6 Oct
1999
6 Oct
'99
8:07 a.m.
Upon the date 06:43 PM 10/6/99 +0100, Tony Duell said something like:
What I didn't tell you is that my father is a physical chemist and has
done a _lot_ of vacuum work. He knows Vacuum Generators 'of old', and has
few good things to say about them. Personally, I can't comment, so please
don't flame me.
Re: VG, I agree with your dad! :-)
Yeah, Balzers wanted US$25k to simply upgrade the Process Controller from
basically a floppy disk-based 11/23 to a Falcon with hard disk plus some
other propriatary hardware. They also wanted US$350 for a small circular
phosphor bronze stamping, gold plated, used as the crystal contacts for the
six-position deposition thickness controller. Couldn't have been more than
40 mm in diameter. We had to buy that part as the controller was not operable.
Regards, Chris
-- --
Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian
Jamestown, NY USA cfandt(a)netsync.net
Member of Antique Wireless Association
URL: http://www.antiquewireless.org/
VG DS is Vacuum Generators Data Systems or something
like that. They're a
company who make (made?) various lab instruments (mass spectrometers,
etc). And the cards are interfaces (ADC, DAC, custom parallel interfaces,
etc) between the PDP8 omnibus (I think I've seen Unibus ones as well) and
the instument.
I can believe this Tony as a European vacuum coating equipment company
He is _sure_ though that the VG boards in my collection come from the
same 'Vacuum Generators' company.
Indeed Balzers' use of the PDP-8 and -11 is not at all unusual for the
time. Especially in vacuum coater process controls, one needs realtime
response to events both to achieve a very accurate coating thickness and to
handle drastic things like a catastophic leak, E-gun arc-over, etc.
named Balzers AG (from Liechtenstein) once used
PDP-8 systems as a process
controller. Therefore I feel it would be quite logical that VG would have
Oh the PDP8 (and the PDP11, and the Nova, and...) was used in all sorts of
instrumentation systems. I had to repair some kind of device that forced mercury into a sample (and thus measured the volume of
the pores) which
had an Intersil 6100 inside. I am told that older models had a PDP8/e
there. Similarly my Nova 1210 came off an electron microscope, and I have
repaired a PDP11-a-like on anther similar electron microscope...
Bausch & Lomb Analytical Systems Division made a microscope Image Analysis
system back in the 70's using Nova 1200's and later Nova 4's. I used to
work for the company and that's where I got my Nova 1200, high speed tape
reader and docs.
made partial pressure analyzers, thin film
deposition controllers, gas
controllers, etc which interfaced directly to Omnibus. They would have sold
them for a much more economical price. If any of you had seen the prices
Balzers charged for the same type of equipment, you'd probably concur.
The prices these companies charged for even the simplest spares/upgrades
made DEC look _very_ cheap ;-)