[cctalk] Guidance on repairing Dec PDP 11 System

[Devin D via cctalk]

Greetings,

Been a while since i have posted here. I have several PDP11 systems and 
peripherals. I picked the original lot of a system 34 and related tech 
in Miami FL a couple years back, and have since found several more pdp 
11/34 machines, and a pdp 11/05, 11/85, and others.

It has been a goal to get the original PDP 11/34 system up and running, 
however my job schedule kept getting in the way of my repair efforts, 
making it easy to loose track of where i was at with the repair 
progress. Thankfully i no longer work in a datacenter in a 10 hour 
overnight shift, so it should be much easier to devote my time to this 
repair.

I am looking for advice to get the 11/34 system up and running. I have 
started to put together a site to document my progress, to stay on track 
with the repair effort. The system has 2 rl02 drives, and an attached 9 
track tape drive. I had worked to repair a power supply issue at first, 
there was a problem with the main transformer, as well as one of the 
smaller voltage "bricks". Thankfully i have many systems and i was just 
able to swap in the needed working parts.

So this is about as far as I got, I had a minimal config of the 11/34 
machine running, with not much more than the cpu, and a serial card to 
talk to attached terminal. Power supply works, and i was able to toggle 
in programs from the front panel to output characters to the attached 
terminal.

I believe the next logical step was to try and attach the rl02 
controllers, and see if the disk packs still have working installs of 
RSX installed. I am not sure how to proceed with this though.

I have mainly been following the advice of Paul Anderson, who has been a 
godsend in regard to advice and guidance with getting these old systems 
fixed up. I hope that if i keep a log of the repair effort on my site, 
it will allow me to pick up where i leave off with the repair much more 
easily.

So that is the present condition of the machine. Good power supply, can 
toggle in simple programs to print to the attached terminal. Any advice 
on how to proceed is much appreciated.  I Need to get an itemized list 
of what hardware and cards i have on hand, and post that here so its 
understood what i have.

Thanks,

Devin D.