20 Oct
2020
20 Oct
'20
7:05 p.m.
Now I'm starting to look through boxes to see if I have another 11/24
CPU. I seem to recall picking a second one up somewhere, I also want to
see if I still have the driver board for the second Plessy core memory.
Might be around, might have been pitched.
So far I did find a box of DZ11's. Not sure why I have a dozen of them,
they might have been from the USPS haul in days of yore. Anyone need a
couple of DZ11's?
The real weird one is a quad board H216. I thought it was a Unibus core
memory board, but it's 8k*19 bits, which means it came from one place:
An MA10 memory box. The only one I may have been exposed to was AI (the
original KA10). So question:
Did AI use MA10 memory boxes?
Did any of that stuff survive?
Anyplace else it might have come from?
Weird stuff. Got a lot of it....
CZ
20 Oct
20 Oct
8:03 p.m.
On 10/20/2020 9:05 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote:
Now I'm starting to look through boxes to see if I
have another 11/24
CPU. I seem to recall picking a second one up somewhere, I also want to
see if I still have the driver board for the second Plessy core memory.
Might be around, might have been pitched.
So far I did find a box of DZ11's. Not sure why I have a dozen of them,
they might have been from the USPS haul in days of yore. Anyone need a
couple of DZ11's?
The real weird one is a quad board H216. I thought it was a Unibus core
memory board, but it's 8k*19 bits, which means it came from one place:
An MA10 memory box. The only one I may have been exposed to was AI (the
original KA10). So question:
Did AI use MA10 memory boxes?
Did any of that stuff survive?
Anyplace else it might have come from?
Weird stuff. Got a lot of it....
CZ
Or maybe a PDP-15? 18 bits plus parity.
I would guess that that would be much more likely.
JRJ
8:26 p.m.
Or maybe a PDP-15? 18 bits plus parity.
Possible, did the pdp15 use that type of board?
I would guess that that would be much more likely.
Problem is I have never been near a pdp15, but I have been in proximity
to AI. I don't remember what happened to it after Doug's apartment, I do
remember seeing the console with the switches in the storage unit, not
sure what happened to that or the rest of it.
Weird. (And I think it was a MF10 memory, not MA10)
21 Oct
21 Oct
5:22 a.m.
On Tue, Oct 20, 2020 at 11:26:22PM -0400, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote:
I have seen PDP-15 core memory and it is not that format. It looks like
the memory modules from a PDP-8/I or -8/L
Admittedly, the PDP-15/XVM might have had something else.. not sure what
model the core I saw came from.
/P
Or maybe a
PDP-15? 18 bits plus parity.
Possible, did the pdp15 use that type of board?
23 Oct
23 Oct
10:57 a.m.
On Wed, Oct 21, 2020 at 6:22 AM Pontus Pihlgren via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On Tue, Oct 20, 2020 at 11:26:22PM -0400, Chris Zach
via cctalk wrote:
I have seen PDP-15 core memory and it is not that format. It looks like
the memory modules from a PDP-8/I or -8/L
The ME15 memory for the PDP-15 used that kind of memory, but it normally
used an 18-bit H215. I think there was another variant that offered parity
that would have used the 19-bit H216.
There might have been PDP-15 memory earlier than the ME15, but at the time
of the PDP-15 introduction (1970), H21x core planes were used in most DEC
machines, so it would have been surprising for them to use something else.
Perhaps some PDP-15 systems were upgrades from the PDP-9, which used memory
modules similar to the PDP-8/I.
Or maybe
a PDP-15? 18 bits plus parity.
Possible, did the pdp15 use that type of board?
12:35 p.m.
On Fri, Oct 23, 2020 at 11:57 AM Eric Smith <spacewar at gmail.com> wrote:
the
memory modules from a PDP-8/I or -8/L
The ME15 memory for the PDP-15 used that kind of memory [H215/H216], but
it normally used an 18-bit H215. I think there was another variant that
offered parity that would have used the 19-bit H216.
There might have been PDP-15 memory earlier than the ME15, but at the time
of the PDP-15 introduction (1970), H21x core planes were used in most DEC
machines, so it would have been surprising for them to use something else.
Perhaps some PDP-15 systems were upgrades from the PDP-9, which used memory
modules similar to the PDP-8/I.
The PDP-15 print set on Bitsavers shows that the original PDP-15 memory was
the MM15, which was in fact very similar to the PDP-8/I memory, and was
available with or without parity.
The ME15 must have been developed for later PDP-15 systems, and used the
newer H215 core stack. I can't find any evidence of a parity version of
that, which if it existed would have used the H216.
On Wed, Oct 21, 2020 at 6:22 AM Pontus Pihlgren via
cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
I have seen PDP-15 core memory and it is not that format. It looks like
20 Oct
20 Oct
8:39 p.m.
On Tue, Oct 20, 2020 at 8:06 PM Chris Zach via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
The real weird one is a quad board H216. I thought it
was a Unibus core
memory board,
Most of the DEC core plane boards were not specific to any particular bus.
though there are some exceptions.
but it's 8k*19 bits, which means it came from one
place:
An MA10 memory box. The only one I may have been exposed to was AI (the
original KA10).
I'm pretty sure the H216 was too new to have been used in an MA10 or MB10,
but I don't know which core planes or other modules were used. They might
have still been using core modules made by external vendors like Ferroxcube.
The much later MF10 does use the H216, while the MG10 uses the H217 and the
MH10 uses the H224.
The H216 also might have been used in memory systems for a PDP-9 (late in
its life) or the PDP-15. The ME15 normally used the H215 18-bit core
planes, but I think there was a parity option, which would have used the
H216.
9:02 p.m.
Ok, so the MF10 would have been hooked up to a KI10. That makes sense
then. Still interesting wonder what set of bad decisions led it to my
box of parts....
Anyone need DZ11's?
C
On 10/20/2020 11:39 PM, Eric Smith wrote:
On Tue, Oct 20, 2020 at 8:06 PM Chris Zach via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org <mailto:cctalk at classiccmp.org>> wrote:
The real weird one is a quad board H216. I thought it was a Unibus core
memory board,
Most of the DEC core plane boards were not specific to any particular
bus. though there are some exceptions.
but it's 8k*19 bits, which means it came from one place:
An MA10 memory box. The only one I may have been exposed to was AI (the
original KA10).
I'm pretty sure the H216 was too new to have been used in an MA10 or
MB10, but I don't know which core planes or other modules were used.
They might have still been using core modules made by external vendors
like Ferroxcube.
The much later MF10 does use the H216, while the MG10 uses the H217 and
the MH10 uses the H224.
The H216 also might have been used in memory systems for a PDP-9 (late
in its life) or the PDP-15. The ME15 normally used the H215 18-bit core
planes, but I think there was a parity option, which would have used the
H216.
10:09 p.m.
On Tue, Oct 20, 2020 at 10:02 PM Chris Zach <cz at alembic.crystel.com> wrote:
Ok, so the MF10 would have been hooked up to a KI10.
The ME10 was the first core box for the PDP-10 memory bus that supported
22-bit addressing, and could be used on the KA10, KI10, or KL10 (with a
DMA20 memory bus interface, not available on DECSYSTEM-20 configurations).
It has a toggle switch to select 18-bit or 22-bit addressing. The later
core boxes (MF10, MG10, and MH10) also supported 18-bit and 22-bit
addressing.
The MA10, MB10, and MD10 only supported 18-bit addressing, so typically
wouldn't have been used on the KI10 or KL10.
21 Oct
21 Oct
5:16 p.m.
I'm pretty sure the H216 was too new to have been
used in an MA10 or
MB10, but I don't know which core planes or other modules were used.
They might have still been using core modules made by external vendors
like Ferroxcube.
It's looking to be the same vintage as the 11/05 memory I have (the
H214) so early 70's.
I'm uploading a picture of that and some 11/24 pictures to:
https://www.crystel.com/pdp
Should be there in an hour.
CZ
12:05 a.m.
Chris Zach wrote:
Did AI use MA10 memory boxes?
No. It had the original 256K "moby" from Fabri-Tek, and another 256K
from Ampex. The associated PDP-6 had an older DEC Type
16x-something
16K memory.
Did any of that stuff survive?
Maybe bits and pieces here and there. The AI KA10 went to Concourse,
and then it was lost.
3:02 a.m.
Those of us late to the party may like to know:
1. What was AL
2. Why was it famous?
3. Tell us more about Doug, and his apartment :-)
Kindest regards,
Doug Jackson
em: doug at doughq.com
ph: 0414 986878
Check out my awesome clocks at www.dougswordclocks.com
Follow my amateur radio adventures at vk1zdj.net
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your own use.
Please note that any interesting spelling is usually my own and may have
been caused by fat thumbs on a tiny tiny keyboard.
Should any part of this message prove to be useful in the event of the
imminent Zombie Apocalypse then the sender bears no personal, legal, or
moral responsibility for any outcome resulting from its usage unless the
result of said usage is the unlikely defeat of the Zombie Hordes in which
case the sender takes full credit without any theoretical or actual legal
liability. :-)
Be nice to your parents.
Go outside and do something awesome - Draw, paint, walk, setup a
radio station, go fishing or sailing - just do something that makes you
happy.
^G ^G ^G ^G ^G ^G ^G ^G- In more laid back days this line would literally
sing ^G ^G ^G ^G ^G ^G ^G ^G
On Wed, 21 Oct 2020 at 18:05, Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Chris Zach wrote:
Did AI use MA10 memory boxes?
No. It had the original 256K "moby" from Fabri-Tek, and another 256K
from Ampex. The associated PDP-6 had an older DEC Type 16x-something
16K memory.
Did any of that stuff survive?
Maybe bits and pieces here and there. The AI KA10 went to Concourse,
and then it was lost.
3:54 a.m.
Doug Jackson wrote:
Those of us late to the party may like to know:
1. What was AL
2. Why was it famous?
Not AL, but AI. Also known as MIT-AI on the ARPANET. It was the PDP-10
used by the MIT AI lab, hence the name. The Incompatible Timesharing
System was developed on their PDP-6, later moved to the PDP-10. There
were three more ITS machines in the 70s: MIT-DMS/Dynamic Modeling,
MIT-ML/Mathlab, and MIT-MC/Macsyma Consortium.
If ITS doesn't ring a bell, maybe some of its applications/tools might:
Maclisp, Scheme, Logo, CLU, DDT/HACTRN, SHRLDU, MacHack VI, Macsyma,
Maze(war), Emacs, Zork.
3. Tell us more about Doug, and his apartment :-)
I'll leave it to others to talk about Digex.
1481
days inactive
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13 comments
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participants (6)
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cube1＠charter.net -
cz＠alembic.crystel.com -
doug＠doughq.com -
lars＠nocrew.org -
pontus＠Update.UU.SE -
spacewar＠gmail.com