Well, it took a few years, but I finally brought my
PDP-11/70
panel back to life:
I'm afraid I don't have the space or power (or
noise tolerance!)
to have the real thing around. Has anybody else brought panels
back to life? I'm aware of the Spare Time Gizmos / Ersatz-11
work, and of course the incredible "Gallery of Old Iron". Any
others?
Very nice! I have an 11/70 panel sitting around -- and that looks
like an intriguing project to try.
I own XDS (SDS) Sigma 9 Panel and brought it back to life. It was
quite an undertaking, as the panel consists of about 100 lamps -- and
hand wiring all of them took quite a bit of labor.
It now blinks -- in some sort of random "computing" fashion -- but is
essentially a useless piece of eye-candy when it comes to being a
useful computer (after all, I don't have anything else except the
programming console). But I must admit, it is a pretty sight watching
all those blinkenlights flicker on and off :-)
I wired it up basically in tribute to my father for a present -- who
was employee #9 (or maybe #10) at SDS way back in the early 1960s.
I also own an SDS 940 programming console -- but I've chosen to leave
that untouched (a dead soul, if you will).
-Eric
P.S. -- I'd post a video of it in action, but I don't own a video
camera (I'll have to borrow one). I did take a bunch of snapshots in
succession and piece them together -- kind of a kludge -- but you get
an idea of what it looks like after watching it. Not nearly as nice
if it were a smooth video though. If anyone is interested, and I can
get around to it, I'll post a picture or two, and the "piecemeal"
video on a website in the (maybe near) future.