Heathkit H-11

On Thu, Jul 03, 2008 at 07:21:25AM -0400, Marden P. Marshall wrote: I can't check that particular auction right now, but I do know a bit about DEC equipment and I do own a working H-11. In my experience, I'd say it's a bit of both - Heath made their own boards _and_ they sold DEC boards. I don't know what "officiall" came with an H-11 back in the day, but in my experience, folks bought an H-11 rather than a real DEC box to save money, so they used whatever came along that was the cheapest (to buy). I have a Heath parallel printer board (LPV11 equiv, AFAIK), a couple of Heath serial boards (DLV11-E? equiv) including one unassembled, plus the backplane in my H-11 does *not* use DEC edge connectors. In addition, I have a Heath H-27 interface card that is register- compatible with, I think, the RXV11, but that talks its own protocol out the connector to a Heath-specific intellegent drive (Z-80-based with "standard" 8" drives inside). In addition to that, my H-11 has a genuine DEC CPU board and genuine DEC memory. Heath tended to use generic white plastic module handles for their dual-height cards; I don't know if they ever made any quad- height cards. If you see an H-11 picture and you see maroon handles, those are probably DEC boards, especially if the M-numbers make sense (DEC CPU, memory, disk, etc). You might also see other vendors' boards in there, too, depending on how extensively the previous owner(s) stuffed in upgrades. I've seen green (not DEC G-series green), blue (same), and yellow for sure, plus white, of course. I don't know that DEC made too many dual-height boards for Qbus outside of the M-series (perhaps an A-series or two?) There's much more variety in the Unibus line, and of course, for non-bussed machines like pre-OMNIBUS PDP-8s. I'll have to check the auction out when the 'net comes up. I don't want to sell my H-11 (it was a gift from a former employer when the company went bust and he moved), but it would be nice to know what one can get these days. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 3-Jul-2008 at 12:30 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -80.7 F (-62.6 C) Windchill -119.7 F (-84.3 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 10.9 kts Grid 44 Barometer 681.8 mb (10560 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html