Introduction and RK05J Drive cabling

[Pete Lancashire]

Be very careful of the filter assembly, make sure the foam seals are not
deteriorated to where they can add to what ends up on the platter.



On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 2:00 PM, Joshua Stetson <saburwulf at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi there, long time viewer, first time poster. First an introduction:
>
> My name is Joshua Stetson and I'm a software engineer by trade. My earliest
> memories have always involved computers starting with a DOS based Zenith
> 8088 where I played some of my first games.
>
> My first foray into "classic" computing was on a Commodore 64 which my
> Uncle gave me while I was still in Jr. High. I'd already been introduced to
> programming at an early age, so this machine was an absolute treat to me at
> the time as it was my first step into assembly language. As time
> progressed, my interests turned older and I began a collection of S-100
> gear including an IMSAI 8080 and a SOL-20.
>
> Over the past couple of years, I've managed to work back even further,
> piecing together a PDP-8/e system from various parts collected over the
> past 4 years and now I have a fully working 8/e including 32kw of core and
> an RK05E card set. I've been running the system using Kyle Owen's
> os8diskserver and David Gesswein's sendtape utilities which both work
> absolutely wonderfully. It was amazing to be able to run Adventure on a
> native system!
>
> I'd like to send a shout out to Kyle for the os8diskserver, that is some
> pretty awesome work there. David for his software and archive of DEC
> documentation which was indispensable for helping me debug a few boards and
> get everything running and tested. I also want to thank Vincent Slyngstad
> for his help and support on some questions.
>
> Now to my ask:
>
> Recently I've found a pair of RK05J drives and a few disk packs. One of my
> drives seems to be in fully working order, the other the blower is not
> working, so I'm working on fixing that right now.
>
> I'm currently missing cabling for connect these drives to the RK05E board
> set. If anyone happens to have an extra cable set they'd be willing to part
> with so I can bring these beasts back to life, I'd appreciate it!
>
> Ideally I would like to find the following:
> 7009026 Cable which is two ribbon cables with a M933B or C flip chip on the
> other end
> The interface cable between the two drives: BC11A
> The terminator card M930
>
> At minimum, I'm pretty sure I'd only need the first cable to run one of the
> drives, but I'd appreciate any help from those who have more experience.
>
> Also, I don't have a rack for this equipment yet, so I'm running it all
> tabletop, but I'm in the market for a rack + rails (I only have the rails
> for the equipment, but not the ones that mount to the rack itself. Any
> leads on more 16-sector packs would also be appreciated! Also, still hoping
> to get the extended arithmetic boards, RTC, and possibly a TSC8 Timesharing
> option as I have 4 SLUs and would love to try out some timesharing.
>
> On a side note, I'm looking to perhaps sell or trade my SOL-20 sometime
> soon. It's 100% working as I restored it about 3 years ago. It works great,
> but I'm looking to part with all of my S-100 equipment to focus more on
> DEC.
>
> Thanks!
>
>