14 Jun
2011
14 Jun
'11
1:10 p.m.
On Tuesday (06/14/2011 at 06:40PM +0100), Tony Duell wrote:
There are 2 large boards bove the chassis, the top one (on a hinge) is
the controller, the lower one is the read/write board. Those boards are
bot different betwee nthe RX01 and RX02, and you must have a pair from
the same type of drive. There's no (simple) way to use an RX01
controller with an RX02 read/write or vice versa. It sounds like you have
a pair of RX02 boards though which will work together. I think the
itnerconencting cable between them is differnt between an RX01 and RX02,
but that it not a major porblem
Yes... I have a pair of RX02 boards that has not been etched by ME#1
and I have a pair, in a rusted RX02 chassis, that have been etched by
ME#1 with about a 2" x 3" oval of missing traces.
The pwoer supply is indentical between the 2 typs of
drive. So is the
chassis and the fan plenum
OK. Only the one in the RX01 chassis will be usable.
The drives are almsot the same. From what I remember
(and you'd have to
check the prints or the pocket service guide), there's a resistor (1k?)
between pins on the head conenctor that must be fitted if it's ued with
one type of read/write board and remvoed for the other. I think all spare
drives came with it fitted, and you diked it out if you were fitting the
srive to the other type of unit..
I have learned that the RX01 drives are Calcommp drives. They have the
cast aluminum chassis while the Mouse Condo RX02 drives do not have the
cast aluminum chassis and _were_ a newer design.
IIRC, on a PDP11, you have to use an RX02 bus
interface (RX211, RXV21) to
use double-density, If you have an RX11 or RXV11, you can only use the
thing as a single-density drrvie even if you fit the RX02 boards.
Conversely, an RX211 or RXV21 will not work with an RX01. On omnibus
PDP8s, the RX8e card wil lwork with boat types of drive unit, and will do
sdobule density on an RX02.
Yes-- I am set here. I have RX211.
In one respect the RX01 is more interesting.
There's a 36 pin edge
connector on the controlelr PCB. It's to connect a KM11 maintenance
board which will then dispaly th microcode PC, various flags, etc. And
one of the switches on the KM11 does a halt-microcode-on-errrr. I ratehr
enjoyed debugging mine that way. For the RX02, you need a logic analyser
to figure out what the microcode is doing.
Interesting. OK. Well, if this pans out, I will certainly keep the RX01
board set in my collection so that I could change back in the future if
need be.
Thanks for the info Tony.
Chris
--
Chris Elmquist