28 Sep
2014
28 Sep
'14
10:48 a.m.
On 9/28/2014 7:21 AM, Al Kossow wrote:
On 9/27/14 11:02 PM, Eric Smith wrote:
I've added some pictures to the rear of the cabinet to the album:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/117997069161125071032/albums/60639768122…
I do appear to have have an Ethernet interface. And peering in through
the back I can see that there's also an SMD drive in the CPU cabinet,
underneath the power supply.
I'm relatively new to SMD -- what would it take to make images of these
drives? Is it similar to MFM drives where the controller dictates the
format/encoding and so you need a matching controller to read them, or
could I, say, pick up an SMD controller for one of my Sun workstations
and go to town?
Also -- any advice on firing up the Eagle? I've cleaned up the rodent
detritus and there appears to be no actual damage, despite a PCB being
covered in droppings. Aside from unlocking the heads, any precautions I
should take?
Thanks,
Josh
On Sat, Sep 27, 2014 at 11:03 PM, Al Kossow
<aek at bitsavers.org> wrote:
No customs. If I can dig up a reasonable resolution camera I'll shoot
some
board pictures (they're big)
Considering how many superminis CHM has in the collection, there is a
disappointing
lack of software and documentation for them here. I'm sure it was the
usual thing where
the hardware sat in storage until someone got sick of looking at it,
and they never
bothered to save anything else. That was how I ended up with all the
Ridge boards,
they showed up at a scrapper and had no idea what they were.
A rear shot of the CPU cabinet would be nice to see. I forgot that it
was quite common
to attach a graphics terminal to them through a DR-11W style dual 40
pin interface. Sadly, schematics were impossible to get even
when they were new.
Anything custom in it? Or just a lot of 74S/AS/F?
Ridges were used a lot for LSI design with the VTI cad tools.
It would also be interesting if there is an Ethernet interface on it.
The 1985 and 86 processor and hardware reference manuals in pdf/ridge
on bitsavers is about
all that ever existed on the hardware.