When I saw Jack Rubin selling a PDP-11/34/39 manual on eBay, I had to
buy it. I thought perhaps the "11/39" was just a misprint - but...
Somewhere I ahve an early edtition of an 11/04 and 11/34 manual where
there are large gaps in the typing after '11/04' and '11/34' each time.
It is clear that origianlly it was going to include 11/09 and 11/39. I
think soem of the frontpanel sketches say 11/39 on them.
The preliminary manual is titled "PDP-11/34/39 USER'S GUIDE" and is (c)
1975. Below the copyright is: "Written by PDP-11 Engineering".
In perusing the manual, I quickly went to the section describing the
two systems. Here's the opening paragraph in section 3.1:
"PDP-11/34 AND PDP-11/39 SYSTEM DESCRIPTION"
"The PDP-11/34 and PDP-11/39 Computer Systems consist of a set of
modular building blocks combined to suit a customers needs. The
PDP-11/34 System is designed for original equipment manufacturers
[OEM's] while the PDP-11/39 system is designed for end users..."
The manual then defines the "basic components" of each system.
Both contain a KD11-E central processor, KY11-LA Operators Console,
Unibus, M9302 Unibus Terminator and Core or MOS memory.
The differences are:
The 11/34 contains:
M9301-YA Terminator/ROM
The 11/39 contains:
M9301-YB Terminator/Boot/Diagnostic
DL11-W Serial Line Interface
M7850 Parity Controller
My guess is that DEC Marketing decided that only one system model made
sense - and the original "11/34" configuration was scrapped and the
"11/39" configuration became the 11/34 we know it...
Remember that the 11/35 and 11/40 are essentil the same machine, just the
frist was CPU only, the second included the terminal port (DL11), etc.
Ditto for the 11/05 and 11/10 and I think 11/15 and 11/20. So I alwys
asumed that the 11/04 and 11/34 were to be CPU only 11/09 and 11/39 the
'packaged' versions, as this manual suggests.
-tony