I found (a) problem, probably (the) problem, after several hours of board-level debugging trying to figure out the Fault indicator... the fancy original DEC ribbon cable is bad at the Berg end where it plugs into the controller! With the board in the card extender, which is the only way to allow the cable to move and reproduce the problem, I flexed the ribbon cable to about 45 degrees above the board. Lo and behold... the Fault lamp went out :) I am now making a Berg-Berg cable and will install it from inside the drive compartment. This will obviously help but I'll post when (if) it's running. ;) Interesting that this same discussion is taking place on cctalk with someone else's "new" RL02... -Charles