColdFire (68k architecture) which runs at 166 MHz (88 MHz external bus) and also contains a 10/100 Ethernet controller. The controller requires an external PHY, but this is actually an advantage; by connecting the processor's MII to both a real 10/100 PHY and the FPGA, we can provide both RJ45 for straight-up Ethernet connections and build an MII-to-AUI bridge in the FPGA (not a day's work, for sure, but certainly doable). This means you could use this as a replacement DELQA if you have a cable kit for the external AUI connector; connect to thick/thinnet, etc. Alternatively, you could stream hard disk/tape images from a remote file server. Of course, it'll have a handful of serial consoles. In theory, you could make a CPU board with SLUs and all 4 MB RAM out of the FPGA, but this would be an extensive design effort. As to whomever asked for a clock, that should work as well. Anything you can do with a QBUS card can be done on the FPGA, it's just a matter of how much work you want to put into it. :-) I currently have 32 MB RAM and 4 MB flash slated for the processor (the processor should read the FPGA image off the SD card). - My vision for the basic build of the FPGA would actually be to just provide an interrupt-based bus interface for the processor. If the processor defines apertures for the CSRs and uses an ISR to provide the data for the reads and the writes, a 166MHz processor ought to be able to respond quickly enough to make for a fairly speedy card. If that's not enough performance, one can always implement the device in the actual FPGA fabric (if one is good with FPGAs, which can take a while for people who aren't hardware designers). Additionally, we should be able to support multiple "virtual" cards in a single board; the only limitation is the number of apertures that will fit nicely in the FPGA and the overhead of the software running on processor. At least 4 should be easily achievable. A simple DMA controller in the FPGA would go a long way towards making the performance of mass storage acceptable (processor DMAs into FPGA, FPGA DMAs into QBUS, or vice versa). This means that even software-only people should be able to implement the devices in an emulator-like fashion (without excluding the possibility of actual FPGA implementations). - Since the Coldfire is 68k and has excellent GCC support, it can be programmed entirely with Free Software. The actual hardware to program it costs $80 standalone (more or less; depends on who's building it), but most of that is assembly and PCB costs. I could integrate the same hardware onto the board for an additonal $5 or so instead. The FPGA can be programmed entirely with Altera's free (not to be confused with Free) Web Edition version of Quartus, but to program it you need either a) a $75 JTAG cable to program it or b) something running on the ColdFire to program the FPGA image (which will be the default mode on boot). The JTAG cable gives you the advantage of running the FPGA-based logic analyzer. - And of course, yes, it will be a fully open architecture. I'm using KiCAD (FOSS) to do the schematic and layout. Anyone should be able to make the board if they want, but it'll be expensive for small runs. For those of you who think $200 each is in the stratosphere, here's my current (rough) BOM at two different run sizes: Part Description Qty Price at 10 Price at 25 ------------------------------------------------------------------ EP3C16E144C8N FPGA (EQFP-144) 1 26.70 26.70 DP83848 10/100 PHY 1 4.29 3.50 SST39VF3201 2M x 16 NOR flash 1 3.61 3.61 IS43R16160B-6 16M x 16 DDR RAM 1 6.00 5.40 EN5335QI DC-DC converter 3 5.51(16.53) 5.41(16.23) SN74AS641DW Octal bus xcvr 4 4.80(19.20) 4.04(16.16) J0026D21ENL RJ45 w/magnetics 1 4.825 4.825 Assembly aapcb.com, 50 parts 1 47.00 39.80 PCB 4pcb.com 1 72.44 36.26 --------------------------------------------------------------- Total 200.59 152.48 This doesn't include the scads of little resistors and capacitors and a few other cheap parts I'd need to place, which while very cheap may drive the cost of assembly up. The PCB pricing is for a 5.3" x 8.4" board, 1 edge gold fingers, 4 layers, controlled stackup (There are too many high-speed buses on this thing to risk a 2-layer board and no controlled impedance). Eliminating the gold fingers only brings the price down about $10. My $200 figure was a sort of back-of-the envelope calculation (I hadn't made out a detailed costed BOM yet). The cost is still subject to change, and a number of the parts (particularly the MCF5208) are long-lead (14 weeks and no stock anywhere). Most pricing was done at Mouser except for the components I couldn't find there (the PHY and the FPGA, and the RJ45 was cheaper at DK), which came from Digi-Key. This also doesn't include the AUI transceiver buffering, which I haven't yet worked out, and I still haven't 100% finalized the arrangement of the QBUS buffers (as it is, I'll be using transistors for a few of them since the signals don't all fit nicely in the mold of a '245-style transceiver like the 74AS641). Also, someone mentioned nonstandard thickness. As far as I was aware, the boards were 62 mils, but I haven't measured (and couldn't find a reference anywhere, and don't have a micrometer). Anyone know otherwise? In any case, I hope this answers a number of the questions out there. My plan is to implement the basic FPGA hardware mentioned as well as an implementation of the software stack for at least a few of the controller cards I have in my possession. The user end (serial console) of the processor should be able to load board personalities from the SD card as well, so setting up a repository of personalities (if others develop any) would be the way to go there.

16 years, 1 month

calculating electricity costs

by cfox1＠cogeco.ca

At 11:32 AM 3/11/2010, you wrote: >Suppose my power company claims that the charge is $0.02407 per >killowatt/hour. If I have a computer (or anything) that draws maybe 100 >watts. that should be 0.1kw/h x 0.02407 x 24 hours = 5.7768 cents per day >or $1.73 a month. I've been under the impression for quite some time that >it costs $20 a month to run a typical modern desktop computer 24 hours a day >for a month. I know there are taxes and fees thrown into the power bill. >But what's wrong with my math? Was I wrong before or am I wrong now? I got >this kw/h price from the power company web site burried in a pdf somewhere. >It looked like the right price to me. Maybe the actual charge is much >higher? > >brian > >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG - www.avg.com >Version: 9.0.733 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2736 - Release Date: >03/11/10 02:33:00 I don't know how things are where you are located, but in good old Windsor Ontario my electricity bill for an unoccupied apartment was as follows: Electricity: 33.206 kWh @0.058 / kWh $ 1.93 Delivery $ 12.65 Regulatory charges $ 0.46 Debt retirement charges $ 0.22 GST $ 0.77 TOTAL $ 16.03 Cheers Charlie Fox

16 years, 1 month

Pistol fired on Olympic honour campaign for Turing • The Register

by woyciesjes＠sbcglobal.net

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/10/turing_olympic_tribute_idea/ -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- ICQ# 905818 --- AIM - woyciesjes --- CompTIA A+ Certified IT Tech - http://certification.comptia.org/ --- HDI Certified Support Center Analyst - http://www.ThinkHDI.com/ Registered Linux user number 464583 "From there to here, From here to there, Funny things are everywhere." --- Dr. Seuss

16 years, 1 month

Solid State Disk replacement for RD53, 54, RK05, RL02/02

by bqt＠softjar.se

"e.stiebler" <emu at e-bbes.com> wrote: > Dave McGuire wrote: >>> >> OTOH, they old ones show up on ebay frequently, and they are not that >>> >> expensive. >> > Not that expensive? I call $100-200 for a Qbus card pretty pricey. >> > Unibus models go for many hundreds, upwards of $1000. > > Sorry, but the new one want be cheaper than that. That's why I don't > call them expensive. Indeed. If we talk $200 just for the board, and then you still have do develop the firmware, then $200 for a actual, already tested and proven SCSI controller is cheap. And new SCSI disks can still be bought as well. And while not dirt cheap perhaps, they are still not that expensive. Especially since you are not interested in several hundred gig drives for a PDP-11 anyway. Someone else asked about differences between a RQDX1 and RQDX3, from a software point of view. There is none, except in the irrelevant parts, such as the identity given by the controller, and version numbers and so on. The controllers are both MSCP. In fact, they are no different (either of them) from a KDA50, or UDA50 for that matter. Or any other MSCP controller. That's the whole point of MSCP. The controller always present the same interface to the computer. What it does on the other side is hidden. So, in fact, the device driver is the same for all these controllers, in all operating systems. MSCP is a great concept. Just wish it had survived. But, as with many DEC designs - they were technically wonderful, but they weren't PC. And PC became the de facto standard. No matter how lousy the hardware was/is. Johnny

16 years, 1 month

Solid State Disk replacement for RD53, 54, RK05, RL02/02

by bqt＠softjar.se

"Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote: > On Wed, 10 Mar 2010, e.stiebler wrote: > >> > Zane H. Healy wrote: >> > >>>> >>> OTOH, they old ones show up on ebay frequently, and they are not that >>>> >>> expensive. >>> >> >>> >> What "old ones" show up on eBay? >> > >> > The "usual" suspects like cmd, dilog, emulex ? >> > OK, in all honesty I didn't check for more than a year, but they showed up >> > before, that's why I canceled my design ... > > Okay, old 3rd party disk controllers. The problem with these is that they > also require old hard drives. I'm also slightly surprised to hear mention > of CMD controllers that aren't expensive, but then I've not looked for such > things in years. Huh? New SCSI disks works just as well. The biggest problem might be that some OSes gets confused by really big disks. With RSX for instance, the device driver used to have a bug so that disks larger than 8 Gig didn't work right. The size got masked to 24 bits... With M+ 4.6, the system instead caps the disk size at 8 Gig if the disk is larger, unless you switch to 32 bit LBNs. The only other problem with SCSI disks is that you might need to get adapters for the old style 50 pin connectors. However, as long as we talk plain SCSI, and not differential, or something else odd, it is still just fine being backward compatible... > My PDP-11's are using 1" High 3.5" SCSI Hard Drives, it does wonders for the > noise level, and helps with the power consumption, but I'm honestly a bit > worried about their long term viability. At least I have a much larger > supply of SCSI drives I can use than I do MFM Hard Drives (and yes, I have a > few of those, and a couple ESDI drives). I'm using second, or if it is third generation storage work disks for my machines. Blue boxes. Pretty. And I can put seven of them in one unit. Actually, I only have five in there, along with a DAT-3 tape unit, and an Exabyte externally. > Of course the other thing I worry about is power supplies. In fact that's > what I've been loosing VMS boxes to. :-( Power supplies for the PDP-11s? Yes, that is always a possible problem... And a bigger one than disks, I'd say. Johnny

16 years, 1 month

General discussion of wire wrapping, was: AWG 30 stripping tools

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

I've got 3 different size wire wrapping tools. My ICT1301 uses monster wire wrap posts, most of which are made in two halves. One half is part of a printed (or some are hand wired) circuit board and the other half is part of the rack it fits in. Bare 25 AWG tinned copper wire is wrapped around the two halves, up to 25 for each board to connect the board to the rack. No tails going off anywhere else. To swap a board all the wire wraps need to be undone before the board can be slid out. It does mean every logic pin is easily accessible for fault finding, and each one has a little hook for the scope probe to hang from. The solid one are used for connecting the cabinets together, same size tool but using sleeving on the wire. Up to 1500 connections between racks. There are ten electronic cabinets, not counting the two power supply and twelve peripherals cabinets. The tool fits in the smallest size of Stanley 'yankee' spiral ratchet screwdriver. Clockwise to wrap, anti-clockwise to unwrap. I also have a similar slightly smaller one for back plane wiring of later ICL mainframes. Uses smaller pins and smaller wire otherwise identical. The third one is the more modern standard wire wrap for integrated circuits. I'm currently using it to build a serial/parallel interface to my 1301 using 74 series TTL and a few C/N MOS chips. At work I used to have a tool for this from RS components which had a wrapper on one end and unwrapper the other end and a stripper in the middle. This has probably been chucked away and a replacement is incredibly expensive so I'm making do with wire stripping pliers and a much simpler wrapping tool I bought over the internet from the states along with a half dozen colours of insulated wire.

16 years, 1 month

Solid State Disk replacement for RD53, 54, RK05, RL02/02

by healyzh＠aracnet.com

On Wed, 10 Mar 2010, Rob Jarratt wrote: > There was a thread recently on the comp.sys.dec newsgroup which ended up > with the suggestion from David Riley that he would be prepared to build an > FPGA-based board with a QBUS interface on one side and an SD interface on > the other which anyone could then program to emulate any disk/controller > they like. I have been in touch with him to see how much interest he has > had, because he needs a minimum number of about 10 to make it viable, but so > far there has only been me and one other person showing an interest. David > reckons they would come to a little over $200 each (possibly less if there > is more interest). David is not yet on cctalk so he agreed to let me > cross-post this to cctalk on his behalf, but I have cc'd him so you can > reply direct. > > Regards > > Rob > I think it would be useful to include the RD51 and RD52 in the list of supported drives. I believe it is MicroRSTS/E which expects something like an RD51 or RD52 for a system disk. Additionally would such a board support hardware partitioning? Something like the old Webster WQESD/04 EDSI boards where you can partition a drive into multiple drives that appear to be seperate physical drives to the OS? This is especially useful when running multiple OS's on the same hardware. This is something I would definitely be interested in, especially if the price is right. Another thought is, would it be possible to have it include a system clock on the same board? Zane

16 years, 1 month

AWG 30 stripping tools

by js＠cimmeri.com

On Mar 10, 2010, at 8:19 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> I've been using a Roadrunner pen since my supply of (cheap) wire-wrap >> >> sockets dried up. Similar idea, but with enamelled copper wire >> instead. You wrap the wire round a socket pin or component lead 2 >> or 3 >> times, then solder it, run it to the next lead, wrap, solder and >> carry >> on. > > Didn't Vector have a system that used tefzel-insulated wire called > "Slit-N-Wrap" that used a wiring pen with a little spool of wire on > top? I've seen tefzel wire offered on eBay, but it always seems to > be tinned, not silverplated. From: Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> Yeah, I remember those ads. "Slit-N-Wrap...don't Just Wrap and wonder if the post cut the insulation". They were competing with the Just Wrap product, which is self-explanatory. -Dave I was looking at an old ad for Ok Tools' "Just Wrap" today. Are Just Wrap or Vector's Slit N' Wrap around anymore? Were these not popular? Seems like they would have been much easier than cut n' wrap. - John S.

16 years, 1 month

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