11/45 pictures & questions

On Mon, Dec 29, 2003 at 08:39:17AM -0600, Jay West wrote: At the time, I didn't own a Split I&D machine (I have an 11/44 that's awaiting my attention when I return, as well as a pair of 11/70s). Also, way back when (c. 1987), I only had a couple of magtapes with 2.9BSD. These days, of course, all of that stuff is easier to get than it once was. The trick is what one can do with lower-end equipment. With 10MB disks, the answer is, not much. :-( Even a 28MB disk would have helped immeasurably. The 11/780 is a monster, but the 11/750 is not so bad at all. We used to put the console on top, saving some space there, plus, with some sort of 5.25" disk (SMD/ESDI/RA7x), there's room inside the box for a disk as well (I'd use a seperate power supply though). In one cabinet, you can have the CPU, 8MB (or 14MB if you are lucky), a terminal controller or two (Emulex CS21, DZ11, DMF32...), a UDA-50 or Emulex disk interface, a line printer interface (LP11 or DMF-32)... in short... everything you really need inside the cab. We didn't do it that way in the old days, only because the disks wouldn't fit. That will be *plenty* of room for 2.11BSD. Sure thing. I just wish Unibus SCSI interfaces were cheap and plentiful. Every once in a while, I kick around the idea of modding a COMBOARD into a SCSI card, but then the urge subsides and I get back to more productive pursuits. One thing that holds me back is that there's no practical way to turn a COMBOARD into a *compatible* Unibus interface. I could use the 68000 on-board to talk to a Z5380 chip or a WD33C93 or the like (and borrow the SCSI code from a variety of sources, like the Amiga), but there's no way to make the COMBOARD's registers resemble anything like an MSCP controller or old-fashioned SMD/ESDI controller. With Digital's patent's on MSCP expired or nearly so, I wonder what it would take to build a converter to attach to a UDA-50/KDA-50/KDB-50... The interface chips and cables could be scavenged from a dead RA81, but I have no idea what it would take to build a box that spoke SCSI or IDE out one end, and SDI out the other... any takers? It might be easier than the ST506 converter we've been discussing. At least in this case, it's digital in and out, with no sampling required. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 29-Dec-2003 15:51 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -11.2 F (-24.0 C) Windchill -31.2 F (-35.1 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 7.5 kts Grid 011 Barometer 699.4 mb (9904.4 ft) Ethan.Dicks(a)amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html