Jay West wrote:
It appears that ACLO originates only in the power supply, and both the
cpu and cards on the unibus monitor it to know if "death is coming". I
would imagine that the cpu uses it to trap to a powerfail routine, and
peripheral interfaces use it to do things like an emergency head
unload on a disc drive, etc. So, what about when the unibus has been
extended into an expansion box like the KB11-F with a DD11-DK, which
has it's own supplies and thus it's own ACLO? Is the ACLO failure in
the external expansion box given to the cpu chassis box and vice versa
or are they entirely separate?
If the expansion box's power fails, it should
assert ACLO followed by
DCLO. This will cause the entire system to reset.
DCLO also confuses me. Some things I read (and advice from some
people) indicate it originates in the power supplies, and other
devices only monitor that signal. However, the unibus interfacing
manual states clearly that ANY device on the unibus can assert the
DCLO signal. This would mean not just the power supply, but a
controller like an RX02 interface (M8256) could tell the rest of the
system "hey, I'm losing power".
That would be bad in general IMHO.
When you have a large system
configuration it is not unusual to have some peripherals powered off.
This gets back to my "RL02 faulting upon spinup only if the RX02 is
turned on" problem. Tony suggested checking ACLO and/or DCLO. Note
that my RL02 and RX02 controllers are in the expansion BA11-K, not the
cpu box. To do this, I need to know exactly what pins to look at on
the backplane. I figured I could track this down myself, but in going
through all the documentation I am left very unclear as to exactly
where the ACLO & DCLO signals go after they hit the power distribution
board (J2-J10 I think it is) at the top of the system unit backplane.
Since it is a unibus signal, I would think it would enter the DD11-K
in the expansion box at the "unibus in" (slot 1AB). I would also guess
that since (apparently) SPC cards are capable of monitoring ACLO/DCLO
(and perhaps asserting DCLO? See above?) that those two signals would
be wire wrapped from somewhere on 1AB to each of the SPC slots (C-F).
Some documentation showed ACLO and DCLO on row C (some docs show only
one of those is present) of an SPC slot. If that is the case, should I
not see some wire wrapping on my DD11-K that shows ACLO/DCLO
(supposedly on B01F1 and B01F2) getting wrapped to somewhere on row C,
and daisychaining to all the SPC slots on that same pin so they can
monitor it? I do not see that wire wrap on the DD11-DK.
So someone could just tell me what pin to check, to see if ACLO or
DCLO is acting funny around my RX02 controller. But I'd really prefer
to understand the bigger picture with it as to all places that
originate these two signals, what devices can assert them, and most
importantly, how those two signals are routed exactly from power
supply to the cpu, to the expansion box (which has it's own
ACLO/DCLO), all the way to the final M9312. Then not only could I take
the measurement, but better understand what I'm seeing.
I'm only half
joking, but these are exactly the issues that caused me to
design/build the UA11! It got to be too hard to keep counting pins (and
getting them wrong). It's also a lot easier to see *all* of the signals
on the LEDs at once (ACLO & DCLO are there BTW).
Any education is most appreciated!
Jay West
--
TTFN - Guy