24 Feb
2003
24 Feb
'03
1:41 a.m.
Hello Gene,
Even though RD-5x fit in there fine, what is probably an inexpensive
but more reliable solution than the RD-5x is to go with 5.25" FH
ESDI drives as some other "personal users" have done. They
come in larger storage capacities than the RD-5x drives too.
Pick up a Sigma SCD-RQD11/EC when it shows up on eBay
for around $35 to $50 ( or even less these days? ), and ask
Mark Green about an ESDI drive. He got all four ( some of them
around 600 Mb ) that I had a couple of years ago for what would
have averaged out to $10 each ( plus shipping ).
Best Regards
At 06:57 AM 2/24/03 -0800, you wrote:
struggling
That's just amazing. I never knew the demand for
those things was that
high. I wish the guy that was doing the IDE controllers had entered
production. :)
I think a lot of people, "personal users" too, are getting tired of with RD-5x drive unreliability, and/or want the
larger storage capacities
they could obtain with SCSI
Well I've got a KDA-50 board set so I'm not _totally_ out in the cold, but
it sure would be nice to use a drive that a) wasn't 150lbs (RA81) and b)
wasn't 3 feet long (RA92). Neither of which fit in the BA123(? nice
roll-around chassis, card cage is on the right side) enclosures that my 2
MicroVAXen use.
g. 
24 Feb
24 Feb
4:26 a.m.
New subject: QBUS ESDI (was Re: QBUS SCSI card...)
--- Mail List <mail.list(a)analog-and-digital-solutions.com> wrote:
Pick up a Sigma SCD-RQD11/EC when it shows up on eBay
for around $35 to $50 ( or even less these days? )...
Are end-user docs for these sorts of controllers available? I wouldn't
mind getting a Qbus (or Unibus!) ESDI controller (I have a few drives
out of old external Sun SCSI<->ESDI enclosures) but would want one that
isn't impossible to configure.
My primary OSes would be 2BSD, possibly RSX-11 or RSTS, and maybe
even VMS (on an 11/750 or uVAX-II). In the case of 2BSD, I'd want
a controller that responds to the xp driver, IIRC.
Anyone out there have favorites?
-ethan
4:58 a.m.
New subject: QBUS ESDI (was Re: QBUS SCSI card...)
Hello Ethan,
I think those Sigma controllers are in the NetBSD supported
hardware list
Here's a message from Doug Meade, who got one of those
from me off eBay a couple of years ago, saying that he
has
the manual.
http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-vax/2002/05/14/0002.html
Seems Tim Shoppa is familiar with those also ...
Sigma-rebranded version of the Webster WQESD ESDI controller. (DSD and
Qualogy also rebranded Webster boards.)
http://www.classiccmp.org/mail-archive/classiccmp/1999-09/0183.html
Mark Green is/was running one.
Pat Finnegan is/was too ... ( He must be busy this morning )
http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2002-July/003343.html
Best Regards
At 10:22 AM 2/24/03 -0800, you wrote:
--- Mail List
<mail.list(a)analog-and-digital-solutions.com> wrote:
Pick up a Sigma SCD-RQD11/EC when it shows up on
eBay
for around $35 to $50 ( or even less these days? )...
Are end-user docs for these sorts of controllers available? I wouldn't
mind getting a Qbus (or Unibus!) ESDI controller (I have a few drives
out of old external Sun SCSI<->ESDI enclosures) but would want one that
isn't impossible to configure.
My primary OSes would be 2BSD, possibly RSX-11 or RSTS, and maybe
even VMS (on an 11/750 or uVAX-II). In the case of 2BSD, I'd want
a controller that responds to the xp driver, IIRC.
Anyone out there have favorites?
-ethan 
5:35 a.m.
New subject: QBUS ESDI (was Re: QBUS SCSI card...)
--- Mail List
<mail.list(a)analog-and-digital-solutions.com> wrote:
I like the Webster WQESD/4 controller, it's got some really sweet
capabilities (such as having hard partitions that you can use to boot RT-11
Pick up a Sigma SCD-RQD11/EC when it shows up on
eBay
for around $35 to $50 ( or even less these days? )...
Are end-user docs for these sorts of controllers available? I wouldn't
mind getting a Qbus (or Unibus!) ESDI controller (I have a few drives
out of old external Sun SCSI<->ESDI enclosures) but would want one that
isn't impossible to configure.
My primary OSes would be 2BSD, possibly RSX-11 or RSTS, and maybe
even VMS (on an 11/750 or uVAX-II). In the case of 2BSD, I'd want
a controller that responds to the xp driver, IIRC.
Anyone out there have favorites? from different partitions). I'm not sure about
2BSD, but it should support
everything else you list. I've used it with drives
out of old external Sun
SCSI<->ESDI enclosures. The downside with ESDI controllers is that the
drives are getting hard to find, and I assume they're starting to develope
reliability problems.
Here is the manual for that board:
ftp://zane.brouhaha.com/pub/hardware/WQESD.pdf
Still, I've since switched to Viking SCSI adapters for my PDP-11/23+,
PDP-11/44, and PDP-11/73. They're able to support 4mm DAT, CD-ROM, and
small, quiet, lower power SCSI HD's. Oh, the WQESD's will also provide a
DU bootstrap (and I think others) for the PDP-11, until I got a quad-height
/73 board, it's only purpose in my /73 was to provide the bootstrap (with
the console on a DLV11J). One of these days I might convert the /23+ to a
/73 that way.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
5:49 a.m.
New subject: QBUS ESDI (was Re: QBUS SCSI card...)
On Mon, 24 Feb 2003, Ethan Dicks wrote:
Are end-user docs for these sorts of controllers
available?
Yes, mostly.
My primary OSes would be 2BSD, possibly RSX-11 or
RSTS, and maybe
even VMS (on an 11/750 or uVAX-II). In the case of 2BSD, I'd want
a controller that responds to the xp driver, IIRC.
Most of these controllers
emulate KDA50 (Qbus) or UDA50 (Unibus), so
are readily supported by most, if not all DEC(-related) OSes.
Anyone out there have favorites?
I have Emulex
and Dilog, and like them both a lot.
--fred
8289
days inactive
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4 comments
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participants (4)
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erd_6502＠yahoo.com -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
mail.list＠analog-and-digital-solutions.com -
waltje＠pdp11.nl