18 Jun
2005
18 Jun
'05
9:16 a.m.
Anyway I've been reading the PDP-8a User's
Manual and trying to figure
out what all I have here and I have a question about the PDP-8 CPUs. DEC
offered two different CPUs for the PDP-8, one is the KK8-A which is a
single M8315 card. The other is the KK8-E which consist of an M8300 and
M8310 cards which are the CPU and an M8320 Bus Loads card and a M8330
Timing Generator card. Can someone explain the differences between the two
and why DEC offered two very different CPUs for the 8? Can I replace
simply the M8300/8310/8320/8330 cards with the M8315?
The M8300/10/20/30 cardset is quad-height, and will fit in (was originally
designed for) an 8/e/f/m backplane. The M8315 is hex-height, and will only
fit in an 8/a backplane. The nice thing about it is that it has more
features and less slots. (I think you'll still need the bus terminator
card, though.)
I also have a question about the diagnostic paper
tapes. Does anyone
have
a ROM emulator or other way to load the diagnostics
without using a PT
reader? Yes, I know there are some SIMPLE diagnostics that can be loaded
from the Programmer's Panal but I concerned about the more extensive
diagnostics. In fact, I'm wondering if anyone has tried burning the
diagnostics into PROMs and installing them in place of the Boot Roms on
the
M8317 card.
I'd configure the ROM to boot to RIM (or is it BIN?) loader, and use the
console interface to talk to a PC and download the binary images. Anyone
done this?
If you have a programmer's panel, you can just enter the RIM loader by hand,
and go from there.
Can anyone explain the purpose of the small card
that plugs into the
back
of the chassis near the power regulators? It's not
mentioned in the User's
Manual and I don't even know it's name. Thom says that it controls the
power and the machine will be completely dead if it fails but that's all
that I know about it.
Does it have a part number on it? (I haven't looked too hard at the power
supply side of mine yet.)
Vince