Honneywell multics? from panels. the inline phots in this message folks...

jim s jwsmail at jwsss.com
Sat Mar 12 13:21:07 CST 2016


What is the provenance / source of the panels?

Mine came from an acquisition by Nick Allen from a collection in 
Georgia.  I believe there was a Multics installation in Atlanta they 
were removed from.

The panels on the 6180 at USL were all inside side access panels for one 
of the rows of hardware boxes. One box panel was usually exposed with 
the door removed, but it could be closed up.  There were problems which 
required access to one of the panels frequently in operations, so it was 
seldom closed.

We probably could get access to Dockmaster with some advance arrangement 
and good will on the part of the CHM when they have time to arrange 
access to the storage to which  it was moved to see actual installed 
panels.

I agree, the black panel has about the only interesting display.

+David Griffith

I might also suggest that once David Griffith finishes porting the PDP 
10 Panda panel and has that design working and integrated that there may 
be enough blink'n lights there to display a satisfying 6180 display on a 
normal desktop case.

the advantage is that it is at least already 36 bits and has some of the 
nonsense of having that bit count worked out already.  I'd think we 
(someone) could fork and add a second bank of lights, or use two of the 
Panda usb devices to put out a lot of information about a 72 bit 6180.

His main problem now is with interfacing and coding PDP 10 assembly code 
which is obviously not useful for re-purposing it for Multics use 
anyway, and is internal to SIMh PDP10 emulation.

If a lot of people who are interested in blinking Multics Honeywell 6180 
displays were interested it would contribute a lot to him selling out a 
run of his board kits.

thanks
Jim

On 3/12/2016 10:57 AM, COURYHOUSE at aol.com wrote:
> and   for    horrible  deep level maint.  I would imagine they  would 
> be  useful....
> they look  like  something too  complex to let  operations level  
> people  diddle  with...
>  but  are  these  used with exactly WHICH   Honeywell system?  If  we 
> are  going to display them need to tell the right story in the museum.
> Ed#
> In a message dated 3/12/2016 7:44:50 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, 
> dave.g4ugm at gmail.com writes:
>
>     The panels would be pretty much un-used Unlike 360 panels these
>     were hidden behind doors for most of the time. Assuming the work
>     the same on a Multics box as on a regular L66/DPS box the only
>     time they were really used was if you split a 2 x CPU system into
>     2 x 1 CPU system, or changed the memory configuration from
>     interleaved to non-interleaved. Pretty sure you could IPL from the
>     console.
>
>     Dave
>
>     *From:*COURYHOUSE at aol.com [mailto:COURYHOUSE at aol.com]
>     *Sent:* 12 March 2016 11:53
>     *To:* jws at jwsss.com
>     *Cc:* spacewar at gmail.com; dave.g4ugm at gmail.com;
>     charles.unix.pro at gmail.com; jwsmail at jwsss.com;
>     cctalk at classiccmp.org; Kevin at RawFedDogs.net; healyzh at aracnet.com;
>     couryhouse at aol.com; couryhouse.smecc at gmail.com
>     *Subject:* Honneywell multics? from panels. the inline phots in
>     this message folks -smecc
>
>     ok sent to  all the people cc on the multics stuff..  will not  go
>     though on main listserv probably
>
>     here are some of the panels  think there is more  there are at
>     least  2 of  each type
>
>     one set will make display her  at smecc museum in az  the other
>     set???   maybe someone want to wire into an emulator <<<grin!>>>
>
>     aside  from a little  dust and bad  lighting these things  look  
>     like they were  pretty unused   thanks  ed# www.smecc.org
>     <http://www.smecc.org/>
>



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