30 Nov
2010
30 Nov
'10
5:24 p.m.
From: "Steve Maddison" <steve at cosam.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2010 11:36 AM
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: Best use of a PDP-11/45 *EVER*
On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 3:59 AM, Jason T <silent700
at gmail.com> wrote:
Yep, definitely the last few months or so as I've been loosely
following the project since visiting the museum run by the guys who
restored the computery bits. Lots more on their site (look under news,
especially that of last year)
http://www.xs4all.nl/~geerol/index-en.html
Jup, I too know Geert and Warner personally. They went more than once to
Norway to assist the guys with getting the PDP-11 systems working.
The original simulator indeed ran on 3 PDP-11/45. Two of them were
connected using *shared memory* on the UNIBUS (visible by both 11/45
processors). However, two 11/45 were replaced by two 11/44 systems.
I dropped off a spare 11/44 PSU at Geert's place for the Norwegian guys.
The guys from Norway got the DC-10 in a few sea containers. The hardware
is unbelievable ... it is in more than ten 19" cabinet racks 3 feet tall
(almost
2 meter). IIRC it is in 18 racks. It came with shelves full of (hardware)
documentation. They worked through all that data, managed to connect it
all. One of the hard problems they faced (again IIRC) had to do with
ground loops. I read a lot of their efforts, and can only say that those
chaps
are really devoted to this project and are very knowledgeable IMHO.
There are a few other clips on youtube ...
- Henk
On Mon,
Nov 29, 2010 at 4:32 PM, Gene Buckle <geneb at deltasoft.com>
wrote:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-DpcvY4aBk
Any idea when the video was taken? Obviously fairly recently, given
the LCD panels, etc. Great to see the ol' girl still doing her job
:)
The original set-up used no less than *three* 11/45s (or maybe one was
an 11/50) but I believe they only managed to piece together one
working machine. The other two were replaced with 11/44s - I remember
because had a minor hand in tracking one of them down.
--
Steve Maddison
http://www.cosam.org/