11 May
2011
11 May
'11
6:23 a.m.
Can anybody explain how the Mentec boards fit into all
of this.
My understanding was they were the next generation of PDP11.
The early Mentec boards had real DEC J-11's and onboard memory
And serial ports (not too conceptually different than
11/53's or 11/93's). This spans the M70 through M100. Toward the end
Of this era a big crimp was that J-11's were becoming unavailable (even via
Clever routes like removal from old HSC's).
Later Mentec boards (after J-11's dried up completely) went to high density
TI bitslices and then custom ASICs. This is the M11 and M1.
Mentec was all Q-bus. (AFAICT). As the Q-bus peripheral market dried up in
The late 90's I remember some talk amongst the Mentec guys of making a
M11 or M1 with onboard MSCP-compatible controller for ATA or SCSI drives but
I don't think this ever got off the ground.
Others made J11 CPU boards too for Q-bus,
Unibus, ISA bus, etc. And there were others who sold DEC-compatible
CPU's using bitslice and other higher integration techniques (e.g. QED/Quickware).
The Mentec and others' main selling points, were cheaper prices and higher
Levels of integration on the CPU board (thus reducing total system price).
Tim.