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

[David Griffith]

On Sat, 12 Mar 2016, jim s wrote:

> 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.

Can I get a picture of the black panel you're referring to?  I already 
have a two-row variant of the Panda Display.  It exists as a branch at 
https://github.com/DavidGriffith/panda-display.  The single-row one was 
designed as a drop-in replacement for the parallel port version.  The 
layout of the double-row one can be more flexible.  What sort of stuff 
would like to see?

As-is, the firmware cannot support more than one Panda Display per host 
machine.  The means of doing this seems rather tricky.  I suppose a pair 
of daisy chain ports can be added to the board design.

Also, the interfacing work is with the klh10 emulator, not SIMh, because 
the former already has hooks for running blinkenlights.

-- 
David Griffith
dave at 661.org