DEC RK11-C Disk Controller - on ebay...or is it?

[Paul Anderson]

I have two backplanes and a diablo drive if anyone is interested.

Paul

On Mon, Feb 8, 2021 at 11:38 PM Ethan Dicks via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 8, 2021 at 10:22 PM Fritz Mueller via cctalk
> <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> > Yup, RK11-C, and it seems complete (modulo drive cables and
> terminators.)  I have
> > one debugged and running in my '11/45, so I know it well.
>
> I've had one for years but I haven't tried working on it yet.
>
> > > On Feb 8, 2021, at 3:16 PM, Ethan Dicks via cctalk <
> cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> > > The ribbon cables are a bit out of place... perhaps they were just
> > > stuffed into empty slots to keep them from being damaged.
> >
> > The cables are actually in the correct slots -- they connect A30 and B30
> to the
> > pass-through connectors to support plugging in a pair of KM11s from the
> > outside of the rack for debug.
>
> Ah... handy.  I don't recall if mine has those or not.  I do have a
> replica KM-11 set that I need to construct.  It will definitely come
> in handy.
>
> > On nice thing about this controller is that it supports "Read/Write All"
> mode, which
> > lets you read or write the raw bitstream including block headers.  This
> can be useful
> > for disk recovery if you have a corrupted block header, or for
> reading/writing "foreign"
> > disks (within limits).  This is controlled by bit 9 in the CSR, which is
> unimplemented on
> > the later controllers.
>
> Interesting.  Did not know that.  I don't know that I've ever had a
> corrupt disk that I needed to read, but it's good to know that feature
> exists.
>
> -ethan
>