DG S/130 progress

[Henk Gooijen]

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- 
From: Jay West 
Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 12:08 AM 
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org 
Subject: DG S/130 progress 

Pictures of the S/130 system I'm building up are at
https://www.flickr.com/photos/131070638@N02

[... snip long cool progress description ...]

Great series of pictures Jay!
I planned to work last Saturday on the "dead" PDP-11/10, but got distracted
to the NOVA 3 that I have. Probably because I am going to pick up a NOVA 4
(if the description of the guy is correct).
After more than a year on a desk, I mounted the 6125 tape drive in the top
of the rack with its power supply on the right side next to it.
The rest of the system is very much like your system: 6125 tape drive,
6031 single 8" floppy drive, NOVA 3, and in the bottom a 6070 hard disk
unit.

> It would seem that DG didn't believe in anything plugging in to
> interface boards. Instead, interface boards went in the cpu with no
> external connectors. Then you wirewrap from the backplane from a given
> slot to one (of a stack) of paddle boards bolted to the rear of the
> cpu chassis. Those paddleboards have edge connectors, and that's where
> you connect the device cable. Fun stuff.

Indeed!  I feel like being spoiled by DEC with connectors for everything.
I have the controller board for the 6125, but I do not have the cable
from the backplane to the paddle board. I *think* I do have the cable
from the paddle board to the pin header on the 6125 board (the horizontally
mounted one).

My 6125 did power up correctly, but when I mount a tape and press BOT,
it spools some tape and then stops. When I press BOT again, it spools
again some tape. Did that a few times ... had to manually rewind the tape
as REWIND did not work. Could be a missing BOT on the tape, or issues ...

> So... some progress at least :)

Keep posting!  I am a "newbie" on DG stuff with a long road ahead.
I am not sure whether the NOVA 3 is healthy either. Several bulbs of
the console are probably burnt out. I am thinking about a replacement
with LEDs as bulbs will continue to die.

I have off-line some pages of DG on my website. As this will get
more interest (from myself), I will upload them in a moment. At the
bottom of the navigation section (left) will be an entry "Data General".
Any comment and information is welcome!
- Henk