bringing up an 8f... - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

4 Apr 1999

This is why I'm positng about progress.

  I'm well above average with tools, test gear, spare parts and debug 
  skills. I seriously wonder how many of the "I want a SROCTH because 
  I've heard they are neat(kewl, cool, gnarly...)." have the skills or 
  the clues to even power it successfully.  These things are as far from 
  PCs as one gets.  The end result is destruction rather than preservation.

   OH, "SROCTH" is Some Rare Old Computer To Hack.

Part of the power supply work was removing and repairing an existing 
bungled hack that had some of the foil burnt off the board, likely with 
some soldering torch of killer proportions.  When dealing with old power 
supplies like this substitutions are not a good thing.

<Great progress! The stuck bit won't be hard to find/fix. I had a couple of
<bad TTL chips when debugging the 8/f here, they were easy to find. Similar
<problem (always-off bit in certain I/O operations).

I will find it but first back to the power supply as the -15V folded.

<Let us know how your core plane works!

Initial tests indicate it was good, I was able to run a simple 5 
instruction program.  Short story.  The core in this one came from an 
8E that had two 8k stacks I got from the Mill in '85 and gave away in 
90 or 91 to another Digit (digit=person that works/worked at Digital).
It was known good when given away.  

<Schematics and other info's on highgate (when you get time to download the
<viewer!).

There is no free or shareware viewer for that format I can find.  If you 
have one it can likely save the file as jpg of gif.  Why an oddball version 
of TIFF was used is beyond me.

Allison