Re: A 'good-enough' H960 |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| PDP11 masthead replica
On Jul 10, 2015, at 8:21 PM, ste...@malikoff.com wrote: ... Paul: thanks for John's Handbook Truetype font. I've looked at it and (for me) the kerning is not quite right even when using the narrow 't' (0054, or ALT + keypad 83) also on other characters. To get the proper representation for the panel I would need to convert the TTF word string to an image or SVG path, shuffle the characters to the correct spacing and then reimport it. So I'll stick with what I have for this. His 's' is far better than mine though - I'll work on that. It’s mine, actually; John provided the storage. Thanks for the feedback, I’ll see if I can fix that. I created that font many years ago using CorelDraw, which has a very primitive export-to-TTF feature. In particular, no kern support at all. paul
Re: A 'good-enough' H960 |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| PDP11 masthead replica
ste...@malikoff.com writes: One thing that intrigues me is the end-on photo IMG_3161. It appears the top edge projects further than the bottom by a tiny bit leading to a tapered appearance, It's not tapered; it just looks that way because I'm not holding it very straight in the photo. I've added a couple more end-on pictures that should show this more clearly: http://photos.offog.org/pdp11-panel/g/ BTW the first image won't load for me: '... cannot be displayed, because it contains errors'. It's a pretty big image. If your browser doesn't like it, try saving it and loading it in something else? I've added a lower-res version as well. Thanks, -- Adam Sampson a...@offog.org http://offog.org/
Re: A 'good-enough' H960 |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| PDP11 masthead replica
On 10/07/2015 02:21, ste...@malikoff.com wrote: Pete: also teriffic photos, thanks as well! Nice measurements especially the letter heights. Thanks, you're welcome. A common method of determining radii is to use an engineers radius guage. Which is what I did :-) -- Pete Pete Turnbull
Re: A 'good-enough' H960 |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| PDP11 masthead replica
PS: To clarify (if needed) what I mean by 'the flange': orient the piece as it would be if it were on the H960 (i.e. with the little interior tabs at the top, and the coloured panel on the front); the 'flange' runs down one side, along the bottom, and up the other side: it's a continuous piece, towards the back of the unit, in a plane parallel to the plane of the coloured front panel. HTH. Noel
Re: A 'good-enough' H960 |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| PDP11 masthead replica
On 11/07/2015 01:21, ste...@malikoff.com wrote: I've adjusted the drawing based upon some of the measurements provided, so far. I'd like to get it as accurate as possible. So, I've taken some of Adam's photos and annotated them with labelled arrows (hope that's ok Adam). Would it be possible to get these? Hopefully this will clarify things. One or two labels are repeated, I know: http://www.surfacezero.com/g503/data/500/dimension_check-IMG_3161.jpg flush with bottom edge?: yes, it is. b = 93.5mm at the position shown, but it's slightly tapered, presumably for purposes of injection moulding. If you measure it just above the flange (the part with thickness i in that photo) it's 94.5mm. I'd not noticed that before. d = 56.95mm g = 4.93mm - 4.98mm depending on exactly where/how I measure it h = 106mm i = 2.46mm j = 33.18mm k = 11.67mm L = 2.7mm where you drew the line, tapering to 2.3mm at the rear edge (for injection moulding again) m = 14.25mm http://www.surfacezero.com/g503/data/500/dimension_check-IMG_3162.jpg q = 15.5mm r = 6.35mm (it's a 1/4 hole to clear a 10-32UNF machine screw, which screws into a Tinnerman nut on the top crossmember of the rack) s = 11.1mm (hard to be absolutely accurate with the tools I have, but that is suspiciously close to 7/16) t = 27.9mm where you've drawn it. You obviously realise it goes in further under the flange, radiused as shown in IMG_3144. u = 11.27mm http://www.surfacezero.com/g503/data/500/dimension_check-IMG_3144.jpg a = 91.05mm (that's from upper surface to upper surface) v = 9.21mm (average of two corners) w = 2.53mm (this tapers as well, to 3.1mm at the base) x = 12.25mm y = 15.5mm (but on mine, the piece of the flange that y is the width of, is almost 1mm wider on one side, but only in the part hidden by the flange that Z points to) z = about 0.5mm - you're trying to measure the taper on the edge of the flange? Not easy to be accurate. That flat part, across which you're measuring x and y, looks as if it goes all the way across the bottom in IMG_3161 (where you've measured k) but it doesn't on mine. It only goes as far as you can see in IMG_3144, and there are machining marks in the plastic where the rest has been cut away - and from the look of the marks, they're in the mould. Noel: thanks for trying the drill bits on the radius. From the original TU10 photo I determined 9.6mm, Pete says 9.5mm so I'm not too far out. I have adjusted it to 9.5mm anyway, along with most of the other measurements provided. Bear in mind that as this was designed in the US, the design measurements and tools were almost certainly imperial rather than metric. So that radius was probably cut on the master with a 3/4 cutter, rather than 19mm. That makes the radius 3/8, which is 9.525mm: slightly larger than 9.50mm but closer to 9.5 than to 9.6. Though I doubt anyone cares much about 0.1mm here, let alone 0.025mm :-) -- Pete Pete Turnbull
Re: A 'good-enough' H960 |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| PDP11 masthead replica
From: Pete Turnbull
z = about 0.5mm - you're trying to measure the taper on the edge of
the flange? Not easy to be accurate.
Ah, I've just realized I made a mistake in a previous message.
I thought 'z' was calling for the distance between the inner edge of what I'm
calling 'the flange' (i.e. the edge the left-hand arrow of 'x' is pointing
to), and the upright at the right end of what I'll call the 'bottom plate'
(when the piece is mounted on the H960, the bottom plate is in a plane
parallel to the ground - i.e. it's in a plane perpendicular to what I'm
calling 'the flange'). That upright is the vertical (in this picture) axis at
one end of 'z'.
Having called up a flat plate, and a square, to help measure accurately, the
width of the flange ('x') is 1.26 cm, and the distance from the outer edge of
the flange to the vertical at one end of 'z' (i.e. the end of the 'bottom
plate') is 1.57 cm at the 'bottom' of the plate (i.e. in this image), making
the distance from the inner edge of the flange to the vertical edge of the
bottom plate 3.1 mm - at the 'bottom' of the bottom plate.
At the _top_ of the bottom plate (i.e. the inner edge, when the unit is
mounted on an H960), the distance to the outer edge of the flange is 1.62cm,
making the 'flange inner edge' to 'bottom plate side' distance 3.6 mm, at the
'top' of the bottom plate.
So 'z', the variance between the two, is indeed 0.5 mm. Pete's spot on!
Noel
Re: A 'good-enough' H960 |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| PDP11 masthead replica
I've adjusted the drawing based upon some of the measurements provided, so far. However I'm not sure I interpret Pete's measurement of 33.1mm from the back of the flange to the front of the box, correctly. Noel also says the same 'from the back of the flange' so I must be missing something here. I'd like to get it as accurate as possible. So, I've taken some of Adam's photos and annotated them with labelled arrows (hope that's ok Adam). Would it be possible to get these? Hopefully this will clarify things. One or two labels are repeated, I know: http://www.surfacezero.com/g503/data/500/dimension_check-IMG_3161.jpg http://www.surfacezero.com/g503/data/500/dimension_check-IMG_3162.jpg http://www.surfacezero.com/g503/data/500/dimension_check-IMG_3144.jpg Noel: thanks for trying the drill bits on the radius. From the original TU10 photo I determined 9.6mm, Pete says 9.5mm so I'm not too far out. I have adjusted it to 9.5mm anyway, along with most of the other measurements provided. Paul: thanks for John's Handbook Truetype font. I've looked at it and (for me) the kerning is not quite right even when using the narrow 't' (0054, or ALT + keypad 83) also on other characters. To get the proper representation for the panel I would need to convert the TTF word string to an image or SVG path, shuffle the characters to the correct spacing and then reimport it. So I'll stick with what I have for this. His 's' is far better than mine though - I'll work on that. Thinking about Chris' mention of vinyl cutting, the long horizontal line could be dropped from the cutting image which would bring the length down from the start of the |d| box to the end of the '11' ie. about 245mm which would should(?) fit an A4 cutting space. The line could be applied seperately with automotive or scrapbooking lining tape. Thanks again Steve.
Re: A 'good-enough' H960 |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| PDP11 masthead replica
From: Steven Malikoff I'm not sure I interpret Pete's measurement of 33.1mm from the back of the flange to the front of the box, correctly. Noel also says the same 'from the back of the flange' so I must be missing something here. Hmm. I thought for a moment I'd misread my calipers, but I checked again, and 3.80 is correct for the thing I measured, which is (on your IMG_3161) from the lower end of i/j to the upper edge of d/g. So clearly we must be using different definitions of 'flange', or something - or maybe his unit is somewhat different from mine? Here are the rest of the measurements from that image: 'k' = 'm' on mine, at 1.15 cm. That downward projecting flat (at one end of 'l' and 'm', which is at 90 degrees to the thing I'm calling the 'flange', the thing with thickness 'i', which is completely horizontal - along two axes - in that image) is cut back a bit, in the direction normal to the screen, from the end of the upper part (at the left edge of 'k'), which is why they look, from the slight angle in that image, like they aren't in a common vertical plane (normal to the screen) - but they are. 'l' = 2.6mm; 'h' is 10.64 cm; 'd' is 5.73 cm; 'i' is 2.70 mm. 'g' looks to be about 4.6 mm; I should mention that the corner below it (at the upper end of 'i') is not a right-angle, but a rounded thing with a fairly considerable radius - something on the order of 3.5 mm. 'j' is 3.35 cm. The edge labelled 'flush with bottom edge' is indeed flush with the left-hand end of the horizontal flange. On IMG_3162, 'q' is 1.16 cm; note that the left edge of 'q' is almost, but not quite, in a plane with the right hand edge of 's'. The left edge of 'q' is about 3.4 mm to the left of the right edge of 's'. 'u' is 1.13 cm. (This turns out to be 'z' in the third image.) Note that the little tab (the thing you're measuring 's' on) projects up under the 'plate' which you're measuring 'u' on; i.e. the maximum width of that tab, 't', is up underneath that plate. I can't measure it because it's not a sharp angle where it meets the vertical surface (i.e. in the plane normal to the screen) up under there; rather, it's a radiused corner (which you can see in the next picture). On IMG_3144, 'y' is about 1.56 cm (bit hard to measure that one; I should have used a flat to give me good end point at the RHS to measure to); 'x' is 1.25 cm; 'v' is 9.1 mm (ditto); 'w' is 2.85 mm. 'a' I can't really give you directly, but I can give you the distance from the upper end of a, to the upper end of 'w', which is 7.96 cm; add that to 'w' and 'v' and that will give you 'a'. Noel
Re: A 'good-enough' H960 |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| PDP11 masthead replica
On Jul 10, 2015, at 8:48 AM, Paul Koning paulkon...@comcast.net wrote: Wow, it’s amazing that a device like that would be bothered by splines. It speaks to the lack of competence on the part of the implementer. Perhaps this problem dates back to the dark old ages of first generation cutters and has been cured by now? If not, you can approximate things with arcs, but for it to look reasonably close to correct you need more short arcs than you have now. I think CamBam hates splines too, although it will load them and work with them, just very slowly. I usually have to tell it to convert all splines to polyline approximations. I’ve never had any problems with splines with the lousy software I use with my vinyl cutter though. I load Illustrator 8 files and cut them without any issues. -- Follow me on twitter: @FozzTexx Check out my blog: http://insentricity.com
Re: A 'good-enough' H960 |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| PDP11 masthead replica
On Jul 9, 2015, at 9:21 PM, ste...@malikoff.com wrote: Wow, I wake up and you blokes on the other side of the world have been busy during the night working at getting a bunch of details for me :) Thanks Barry, Pete, Paul, Noel, Bill, Adam for your responses - the measurements and photos are exactly what I need. I'll go through them in detail soon and adjust the drawing. Paul: I will revisit the postscript file and fix up mine from it. There's a reason I try to avoid splines in my CAD drawings, a long time ago I did DXFs for laser cutting some keyrings (see http://web.aanet.com.au/~malikoff/jeep/keyring) using splines. The cutter operator replaced them with arcs owing to their software not being able to process it properly. Since then I've avoided splines for any drawing I do that has a chance of being exported as a DXF (or SVG for that matter) that is to be fed to a CNC device. Wow, it’s amazing that a device like that would be bothered by splines. It speaks to the lack of competence on the part of the implementer. Perhaps this problem dates back to the dark old ages of first generation cutters and has been cured by now? If not, you can approximate things with arcs, but for it to look reasonably close to correct you need more short arcs than you have now. I'll also follow up on your observation about the variations in the handbooks font, I'm sure I'll find them on bitsavers. Not on bitsavers as far as I know (though Al is welcome to place a copy there if he wants to do so). But you can find it on John Wilson’s site, at http://www.dbit.com/pub/misc/handbook.ttf paul
Re: A 'good-enough' H960 |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| PDP11 masthead replica
Wow, I wake up and you blokes on the other side of the world have been busy during the night working at getting a bunch of details for me :) Thanks Barry, Pete, Paul, Noel, Bill, Adam for your responses - the measurements and photos are exactly what I need. I'll go through them in detail soon and adjust the drawing. Paul: I will revisit the postscript file and fix up mine from it. There's a reason I try to avoid splines in my CAD drawings, a long time ago I did DXFs for laser cutting some keyrings (see http://web.aanet.com.au/~malikoff/jeep/keyring) using splines. The cutter operator replaced them with arcs owing to their software not being able to process it properly. Since then I've avoided splines for any drawing I do that has a chance of being exported as a DXF (or SVG for that matter) that is to be fed to a CNC device. I'll also follow up on your observation about the variations in the handbooks font, I'm sure I'll find them on bitsavers. Noel: fabulous! Thanks very much for the measurements, appreciate the use of calipers. I do agree that efi is a great DEC seller, I've bought some bits from him. I'll reluctantly pass on the blank panel though, our dollar is weak and the international postage rates have gone through the roof in recent times. Bill: wood would suffice I guess, but unlike wood, styrene sheet always has perfectly consistent working properties and as a long-time scale modeller I am extremely familiar with using it. I also have a number of large sheets of the stuff, in different thicknesses, ready to use. Adam: I appreciate your photos very much. One thing that intrigues me is the end-on photo IMG_3161. It appears the top edge projects further than the bottom by a tiny bit leading to a tapered appearance, but I assume the plane of the printed inset panel is parallel to the exterior mounting surfaces. If you don't mind I'll load that into CAD and do some overdrawing to determine if that's the case. Your lighting is good so I'll take the RGB values for the colours. BTW the first image won't load for me: '... cannot be displayed, because it contains errors'. Pete: also teriffic photos, thanks as well! Nice measurements especially the letter heights. That will be invaluable to make it a better drawing. I think I'll need to do a drawing of the whole unit and then have the measurements checked so I don't misinterpret your figures. Appreciate the use of a micrometer too. A common method of determining radii is to use an engineers radius guage. Failing that, try fitting a series of circular objects (coins etc.) which can then be measured with calipers or micrometer. So thanks again everyone, a super response. Steve.
Re: A 'good-enough' H960 |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| PDP11 masthead replica
On 09/07/2015 05:00, ste...@malikoff.com wrote: Following the recent discussion here on the 'DEC logo' topic, I've been mucking about with my own efforts to produce a replica PDP11 masthead panel for the DEC H960 rack. I need some help from the list, if possible - I would like the dimensions of the width and height. I can do that today, and get you a few hi-res photos too. I've looked at your blog page so I can see what you want. -- Pete Pete Turnbull
Re: A 'good-enough' H960 |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| PDP11 masthead replica
No one can see it, just use painted wood or something that holds it in place, eh? On Thu, Jul 9, 2015 at 8:18 AM, Noel Chiappa j...@mercury.lcs.mit.edu wrote: From: Steven Malikoff a replica PDP11 masthead panel for the DEC H960 rack. That would be great! (I'd buy one! Or more!) But how are you going to produce the plastic housing? I suspect that's going to be harder than the inset coloured panel. I need some help from the list, if possible - I would like the dimensions of the width and height. The inset (the coloured part) is 8.45 cm high (it's slightly smaller than the inset in the plastic housing, by about .5 mm); alas, I don't have a metric ruler long enough to measure the width directly, but in Imperial it's 3-21/64 by 18-9/16. I don't have a good way to accurately measure the radius in the corners, but it seems to be about 8.5 to 9.5 mm. I also would like to know of the outer edge of the masthead is a beige colour, or even silver. The raised edge around the inset panel is painted a dull silver - like the old silver paint, but with a touch of grey in it. The edge itself is 4.1mm wide, according to my calipers. The panel would be the inner bit with the radiused corners, the edges being a seperately cut panel which is in front of the the detailed one. Not sure I follow this? The entire top unit, including the raised edge around the coloured inset, is a moderately complex injection moulded plastic piece; behind the front, it's kind of like a box that's open at the back, and there's a ridge around the back edge on three sides; the bottom edge is shorter, and the top edge is extended further back. Finally, there are a couple of internal tabs where it actually connects to the H960. If you want an original to copy, TopLine has one for sale on eBay (ignore the ridiculous price they've got on it, they are very reasonable). I would also like to know how deep the recess is for the front. I suspect the same as the filler panel bezel edge, about 3mm. 4.0 mm by my 0.5 mm ruler. And also the depth of the plastic backing. You mean, how thick is the plastic in the housing? 2.7 mm in one place, 2.8 mm in another, 2.3 mm in a third? Interestingly, IYWR, in previous thread we'd mentioned how other people produced their own insets; one for a terminal server, and one for the LISP Machine. I looked at my LISP Machine one, which I had assumed was in a similar housing, but it's not! It does indeed fit on an H960 (the early LISP Machines were built in H960's), but it's quite different. It's in an extruded aluminium unit (of constant cross-section), with no end pieces (although the bottom plate has small squared cut out of the corners); the extrusion's cross-section is exact a capital 'F', but upside down. There are little square 'serifs' on the 'back' of the 'F' (the front side, when installed), and the printed panel fits in between them. Now that I look at it, it looks very similar to me to some things I seem to vaguely recall being used on earlier DEC machines (either a PDP-6, or a KA-10, I don't recall where it looks familar from). It being a more-expensive aluminium extrusion makes sense; that was back when that sort of thing (along with lots of lights! :-) was acceptable. Noel
Re: A 'good-enough' H960 |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| PDP11 masthead replica
On Jul 9, 2015, at 3:35 PM, Adam Sampson a...@offog.org wrote: ste...@malikoff.com writes: I would like the dimensions of the width and height. I've got one of these panels that came from the UKC machine room. I've put some photos of it, along with a 600dpi scan of the front, here: http://photos.offog.org/pdp11-panel/g/ Nice photos. Do NOT lose that Unix “license plate”. The one you have is the original one, which was made as an unauthorized project by Armando Stettner in the very early days of Unix support at DEC. It’s rare. There are others that have a Digital logo on them somewhere which are more common, and official, but not as interesting. paul
Re: A 'good-enough' H960 |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| PDP11 masthead replica
On Jul 9, 2015, at 3:35 PM, Adam Sampson a...@offog.org wrote: ste...@malikoff.com writes: I would like the dimensions of the width and height. I've got one of these panels that came from the UKC machine room. I've put some photos of it, along with a 600dpi scan of the front, here: http://photos.offog.org/pdp11-panel/g/ Now this is interesting. On the inside cover page of the handbooks (say, the PDP11/45 handbook) you’ll find the company name “digital equipment corporation” with two different shapes for “t”, with a long bottom arc in “equipment” and a short one in the others where there’s a letter to the right. Similarly, the “r” has a short arc in that text. In the bezel as shown on the photo, the “t” is consistently the long-arc version. And the arc of the “r” is longer than in the handbook. Yet another oddity: that same handbook cover page has “processor handbook” in the same typeface. In that text, the “r” have long arcs, longer than in “corporation” on that page, longer even than on the bezel of the photo. And while it makes sense for the second “r” of processor, it looks weird for the first one. Curious. It suggests that there wasn’t particularly close control over what the various draftsmen could draw in creating those pages, or bezels. paul
Re: A 'good-enough' H960 |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| PDP11 masthead replica
Pete Turnbull p...@dunnington.plus.com writes: overall height 106mm Note that the plastic moulding's actually different between Pete's Galway panel and my Maynard one. The outer flange at the sides continues around the bottom of the panel on mine, whereas it's cut away on Pete's: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pnt103/19370727168/in/album-72157655678560535/ http://photos.offog.org/pdp11-panel/photo-ats-20150709T171733-IMG_3144.JPG https://www.flickr.com/photos/pnt103/19562978651/in/album-72157655678560535/ http://photos.offog.org/pdp11-panel/photo-ats-20150709T171640-IMG_3141.JPG -- Adam Sampson a...@offog.org http://offog.org/
Re: A 'good-enough' H960 |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| PDP11 masthead replica
ste...@malikoff.com writes: I would like the dimensions of the width and height. I've got one of these panels that came from the UKC machine room. I've put some photos of it, along with a 600dpi scan of the front, here: http://photos.offog.org/pdp11-panel/g/ The printed panel is 471mm x 84mm. The outer dimensions of the bezel are 480mm x 94mm. The panel's inset by roughly 4mm. The dimensions of the rest are harder to describe, but hopefully you can get a reasonable idea from the photos. It looks like the bezel on mine has been repainted white at some point; the rack it came from was still in use (with non-DEC kit in it) in 2008. -- Adam Sampson a...@offog.org http://offog.org/
Re: A 'good-enough' H960 |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| PDP11 masthead replica
On 09/07/2015 05:00, ste...@malikoff.com wrote: I need some help from the list, if possible - I would like the dimensions of the width and height. I've uploaded 14 pictures of the masthead to Flickr. Some of them have a ruler (metric and imperial) included so you can not only see the shape but accurate dimensions. https://www.flickr.com/photos/pnt103/sets/72157655678560535 overall width 514mm overall height 106mm overall depth 57.0mm distance from top edge to underside of mounting flange 12.7mm box section width 493mm box section/logo frame height 93.5mm box section depth 33.1mm (from the back of the flange to the front of the box, where the edge is rounded; the logo frmae extends 4.8mm beyond that, and the ) logo frame width 480mm coloured logo panel width 472mm beige border width 4.0mm (all round) box corner inside radius 9.5mm depth of recess housing the silkscreen 4.0-4.1mm (it's not quite the same in all the corners on mine). The silkscreened logo panel is a separate component, and is a tiny bit smaller - maybe 0.5mm -- I took a closeup of the bottom left corner to try to show that. hozizontal rule thickness 1.75mm (between upper and lower logo secions) width of ascenders/descenders in d|i|g|i|t|a|l logo 3.7mm height of l 23.6mm height of d 24.2mm (the bowl descends below the ascender) line width of boxes in d|i|g|i|t|a|l logo 1.75mm line width in pdp logo 1.0mm width of ascenders/descenders in digital equip... logo 1.2mm (1.18-1.21mm) height of l 7.3mm Note that there's a comma -- not a full stop (period) -- between galwayand ireland and I'm sure that's the case for maynard and massachusetts too, although it doesn't show well in the TU10 picture. I've shown it in closeup in one of mine. -- Pete Pete Turnbull
Re: A 'good-enough' H960 |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| PDP11 masthead replica
On 09/07/2015 20:58, Pete Turnbull wrote: I've uploaded 14 pictures of the masthead to Flickr. overall width 514mm [etc...] There does seem to be some variation between reported dimensions, so just in case anyone is wondering, mine were made with a 60cm certified engineer's steel rule and a digital micrometer, with the aid of x10 loupe where necessary. Maybe we're seeing batch variation and some of the dimensions have a bit of a tolerance :-) -- Pete Pete Turnbull
