16 Oct
2013
16 Oct
'13
11:28 p.m.
I made a trek over the weekend to collect a VT103 with RX02 drive unit.
With it came around 35+ 8" disks with stuff on them, and a dozen or so
DECtape II tapes for the dual dectape II drives in the VT103.
I have not tried powering on either unit yet.
Inventory of the boards in the VT103 are:
M7264-EB KDF11-F with KEV-11 with onboard 4KW MOS RAM
M8047-CA 16KW RAM
M8044-BB 8KW MOS RAM
M8028
M8029 RX02 flopppy disk controller (18 bit DMA only)
I have a set of floppies with dot matrix'd lables 1/4 through 4/4 for
RT 4.0 "patched". Not sure if these are original DEC. They have DEC
part numbers/etc on them, but nothing that really indicates they are DEC
(no DEC branding/etc). Any idea of these are original ?
Given the CPU and storage, I'd assume RT would be this boxes current
limit, correct ?
Is 2 8" floppy drives enough to make a sysgen'd RT with software and
space to do stuff with ?
Before powering up for the first time, anything I should be aware of
that would be likely weak with the VT103 after years of sitting idle
(attic) ?
(i.e. caps in the power supply are likely to pop)
How are the DECtape II drives ? Do the capstans tend to turn to goo ?
They look OK visiually, though I have not touched them. Any good way
to confirm if they'll hold up or break down before they eat a tape ?
How best to preserve images of the 8" disks ? I understand there are
parallel port RX02 emulators for the system, but nothing that I found
for hooking up the RX02 drive unit to a PC for imaging. I've also read
that the RX02 used a percular format (MFM sector data with FM headers as
I recall). Will things like the Disc Ferret archive images if I had a
more modern 8" floppy drive to use with it ? Suggestions ? Obviously
if I get the system working and I had another M8029 (which I don't), I
could hook up a RX02 emulator and duplicate discs from real ones to the
emulator. Is that the only viable option ?
How best to image the DECtape II tapes ? If the drives work, I
understand they are serial, so is there any source out there for doing
this under Linux/UNIX ? Or again, what I have to do this in some
fashion under RT-11 and get the images off the system ?
What should I look out for, clean, lubricate/etc on the RX02 before
eventually trying it for the first time ?
And lastly, towards the future, I understand one can add the 4 missing
bits on the backplane to go from 18 bits to 22 bits, then an 11/23 cpu
can be used in it. Is this the only cpu board upgrade option viable in
an VT103 ? With that, I'd assume RSTS/E, TSX, RSX, RT, and old Unix
would be options ?
What would be the suggested hard drive options ? Will CQD-22 SCSI work
on the existing CPU ? Will it work with a larger CPU with an upgraded
bus within the VT103 ? I'd like to consider some sort of
SCSI->ATA->flash solution for low power and put it inside the VT103 for
a self contained approach. The mounts are not standard, otherwise ZIP
drives or JAZ drives in place of the DECtape IIs would offer immense
storage and easy switchover to other 11 OSes.
Looking to understand this box more, how to bring it back to operation,
and what I can do with it as is, and improve it a bit towards the future
(no cutting/drilling.... any upgrades have to be able to be removed to
bring it back to original.
Unrelated, anyone know if the VT525 does Regis graphics ?
Thanks in advance,
-- Curt
17 Oct
17 Oct
12:43 a.m.
On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 11:28 PM, rescue <rescue at hawkmountain.net> wrote:
I made a trek over the weekend to collect a VT103 with RX02 drive unit.
Nice.
With it came around 35+ 8" disks with stuff on
them, and a dozen or so
DECtape II tapes for the dual dectape II drives in the VT103.
Cool.
I have not tried powering on either unit yet.
Inventory of the boards in the VT103 are:
M7264-EB KDF11-F with KEV-11 with onboard 4KW MOS RAM
M8047-CA 16KW RAM
M8044-BB 8KW MOS RAM
M8028
M8029 RX02 flopppy disk controller (18 bit DMA only)
Seems like a good setup.
I have a set of floppies with dot matrix'd lables
1/4 through 4/4 for RT 4.0
"patched". Not sure if these are original DEC. They have DEC part
numbers/etc on them, but nothing that really indicates they are DEC (no DEC
branding/etc). Any idea of these are original ?
All of my original DEC floppies had typewritten text on labels with blue DEC
edges/markings. It sounds likely that these are copies, possibly of original
DEC distro diskettes.
Given the CPU and storage, I'd assume RT would be
this boxes current limit,
correct ?
Yes. 28KW is plenty for RT-11. There might be something else you could
run in that (like RSX-11/S?) but not much.
Is 2 8" floppy drives enough to make a
sysgen'd RT with software and space
to do stuff with ?
Sure. It'll be slow to compile FORTRAN, but fine for BASIC or MACRO-11.
Before powering up for the first time, anything I
should be aware of that
would be likely weak with the VT103 after years of sitting idle (attic) ?
(i.e. caps in the power supply are likely to pop)
I will defer this to others. Do you know how recently this was powered up?
How are the DECtape II drives ? Do the capstans tend
to turn to goo ?
Yes.
They
look OK visiually, though I have not touched them. Any good way to confirm
if they'll hold up or break down before they eat a tape ?
I give mine a squeeze. If they deform like jelly beans and leave a black
stain on your fingers, they are toast. If they don't now, they wiill at
some point.
How best to preserve images of the 8" disks ? I
understand there are
parallel port RX02 emulators for the system, but nothing that I found for
hooking up the RX02 drive unit to a PC for imaging. I've also read that the
RX02 used a percular format (MFM sector data with FM headers as I recall).
Will things like the Disc Ferret archive images if I had a more modern 8"
floppy drive to use with it ? Suggestions ? Obviously if I get the system
working and I had another M8029 (which I don't), I could hook up a RX02
emulator and duplicate discs from real ones to the emulator. Is that the
only viable option ?
I would like to know a good way to do it with a low-memory machine.
One can use vtserver on a machine with enough RAM to run 2BSD (it's
a standalone disk image read/write tool that can be used to put UNIX
on blank hard disks), but AFAIK, the vtserver client requires more
than 28KW of RAM.
One way I've done in the past uses hardware you didn't say you had.
You can put 8" floppies on a MicroVAX and use EXCHANGE or
BACKUP/PHYSICAL.
How best to image the DECtape II tapes ? If the
drives work, I understand
they are serial, so is there any source out there for doing this under
Linux/UNIX ? Or again, what I have to do this in some fashion under RT-11
and get the images off the system ?
There are ways to attach TU58s onto UNIX/Linux (or DOS!) machines. You'll
need a custom serial cable, and I don't know how extensively it's been tested
with USB-serial dongles, but it will work with a real hardware-implemented
RS-232 port.
What should I look out for, clean, lubricate/etc on
the RX02 before
eventually trying it for the first time ?
Clean dust out. Make sure the fan spins freely. Gently turn the
positioner lead screws by hand and ensure they spin freely. Look
for burn spots around the power transistors on the lower board
(under the board you can see looking at the drive). Sticky positioner
motors pull enough current to char the board.
And lastly, towards the future, I understand one can
add the 4 missing bits
on the backplane to go from 18 bits to 22 bits, then an 11/23 cpu can be
used in it.
Yes.
Is this the only cpu board upgrade option viable in an
VT103 ?
With that, I'd assume RSTS/E, TSX, RSX, RT, and old Unix would be options ?
Perhaps someone here who has done it could comment, but I'd
want to check the current draw against what the VT103 PSU
can provide. You might be able to get away with a KDJ-11 board
of some kind. With more memory, those other operating
systems become viable. 2BSD wants at least 1MB, ISTR,
but 4MB would be grand (if the PSU could handle it). TSX-11
probably runs in 256MB or less, but it's been years and I"m
not sure what the requrements are. Older versions of RSX-11
run in 256KB. A hard disk of some kind becomes
your next sticking point. You'll have to power the disk
externally, but even an RLV12 and a an RL02 or two
is a huge step up from dual RX02 (I made my living for
a year in the late 1980s with an 11/23 and a single RL01
running RT-11 v5.x, so you don't need 400MB to do
interesting things - even 10MB or 30MB is a lot).
What would be the suggested hard drive options ? Will
CQD-22 SCSI work on
the existing CPU ? Will it work with a larger CPU with an upgraded bus
within the VT103 ?
I think both of those are true. I haven't tried running a Q22 disk
interface in a Q18 backplane, so
I I'd like to consider some sort of
SCSI->ATA->flash
solution for low power and put it inside the VT103 for a self contained
approach. The mounts are not standard, otherwise ZIP drives or JAZ drives
in place of the DECtape IIs would offer immense storage and easy switchover
to other 11 OSes.
A SCSI interface and a ZIP or JAZ drive should be fine, for as
long as your media lasts.
One thing to watch for is your operating system of choice must
support MSCP disk to use a SCSI controller. This means RT-11 v5
not v4, AFAIK, but others on this list probably know detailed
specifics off the top of their head. 2.9BSD does not support
MSCP (but can be patched) and 2.11BSD does not support
processors that don't have split I&D (like your CPU or the KDF-11
in an 11/23 - you have to move up to a KDJ-11 to run 2.11BSD
on a Qbus box)
Looking to understand this box more, how to bring it
back to operation, and
what I can do with it as is, and improve it a bit towards the future (no
cutting/drilling.... any upgrades have to be able to be removed to bring it
back to original.
Get it up and running RT-11 from RX02 and see about those upgrades
you were thinking about. Perhaps someone who has loaded up
a VT103 with newer boards can tell you what does work. I have
a VT103 myself but haven't tried maxing it out. I have other Qbus
boxes I can do that on.
Unrelated, anyone know if the VT525 does Regis
graphics ?
Unknown (I don't have anything that new), but I thought it did.
-ethan
9:17 a.m.
On Oct 17, 2013, at 12:43 AM, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
I seem to recall that the CQD-220 will operate in an 18-bit
backplane. I could be misremembering. I can't think of why
it wouldn't, as long as the driver doesn't try to give it
any addresses over 56KB.
The CQD-220 (and most other QBUS SCSI cards) should work fine
with the CPU, but bear in mind that an MSCP bootstrap isn't
as easy to find (it's on late revisions of the KDF11-Bx ROM,
possibly elsewhere) and it's NOT the sort of thing you want to
toggle in yourself because MSCP is pretty complex (for a boot
protocol, anyway). Fortunately, I know at least the CQD-220
has a bootstrap built in which you can make available at 173000
(the standard boot vector) and one alternate location (memory
says 171000, but that could be misremembered as well). You can
also boot from the utility menu, but that requires manual
intervention at boot time, so I assume you'd rather avoid that.
A Zip drive makes a great drive for RSX-11M. 100 MB is actually
pretty big for that. I don't know if I'd do a Jaz drive for it,
but part of that is that I've had TERRIBLE luck with Jaz media
(from the '90s on) while Zip disks have been rock solid for me.
Stick with Zip 100 drives and media, and you should be good; the
later 250/750 drives and media suffered from poor quality
control and don't seem to last nearly as long.
The manual (http://www.vt100.net/docs/vt520-rm/ek-vt520-rm.pdf)
doesn't say much about that. There's a "graphics mode", which
looks like it's just VT100-style line characters, but it does
specifically mention that it doesn't do Tex 40xx graphics, and
I don't see the ReGIS escape codes anywhere in the manual.
- Dave
Perhaps someone here who has done it could comment,
but I'd
want to check the current draw against what the VT103 PSU
can provide. You might be able to get away with a KDJ-11 board
of some kind. With more memory, those other operating
systems become viable. 2BSD wants at least 1MB, ISTR,
but 4MB would be grand (if the PSU could handle it). TSX-11
probably runs in 256MB or less, but it's been years and I"m
not sure what the requrements are. Older versions of RSX-11
run in 256KB. A hard disk of some kind becomes
your next sticking point. You'll have to power the disk
externally, but even an RLV12 and a an RL02 or two
is a huge step up from dual RX02 (I made my living for
a year in the late 1980s with an 11/23 and a single RL01
running RT-11 v5.x, so you don't need 400MB to do
interesting things - even 10MB or 30MB is a lot).
I've definitely run 2.9BSD in less than 1MB, but as you said
elsewhere, 2.11 needs a lot more and requires split I/D.
Older RSX-11M will run in at least as little as 56KB (not
sure if 4.6 will or not, but it definitely runs fine on 256KB).
RSX-11M+ requires at least 512KB.
What would be
the suggested hard drive options ? Will CQD-22 SCSI work on
the existing CPU ? Will it work with a larger CPU with an upgraded bus
within the VT103 ?
I think both of those are true. I haven't tried running a Q22 disk
interface in a Q18 backplane, so I I'd
like to consider some sort of SCSI->ATA->flash
solution for low power and put it inside the VT103 for a self contained
approach. The mounts are not standard, otherwise ZIP drives or JAZ drives
in place of the DECtape IIs would offer immense storage and easy switchover
to other 11 OSes.
A SCSI interface and a ZIP or JAZ drive should be fine, for as
long as your media lasts. One thing to watch for is your operating system of
choice must
support MSCP disk to use a SCSI controller. This means RT-11 v5
not v4, AFAIK, but others on this list probably know detailed
specifics off the top of their head. 2.9BSD does not support
MSCP (but can be patched) and 2.11BSD does not support
processors that don't have split I&D (like your CPU or the KDF-11
in an 11/23 - you have to move up to a KDJ-11 to run 2.11BSD
on a Qbus box)
The CQD-220 manual actually has a table of supported operating
systems in the front or back, which gives a pretty decent idea
of which ones should work. I run mine with RSX-11M 4.6 just
fine.
Unrelated,
anyone know if the VT525 does Regis graphics ?
Unknown (I don't have anything that new), but I thought it did. 
18 Oct
18 Oct
11:23 p.m.
New subject: VT525 (was Re: VT103)
In article <3738dcbbfb9d931b9244feb06af0977b at localhost>,
rescue <rescue at hawkmountain.net> writes:
Unrelated, anyone know if the VT525 does Regis
graphics ?
No, it does not. It does color alphanumeric display only. However,
you can download a user-defined font into the terminal and switch into
alternate font display.
You reminded me that I hadn't yet made a page in the wiki for this terminal.
<http://terminals.classiccmp.org/wiki/index.php/DEC_VT525>
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" free book
<http://tinyurl.com/d3d-pipeline>
The Computer Graphics Museum <http://ComputerGraphicsMuseum.org>
The Terminals Wiki <http://terminals.classiccmp.org>
Legalize Adulthood! (my blog) <http://LegalizeAdulthood.wordpress.com>
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