Unibus controller for MFM disks

[Mike Ross]

On Sun, Oct 16, 2016 at 3:33 AM, Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote:
> I can only think of one, the AED WINC-08 RL02 system, but that used 8" drives
> Good luck finding one, and the matching interface card. I don't think Qualogy
> Emulex or Dilog ever made MFM for Unibus. MFM controllers were mainly a QBus
> market. I suppose some day I should make a list of all of the Unibus/Qbus disk
> and tape controller vendors I can think of.
>
> There is a project going on right now in support of the Y-Combinator
> Alto restoration to create a Diablo model 30 drive emulator.
> Given how many RK11's there are in the world, that might be an option
> once it's working. There is also the German RL02 drive emulator, which
> seems to have stalled again.
>
> I hope someone gets a Q/Unibus non-mscp small disk emulator PCB built
> some day. I wonder if Guy has had any time to work on his.

A plug-compatible Massbus disk/tape emulator would be a Good Thing;
there are things like pdp-10s that rely exclusively on Massbus and
rare finicky power-hungry beasts like RP06. I kinda heard that LCM
were working on something like that but don't know how far they got.
Setasi had a disk emulator system based on a PC with a Massbus-on-FPGA
card but they're rare and pretty unmaintainable too; I have one but
not got it working yet.

IBM channel-attached DASD would be another good one. It exists - the
FlexCub. I know LCM use those too - but the price is commercial and
way way up there. A hobbyist license for that would be helpful! I have
a System/3 pretty much ready to boot - but it never will unless I can
find or emulate the 3340 disks which are the only things it can use.

Mike

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