What is interesting is that during this time span, I had acquired an NC driller/router for my PC shop! I don't think the dremel tool will withstand the sidethrust for very long to do routing, but that is kind of what I would like to do ... assuming there is still enough there to get it working! Brian Chase wrote:

On Fri, 5 Jul 2002, Doc Shipley wrote: [snippage] You also might look into the extension cable for the Dremel motor unit; this would take the load off the main bearings and put it on the relatively cheap cable end. Obclassiccmp: In the late 70's, I bid on (and won) a Cincinnati Milacron single-axis NC X-Y pcb drill unit, that accepted standard 8-level paper tabe (as might be punched on a Flexowriter) and made holes in thin stuff accordingly. It was in running shape, and still had a spool of program tape, which, when rewound, commanded the drill to punch a pattern of holes in whatever was on the platten. The logic of the device was all DEC Flip-Chip modules in individual sockets, but the reader was a photoelectric type with mechanical sprocket feed. Sold it two weeks later to a PCB fab house, for over 20 times what I'd bid it for. Made the Boss grin... Cheers John

Patrick, your BA11-M box (if it is the one from the video effects box you described earlier) is probably the second-smallest Qbus box. There is one with a backplane half as wide as yours, so you can put in only four dual-height modules. This is the BA11-S, aka shoebox. You lost your bet ;-) Your BA11-M has a Q18 backplane, sufficient for 256kB or 128kW of RAM (124.kW after subtracting the I/O page). Enough to get started with any of the typical PDP-11 operating systems at least, and more than your 11/2 can support (it delivers only 16 address bits because it doesn't have a MMU). So, the limiting factor is the CPU, and then the amount of memory you actually _have_. However, a small system should be runnable on this box. What you'll definitely need is at least one serial line to use as the console, so a MXV-11, as suggested by Megan, would indeed be a good idea. Another choice, if easier to get, would be a DLV-11J, which has four serial lines, one of which can be jumpered to the correct CSR and vector to be a console. Details available here upon request, if you cannot find them by googling. The disadvantage of the DLV11-J would be that it has no boot ROM, so you'd still need something like a TEV-11, IIRC. That ESDI controller (seems to really be ESDI, and not made by DEC), it does not possibly happen to carry the proper boot ROMs around with it? - Some third-party Qbus disk controllers do, but you may need different ROMs or jumper settings for VAX or PDP-11 use. What ROMs you need may depend on the card (MXV-11, TEV-11, ...). Unfortunately, I don't think I have any spares. However, since you have a ROM board (hopefully, it can be convinced to decode the chip selects to the right address range...), you may simply burn one of the publicly available bootstraps into suitable chips. That's not a lot of wizardry, once you know which device you want to support. It becomes more difficult if you want to offer a choice to the operator, which is what DEC's ROMs sometimes do... Same for the RLV12: quite a good choice, given that you already have a suitable drive, but no parts available from me. The older RLV11 would not help because it needs CD wiring to interconnect the two boards it consists of. The cable is not too critical at the controller side: get any ribbon cable from your local store, perhaps they will even be able to put the connectors on for you. But, they will certainly not have the matching connector for the drive. BTW, do you have the bulkhead connector for transition from the ribbon cable to the round drive bus cable, and a terminator for the drive bus? (The terminator looks like a connector with no cable attached, has a resistor array inside.) Sure, you can expand later. That's what these boxes are made for. If your network interface is plugged into a Qbus, it must be a DEQNA or a DELQA (if you cannot find the M numbers through Google, look at the board: the letters must be printed on it somewhere, etched in copper). The DECNA is for the Professional machines (desktop PDP-11, as in Pro 350 or Pro 380, seen lately in this mailing list). The DEQNA is the older board, which will not work in a VAX with VMS versions later than V5.something. For PDP-11 use, either a DEQNA or DELQA will do, but you'll need sufficient memory to support a network interface and protocol stack. I have no docs available here in the office, but I seem to remember that the M8044 (MSV-11?) was available in several flavors (identified by the letters after the dash) with different capacities, so it might be possible. I'll look up more about this at home. There should be boards to examine. Stay tuned. I think Megan was thinking of a pretty comfortable machine, while you first need to get started at all, after yanking the PDP-11 from the video effects processor it was embedded in. Since I also started with a rather small configuration, but have meanwhile grown to a total of three PDP-11s (one UNIBUS, two Qbus) to fill a room, this must be possible for you, too. A remark about the power supply in your BA11-M: it is switch mode, but does not require a minimum load current. With very low output currents, it runs as a linear regulator, and with increasing load, it starts switching, but with the load further increasing, it will slowly loose efficiency (read: get hot). I try to keep mine only fairly loaded to extend their life. -- Andreas Freiherr Vishay Semiconductor GmbH, Heilbronn, Germany http://www.vishay.com

--- Patrick Finnegan <pat(a)purdueriots.com> wrote: AFAIK, the MSV11-D takes 4116 DRAMs, but I've seen them with other part numbers (8xxx?) You can't drop in 4164s for a couple of reasons: refresh and voltage. The 4116 and its 4kbit predecessor are multi-voltage; the 4164 and its descendents are +5VDC only. I have upgraded other DEC memory boards that were half populated. You might be able to do the same here. All of the MSV11D modules I've ever seen were already up to 32KW. -ethan __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Sign up for SBC Yahoo! Dial - First Month Free http://sbc.yahoo.com

Andreas Freiherr wrote: When did the vaxarchive go out of stile ? ;-) Specially: http://www.vaxarchive.org/hw/vfg/ddual.html cheers

You found the difference... the 'x' part of M8044-Dx is the vendor who supplied the chips which went on the board. Megan Gentry Former RT-11 Developer +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+ | Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | email: gentry at zk3.dec.com (work) | | Unix Support Engineering Group | mbg at world.std.com (home) | | Hewlett Packard | (s/ at /@/) | | 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43 | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ | | Nashua, NH 03062 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler | | (603) 884 1055 (DEC '77-'98) | required." - mbg KB1FCA | +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+

Would any of these be good choices: M7940 serial line unit M8028 asynchronous line interface I have these boards: M8044DE 32K 18 bit mos mem M8044DM 32K 18 bit mos mem plus a pair of non-dec boards, different manufacturers, 4 rows of 4116 chips, 8 per row. The M8044's say how much memory they contain, on the back of the circuit board. Let me know if you need any of this stuff. I have 4 M7270 LSI-11 cpu boards as well. -Lawrence LeMay lemay(a)cs.umn.edu