3 Jun
2005
3 Jun
'05
7:35 a.m.
Looking for someone who can "rescue" and
temporarily store a PDP-11.
It's about 30 miles west of O'Hare, apparently. I won this at auction;
the notification didn't arrive, and now that I'm traveling and can't do
anything about it, they want the beast out of their building yesterday.
I ended up hiring a commercial pack/ship outfit to get this home,
and it was delivered yesterday -- 2199 pounds. Thanks to the folks
who said they would help me load it if I picked it up. Here's a
first glimpse inventory of the haul:
The CPU is a PDP-11/44 with additional labels indicating it was a
Teradyne Teranet ATE Networking System, whatever that is. In addition
to the CPU, the tall cabinet (purple and orange DEC banner across the
top) contains a serial mux, a DEC battery backup, two RL02s, and an
additional card chassis with some damage to its backplane wiring.
The latter contains a pair of memory boards (Mostek), and some
Teradyne-built items; I don't recognize the bus -- two edge connectors,
each wider than qbus. It doesn't look like the unibus cards I've seen.
The first small cabinet (9764, I think?) contains three RA81 drives;
one is labeled 'bad hda'.
The second small cabinet (also 9764) contains a TU80 and an RA81.
The RA is labeled 'bad motor / bad hda'.
Also included are a Decwriter, a DataProducts line printer, and
a VT131.
It looks like the cabling is pretty much intact. Whoever
decommissioned this system did a decent job of tucking cables up into
the backs of the cabinets. I figured with my luck someone would have
just cut them, so I get to be happy now.
I haven't had the CPU out on its rails yet, so I don't know what's
inside. I'm going to have to work on power outlets before I can
even try to run this beast. (And yes, I intend to look through the
archives for tips on proper pre- and first-power-up etiquette before I
blow anything up)
Guess I have a summer project now. (Like I need any more projects. :-)
De