I found the problem with my non-booting PDP-11. I feel incredibly
stupid so I thought I would share my findings and hope some of you
have done something equally dumb ;)
This morning I traced the BHALT L line to the KDF11-BA's edge
finger (AP1) and confirmed that it was indeed low all the time,
as I had earlier posted. Measured at the front panel it was still
low. So I flipped the HALT switch to the other (up) position and
sure enough the line went high. I toggled RESTART and the RUN
light came on. I heard a "bump" (nonprinting character) on the
teletype console but nothing else printed and then ODT came up at
173546.
Another look at the switch settings and turned off the turnkey
mode in favor of console dialog mode. Still just a nonprint
character at first, but after waiting a few more seconds, sure
enough "TESTING MEMORY" printed out. It took several minutes to
test the big Clearpoint board (I had miscounted the chips, it's
the maximum 4 MBytes/2 MWord) and then printed the correct "2044.
KW" followed by "START?" which is exactly what a KDF11-BA is
supposed to do!
:) :)
So the defective clock oscillator which seems to be working fine
with a 30 MHz replacement was problem 1. Incorrect switch settings
on two different versions of KDF11B manuals was #2. But the most
recent session of hair-pulling and teeth-gnashing was completely
my fault. (In case you haven't figured it out yet, I had been
setting the HALT switch in the halted position!!!) RTFM I guess :P
Now to fix the FAULT in the RL02 or RLV12 so I can boot from it! A
few seconds after entering "Y" to the "START?" prompt, ODT enters
at 173526 which is most likely because the controller is not
responding properly. Of course I don't know what's on the pack and
it may not be bootable... one step at a time.
-Charles