15 Nov
2006
15 Nov
'06
3:32 p.m.
[...]
Turn on the system ... yep, a hang condition and the
FAULT light
on the RL02 goes ON immediately! Removed the MS11-P again, and
everything looks healthy!
It definitely looks like a defective MS11-P. The effect that it has
on the system (especially the RL02's FAULT light) gives me hope to
be able to repair that module one day!
No, I'm really guessing here, but to me that sounds as though that
defective memory board is asserting one or other of ACLO and DCLO (you
should check this with a logic probe or whatever).
Now why should a memeory board assert one of those signals? Well, I am
digging into the depths of my brain, but I seem to rememebr at least one
DEC memory board for the 11/44 did some quite complex initialisation at
power-on (basically it wrote to every word of the memory array to put
valid parity or ECC (I forget which it used) bits in place). During that
initialisation, it prevented the processor from starting by (you guessed
it), asserting one of ACLO or DCLO. In which case, if there's a fault in
that initialisation logic, it could permanently assert said signal.
As I said, it's a guess. But it might give you a place to start looking.
-tony