SC-40 update

[Rich Alderson]

From: Cory Smelosky
Sent: Friday, April 17, 2015 5:24 PM

On Sat, 18 Apr 2015, Rich Alderson wrote:

>>> Happen to have any idea how to boot one from tape?  Copy a DEC bootstrap
>>> to the MSP disk and pray it considers one of the SCSI drives as a
>>> supported drive?

>> Since DEC never supported SCSI hardware (that was done independently by SC and
>> XKL at different times for different hardware), that's never going to work.

> I've heard (from Peter Lthberg that they're emulated (in certain situations?)
> as massbus disks.

I was wrong about SC, BTW.  That work was done internally at CI$.  (I was told
this by the gent who oversaw the conversion from KLs to 40s.)  Whether they
emulate Massbus at some point, I cannot say.

If Peter is talking about XKL, I'm sorry but he's dead wrong.  I can say that
with complete certainty since I worked for XKL when the Toad-1 was built, did
some of the monitor development myself, and have managed Toad systems as part
of my daily living for the last 20 years.  The SCSI interface created by XKL
(specifically by Dr. Wayne Lichtenberger, of Illiac and AlohaNet and Cisco's
CSC-3 processor board fame) is sui generis, and the code for it in TOPS-20 is
likewise.

                                                                Rich

P.S.  Peter is an old friend.  Say hello for me next time you talk to him.

Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer
Living Computer Museum
2245 1st Avenue S
Seattle, WA 98134

mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org

http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/