Stuart Johnson wrote:
Well, this is my first post to the list in quite a
while; most of you may
not even remember me... but I have been lurking.
Now I have a problem I need help with. I have a PDT-11/150HC, the dual drive
model with 32KW and the 3 extra serial ports. It had been working fine, up
through last year, when I stored it.
I was working on another project, building a PDP-11/53 from a DECServer 550
(like Jonathan Engdahl's) when I needed to copy some floppies. I brought out
the trusty old PDT, and of course, it wouldn't work.
I am using a VT420 with DECConnect wire and shells to talk to the PDT. The
VT and wires are all known good, tested with other equipment.
What happens is that when I turn the PDT on and type the 2 "@" characters to
set the baud rate (4800), the #2 led properly goes out, the RUN led comes
on, but NOTHING comes back to the terminal. Thinking that I needed a NULL
MODEM in the cable, I put a MMJ crossover connector block between the
terminal and the PDT. Strangely, I had exactly the same results - nothing
out on the monitor - with TX and RX swapped how the heck does this happen?
As I recall, the usual response is something like "Press B to Boot". In any
event, pressing "B" does nothing either.
To test weither you need a null-modem or not, when you
have a 25 pin conector, get one of those RS-232 line
monitors (available at RadioShack for < $10.00) which
display several of the signals using leds. If both pin 2 and
3 light up, you are probably Ok, If only one lights up,
you probably need a null modem. If you then put in a
null modem, and still only have one light, you have a
bad (cable, interface, etc).
I have performed the self test with the lid off and
modules elevated and the
result was that the first 4 LED's on the Intelligence Module came on.
This is result #17, indicating that either the DISK Controller Module or
Cable G1 has failed and need to be replaced - impossible, at least in the
case of the Disk Module. Besides, what does this have to do with no response
on the terminal?