2 Aug
2000
2 Aug
'00
10:50 a.m.
--- Chuck McManis <cmcmanis(a)mcmanis.com> wrote:
Well the VAX fairy visited me and dropped off a
"pile of junk". Inside the
junk were a couple of Unibus expansion bays and in those were a board from
MDB systems that asserts it connects a Unibus to a Q-bus. Unfortunately
I've only got the Unibus half apparently and there is a matching card that
plugs into the Q-bus.
Univerter/Qniverter? Depending on what the docs say, would the Q-bus end
be similar to what DEC used to connect BA-11N or BA-23 boxes together?
It does kinda matter which way you are going (i.e., Unibus or Q-bus CPU)...
mostly because the Unibus is 18-bit and the Q-bus is 18 or 22 bit (or 16 ;-)
with completely different ideas about how to map space (which matters at
the driver level, not the hardware level).
We looked into such products at work, but we decided that the extra effort
on the driver did not pay for saving a development box.
Apparently I also got a set of VAX 11/750 cpu cards
and memory. Is this
something anyone is interested in?
To rescue from oblivion, yes. To put to immediate use, no. I have two
11/750s and wouldn't mind spares, but space/cash is too tight for such an
optional set of boards. I haven't even fired one up since I moved it to
the Quonset hut. It sits, temporarily unloved, until I can wire a 30A
Hubble receptacle for it.
Finally I got some docs on the VAX BI bus but I'm
reserving those for Bill
if he wants them.
If not, please let me know. I have an 8300.
Thanks,
-ethan
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2 Aug
2 Aug
11:19 a.m.
At 03:50 PM 8/2/00 -0700, Ethan wrote:
It does kinda matter which way you are going (i.e.,
Unibus or Q-bus CPU)...
mostly because the Unibus is 18-bit and the Q-bus is 18 or 22 bit (or 16 ;-)
with completely different ideas about how to map space (which matters at
the driver level, not the hardware level).
This apparently can go both ways. There is configuration information on
mapping the Q-bus into the Unibus address space for Unibus CPUs and details
on how to run it the other way for Q-bus CPUs to access Unibus peripherals.
But, like I mentioned I can't seem to find the Q-bus side in the pile yet.
Fortunately I got the docs so if one shows up I would recognize it!
It [11/750] sits, temporarily unloved, until I can
wire a 30A
Hubble receptacle for it.
A VAX is a terrible thing to waste :-) Buried in the bottom of a 19" rack
with literally leaves on top and spiderwebs inside was a VLC with 16MB of
memory and an RZ23L inside. I cleaned it up, powered it up, and booted the
disk. VMS 6.0 booted happy as a clam! These things are becoming my favorite
little VAX, they are small, seem to be indestructible, support cheap SCSI
disks and are much faster than a MicroVAX 2000 or a MVII.
If not, please let me know. I have an 8300.
Will do.
--Chuck
11:47 a.m.
New subject: ID an emulex Unibus board anyone?
Ok, the "fibre channel company" disavows any knowledge of having ever
produced cards for Unibus :-) I've got three boards that are made by
Emulex, go in the Unibus and are marked CS2110203/H2B. There are two 50 pin
connectors on the top (channel 0-7, 8-15), an LED labelled "fault", and two
connectors one 26 pin and one probably 20 pin. I'm guessing they are some
sort of 16 port communication controllers.
--Chuck
1:09 p.m.
New subject: ID an emulex Unibus board anyone?
At 16:47 02-08-2000 -0700, Chuck wrote:
Ok, the "fibre channel company" disavows any
knowledge of having ever
produced cards for Unibus :-) I've got three boards that are made by
Emulex, go in the Unibus and are marked CS2110203/H2B. There are two 50 pin
connectors on the top (channel 0-7, 8-15), an LED labelled "fault", and two
<snip>
Exactly right on your guess that they're comm controllers. The kicker is
that, in order to function properly, I believe they require the specific
Emulex distribution panel.
I could be wrong about that. I also (fuzzily) recall that the CS21 may in
fact have RS232 outputs directly on those 50-pin headers.
Are there a bunch of RS232 line driver/receiver chips right below said
headers?
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Owner and head honcho, Blue Feather Technologies
http://www.bluefeathertech.com // E-mail: kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com
Amateur Radio: WD6EOS since Dec. '77
"Our science can only describe an object, event, or living thing in our
own human terms. It cannot, in any way, define any of them..."
1:27 p.m.
New subject: ID an emulex Unibus board anyone?
Bruce Lane wrote:
Exactly right on your guess that they're comm controllers. The
kicker is
that, in order to function properly, I believe they require the specific
Emulex distribution panel.
Well I just checked and I've got a distribution panel as well with a bunch
of DE9 connectors (look like the PC serial port) with the Emulex name on it
and apparently a cable guide.
Wow, if course its a Unibus board rather than a q-bus board and the only
Unibus systems I have are a couple of PDP-11's. anyone need this bad boy to
put 16 serial ports on an 11/7xx series VAX ? Or maybe an 11/70?
--Chuck
14 Jul
14 Jul
2:51 a.m.
New subject: ID an emulex Unibus board anyone?
At 16:47 02-08-2000 -0700, Chuck wrote:
Ok, the "fibre channel company" disavows any
knowledge of having ever
produced cards for Unibus :-) I've got three boards that are made by
Emulex, go in the Unibus and are marked CS2110203/H2B. There are two 50 pin
connectors on the top (channel 0-7, 8-15), an LED labelled "fault", and two
<snip>
Exactly right on your guess that they're comm controllers. The kicker is that, in
order to function properly, I believe they require the specific Emulex distribution
panel.
I could be wrong about that. I also (fuzzily) recall that the CS21 may in fact have RS232
outputs directly on those 50-pin headers.
Are there a bunch of RS232 line driver/receiver chips right below said headers?
5:50 a.m.
New subject: ID an emulex Unibus board anyone?
--- Bruce Lane <kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com> wrote:
I inherited numerous CS21s from Software Results. Depending on what PALs
are installed, they will show up as TTnn devices or TXnn devices. We
used Nevada Western RJ11 modular stuff around the office, so our hardware
guy made a pinswabber that massaged the 50-pin arrangement from the CS21s
into the telco-50 (RJ21?) that the Nevada Western stuff wanted (8 lines of
six wires each over the 25 pairs) We had a longish ribbon cable that
attached to the CS21, then outside the BA-11, it had a SCSI-1-style connector
that mated to our pinswabber, then a regular pair-1-to-pair-1-etc 25-pair
cable through the building to rack with multiple telco connectors on the
back and a sea of RJ11s on the front. The user side was 50-pin cables
At 16:47 02-08-2000 -0700, Chuck wrote:
>Ok, the "fibre channel company" disavows any knowledge of having ever
>produced cards for Unibus :-)
Corporate Amnesia - if you talked to anyone, they probably weren't older
than those cards. :-)
I've got
three boards that are made by
Emulex, go in the Unibus and are marked CS2110203/H2B. There are two 50 pin
connectors on the top (channel 0-7, 8-15), an LED labelled "fault", and two
<snip>
Exactly right on your guess that they're comm controllers. The kicker is
that, in order to function properly, I believe they require the specific
Emulex distribution panel.
I could be wrong about that. I also (fuzzily) recall that the CS21 may
in fact have RS232 outputs directly on those 50-pin headers. from the rack to their offices with an aluminum block
with two telco
connectors (in and out so you could daisy chain them) and 8 RJ11s
that
we would stick their terminals into. The middle was a ratsnest of 1 to 3
foot RJ11 patch cables.
We would mark the office tiers of the patch panel with the name of the
person whose desk was nearest the block (small company in an industrual
park - no room numbers). The computer-side tiers were labelled like
"ROBIN::TXA", "TUNA::TTA", "JAGUAR::TXC", etc. Then play
connect the
dots. If you needed to trace a line, doing manually took a few seconds.
We attempted to maintain a log, but it was never current (whose is?)
Anywhoo, nice cards. We didn't use the Emulex distribution panels,
but made our own arrangement. I am not certain, but they *might*
follow the DZ-11 pinout. It's worth checking first. Otherwise, making
a map of which pins on the connector map to which pins on the 1488/1489
line drivers, then take it to the other side and see what goes to the
data and handshaking pins on the UARTs. Doing one or two should
establish a pattern (and it's not like you have to do *both* connectors,
they are identical ;-)
-ethan
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