I can take some pictures of the M9312 I have running in my 11/40 tonight if need be. The manual at http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/dec/unibus/M9312_TechRef.p… (page A-2) suggests that W8 should be IN. Can you describe how your system is configured (i.e. what's on the bus, what's in the CPU, etc?). Have you double-checked that the interrupt vectors for your SLUs are correctly configured? The console (and BASIC, IIRC) does not use interrupts for serial I/O and will work if the vector is misconfigured (I discovered this the hard way in my 11/05) but other things will not and will behave badly. I'd also suggest using PDP11GUI to load in diagnostics directly, this avoids needing to be able to boot XXDP... - Josh On Sat, Nov 26, 2016 at 9:58 AM, william degnan <billdegnan at gmail.com> wrote:

On Nov 26, 2016 2:16 PM, "Josh Dersch" <derschjo at gmail.com> wrote: Thanks...I will leave out. The manual could be clearer. Bill

On 11/27/16 8:22 AM, william degnan wrote: So you've verified that the vectors on both your SLUs are correctly set? Can you elaborate on why you suspect this is the case? Can you describe your system in detail? PDP11GUI doesn't use TAP files. You can use PDP11GUI to load individual XXDP diagnostics into the PDP-11 without needing to boot XXDP at all. J?rg has provided a wonderful database of diagnostics here: http://www.retrocmp.com/tools/pdp-11-diagnostic-database. Find the device you need to test and grab the diagnostic binaries, listings, and documentation and go to town. (See section 5 of http://www.retrocmp.com/how-tos/using-pdp-11-diagnostics/227-pdp-11-diagnos… to see how that's done.) What issues are you having? Does it hang? Halt? How are you bootstrapping? I assume you know the RL11 and the RL02 and the pack involved are all known-working? - Josh

On 11/27/16 4:28 PM, william degnan wrote: Thanks. Where is the M7762 in this lineup? You might try shortening the bus to eliminate extra variables (the second MM11 backplane, and the 2nd DD11 backplane can be removed) but you're probably fine. Based on the above, it looks like you've gone over all the grants and have the proper continuity cards and/or NPR jumpers in place. I would also suggest cleaning the edge connectors on any that look dirty or oxidized, it can and does make a difference (in my experience). If you really want to make a bootable XXDP TU58 tape image, the instructions given by AK6DN here: http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?42246-How-to-make-a-bootable-XXDP… have worked for me in the past. You can use PUTR to throw more diagnostics on the tape if you need. But you'll need to be able to actually do a TU58 boot, which it sounds like you've been having trouble with, so your mileage may vary. Running the diagnostics stand-alone using PDP11GUI should work fine, and I've had good luck with it. Just be sure to read the diagnostic instructions carefully so you know the starting addresses and the proper switch settings. (Sometimes the instructions are in the listing, sometimes there's a separate document). According to the user's guide: http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/disc/rl01_rl02/EK-RL012-UG-004_R… If the CSR bits are as you report, the drive got the Read command (that's what F0-F2 indicate -- the last selected function, in this case "Read Data"). Bit 15 indicates a composite error, and bit 10 indicates OPI, as you note. I don't see anything in there about HFT unless you left out some bits. If indeed bit 12 is set (indicating HFT) then the "Header Not Found" indicates that the drive was unable to find the header for the sector on the disk, which makes it look like the drive is trying to read but for whatever reason isn't able to find the sector. This could be a damaged disk, misaligned heads, or any number of logic failures. I would start with the RL02/RL11 diagnostics via either XXDP or PDP11GUI and go from there. Nor am I, but I'm getting better. The DEC documentation is generally excellent, and it helps to have a basic understanding of the instruction set. You might try sitting down with the RL02 user's manual and writing some short programs to test out the controller just to see what it's doing -- see if you can read in a single sector, etc... - Josh

On 11/28/16 7:11 AM, william degnan wrote: And what does the TU58 bootstrap do when you attempt to boot? Do you see any activity over the second SLU talking to the emulator? No it doesn't say that. As indicated by the fact that you can see the controller's CSR register from the front panel and the console PROM monitor, and that the bootstrap is able to write to it during execution. The controller is responding, and it's saying "sorry, I was unable to read anything." If the controller wasn't responding, the CPU would trap on execution (a Bus Error Trap, to location 4). Yes, this is expected. If you look at the listing here: ftp://ftp.bluefeathertech.com/computing/hardware/legacy/DECboot/23-751A9/23… you can see that what happens on an error after a Read Data command is that the bootstrap does a RESET and jumps back to the beginning to retry, indefinitely. (See line 91). There is likely a problem with your drive, the controller, the disk, or the cabling, or some combination of these things. Yes, that might be a good idea. Single-stepping through the bootstrap (with the aforementioned listing at your side) might be revealing. I assume you've run all the 11/40 CPU diagnostics and exercisers? You are seeing something, in the controller's CSR register. What is it you're expecting to see? - Josh