30 Jun
2010
30 Jun
'10
6:43 p.m.
On 06/30/2010 09:17 PM, Eric Smith wrote:
allison wrote:
They were but, changing it meant making the grandfathering a problem.
There were far to many cables that
could easily be swapped and cause a failure or more commonly a no run
case till it was sorted out.
Around that time a New engineering group CSSE wich was part of Central
engineering but funded by
filed service was in existence to solve manufacturing quality and field
maintainability issues. That was
spawned by FA&T (factory assemble and test) because supposedly
interchangeable parts weren't
so and systems would not work in the field (early 70s). So the cable
issue was very real but it was
not the sole reason.
It was my understanding that the 11/70 continued
as a grandfathered
EMI and the new multiple cpu died due to EMI issues (plethora of cables
and multiple racks) and [...]
That sounds *much* more plausible than the problem being that the flat
cables were a maintenance/serviceability issue, as has often been
reported.
Of course, with enough effort, they could have solved
the problem, but
likely didn't want to for theother reasons you mentioned.
Therein lies the problem, FCC rules of the time meant if you redesign it
your committed
to "fix" the RFI issue. That meant only ECOs and retrofitable options.
The VAX and later
PDP-11 machines shows that packaging impact.
Also for those that were in DEC there was always a bit of a split in
product groups where some
wanted to keep tweaking the design for cost and speed and those that
wanted a whole new
challenge and direction. Some of that shows in the various ways the
PDP-8 and PDP11 were
implemented over the years.
Just trying to keep up with that was a experience. My years in DEC
engineering were among the
best in my career.
Allison
Eric