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

[Charles Anthony]

On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 11:21 AM, jim s <jwsmail at jwsss.com> 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.
>
>  Multics site: SCSI. Southern Company Services, Inc., Atlanta GA. Nuclear
fuel inventory. Installed 1982.
(2 L68, 4 MSU0451, 4 MSU0501)

2 Level 68 CPUs, 4 MSU0451 disk drives (309 kg, removable pack, 156 Million
9 bit bytes), 2 MSU0501 disk drives (non-removable pack, 1101 Million 9 bit
bytes)

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.
>
>
I don't think there is that much interest, but I'll keep a weather eye out.

Interfacing to beaglebone would be simpler for me, as I already have the
infrastructure in-place for my simulated display. (All of the needed data
is in a shared memory segment, a standalone program just scrapes the data
and sends it out.)

-- Charles