23 Nov
1998
23 Nov
'98
2:30 p.m.
In DEC systems there are three things I can say,
Supported, Unsupported
and unimplementable. Of the three the last one is least common. An
example of the last one is connecting a DHV11 to a pdt11/150. It's
doable but, near unimplementable do to the lack of Qbus. The more common
situation is unsupported, IE: DEC didn't consider it marketable or test
it exactly that way. Two RDxx disks in a ba123 is an example. The yabut
is that a TK50 eats as much power as a RDxx. The assumption then was
one disk and floppy or tape for backup/installs. Later on external TK50s
That also worked for software... if we had the hardware to test a specific
configuration, it was supported. If we didn't have the hardware to test,
it was unsupported. If it happened to work, it was 'latent support'. If
it didn't work, *it was unsupported*... :-)
Of course, we did our best at making things work even if they weren't
supported (and made use of 'latent support' a number of times)...
Megan Gentry
Former RT-11 Developer
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry!zk3.dec.com |
| Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg!world.std.com |
| Compaq Computer Corporation | addresses need '@' in place of '!' |
| 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43 | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ |
| Nashua, NH 03062 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler |
| (603) 884 1055 | required." - mbg |
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+