Remote job submission from PDP-11

[Paul Koning]

> On Oct 7, 2020, at 12:06 PM, Glen Slick via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> 
> ...
> I was curious about this DEC M8704 DMS11-DA that sold cheap a few days
> ago. It has eight SMC COM5025 "Multi-Protocol Universal Synchronous
> Receiver/Transmitter USYNR/T" chips:
> 
> https://www.ebay.com/itm/373243388363
> 
> Apparently it can't do anything on its own. It needs to be connected
> to a UNIBUS through a companion KMC11 processor board, which might not
> be too common if someone wanted to put together a working
> configuration.

That model number isn't familiar.

A KMC-11 is simply a microprocessor that sits on the Unibus and does Unibus cycles to another device on behalf of the host.  The idea is to offload operations so the host can ask for block transfers and the KMC does the individual character I/O operations needed.

That said, it clearly is not correct that "it can't do anything on its own".  The KMC-11 reaches into the device via its Unibus CSRs.  If you can find a description of its operation, or reverse engineer it, you can clearly write a device driver for it that doesn't rely on a KMC-11.

	paul