3 Nov
2012
3 Nov
'12
9:14 p.m.
Earl Evans wrote:
Greetings,
I love the dual RL02 drives on my PDP-11/23+. It's great fun to hear them
spin up, and they are a neat conversation piece. However, I fear that
ongoing operation will eventually lead to their demise (as with all
things). I'd like to move to a (slightly) newer technology.
My goal is to:
1. Purchase a Seagate ST-225 or ST-251 hard drive in working condition.
2. Build a cable and interface assembly as described at
http://home.windstream.net/engdahl/rqdx3.htm, and put the drive in an
external case/PSU.
3. Properly insert my RQDX3 (in my stock, but not in the machine) into the
PDP, and connect to the drive.
4. Use the ZRQCH0 utility in XXDP (perhaps loaded from a TU58 emulator) to
format the drive as a RD31 or RD32 (depending on the Seagate model).
5. Determine how to boot from RT-11, and perhaps TSX-Plus.
Booting from RT-11 and TSX-Plus is easy if you have a distribution of
the files on the RD32. If you also have an RX50 floppy drive, you can
copy the files to the RX50 media and then transfer to the RD52. Ask
if you don't know how.
Is this doable? Will the KDF11-BA built-in
bootstrapper ROM boot from a
What is the version number of the EPROMs? Some of the most recent
versions have the code to boot MSCP drives directly.
Otherwise, if you have other types of drives such as an RL02 or TU58,
you can boot these first. As a last resort, you can enter the boot code by
hand for RD52 (MSCP) drives.
RQDX3? Also, my RQDX3 card is assumed working, but
untested. Is there any
way to test the controller board functionality without having a drive
attached?
An RX50 will usually work. Perhaps test with that first.
Thanks for any thoughts!
Any other questions?
Please let us know how successful you are.
As usual, I am curious what you will use the PDP-11/23+ for? Surely
it will be for more than to just hear the fans running. Do you have any
specific software to run?
Jerome Fine