> From: Bill Degnan
> is this info on or will be on your wiki?
Well, it's not 'mine', but yes, I will be posting it when I find time.
Noel
> From: Mattis Lind
> Unfortunately the mate-n-lok which has 8 position and is used for
> current loop connectors and H74x plug regulator does not seems to be
> available anymore. But it would be nice to be corrected here.
According to one dealer Web-site, what I think are those
> From: Tony Duell
> I have here a little square board (the same size as the older Unibus
> grant continuity card) with just 2 pairs of pins linked. ... Has anyone
> come across that one before?
No, that's a new one on me. I have seen off-brand single-height QBUS grant
jumpers,
> From: Al Kossow
> is it roytron/Roytron500_1966.pdf ?
That sure looks like it! The illustration on pg 5-16 of the DEC PC054/PC05
manual looks just like the thing illustated on the cover of that.
I wonder why it didn't turn up in the Web searches? Probably because this
doesn't include
> can I appeal to anyone who has, or can point me at, documentation for
> the connection of the PC04 to _other_ PDP-8 models please lend a hand -
> _especially_ if you have paper documentation which is not available
> online?
The other thing I'm looking for is anything about the
> From: Pontus Pihlgren
> I hope you can get the help you need.
What ever happened about this? I figure the bulldozers must have arrived by
now?
Noel
> From: Glen Slick
> A few people bought QED-993 boards from eBay in the last few years.
> ... They are set up to use the standard 11/93 console panel, although
> only 4 async ports are implemented, not 8.
Is there any documentation anywhere? Bitsavers had only a thing on the
> From: Liam Proven
> one of the questions was about "the early days of the old-time
> internet, if you're old and you've been online forever."
> It was about Myspace.
Yikes.
Send them this:
http://www.chiappa.net/~jnc/tech/sflovers/
Noel
> From: Mattis Lind
> Here is how it is connected:
Thanks for that - very informative!
> The sandwiched dual boards are sitting in 27 / 26 AB. The board in 27AB
> was empty (quick glance), while the board in 26AB has a few TTL chips
> on it. Slot 26AB is the Unibus A slot,
> From: Paul Birkel
> Unfortunately there's not much documentation for the MS11.
??? We're actually pretty well off, there; we have:
- MS11 Maintenance Manual (DEC-11-HMSAA-D-D)
- MS11 MOS Memory Troubleshooting Guide (DEC-11-HMSTS-A-D)
- MS11-B Engineering Drawings
About all we're
> We're actually pretty well off, there; we have:
> - MS11 Maintenance Manual (DEC-11-HMSAA-D-D)
> - MS11 MOS Memory Troubleshooting Guide (DEC-11-HMSTS-A-D)
> - MS11-B Engineering Drawings
There's also a little bit about the MS11-C (not covered in the documents
above) in
> From: Mark Matlock
> With the 11/83 the position of the memory board ... above the CPU uses
> PMI
Yes, through the C-D interconnect; described in detail here:
http://gunkies.org/wiki/CD_interconnect#Use_by_PMI
The 'above' is because the CD interconnect is not a true bus, it
> From: Paul Birkel
> ABLE Computer Technology. Their first product was PN 10001 ... the
> A.C.T. Univerter
This board is not shown in any of the Able brochures we have:
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/able/brochures/
However, Able info is _very_ thin on the ground, now...
> From: Charles Dickman
> an 11/84 with the UNIBUS adapter and PMI memory does not have a Qbus.
> ... the KDJ11-B (M8190) bus protocols change when a KTJ11 (UNIBUS
> adapter) is present and so what would be expected to be Qbus isn't.
Ah, excellent point.
Looking at the
> #30 "PMI on KDJ11-B and MSV11-J"
So it turns out there are _two_ uNote sets, with overlapping numbers! (A fact
about which I was previously unaware!)
I have two PDF files of the collections; micronoteReprints.pdf (the first
set), and oemMicronotes.pdf (the second).
Note! There's an index
> From: Jon Elson
> I THINK the 370/145 used the same drive.
The "IBM's 360 and Early 370 Systems" book doesn't say so explicitly (it just
says Minnow - the one with the solenoids - was a"incorporated in .. the
System/370 processors", pg. 517), but given that the follow-on drive
Hi, all, if anyone has any broken MSV11-J boards, I recently fixed one for a
list member, and if anyone else has a broken one they'd like me to take a
gander at, please let me know. (No charge!)
I won't be able to fix _all_ problems (we don't have prints, or replacements
for the custom gate
> From: Paul Koning
> the original ROM array bootstrap supports not just RK05 but also RF11,
> RC11, and TC11 in just 16 words of code.
Ah, the days of devices that just did what they were told without trying to be
effing rocket scientists about it!
(Yeah, yeah, I know _some_ of the
For those who didn't catch it:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/202415330983
I have bought from this seller before (very happy with the results), but am
not otherwise affiliated.
The -11/04 is a nice UNIBUS starter/test machine (my UNIBUS board debug
machine is an -11/04). The CPU is a single (hex)
> From: Anders Nelson
> https://www.facebook.com/503408869821526/posts/1084448565050884/
This is an incredibly cool thing, and my hat is off to the LSSM for
undertaking this.
How's the fund-raising going? If money is still needed, I'll head off to
Paypal and send a goodly chunk.
> From: Anders Nelson
> Their latest comments on Facebook mention they're about halfway there.
Yeah, but I was wanting to know how things had gone since that posting
(although I haven't looked to see if there's any update). As of last night,
they'd made significant progress past what was
> From: Paul Koning
> inside are a whole pile of boards, all single-sided etch with many
> hundreds of jumpers to compensate for not being two-sided. Not cheap,
> presumably
If memory serves, didn't the VT52 also have single-sided boards with a whole
bunch of jumper wires?
> From: Al Kossow
> I just put up some pictures of the vt02, 05
Those useable for the CHWiki (with credit, of course)?
Oddly enough, I just did the article on the VT05 about a week ago!
Noel
> I'm going to need this info real soon ... so I'll probably start on
> this later today if nobody has the info.
> ...
> write a two-instruction loop .. which writes a word with only a single
> '1' bit, hook up a 'scope ... to a DRAM input, and walk the bit through
> ...
>> I'll add the info to the MSV11-J page on the CHWiki, once I have it.
> Alas, it's down at the moment ... but once it's back, I'll get them
> right up.
It's back, and I've added the chip info for the low 1MB bank:
http://gunkies.org/wiki/MSV11-J_QBUS_memory#Technical_information
So, it appears that the KDJ11 (definitely the -A, and probably all of them)
cannot execute code from the PARs - one gets a NXM trap. (Definitely the
kernel I PARs, I haven't checked all 6 sets, but I can't see why they others
would be any different.) Has anyone else run into this, so I can be sure
> From: Jerry Weiss
> See http://simh.trailing-edge.com/semi/j11.html for information on the
> design of the J11.
Thanks for that pointer; I don't think I've ever seen that - quite
interesting.
Alas, it didn't have the cache info - but now that I've though about it
overnight, I'm
> I first have to tweak my 'scope loop program, to turn on memory mapping
So while doing that I just discovered what I _think_ (maybe I'm just not being
smart enough to see that it's somehow 'doing the right thing') is the wierdest
hardware bug I've ever seen.
Plug in an MSV11-J, disable ECC
> From: Tor Arntsen
> So, here's how to see the updated page while not logged in:
Thanks for posting the 'fix'; the problem, and that workaround, are described
on the 'News' sidebar on the Main Page, but of course people going straight
to a URL won't see that - and since I'm always
> From: Glen Slick
> What signal were you probing on the M8186 KDF11-A board?
BDOUT; I'm triggering on that, and without any prints it wouldn't be easy to
find on the MSV11-J. Picking it up off the KDF11-A was the easy way to go.
> If you run the XXDP VMJAB0 diagnostic and there are
> it is not board-dependent - two different boards give incorrect read
> data for the same write values!! ... I wonder if the board is storing
> wrong values a _lot_, and the ECC is normally catching them?
Anyone have any idea what might be going on here?
I ask because I'm fixing to
> none of the other values used in that seemed to have a problem; but of
> course the program didn't include all 2^16 patterns. I suppose I should
> whip up a small program to try other values, and see if anything else
> does this...
And it does! Quite a few values come back
The two main issues with the CHWiki (non-logged in users not seeing the most
recent versions of pages, and image uploads not working) have been dealt with.
Noel
> From: Chuck Guzis
> Really, is this any worse than the gold bugs scrapping whole systems
> for the prospective precious metal content?
Well, the latter are presumably in it as a business, whereas it seems these
people do it for 'fun'.
Now there's an idea: perhaps we could convince
> From: Jay West
> I'm wary of just sending the tape through the mail for imaging
Why? I sent some tapes out to Chuck to get read, those went by USPS, and no
problem (well, one had some drop-outs, but they were old and not in great
shape; the other one read fine).
Noel
> From: Phil Budne
> I asked around for v6 Unix with "NCP" code when the IMP code was
> resurected, but never found it
Yeah, that one was retrieved only recently, when Chuck managed to read an old
dump tape I had of the MIT-CSR PWB1 Unix PDP-11. We didn't run NCP on that
machine,
> From: Lars Brinkhoff
> - Multics NCP has not been located.
Really? It wasn't in the code dump at MIT?
> - Unix?
For V6 NCP, we have several versions:
http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=SRI-NOSC
http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=BBN-V6
(The latter
> I just found a piece, I'll put up a photo.
Here ya go:
http://gunkies.org/wiki/File:3MegEthernetCable.jpg
http://gunkies.org/wiki/File:10MegEthernetCable.jpg
I should have put a ruler in, for scale. The 3M is about 2/3 of the thickness
of the 10M. The center conductor is about 2mm -
> From: Grant Taylor
> What makes the copies of papers printed on them special?
Well, the Dover was the first device (that I know of) that could print _very_
high-quality graphical/multi-font output, and on ordinary paper. It was also
pretty darned fast - a couple of seconds per sheet,
So did we ever get an answer to the original question (the value of
a Sun3)? All I saw was 'you'd have to pay to recycle them'.
> From: Grant Taylor
>> Before that, if you were lucky enough to be at Stanford, MIT, or CMU,
>> you could use the Dover and Altos that were part of
> From: Paul Koning
> I[t] just dawned on me that the subject is Apollo the company bought by
> HP, not Apollo the spacecraft. Oh well...
Actually, that stuff has all been saved, and run under simulators; there's
a very comprehensive site here:
> From: Paul Koning
> The nominal OD of RG-8/U is .. within spec for Ethernet cable.
Oh, OK. I was just used to the 10Mb cable we used being slightly larger than
the 3Mb cable we used.
> Also, Ethernet requires a solid inner conductor (for the tap) while
> RG-8/U may come
> From: Daniel Seagraves
> The Saturn software, which is what actually flew from Earth to the
> moon, was lost.
You mean the Instrumentation Unit on top of the S-IVB stage? That was
discarded when the S-IVB and CSM separated shortly after leaving Earth orbit
(about 6 hours after
> From: Grant Taylor
> According to the following page, it was not RG-8 cable ... As such it
> was purpose built.
The 10MBit cable, yes; it was custom (you can see 'Ethernet' printed on the
chunk in the picture). (I'd forgotten about the black stripes! I'm not sure
we really bothered
> From: Chuck Guzis
> On 01/23/2018 04:04 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
>> they mention they used CATV technology (where the vampire taps come
>> from)
> Wasn't that ChaosNet?
The CHAOS net (capitalization varied, but original docs usually use two words)
hardware did use
So I have an M837 (KM8-E Memory Extension and Time-Share option for the
PDP-8/E, -8/F & -8/M) available; got it with a group of other cards, and I
have no use for it.
Anyone want it, and have (or can acquire :-) anything PDP-11ish (boards,
mounting hardware, manuals, prints, I'm not picky -
> From: Cindy Croxton
> I finally found it!
Oh, that is so awesome! Thank you for keeping an eye out!
(I'm sure somehow it will get saved - Seth, let us know if you do, otherwise
we can organize something.)
Noel
> From: Douglas Taylor
> Is there a document that describes the bank 7 memory page and what
> addresses are reserved for what?
Here's one I collated from a large number of DEC manuals:
http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/pdp11/UNIBUS_Registers.txt
(Ignore the name, it applies to
> On many of the PDP-11s that page is signified by asserting BBS7
QBUS machines only; the UNIBUS has no equivalent signal.
> FYI the microPDP-11/53 is the 11/23+ cpu card
Err, no; according to the "MicroPDP11/53 System Supplement Manual"
(AZ-GPTAA-MC), pg. 3-1, the CPU card in the /53
Hey, all, a quick update on recent progress.
I now have a working prototype to match Dave's (although he's still doing all
the real work), and we've made a minor improvement in them (re-wired things so
we can use shorter cables to the FPGA daughter-card).
I got my indicator panel working, it
This is listed under a useless title:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/292503681011
But it's (currently) cheap (don't all bid against each other ;-).
Noel
> From: Bill Gunshannon
> Caution!! The DSD board has some broken chips and bent pins and all of
> them look like they spent time in muddy water.
Thanks for catching that. I looked at it, saw that it was a DLV11-J, which I
didn't need, and so didn't look any harder.
Noel
> From: Alan Frisbie
> I need a controller that emulates the DEC RLV11/RLV12 and RL01/RL02
> drives. From my Google searching, I see a couple that use SD or similar
> solid state devices.
Err, which RLV11/RLV12 emulators are you seeing? I know of several RL02
emulators - Reinhard
> From: Eric Smith
> But then, some of us might be masochists.
I think pretty much by definition if you're into vintage computers, you have
to be a masochist... :-)
Noel
> From: Ed Sharpe
> wish this was closer!
Two words: "ROAD TRIP!!!" :-)
(I did Virginia<->Wisconsin to save an -11/84... That was a hike!)
Noel
> From: Charles Anthony
> discovered that changing the executable would change the behavior -- a
> heisenbug.
Ooh, love that neologism.
Noel
> From: Paul Birkel
> the blinky-lights controller panel top-dead-center :->.
Yeah, that's a TC08.
I actually have one of those inlays, it's the only original inlay I have. It
was the model for the large run of blank inlays (black backing with the holes
on the back, but nothing on the
> From: Liam Proven
> And yet, 3 generations later
Can we please keep _all_ politics off the list? It didn't go so well
last time.
Noel
> From: Sytse van Slooten
> digging through the documentation of KL-11 and DL-11 I did find
> references to generating a break (bit 0 in the XCSR). But not on how it
> would be received. ... How did a DL-11 like interface signal the
> reception of a break?
As JohnW says,
> From: Aaron Jackson
> I have tried three controllers, two r/w modules and two servo
> controllers. I'm beginning to think the drive is fine and there is a
> problem with the RLV21 controller.
Err, think you mean RLV12 QBUS controller board, right?
Anyway, you've already tried
> From: Allison
>> What about warm white LEDs, though? ... maybe they are available in
>> bulb replacement form?
> I used a supply of dead bulbs to make mine. a little heat and the glass
> goes, a resistor and a 3mm led and good to go.
Urr, I'm not up to making them! I was
> I'll have to redo my kludgy fix to gmtime() ... I guess I'll have to fix
> it for real, instead of my kludgy fix (which extended it to work for
> 16-bit results). :-)
> ...
> And on the -11/23:
> Note that the returned 'quotient' is simply the high part of the dividend.
> From: Steven Malikoff
> I also have a book 'RADAR How it all began' by Jim Brown ...
> incredibly precise recollection of the engineering
Wow, thanks for that incredibly valuable pointer. My copy just arrived, and
it's fabulous; it documents in great detail a part of the story
> From: Charles Dickman
> Does anyone have DEC bus edge connectors they are willing to sell?
> I would like to do some OMNIBUS interface prototyping and I need a way
> to connect to the bus back-plane.
Have you looked through Douglas Electronics' offerings? They have a lot of
> From: Al Kossow
> The only place I ever saw an Apple I when it was for sale.
Don't you wish you'd bought one - and kept it? :-)
Noel
So, I have discovered, to my astonishment, that the double-word version of the
DIV instruction on the PDP-11 won't do a divide if the result won't fit into
15 bits. OK, I can understand it bitching if the quotient wouldn't fit into 16
bits - but what's the problem with returning an unsigned
> From: Allison
> you have to pull the panel apart to replace them, gets tiring. Modern
> yellow LEDs are nice and bright, and don't burn out.
> Less digging in the box is a good thing as over time fumble errors can
> hurt it.
Agree about replacing lamps - we switched to LEDs
> From: Chuck Guzis
> the magnetron was made out to be a super-secret device, yet there's a
> clear explanation of it in my 1942 "Radio Handbook".
Ordinary magnetrons had indeed been around for a while; they were invented in
1920. The British invention was the _cavity magnetron_, a
> From: Jon Elson
> if they did air raids over France or Germany, that eventually a plane
> with one would get shot down and a magnetron would be obtained in
> relatively good shape. So, likely by 1942 it was considered to no
> longer be a secret.
One was lost near Rotterdam
> From: Bob Smith
> reminds me of S100 bus
That was my first thought, until I counted the pins...
Noel
Hi all, I have an extra "RX8/RX11 floopy disk system user's manual" I'd like
to trade off for something I'd find useful (anything PDP-11 which I don't
already have, preferably). Anyone?
Noel
Hi, I'm not sure what kind of system this extender card:
http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/jpg/tmp/SmallExtender.jpg
is for, but if anyone has a use for it, FTGH. It has 2x43=86
contacts.
Noel
> From: Brian Marstella
> I have a CPU board with similar format that I bought thinking I'd
> eventually figure it out.
A couple of people have replied privately telling me it's for a Motorola
EXORbus/EXORciser.
Noel
OK, another pair of unknown extender cards:
http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/jpg/tmp/LargeExtender.jpg
If anyone has a use for one or both, FTGH.
They are 17"x10", and the support arms (nice touch) are about 3" long.
No identifying marks that I can perceive, alas. The power leads are
> From: William Donzelli
> Germany often gets the short end of the stick when it come to radar
> tech in World War 2
For those who are interested in German radar, there's a good book:
David Pritchard, "The Radar War: Germany's Pioneering Achievement
1904-45", 1989
which
> From: Paul Koning
> RTI/RTT are used in the debugger, so they need to work in user mode.
> They refuse to raise your privilege level, though.
I understand that it has uses, but by specifying the 'failure' mode in User
mode (when the contents of the current or previous modes is not
> From: Charles Dickman
> So if the I/O page is completely (all processor modes) unmapped is
> there any way to recover besides a power cycle? Does the RESET
> instruction disable the MMU?
Interesting questions!
The CPU manuals don't say, about the RE$ET; I just tried it on the
> From: Jerry Weiss
> Typically execution of the RESET instruction in a user program is
> treated as a NOP
Yeah, that's not documented in most PDP-11 CPU manuals, either. It's one of
the things that makes the PDP-11 impossible to virtualize; only HALT and SPL
trap, IIRC. M[TF]P[ID]
> From: Eric Smith
> If you _must_ run a long -232 cable
'Don't!' That's what -422 is for. :-)
Noel
> From: systems_glitch
> Looking for a pair of rack rails for my PDP-11/10.
Is it in a BA11-K (as suggested by the Subject line), or BA11-D? (-11/10's
came in both, for the 10-1/2" box.) The -K has the power supply on the end,
the -D down one side.
What slide hardware, if any, do you
> the unavilable on-line -11/44 Tech Manual, EK-KD11Z-TM-001
Ooops:
https://vt100.net/manx/details/1,3126
Not sure how that one didn't make it into my PDF collection
Noel
FYI:
From: Lars Brinkhoff
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2018 11:08:29 +
I have Alan Snyder's C compiler running in case anyone would like to
play with it. It's from around 1975, so the syntax is yummily archaic.
The primary host is a PDP-10 running ITS, but there may also be machine
> From: Lars Brinkhoff
> I have Alan Snyder's C compiler running
Way cool! Congrats!
Where did you find it? Do you have source too?
> there may also be machine descriptions for Honeywell 6000 series and
> PDP-11
There _was_ one for the H6000, not sure about the -11.
> At
> From: Bill Gunshannon
>> From: Jerry Weiss
>> Note: Apparently the RY emulation won't load if more than 256K memory
>> is specified ... I'm entirely not sure why SIMH has to enforce this
>> as its possible to work around .. Anyone know how to override and load
>> in
> From: Paul Koning
> A lot more comes from the CPU architecture. The instruction set, of
> course (arguably the first RISC).
An observation about RISC: I've opined before that the CISC->RISC transition
was driven, in part, by the changing balance of CPU speed versus memory
speed:
> From: Paul Koning
> Some years ago I learned the architecture of the Dutch Electrologica X1
> and X8 machines. ... they gain a lot of efficiency by allowing almost
> all instructions to optionally set a condition flag, and almost all
> instructions to be executed
> From: Ben Bfranchuk
> I just can't find a clean simple design yet. ...
> The PDP 11 is nice machine, but I am looking for simpler designs
> where 16K words is a valid memory size for a OS and small single user
> software.
There was a recent discussion about code density
> From: Rob Jarratt
> DEC 8640 chip. Does anyone have a pinout for it, perhaps even a
> datasheet,
That's almost certainly a DS8640; a quad NOR unified bus receiver. Data
sheets for the are readily available.
Noel
> From: Chuck Guzis
> Danny Hillis' CM-1 also used lots of 1-bit processors.
Does anyone know why they didn't catch on? Was it something like 'commodity
'ordinary' processors became so cheap one could build large parallel machines
out of them, and each node had a lot more computing
> From: Al Kossow
> CHM has a rather large Intel Paragon system.
> I just recently snagged the software and manuals for it on eBay
> which we didn't have
Excellent! Congratulations!
So, I'm curious - what's the 'most important missing thing' at the
CHM - either am important
> From: Rob Jarratt
> The chips where I believe the RESET is oscillating on pin 23 have been
> labelled E151 and E152 ... But I am not really sure if I have
> identified them and the pin correctly.
E151 is the main CPU chip:
http://gunkies.org/wiki/F-11_chip_set
E152 is the
> I'm pretty sure the other two have the same orientation.
They do; I looked at the KDF11-A prints in the /23 print set, and then looked
at an actual /23. (I should put a hi-res picture of one on the CHWiki page;
the one that's there is pretty miserable.)
Noel
So, I bought a copy of the FP11-A Technical Manual (EK-FP11A-TM), but when it
got here, it was the 'Preliminary' version (-PRE), with type-written text,
some of the figures are hand-drawn, etc.
This manual does not seem to be generally available online, although at one
point a copy was available
> From: Steven Malikoff
>> The bulbs had "flying leads" coming out of the glass, no bases ... The
>> bulbs just hovered over the PCB
> It makes me wonder if the 11/15 is much the same.
I just had a look at my -11/20 (the two are basically the same machine; the
/15 was intended
> From: Columbia Valley Maker Space
> The unit starts up and displays some data on the displays
You're lucky that worked. Old power supplies need to be brought back to
life in stages.
> something I can enter via the keypad. ... if you are going to suggest
> some tests, I need
PS:
> Not the simplest machine to implement, mind - the -8 is a lot
> simpler.
As a rough measure of how much more complex, the -8/E and -11/20 are roughly
contemporaneous, and built out of the same technology (SSI TTL on larger
boards): the -8/E CPU is 5 quad boards, and the -11/20 CPU
So, I recently acquired a copy of the unavilable on-line -11/44 Tech Manual,
EK-KD11Z-TM-001; alas, it's bound, and I don't wish to debind it to scan it.
If anyone has one of those gizmos that can scan bound books, and wants to scan
this, please let me know, and I can lend it to you.
Noel
> From: Al Kossow
> The quality of modern keycaps is poor.
> These guys are after mechanical boards with double-shot keytops.
There's something I'm still not quite grasping.
I can see two reasons for people liking the old keyboards:
- i) Higher quality construction
- ii)
> From: Doc Shipley
> You guys want people to stop scavenging those irreplaceable treasures?
> Ante up, pure and simple.
That works for keeping stuff out of the hands of scrappers (who are, after
all, business-people) - but not for fetishists who will pay totally
mind-blowing sums
> From: Toby Thain
> To get closer I'd need better images of the panels.
Hi, I borrowed a DEC inlay from someone (a KA10 CPU bay) and scanned a chunk
of it (as much as I could fit into my A4 scanner :-) at 200 dpi:
http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/jpg/KACPUPanel.jpg
I have a TC08
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