7 Jul
2005
7 Jul
'05
3:24 a.m.
Even where IBM cards of that era used
'commodity' components, they were
usually completely house-marked and impossible for a mere mortal to
figure out. This goes all the way down to resistor networks and
resistors/capacitors (except those few that have color-code bands.)
Unless you get the cross reference...
For the pre-1978 (or so) machines, you can pretty much debug down to the
chip level. With the right Blue Binders, pretty much every last part is
detailed to a silly extent. WAY more detailed than DEC docs.
A number of the logic families are also really quite close to
off the shelf items, just in weird packages.
Of course, some would say the reason why IBM stuff is cool is BECAUSE it
is so alien!
William Donzelli
aw288 at osfn.org