21 Apr
2020
21 Apr
'20
8:48 a.m.
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2020 15:29:44 -0400
From: Chris Zach <cz at alembic.crystel.com>
To: CCTalk mailing list <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: pdp11/84 PMI memory: What is the problem with Q bus?
Message-ID: <3efa4105-3d3d-bb98-0358-8c46fca0fdcf at alembic.crystel.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
So I picked up an 11/84 CPU, 3mb of memory, and a 11/84 Unibus card on
Ebay. Goal is to speed up my fastest 11 here
For boot time, the diagnostics run in 13 seconds (from when it starts to
prompt) on the 11/73 board I have and 13 seconds on the 11/84 board.
This is with a camintonn 2mb half height memory board.
Put in the first PMI module above the 11/84 CPU and tried it out. This
is a CA rev board which apparently only works in a Unibus pdp11 and not
a Q-bus one. Apparently it does work.
So what exactly was the bug with the older PMI memory? Block mode DMA,
I'm using an MTI ESDI controller which can do 16 word block DMA on Q
Bus. Something else?
Chris,
Congrats on the PDP-11/84! I also have a PDP-11/84 that uses one of Joerg?s Hoppe?s
UniBone devices to simultaneously emulate MSCP disks, RL02 disks (including the
RL02 Load/Ready/WriteProtect/ and fault lights) and a DL11.
I have a question about something you said above, that you are using a MTI
ESDI disk controller and then you mention Qbus block mode DMA. Are you able to use a
Qbus MTI controller in the 11/84?s Qbus section of the backplane? This is something
I?ve often wondered about but never tried.
Also, you mention putting the PMI memory above the 11/84 CPU. In the 11/83
Qbus backplane this is of course determines whether the M8637 memory is accessed via
Q22 or PMI. In the 11/84 System Maintenance Guide Figure 2-8 shows the
CPU card above the memory which if you were to do this in the 11/83 would mean
that the memory will be accessed via Q22 and essentially become an 11/73.
In my 11/83 I have run both configurations to understand and measure the benefit of PMI.
As has been mentioned the 11/84 can use any of the M8637 memory boards but the
11/83 can only use the M8637-D or -E versions. For anyone who is curious about what
Happens when a M8637-C version board is used as PMI memory in an 11/83 I can speak
From experience. This was running RSX11M+ and it boots
fine but after a few minutes if
The system is active, the console starts to report
that various installed tasks are corrupted
And the system will XDT a bit later. After this the disk is corrupted and you will need to
restore
the system disk from backups after you get the correct PMI memory boards.
I?m not completely sure how the write DMA operations put bad data through the disk
controller
(I was using an Emulex UC07 with a SCSI2SD) into the disks but that is what happens.
Mark Matlock
21 Apr
21 Apr
1:17 p.m.
Thanks Mark! Actually this was just the boards from the 11/84 (no idea
what happened to the chassis, drat) so it's an 11/84 CPU (18mhz, FPP
chip installed), 2 PMI boards (one old 2mb, one new 1mb) a console board
of some sort and the Unibus map.
I popped this into my BA23 to speed things up a bit in place of my quad
height 11/73 CPU with 2mb memory. So far it seems to work, and with the
CA memory in the PMI slot managed to boot RSX11M 4.2 and compile up EMPIRE.
My guess is the 11/84's Unibus talks directly to the PMI bus and
orchestrates the data transfers, but there is something wrong when the
PMI memory is accessed on the true Q bus. That would not happen on an
11/84 (CPU and Map use PMI only) but when you have a Q bus DMA device it
probably manifests at random. It's possible the MTI card is throttling
the DMA to single mode instead of hog mode, wonder if I want to screw up
my disk to verify this....
Drat. On the positive side it's chock full of 256k chips, which I could
pull off and put on the EA board to bring it up to 2mb memory. I have
air heat tools and a pre-heater so getting the chips off should be
pretty basic. Getting them on the new board though could be a pain since
all the holes are soldered over....
No way to reprogram or fix it I assume?
C
On 4/21/2020 11:48 AM, Mark Matlock via cctalk wrote:
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2020 15:29:44 -0400
From: Chris Zach <cz at alembic.crystel.com>
To: CCTalk mailing list <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: pdp11/84 PMI memory: What is the problem with Q bus?
Message-ID: <3efa4105-3d3d-bb98-0358-8c46fca0fdcf at alembic.crystel.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
So I picked up an 11/84 CPU, 3mb of memory, and a 11/84 Unibus card on
Ebay. Goal is to speed up my fastest 11 here
For boot time, the diagnostics run in 13 seconds (from when it starts to
prompt) on the 11/73 board I have and 13 seconds on the 11/84 board.
This is with a camintonn 2mb half height memory board.
Put in the first PMI module above the 11/84 CPU and tried it out. This
is a CA rev board which apparently only works in a Unibus pdp11 and not
a Q-bus one. Apparently it does work.
So what exactly was the bug with the older PMI memory? Block mode DMA,
I'm using an MTI ESDI controller which can do 16 word block DMA on Q
Bus. Something else?
Chris,
Congrats on the PDP-11/84! I also have a PDP-11/84 that uses one of Joerg?s Hoppe?s
UniBone devices to simultaneously emulate MSCP disks, RL02 disks (including the
RL02 Load/Ready/WriteProtect/ and fault lights) and a DL11.
I have a question about something you said above, that you are using a MTI
ESDI disk controller and then you mention Qbus block mode DMA. Are you able to use a
Qbus MTI controller in the 11/84?s Qbus section of the backplane? This is something
I?ve often wondered about but never tried.
Also, you mention putting the PMI memory above the 11/84 CPU. In the 11/83
Qbus backplane this is of course determines whether the M8637 memory is accessed via
Q22 or PMI. In the 11/84 System Maintenance Guide Figure 2-8 shows the
CPU card above the memory which if you were to do this in the 11/83 would mean
that the memory will be accessed via Q22 and essentially become an 11/73.
In my 11/83 I have run both configurations to understand and measure the benefit of PMI.
As has been mentioned the 11/84 can use any of the M8637 memory boards but the
11/83 can only use the M8637-D or -E versions. For anyone who is curious about what
Happens when a M8637-C version board is used as PMI memory in an 11/83 I can speak
From experience. This was running RSX11M+ and it boots fine but after a few minutes if
The system is active, the console starts to report that various installed tasks are
corrupted
And the system will XDT a bit later. After this the disk is corrupted and you will need
to restore
the system disk from backups after you get the correct PMI memory boards.
I?m not completely sure how the write DMA operations put bad data through the disk
controller
(I was using an Emulex UC07 with a SCSI2SD) into the disks but that is what happens.
Mark Matlock
1472
days inactive
1472
days old
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