14 Feb
2006
14 Feb
'06
10:53 p.m.
Gooijen, Henk wrote:
Without thinking much about it, I'd say that
mounting any
real blinkenlight console on a 11/44 is *not* trivial!
Of course, grabbing UNIBUS address- and data-lines and wiring
that to the lights is trivial, but to get all panel functions
(LOAD ADDR, DEP, EXAM, etc). working on an 11/44 is more work.
I guess there are more people on the list who have a boring
PDP-11/44 with a dull panel, that would like to make the /44
more sexy with an 'appropriate' panel. The "upgrade" is,
of course, done in such a way that it can be undone ...
I (we) do not have a /74 panel :-( , but I'd like to hear
what approach you are thinking of, Don.
Well, what I thought about was a simple little dual-width UNIBUS card
(MUD slot
and 11/44 extended MUD compatible for the extra phys address lines) that
would
read-only buffer the UNIBUS address/data/control lines and send them to
the display
board (either parallel or multiplexed, undecided).
The display board would be run by a PIC micro (I have lots of experience
with these)
that would intercept the 11/44 console serial port lines and would
generate all the
appropriate exam/dep/etc commands to mimic the switch commands. The PIC
would
also run all the display lites, selecting either real-time UNIBUS A/D
display, or the
manual results obtained from running commands.
I would use my 11/74 panel for the display bezel (no destructive changes
of course)
just to provide some extra atmosphere.
There is no ETA on this right now, got other things to do first...
Hmm, you could do it like I did as add-on to SIMH.
Hardware
with some intelligence reads the front panel and translates the
switches to messages in ODT syntax which are send to the 11/44
monitor program ...
- Henk, PA8PDP.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Don North
Sent: vrijdag 10 februari 2006 21:07
To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Original 11/74 front panel
Actually I was thinking of making a replacement/alternate
front panel for my 11/44 using the 11/74 panel.
Add real blinking lights/switches connected up to the real
UNIBUS/memorybus.
The 11/44 panel is *way* too spartan looking, and the 11/74
panel would fit just perfectly on the front of the box.