Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Thu, 13 Sep 90 01:17:32 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Thu, 13 Sep 90 01:16:00 EDT Received: from mitvma.mit.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA28824; Thu, 13 Sep 90 01:02:12 EDT Message-Id: <9009130502.AA28824@life.ai.mit.edu> Received: from MITVMA.MIT.EDU by mitvma.mit.edu (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 6804; Wed, 12 Sep 90 12:36:41 EDT Received: from ccm.UManitoba.CA by MITVMA.MIT.EDU (Mailer R2.05) with BSMTP id 1811; Wed, 12 Sep 90 12:36:40 EDT Date: Wed, 12 Sep 90 09:25 CDT From: RFLUKES%ccm.UManitoba.CA@mitvma.mit.edu To: PDP8-LOVERS@ai.mit.edu Subject: M840 PC8-E Reader/Punch Controller WANTED Date: Wed, 12 Sep 90 09:25 CDT From: RFLUKES%ccm.UManitoba.CA@mitvma.mit.edu To: PDP8-LOVERS@ai.mit.edu Subject: M840 PC8-E Reader/Punch Controller WANTED Hi Guys, I still have had no luck in locating an M840 PC8-E reader/punch controller. Could anyone out there help me out? I would be willing to buy outright or swap for an Omnibus, Unibus or Qbus interface. Thanks, Richard F. Lukes Computer Science Department University of Manitoba Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2N2 Canada Tel: (204)-261-7366 Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Thu, 13 Sep 90 11:41:02 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Thu, 13 Sep 90 11:39:10 EDT Received: from mimsy.UMD.EDU by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA10245; Thu, 13 Sep 90 11:10:45 EDT Received: from tumtum.cs.umd.edu by mimsy.UMD.EDU (5.61/UMIACS-0.9/04-05-88) id AA06024; Thu, 13 Sep 90 11:10:41 -0400 Received: by tumtum.cs.umd.edu (4.0/3.14) id AA21777; Thu, 13 Sep 90 11:03:50 EDT Date: Thu, 13 Sep 90 11:03:50 EDT From: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu (Doug Humphrey) Return-Path: Message-Id: <9009131503.AA21777@tumtum.cs.umd.edu> To: RFLUKES%ccm.UManitoba.CA@mitvma.mit.edu Cc: PDP8-LOVERS@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: RFLUKES%ccm.UManitoba.CA@mitvma.mit.edu's message of Wed, 12 Sep 90 09:25 CDT <9009130502.AA28824@life.ai.mit.edu> Subject: M840 PC8-E Reader/Punch Controller WANTED Date: Thu, 13 Sep 90 11:03:50 EDT From: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu (Doug Humphrey) Return-Path: To: RFLUKES%ccm.UManitoba.CA@mitvma.mit.edu Cc: PDP8-LOVERS@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: RFLUKES%ccm.UManitoba.CA@mitvma.mit.edu's message of Wed, 12 Sep 90 09:25 CDT <9009130502.AA28824@life.ai.mit.edu> Subject: M840 PC8-E Reader/Punch Controller WANTED the only interface that I would have for that would be for a PDP-10, and would be an entire rack of R and B flip chips.... Seriously, I used to have one, but not any longer. It even worked... Doug Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Sat, 15 Sep 90 00:19:41 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Sat, 15 Sep 90 00:18:09 EDT Received: from plains.NoDak.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AB00662; Sat, 15 Sep 90 00:01:03 EDT Received: by plains.NoDak.edu; Fri, 14 Sep 90 14:07:29 -0500 Date: Fri, 14 Sep 90 14:07:29 -0500 From: Todd Enders - WD0BCI Message-Id: <9009141907.AA08905@plains.NoDak.edu> To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Do Old Minis Make Good PC's? Date: Fri, 14 Sep 90 14:07:29 -0500 From: Todd Enders - WD0BCI To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Do Old Minis Make Good PC's? (This is my first posting to this list, so forgive the ignorance. :-) I have been looking at used computer price lists lately, and it strikes me that a lot of computing power can be had fairly cheap. (i.e. various PDP-11's in the $300 to $1000 range, depending on options, periphs, etc.) I've been looking at this as a viable alternative to plowing $2k-$4k into a new PC/workstation. In fact, I've made a few other people on campus think a little bit too! :-) At any rate, I'd like those of you who are using old mini's as personal computers to relate to me your experiences with doing this. I can see several advantages and disadvantages with this approach: Advantages: o low cost vs. performance o large software base (even larger than pc's?) o proven technology Disadvantages: o power consumption o size/weight o heat o noise The idea of having a real computer in the basement has a very strong appeal :-) :-) :-) But, before I jump in with both feet, I'd like to hear from you folks out there who may have done the same. Many thanks for any and all information/comments/etc. =============================================================================== Todd Enders - WD0BCI ARPA: enders@plains.nodak.edu Computer Center UUCP: ...!uunet!plains!enders Minot State University or: ...!hplabs!hp-lsd!plains!enders Minot, ND 58701 Bitnet: enders@plains "The present would be full of all possible futures, if the past had not already projected a pattern upon it" - Andre' Gide =============================================================================== Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Sat, 15 Sep 90 20:37:09 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu ([128.52.32.80]) by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Sat, 15 Sep 90 20:35:32 EDT Received: from sunic.sunet.se by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA00402; Sat, 15 Sep 90 19:57:06 EDT Received: from AIDA.CSD.UU.SE by sunic.sunet.se (5.61+IDA/KTH/LTH/1.159) id AAsunic12913; Sat, 15 Sep 90 18:17:02 +0200 Received: from CARMEN.DOCS.UU.SE by AIDA.CSD.UU.SE with TCP; Sat 15 Sep 90 18:14:33 Date: Sat 15 Sep 90 18:16:34 From: Johnny Billquist Subject: Re: Do Old Minis Make Good PC's? To: enders@plains.nodak.edu Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu, D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@carmen.docs.uu.se In-Reply-To: <9009141907.AA08905@plains.NoDak.edu> Message-Id: <900915181634.14.D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@CARMEN.DOCS.UU.SE> Date: Sat 15 Sep 90 18:16:34 From: Johnny Billquist Subject: Re: Do Old Minis Make Good PC's? To: enders@plains.nodak.edu Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu, D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@carmen.docs.uu.se In-Reply-To: <9009141907.AA08905@plains.NoDak.edu> > I have been looking at used computer price lists lately, and it strikes >me that a lot of computing power can be had fairly cheap. (i.e. various >PDP-11's in the $300 to $1000 range, depending on options, periphs, etc.) True. > I've been looking at this as a viable alternative to plowing $2k-$4k >into a new PC/workstation. In fact, I've made a few other people on campus >think a little bit too! :-) At any rate, I'd like those of you who are >using old mini's as personal computers to relate to me your experiences >with doing this. I can see several advantages and disadvantages with this >approach: First let me tell you what I have, and then I'll give you my comments on various pros and cons. I have a pdp8 in my student room, which is 19 square metres. The pdp8 is in one 19 in. cabinet. In addition I have one printer, one terminal and one modem. >Advantages: > > o low cost vs. performance You can definitely say that about a pdp8. However, preformance isn't in the same range as more modern computers. > o large software base (even larger than pc's?) There sure is a lot of software, and all for free by now. However, the pdp8 is a little too old for having a real big software base. The pdp11 on the other hand definitely has a lot of software. I'd guess on it being *much* larger than for the pc. > o proven technology The most enjoyable part of this is that you can repair all stuff by your self, if you are into that stuff. Everything is much easier to understand and replace. And it sure works. o Its more fun (my oppinion) You cannot compare a computer which can be mistaken for a terminal with a big piece of hardware which you really can hear when you turn it on. :-) >Disadvantages: > > o power consumption Not too bad, actually. > o size/weight This sure is a problem when you first move the stuff. However, once you have it on the right site, you don't think much of it. > o heat This is an advantage in Sweden, where it sometimes can be pretty cold... > o noise Well, I DO turn it off when I want to sleep. > The idea of having a real computer in the basement has a very strong >appeal :-) :-) :-) But, before I jump in with both feet, I'd like to hear >from you folks out there who may have done the same. Many thanks for any and >all information/comments/etc. I'd say get one. However, I'm not objective. If you like *real* computers I don't think you will regret it. If you just want fancy graphics and lots of video games, fancy environments and so on, you will probably not like anything but a "modern" computer. If you want to write programs, you will probably like a mini. Its much more fun than writing programs for a micro, in my experience. You can find just about any language for the pdp11, and many languages for most other minis as well. If a language doesn't exist, you can always write the language as well. It might prove even more fun. Johnny Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Sat, 15 Sep 90 20:38:04 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Sat, 15 Sep 90 20:36:24 EDT Received: from watsun.cc.columbia.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA00537; Sat, 15 Sep 90 20:00:09 EDT Received: by watsun.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) id AA15091; Sat, 15 Sep 90 14:03:51 EDT Date: Sat, 15 Sep 90 14:03:51 EDT From: Charles Lasner To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Message-Id: Date: Sat, 15 Sep 90 14:03:51 EDT From: Charles Lasner To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu >From enders@plains.nodak.edu Sat Sep 15 00:18:17 1990 >Return-Path: >Received: from cunixf.cc.columbia.edu by watsun.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) > id AA12272; Sat, 15 Sep 90 00:18:16 EDT ?Received: from [128.52.32.80] by cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) > id AA30419; Sat, 15 Sep 90 00:18:25 EDT >Received: from plains.NoDak.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AB00662; Sat, 15 Sep 90 00:01:03 EDT >Received: by plains.NoDak.edu; Fri, 14 Sep 90 14:07:29 -0500 >Date: Fri, 14 Sep 90 14:07:29 -0500 >From: Todd Enders - WD0BCI >Message-Id: <9009141907.AA08905@plains.NoDak.edu> >To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu >Subject: Do Old Minis Make Good PC's? > >(This is my first posting to this list, so forgive the ignorance. :-) > > I have been looking at used computer price lists lately, and it strikes >me that a lot of computing power can be had fairly cheap. (i.e. various >PDP-11's in the $300 to $1000 range, depending on options, periphs, etc.) > > I've been looking at this as a viable alternative to plowing $2k-$4k >into a new PC/workstation. In fact, I've made a few other people on campus >think a little bit too! :-) At any rate, I'd like those of you who are >using old mini's as personal computers to relate to me your experiences >with doing this. I can see several advantages and disadvantages with this >approach: > >Advantages: > > o low cost vs. performance > > o large software base (even larger than pc's?) > > o proven technology > >Disadvantages: > > o power consumption > > o size/weight > > o heat > > o noise > > The idea of having a real computer in the basement has a very strong >appeal :-) :-) :-) But, before I jump in with both feet, I'd like to hear >from you folks out there who may have done the same. Many thanks for any and >all information/comments/etc. > >=============================================================================== > >Todd Enders - WD0BCI ARPA: enders@plains.nodak.edu >Computer Center UUCP: ...!uunet!plains!enders >Minot State University or: ...!hplabs!hp-lsd!plains!enders >Minot, ND 58701 Bitnet: enders@plains > > "The present would be full of all possible futures, > if the past had not already projected a pattern upon it" - Andre' Gide > >=============================================================================== From: Charles Lasner To: Todd Enders - WD0BCI Subject: Re: Do Old Minis Make Good PC's? In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 14 Sep 90 14:07:29 -0500 Re Personal use of mini-computers: It all depends: If you are a "led by the nose" end luser of computers whose entire purpose is to run spreadsheets and "slick" user-interface word-processors, etc., and don't mind hardware and software unreliability and inefficiency (read noise-prone glitchy hardware and buggy and otherwise non-robust poorly written programs) then just go buy a macintosh or other dead-end machine and you will be happy as a pig in shit. If you appreciate careful engineering on a hardware and software level, and are willing to interact more with the command level of the computer and a lot more, including assembly and machine language if necessary, then keep reading this. Most older machines have tremendous advantage over newer ones both large and small. The software is basically available to you in source form if you tap the network of users of the machine itself. Exceptions do exist, such as when the manufacturers attempt to prevent further use of machines they no longer sell by stonewalling the user community regarding availability of the programs, but by and large this has been overcome. This very group, the PDP-8 Lovers is an attempt to organize this very thing: a user group with comradeship for mutual benefit. The user community was fragmented because DEC let us down, but we have available experts in virtually all phases that "matter." We are committed to fixing various esoteric problems left to us by past managerial etc. mistakes. This consists of (but is not limited to) current software and hardware design efforts. Here is an example: I am primary a programmer, but here is a hardware-oriented problem I was brought into as a software person, which I left as a hardware person! (I wear lots of "hats.") A friend of mine and I corrected a hardware bug in the TD-8/E controller card that should have been an official ECO: If a TD-8/E is used at the highest level DEC designed it for (highest ECO level), then certain programs for the TD-8/E are still unreliable. The excuse for this was turned into a "bum rap" on the entire beast. The design limits of the TD-8/E are well known; living within its limits should cause reliable operation. Ultimately, all TD-8/E problems stem from either improper maintenance, slightly flakey software which can be rewritten and sometimes was, failure to implement known ECOs to the hardware, or curiously enough this "non-ECO" I and a friend of mine personally uncovered. Despite being derailed several times by software "witch-hunts", the problem was finally revealed as the following mistake: certain TD-8/E programs, such as the OS/8 12k system handler require a valid feature of the TD-8/E to work, namely the SDLD instruction should load the data register, and also NOT clear the AC. The software reasoning for this is that the SDRD instruction can read the data back later, so a parameter is passed in the register, and it is also needed immediately in the AC. Properly "protected" from unwanted conditions, this is a valid technique, as long as the instruction works as documented. Most existing programs really don't care what happens to the AC in this case, and they deliberately clear the AC since they "know" SDLD doesn't do this. Due to a hardware "glitch" in design, the AC WILL occasionally clear! This is why this problem is never seen by users of either the MR-8/E-C ROM TD-8/E system, or any non-system handlers. For the users of the 12k system handler, I have heard various horror stories: One user was under DEC field service contract who paid expensive 1970's money for continous down-time of over 9 months of DEC trying to fix the problem unsuccessfully. The primary repair person said that the problem was that he had to replace the entire CPU, even though several attempts at this were unsuccessful. This person was actually ALMOST RIGHT! The actual problem is an invalid timing relationship in the logic that governs which TD-8/E instructions will clear the AC and which will not. There is a collection of gates which control the "clear the AC" control line (C0) as a function of which IOT is executed. There is a "hole" in the logic in that one of the controlling signals is not properly delayed sufficiently. On any system where the buss is physically "long", i.e., in two Omnibus blocks, a glitch appears on C0 when executing SDLD. A fascinating analog display occurs if you 'scope loop SDLD; JMP .-1 and connect to C0. A tall spikey glitch occurs in the window of time that C0 is read by the CPU for AC clear purposes. The amplitude and width is very unstable, but the 'scope loop catchs it with ease. The glitch may or may not be present in one buss machines. It appears to also be CPU-dependent, so 8/A users may or may not see this (I never checked at the time; didn't have a KK-8/A available back then.) and perhaps certain KK-8F board sets were more immune, thus the repairman's dillema above. Installing EAE may change details of the glitch. This logic is even highlighted in the maintenance manual, which is filled with "how does this sub-section work" documentation, an elegance of documentation perhaps, but in this case, it doesn't work! The problem, once isolated, is trivial to fix. One way is to place a capacitor across one of the gates to ground, to slow down the signal a little; this method is a little kludgy because it uses an "analog" property of the chips, which might not duplicate. Breaking a line and inserting a resistor will help this slightly. A better way is to insert two inversions in the logic path using available spare gates. It takes a little more cutting and soldering but is the reliable fix. If it were a manufacturing ECO, they could fix it merely by re-laying out the PC board without additional components. Once the fix is accomplished, the TD-8/E became totally reliable again, even for the harried 12k user. Other TD-8/E areas of unreliability stem from bad maintenance of the drive itself; following all ECOs solves the problem. Unlike the "automatic" controllers (TC01/08/11, etc.), the TD-8/E expects the software to "keep up" on a word-by-word basis. The nominal time for a word is 133 microseconds. Due to cumulative software overhead, especially in the ROM system, there isn't much spare time over 133 microseconds available, especially at certain key points in the transfer such as the last data word and checksum transfer. The automatic controllers can deal with transfers that are 20-50% faster than expected, but this software cannot. Failure to follow the drive maintenance and mechanical ECOs will yield more than merely premature failure of media (and possibly destruction of heads, which should theoretically NEVER wear out due to the air-bearing design (read NO head contact here!) as long as you keep it all clean.), but also unreliable operation. The same tapes brought to automatic controller sites work fine. The reason is that most mechanical problems yield some form of minor wear or dirt which causes friction. This causes "jerky" motion on a "microscopic" level. If you look at head data on a 'scope, the data arrives less "smoothly" such that some words are stretched, while others are shrunk in time. This means that the worst case time for a word could be too short for the software to keep in sync with, so there are occasional failures. This could even lead to "deformatting" of the tape in extreme cases. A well-maintained drive will deliver data for decades with little jitter, thus allowing the software to perform adequately. Except for the ROM-based system (which today most users need not use because they now have the memory in their machines for the 12k system), the software such as OS/8 handlers can be improved to be even more robust and defensive against the jitter problem. I am the principal author of an alternate operating system for the PDP-8, known as P?S/8. Perhaps some of you have heard of it, but that should be a separate discussion. (This TD-8/E example is already too much of a digression from Todd's question!) The P?S/8 usage of the TD-8/E includes superior handling of some of the timing-critical transfer states of the data transfers. The P?S/8 handler is so much better than DEC's OS/8 handlers that TD-8/E P?S/8 can be run on a PDP-8/L equipped with a DW-8/E! (Except for ONE handler feature: P?S/8 handlers are designed to work with interrupts on. The TD8/E handler uses the SKON instruction to turn off interrupts during the handler oeprations, and then restore it at the end of the handler. This instruction isn't available on machines prior to the 8/E. OS/8 Fortran IV maintains a table of devices which can't tolerate its interrupt structure, so they avoid calling the TD-8/E handlers with interrupts on; other programs aren't as elaborate, so the more general-purpose P?S/8 method would be better if available, but, alas, only on the PDP-8/E, F, M, A.) If there is sufficient user interest AND I have enough time, I may rewrite the OS/8 handlers to use the same techniques as the P?S/8 handlers, perhaps even incorporating the SKON technique if there is sufficient room. PIP10 would also require some fixes, since it uses an internal TD-8/E handler for the PDP-10 DECtapes. I can pass along the ideas I used to the more "impatient" users who wish to solve this problem sooner. (I spend most of my time writing other things, mostly -8 code for 1990 money, and maintaining KERMIT-12, etc., as well as P?S/8 itself.) Ultimately there are only three things you can't do with a TD-8/E over a TC01/08 system: 1) You can't use unrestricted live interrupt systems with the TD-8/E since it doesn't support interrupts at all, and the software has no "extra" time during the data transfer. This does not preclude "dead-reckoning" searching with interrupts from other devices during the search phase. 2) You can't write a one-page handler for it, but two pages is adequate, so OS/8 mostly "likes" the device. 3) You must ensure that simultaneous DMA virtually never happens. This means things like running VT-8/E displays (P?S/8 allows TINY text messages on the top line of the VT-8/E during the TD-8/E handler: the screen merely says "WAITING" while the handler does its work.), or RK8Es, etc. This is why RTS-8 cannot unconditionally run on a TD-8/E system. These limitations are purely a result of design trade-offs. All other obstacles can be overcome by following the "rules" of the game. Whether or not this TD-8/E major example is relevant to you, it points our the level of documentation or expertise available to you if you use an older machine. I challenge you to find the equivalent depth of "support" for ANY aspect of "modern" machines. Further, if you wish to learn how computers ACTUALLY work, instead of just pressing keys, you can't find a better place than the old minis, etc., which usually have front panels, possibly implementing FETCH and EXEC stops, etc. I use a PDP-12 with that "trap" feature, A LINC-8 with the feature (only in LINC mode), and a PDP-8/E with a CIS 110B installed to allow program debugging on a "direct" basis. Go debug an interrupt handler on "newer" machines for a comparison! MS-DOS DEBUG is an insult to those of us who have used P?S/8 ODT or DECmate CPODT. A hardware argument for the older machines is that they are usually more "demultiplexed" on the buss. This means that they run faster, cycle for cycle, than do newer designs. Actual speed is not what is important here, it's just that when you have a zillion timing states on the same data buss pins, then the clock cycles have to run REAL fast just to service all portions of the machine. This means a very fast clock with slow actual throughput. Yet the faster the clock, the more NOISE-PRONE and unreliable the whole system is. This is why PC busses are either non-existent, or only run inches to only a few slots. Expansion chassis does occasionally exist (albeit expensive), but they "cheat" and slow the whole machine down just to work at all. With the availability of micros comes a whole industry of noise "filters" which most of us just never needed with minis. An inadvertent example of modern software "support" happened with this very e-mail from you! One of the lines in your file started with the word "from", which was arbitrarily "mangled" into ">From" by the time I got it. My understanding is that this is a common "feebility" of many unix-type sites which sloppily implement the mail system. Don't hold your breath waiting for it to be fixed! The older software is more "mature", and more responsible people are committed to fixing it. Further, it is often more efficient coding in the first place, so your expectations can be higher than "hoping" that someone will fix an obscure bug "buried" in the undesirable interactions of "miles" of code, which is the hallmark of today's excessively modular systems. Except for noteworthy exceptions like the KERMIT project (which I am proud to be a member of!) and those producers of GNU and PKWARE, etc., by and large you can expect little more of PC software than that disclaimer on the front cover: It basically says that if it don't work - tough! The third (fourth, fifth?) party vendor who (possibly) indirectly now has your money doesn't give a damn about you! So, if you want to pay lots of money to be manipulated, go do it. If you want to "fight back" then stay here! Others will help you get out of trouble; you will be going where everyone has gone before (with apologies to StarTrek). cjl (lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu) Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Sun, 16 Sep 90 01:55:26 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Sun, 16 Sep 90 01:53:49 EDT Received: from EDDIE.MIT.EDU by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA09286; Sun, 16 Sep 90 01:25:50 EDT Received: by EDDIE.MIT.EDU (5.61/25-eef) id AA00949; Sun, 16 Sep 90 00:24:49 EST Date: Sun, 16 Sep 90 00:24:49 EST From: Robert E. Seastrom Message-Id: <9009160524.AA00949@EDDIE.MIT.EDU> To: enders@plains.nodak.edu Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: Todd Enders - WD0BCI's message of Fri, 14 Sep 90 14:07:29 -0500 <9009141907.AA08905@plains.NoDak.edu> Subject: Do Old Minis Make Good PC's? (Beware - LONG!) Date: Sun, 16 Sep 90 00:24:49 EST From: Robert E. Seastrom To: enders@plains.nodak.edu Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: Todd Enders - WD0BCI's message of Fri, 14 Sep 90 14:07:29 -0500 <9009141907.AA08905@plains.NoDak.edu> Subject: Do Old Minis Make Good PC's? (Beware - LONG!) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 90 14:07:29 -0500 From: Todd Enders - WD0BCI I have been looking at used computer price lists lately, and it strikes me that a lot of computing power can be had fairly cheap. (i.e. various PDP-11's in the $300 to $1000 range, depending on options, periphs, etc.) I've been looking at this as a viable alternative to plowing $2k-$4k into a new PC/workstation. In fact, I've made a few other people on campus think a little bit too! :-) At any rate, I'd like those of you who are using old mini's as personal computers to relate to me your experiences with doing this. I can see several advantages and disadvantages with this approach: This is a question that I get asked from time to time. The number one criterion for owning a minicomputer is: can you maintain it? DEC is charging exorbitant sums for maintaining "traditional products"; you will not be able to afford a service contract on it, and, unlike a '386 box, things will (probably) go wrong on a fairly regular basis. OK, so you've decided that you can make the support commitment and you want to get an older machine. Next, you have to decide what you want. As much as I would like to, I can't recommend a PDP-8 for your only machine. I have learned much in the field of hardware design and repair from the 8s I have owned, but 4K x 12 of memory means that you won't be able to do very much in the way of modern code development on it. If you have an opportunity to get one, by all means snag it, but don't count on using it for your main machine. You probably want to pick up a PDP-11 or a VAX. The Vaxen are somewhat big for home use; they also suck a lot of juice, and you will have a hard time getting a Microvax for a price that you'd want to pay. Come to think of it, if you were thinking of buying a Microvax, unless you were planning to run VMS on it, I'd try to talk you into buying an old Sun instead. Now on to the PDP-11s. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but without a substantial run of good luck, you *are* going to wind up dropping a few bucks on the system and its peripherals before you have a usable setup. PDP-11 processors to look for (in order of preference) are: PDP-11/83 (q-bus) * PDP-11/73 (q-bus) * PDP-11/23 (q-bus) PDP-11/44 (Unibus) * PDP-11/34 (Unibus) Items marked with a * have separate I&D space, which is a real plus. The Q-bus systems have the advantage of being relatively small and lightweight, quiet, and they don't draw too much power. The 11/44 throws off a pretty sizeable amount of heat. I've left off machines that are unrealistic because of architecture (must have memory management), physical size, or prevailing price from used computer dealers. Disks - Just say "NO" to DEC disks. In order to get any kind of decent storage space, you have to go with Massbus disks, which take up as much floor space as the rack you'll have the '11 in, and throw out a lot of heat. Except for the RM-03 and the RM-80 (67 and 121 MB respectively), they require special power. What you want to do is to get an SMD disk controller (for Q-bus, you can also get MFM and SCSI disk controllers, but they can be a little pricey), and a disk, and mount the disk in the same rack that you put the '11 in. Good Choices for Disks: Fujitsu 2284 (160 MB, very reliable) CDC 9730-160 (160 MB; don't let the crunchy sounds on seek disturb you - they're normal!) Fujitsu 2294 (300 MB, or 250 MB, or something like that; they look a lot like 2284s) Fujitsu Eagle (400 MB - these are still a little expensive) Fujitsu Super Eagle (600 MB - if you got the bucks, go for it!) Good choices for Controllers: Emulex SC-03 (for Q-bus; will control up to 2 drives) Emulex SC-21 (for Unibus; will control up to 4 drives) These controllers support a common set of disks, some that are unique to each one also. I think that all the disks I mentioned above (with the possible exception of the Super Eagle) are supported by both. My strategy would be to go looking for disks first; see what you can get people to give you for free (you'll have best luck with the little Fuji and the CDC). Then see which controller supports them (call Emulex and get the manuals for them), and decide which kind of CPU you want to get. Disks to avoid: Anything that doesn't rackmount is probably Bad News. Free-standing disks suck power at a great rate, take non-standard power, etc. But maybe you have your heart set on having removable-pack drives. Fine. You might want to pick up a CDC-9762 or a CDC-9766. The 9762 and the 9766, when coupled to a massbus adaptor and painted the appropriate color, are called RM-03 and RM-05. Don't bother with the 9766 unless you can get 3-phase though. Tapes: Try to get a Keystone or a Kennedy. Get your controller from Emulex or Dilog. Comm: DEC comm gear is usually sufficient. DZ-11s are good; don't bother with the DH-11 though - it's too big and gives off too much heat! DZV-11 and DHV-11 (for Q-bus) are both just fine. Advantages: o low cost vs. performance The cost for a flush PDP-11 system isn't that low, but it's still not a bad deal. o large software base (even larger than pc's?) Yes. You can probably pick up a lot of stuff that you don't even have licenses for and nobody will care (don't try this with Unix though - after the Steve Jackson Games thingie, I'm pretty wary of AT&T, even when dealing with old versions of Unix). o proven technology I don't see what this gains you really. Technology that's near the end of its growth cycle is certainly "proven", but then again, so's a 20 MHz 80386 or a 68020. Disadvantages: o power consumption Well, if you get your utilities free (this has always been a REAL BIG concern of mine in looking for a place to live)... o size/weight The disks may be a little rough, but everything else I've mentioned can be slipped out of the rack and handled with moderate ease. The unibus machines get really heavy real fast when you're holding them, and an extra pair of hands sure helps, but you *can* get them in and out of the rack by yourself. If you build out an '11 system with the notion of having it all live in one rack, it's not that bad size-wise either. o heat Since you live in Minot, I don't see how this is really a problem. Or are you talking about trying to heat the room to keep it from dropping below 32 degrees Fahrenheight? :-) o noise The Q-bus machines are not too bad. The Unibus machines emit a very satisfying roar when they're on (they are REAL computers, damnit, not PCs, and they make macho-computer noises, with real fans!) The idea of having a real computer in the basement has a very strong appeal :-) :-) :-) But, before I jump in with both feet, I'd like to hear from you folks out there who may have done the same. Many thanks for any and all information/comments/etc. If you've read this far, you probably realize that a minicomputer isn't for everyone. You have to be slightly out of touch with reality to even be bringing up the idea, and it might be symptomatic of something worse (like deciding to lay ethernet, fire up multipe machines, and hook them together and into the Internet or getting into the 36-bit world). But if you decide to go ahead and do it up, you'll have a lot of fun with some really neat machines and learn to appreciate good architecture and well-thought-out design (something we have entirely too little of these days). If you need any further help, suggestions, etc. feel free to ask. I'm sure everyone on the list would be interested in hearing what eventually transpires and what you finally get. Enjoy! ---Rob Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Mon, 17 Sep 90 22:57:15 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Mon, 17 Sep 90 22:55:41 EDT Received: from uunet.uu.net by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA25030; Mon, 17 Sep 90 22:40:38 EDT Received: from EDDIE.MIT.EDU by uunet.uu.net (5.61/1.14) with SMTP id AA23845; Mon, 17 Sep 90 22:40:24 -0400 Received: by EDDIE.MIT.EDU (5.61/25-eef) id AA14428; Mon, 17 Sep 90 21:39:35 EST Date: Mon, 17 Sep 90 21:39:35 EST From: Robert E. Seastrom Message-Id: <9009180239.AA14428@EDDIE.MIT.EDU> To: apex!chuckh@uunet.uu.net Cc: ai.mit.edu!pdp8-lovers@uunet.uu.net In-Reply-To: Chuck Huffington's message of Mon, 17 Sep 1990 09:34:48 PDT <9009171639.AA26498@uunet.uu.net> Subject: Do Old Minis make good PC's Date: Mon, 17 Sep 90 21:39:35 EST From: Robert E. Seastrom To: apex!chuckh@uunet.uu.net Cc: ai.mit.edu!pdp8-lovers@uunet.uu.net In-Reply-To: Chuck Huffington's message of Mon, 17 Sep 1990 09:34:48 PDT <9009171639.AA26498@uunet.uu.net> Subject: Do Old Minis make good PC's From: apex!chuckh@uunet.uu.net (Chuck Huffington) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 1990 09:34:48 PDT On Sep 16, 0:24, Robert E. Seastrom wrote: | Don't bother with the 9766 unless you can get 3-phase though. This is getting a little far from pdp8's but: 9766's DO NOT require 3 phase power. They generally require 208 volts which is what you get from 2 phases out of a 3 phase circuit. However the drives have jumper options to allow 220 volt operation. OK, before I hear it about this from everyone else on the list, MRC called me on the RM05 bit (RM05s, as noted in the original article, are just re-packaged 9766es with proprietary interfaces); they want L6-20R connectors, and are single phase. The other real problem with 9766's is that they are HEAVY. I really don't recommend carrying them up/down stairs. Um, according to my 1985 VAX Systems & Options catalog, RM05s weigh 746 pounds. A 9766 is probably more like 700-725, since it has no massbus adaptor in it. After carrying an RM02 (450 pounds) up a flight of stairs and out of the basement (we couldn't come up with a refrigerator dolly on short notice, so we picked it up and carried it out), I have no desire to try the same thing with a 9766. ---Rob Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Tue, 18 Sep 90 07:09:29 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Tue, 18 Sep 90 07:07:50 EDT Received: from uunet.uu.net by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA11174; Mon, 17 Sep 90 12:39:23 EDT Received: from apex.UUCP by uunet.uu.net (5.61/1.14) with UUCP id AA26498; Mon, 17 Sep 90 12:39:18 -0400 Message-Id: <9009171639.AA26498@uunet.uu.net> From: apex!chuckh@uunet.uu.net (Chuck Huffington) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 1990 09:34:48 PDT In-Reply-To: Robert E. Seastrom "Do Old Minis Make Good PC's? (Beware - LONG!)" (Sep 16, 0:24) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90) To: uunet!ai.mit.edu!pdp8-lovers@uunet.uu.net Subject: Re: Do Old Minis make good PC's From: apex!chuckh@uunet.uu.net (Chuck Huffington) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 1990 09:34:48 PDT In-Reply-To: Robert E. Seastrom "Do Old Minis Make Good PC's? (Beware - LONG!)" (Sep 16, 0:24) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90) To: uunet!ai.mit.edu!pdp8-lovers@uunet.uu.net Subject: Re: Do Old Minis make good PC's On Sep 16, 0:24, Robert E. Seastrom wrote: | Don't bother with the 9766 unless you can get 3-phase though. This is getting a little far from pdp8's but: 9766's DO NOT require 3 phase power. They generally require 208 volts which is what you get from 2 phases out of a 3 phase circuit. However the drives have jumper options to allow 220 volt operation. If you want to run in a dorm, you have a problem, but houses usually have such power. I know, I have run one in a house, and a friend of mine still does. The main reason to avoid 9766 and 9762 drives is head crashes. These drives aren't any worse then other removable media drives, but once you get used to winchester drives, head crashes are a real pain. Also most people don't have the tools to replace and realign heads. The other real problem with 9766's is that they are HEAVY. I really don't recommend carrying them up/down stairs. Chuck Huffington uunet!apex!chuckh Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Tue, 18 Sep 90 12:42:07 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Tue, 18 Sep 90 12:40:27 EDT Received: from uunet.uu.net by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA05615; Tue, 18 Sep 90 12:15:50 EDT Received: from mimsy.umd.edu by uunet.uu.net (5.61/1.14) with SMTP id AA19110; Tue, 18 Sep 90 12:15:41 -0400 Received: from tumtum.cs.umd.edu by mimsy.UMD.EDU (5.61/UMIACS-0.9/04-05-88) id AA29247; Tue, 18 Sep 90 12:15:38 -0400 Received: by tumtum.cs.umd.edu (4.0/3.14) id AA27899; Tue, 18 Sep 90 12:08:41 EDT Date: Tue, 18 Sep 90 12:08:41 EDT From: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu (Doug Humphrey) Return-Path: Message-Id: <9009181608.AA27899@tumtum.cs.umd.edu> To: apex!chuckh@uunet.uu.net Cc: ai.mit.edu!pdp8-lovers@uunet.uu.net In-Reply-To: Chuck Huffington's message of Mon, 17 Sep 1990 09:34:48 PDT <9009171639.AA26498@uunet.uu.net> Subject: Do Old Minis make good PC's Date: Tue, 18 Sep 90 12:08:41 EDT From: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu (Doug Humphrey) Return-Path: To: apex!chuckh@uunet.uu.net Cc: ai.mit.edu!pdp8-lovers@uunet.uu.net In-Reply-To: Chuck Huffington's message of Mon, 17 Sep 1990 09:34:48 PDT <9009171639.AA26498@uunet.uu.net> Subject: Do Old Minis make good PC's Hell, we carry old CDC drives in and out of basements for *fun*. Smaller and lighter than my old machine... 9762s can be used with great reliability if you 1) ALWAYS change the absolute filter each 6 months (if it needs it or not ;-)) and if you never open the thing up to remove the pack, except when doing the absolute filter change. Basically, treat them like winchesters and they pretty much act like them. If you start opening them to swap packs (changing Operating systems or impresing the neighbors daughter) then you can get into trouble. So, take my advice; take the neighbors daughter upstairs and impress her with something else ;-) Doug Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Tue, 18 Sep 90 19:49:13 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Tue, 18 Sep 90 19:47:37 EDT Received: from mimsy.UMD.EDU by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA15060; Tue, 18 Sep 90 19:08:42 EDT Received: from tumtum.cs.umd.edu by mimsy.UMD.EDU (5.61/UMIACS-0.9/04-05-88) id AA09620; Tue, 18 Sep 90 19:08:37 -0400 Received: by tumtum.cs.umd.edu (4.0/3.14) id AA28593; Tue, 18 Sep 90 19:01:38 EDT Date: Tue, 18 Sep 90 19:01:38 EDT From: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu (Doug Humphrey) Return-Path: Message-Id: <9009182301.AA28593@tumtum.cs.umd.edu> To: enders@plains.nodak.edu Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: Todd Enders - WD0BCI's message of Fri, 14 Sep 90 14:07:29 -0500 <9009141907.AA08905@plains.NoDak.edu> Subject: Do Old Minis Make Good PC's? Date: Tue, 18 Sep 90 19:01:38 EDT From: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu (Doug Humphrey) Return-Path: To: enders@plains.nodak.edu Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: Todd Enders - WD0BCI's message of Fri, 14 Sep 90 14:07:29 -0500 <9009141907.AA08905@plains.NoDak.edu> Subject: Do Old Minis Make Good PC's? Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Wed, 19 Sep 90 13:26:16 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Wed, 19 Sep 90 13:24:44 EDT Received: from plains.NoDak.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA01851; Wed, 19 Sep 90 12:53:14 EDT Received: by plains.NoDak.edu; Wed, 19 Sep 90 11:52:13 -0500 Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 11:52:13 -0500 From: Todd Enders - WD0BCI Message-Id: <9009191652.AA06586@plains.NoDak.edu> To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: The quest begins Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 11:52:13 -0500 From: Todd Enders - WD0BCI To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: The quest begins I want to thank everyone who responded to my original post. I was really supprised at the response I got (I thought I might be dismissed as a flake, but that never stopped me! :-)! Well, for those of you who have followed this discussion with baited breath, The answer is: Yep, I'm going to go for it!!! It's really no supprise, since I've always been a fan of well engineered equipment (I have a model 15 and a model 19 teletype that still see use. I think they'll run forever! :-). Unfortunately, I can see a few obstacles in my way. 1. Shipping/Freight. Anything other than boards is gonna soak up bucks. I don't know just what truck rates are, but I suspect that they ain't cheap. And, since I'm in the middle of nowhere, I have few places that I could even drive to within 600 miles to pick up racks/power supplies/tape drives/disk drives/ etc. 2. 100 zillion different DEC model/unit/whatever partnumbers. I'm no DEC whiz (yet!), but most of the used computer adds seem about as readable as a millitary nomenclature list. I'm sure there's a way to make sense out of the mish-mosh. Any leads on decoding the wonderful DEC system would be most appreciated. I can see that the way around #1 is to get the heaviest stuff as cheaply as possible. Anyone with any knowledge of people giving away heavy items such as disk drives, tape drives, cpu's, etc. PLEASE, PLEASE drop me a note or put them in touch with me. However, this brings me back to #2. How do I know what I'm getting if I can't figure out what the numbers all mean. I do know that Dxx-xx are interface/controller/i/o cards, Txx-xx are tape drives, Rxxx-xx are disks, etc. But just what is what is still mostly a mystery. The specifics of what I'm looking for are: CPU: either an 11/44 or an 11/73 (I didn't see any comments on an 11/70 so I assume that there is something about it [size, configuration, etc.] that doesn't make it quite as desireable.) Disk: probably the CDC 9730-160 (I like drives that let you know that they're working. It's a design feature! ;-) Tape: Up in the air. Any drive that has fairly good reliability and will mount in the rack will merit my attention. Price and shipping (read weight) will be a large factor in my decision. Again, Thanks for any and all help! =============================================================================== Todd Enders - WD0BCI ARPA: enders@plains.nodak.edu Computer Center UUCP: ...!uunet!plains!enders Minot State University or: ...!hplabs!hp-lsd!plains!enders Minot, ND 58701 Bitnet: enders@plains "The present would be full of all possible futures, if the past had not already projected a pattern upon it" - Andre' Gide =============================================================================== Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Wed, 19 Sep 90 14:01:27 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Wed, 19 Sep 90 13:59:46 EDT Received: from uunet.uu.net by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA02859; Wed, 19 Sep 90 13:34:39 EDT Received: from apex.UUCP by uunet.uu.net (5.61/1.14) with UUCP id AA12888; Wed, 19 Sep 90 13:34:35 -0400 Message-Id: <9009191734.AA12888@uunet.uu.net> From: apex!chuckh@uunet.uu.net (Chuck Huffington) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 1990 10:30:07 PDT X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90) To: uunet!ai.mit.edu!pdp8-lovers@uunet.uu.net Subject: Re: The quest begins From: apex!chuckh@uunet.uu.net (Chuck Huffington) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 1990 10:30:07 PDT X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90) To: uunet!ai.mit.edu!pdp8-lovers@uunet.uu.net Subject: Re: The quest begins On Sep 19, 11:52, Todd Enders - WD0BCI wrote: } CPU: either an 11/44 or an 11/73 (I didn't see any comments on an 11/70 } so I assume that there is something } about it [size, configuration, etc.] } that doesn't make it quite as } desireable.) I would choose an 11/70 over either a 44 or 73. They may be big and soak up a bit of power. BUT: They are very reliable, and I have always felt pretty easy to repair. Not much if any LSI or even custom parts. They do eat a bit of power. At first glance it would appear they need 3-phase, but they don't. Just change the power controller. All of the power supplies are normal single phase (120 V in the US) power. Chuck Huffington uunet!apex!chuckh Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Wed, 19 Sep 90 15:46:07 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Wed, 19 Sep 90 15:43:53 EDT Received: from sunic.sunet.se by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA05080; Wed, 19 Sep 90 15:00:48 EDT Received: from AIDA.CSD.UU.SE by sunic.sunet.se (5.61+IDA/KTH/LTH/1.159) id AAsunic12422; Wed, 19 Sep 90 21:00:35 +0200 Received: from CARMEN.DOCS.UU.SE by AIDA.CSD.UU.SE with TCP; Wed 19 Sep 90 20:57:23 Date: Wed 19 Sep 90 21:00:14 From: Johnny Billquist Subject: Re: The quest begins To: enders@plains.nodak.edu Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu, D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@carmen.docs.uu.se In-Reply-To: <9009191652.AA06586@plains.NoDak.edu> Message-Id: <900919210014.8.D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@CARMEN.DOCS.UU.SE> Date: Wed 19 Sep 90 21:00:14 From: Johnny Billquist Subject: Re: The quest begins To: enders@plains.nodak.edu Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu, D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@carmen.docs.uu.se In-Reply-To: <9009191652.AA06586@plains.NoDak.edu> > I want to thank everyone who responded to my original post. I was >really supprised at the response I got (I thought I might be dismissed as >a flake, but that never stopped me! :-)! Good for you. > 2. 100 zillion different DEC model/unit/whatever partnumbers. I'm > no DEC whiz (yet!), but most of the used computer adds seem about > as readable as a millitary nomenclature list. I'm sure there's a > way to make sense out of the mish-mosh. Any leads on decoding the > wonderful DEC system would be most appreciated. I didn't know they had a system... ;-) Well, actually, I know of the pdp8 stuff, but not much 11. DZ, DH, DL(?) is terminal controllers. RK11 and RK611 is diskcontrollers for RK05 and RK06/07 > CPU: either an 11/44 or an 11/73 (I didn't see any comments on an 11/70 > so I assume that there is something > about it [size, configuration, etc.] > that doesn't make it quite as > desireable.) Ahhum, well, if you have the space, I'd say the 11/70 is very desirable. However, even though the 11/70 is old, it is still pretty expensive. Nobody is giving those away yet. It got some real punch in it. Faster to run on than a VAX-11/780 (unless you use RSTS/E V9). > Disk: probably the CDC 9730-160 (I like drives that let you know that > they're working. It's a design > feature! ;-) You'll need a massbus controller. (Only the 11/70 had one as default, I think). > Again, Thanks for any and all help! Good luck. Let us know how things proceed. Johnny Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Wed, 19 Sep 90 16:43:50 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Wed, 19 Sep 90 16:42:09 EDT Received: from isy.liu.se by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA07015; Wed, 19 Sep 90 16:07:14 EDT Received: from rainier.isy.liu.se by isy.liu.se with SMTP (5.61-bind 1.2+ida/IDA-1.2.8.2/LTH/LiTH) id AA14227; Wed, 19 Sep 90 22:07:08 +0200 Received: by rainier.isy.liu.se; Wed, 19 Sep 90 22:07:06 +0200 Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 22:07:06 +0200 From: P{r Emanuelsson Message-Id: <9009192007.AA19224@rainier.isy.liu.se> To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Re: The quest begins Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 22:07:06 +0200 From: P{r Emanuelsson To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Re: The quest begins Chuck Huffington: >I would choose an 11/70 over either a 44 or 73. They may be big and >soak up a bit of power. > >BUT: > >They are very reliable, and I have always felt pretty easy to repair. >Not much if any LSI or even custom parts. I've been told that most problems originate with the ribbon cables, and the core memory. So try to get semiconductor memory and don't bend the ribbon cables!!! I've had an 11/70 collecting dust in the cellar for over a year since failing to repair it. I exchanged every card in the CPU and then started examining the ribbon cables. Sure, there were a few breaks here and there. Tried to repair them, but wasn't that successful. Never did succeed in finding replacement cables (BC06R if memory serves me right). A pity. It's got three massbus controllers connected to RP06's and BSD 2.10 is really decent. 32 terminal ports. 768k mos memory. TU45 tape. -- Dept. of Electrical Engineering pell@isy.liu.se University of Linkoping, Sweden ...!uunet!isy.liu.se!pell Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Wed, 19 Sep 90 18:09:19 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Wed, 19 Sep 90 18:07:39 EDT Received: from uunet.uu.net by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA09898; Wed, 19 Sep 90 17:49:19 EDT Received: from apex.UUCP by uunet.uu.net (5.61/1.14) with UUCP id AA03701; Wed, 19 Sep 90 17:49:15 -0400 Message-Id: <9009192149.AA03701@uunet.uu.net> From: apex!chuckh@uunet.uu.net (Chuck Huffington) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 1990 14:24:53 PDT In-Reply-To: Johnny Billquist "Re: The quest begins" (Sep 19, 21:00) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90) To: uunet!ai.mit.edu!pdp8-lovers@uunet.uu.net Subject: 11/70's From: apex!chuckh@uunet.uu.net (Chuck Huffington) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 1990 14:24:53 PDT In-Reply-To: Johnny Billquist "Re: The quest begins" (Sep 19, 21:00) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90) To: uunet!ai.mit.edu!pdp8-lovers@uunet.uu.net Subject: 11/70's On Sep 19, 21:00, Johnny Billquist wrote: | |Ahhum, well, if you have the space, I'd say the 11/70 is very desirable. |However, even though the 11/70 is old, it is still pretty expensive. |Nobody is giving those away yet. It got some real punch in it. |Faster to run on than a VAX-11/780 (unless you use RSTS/E V9). Wrong about price. Most of them have already been given or thrown away. I've seen whole systems sold for <$1000 or even scrapped. |> Disk: probably the CDC 9730-160 (I like drives that let you know that |> they're working. It's a design |> feature! ;-) | |You'll need a massbus controller. (Only the 11/70 had one as |default, I think). Not quite correct. A lot of systems had massbus controllers. Unibus 11's, 11/70's, VAXen, even 10's and 20's. Massbus was the bus between the controller and the drive adaptors. The Massbus controller on 11/70's was different. It was not a unibus device and connected to the Cache/Memory "bus" in the 11/70. Actually what you want for a CDC drive is a 3rd party SMD controller. Like and Emulex SC70, SC71, or SC72. If you use a real DEC massbus controller, you will also need to use the DEC adaptor between massbus and the drive. DEC had the SMD interface on the drive modified so that the adaptor will only run with the drives CDC built for DEC. Chuck Huffington uunet!apex!chuckh From John_Wilson@mts.rpi.edu Wed Sep 19 20:08:51 1990 Return-Path: Received: from cunixf.cc.columbia.edu by watsun.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) id AA23464; Wed, 19 Sep 90 20:08:50 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) id AA14918; Wed, 19 Sep 90 20:09:06 EDT Received: from rpi.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA12912; Wed, 19 Sep 90 19:48:21 EDT Received: from MTS.RPI.EDU by rpi.edu (4.1/SM47-RPI-ITS); id AA12318; Wed, 19 Sep 90 19:47:56 EDT for pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 19:47:50 EDT From: John_Wilson@mts.rpi.edu To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Message-Id: <1949448@MTS.RPI.EDU> I'm new to this list so feel free to ignore me... First off, I'm trying to get my 8/E back up, and I'm looking for the following items: RX8E (DEC -still- sells the board, but it's expensive) RK8E RL8A I'm also looking for OS/8 in any form. I'd be willing to buy any of these things outright, but I have a few things that I guess might be tradeable... DZ11, 11/34 processor... Re DEC disk drives, you think the maytags are heavy, you should try moving an RS08 fixed-head drive! DEC Field Circus was at my house trying to write new timing tracks for a week after the disk drive preceded us down the cellar stairs... My 11/34 systems have (altogether) 2 RK07's (28MB), 2 RL01's (5MB), and 2 RK05's (2.5MB) and all of them run on 120V power. They all seem to draw about 5A each. My experience with replacing the disk drive air filters hasn't been so much with head crashes, but with the spindle bearings themselves - they wear out in a few months and vibrate badly enough to cause I/O errors. If anyone has a broken RK06 or RK07 and wants to sell me the bearing (or the whole thing), let me know! DEC used to be really psyched about Massbus because it worked not only across each product line, but across all three major lines too (16/32/36 bit). One thing to watch out for was that the RM03 and RM05 drives are too fast to work with the lesser (non-11/70) PDP-11 massbus adapters (RH11, don't know about RH55). The RM02 was an RM03 with a 2400 RPM motor instead of 3600 RPM, and it worked on the RH11 (what a hack!). As far as mini versus micro, get both! Remember: you can never have too many computer systems! (our apt. has 3 11/34's, 1 11/05, 1 8/E, 2 LSI-11's and about 5 micros!) Also: anyone know where I can get a KS10 ior an 11/70? John Wilson 00,03 (those were the days!) Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Wed, 19 Sep 90 20:48:20 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Wed, 19 Sep 90 20:46:43 EDT Received: from sunic.sunet.se by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA13550; Wed, 19 Sep 90 20:26:04 EDT Received: from AIDA.CSD.UU.SE by sunic.sunet.se (5.61+IDA/KTH/LTH/1.159) id AAsunic26422; Thu, 20 Sep 90 02:25:48 +0200 Received: from CARMEN.DOCS.UU.SE by AIDA.CSD.UU.SE with TCP; Thu 20 Sep 90 02:22:46 Date: Thu 20 Sep 90 02:25:51 From: Johnny Billquist Subject: [MAILER-DAEMON@ai.mit.edu (Mail Delivery Subsystem): Returned mail: User unknown] To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Message-Id: <900920022551.8.D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@CARMEN.DOCS.UU.SE> Date: Thu 20 Sep 90 02:25:51 From: Johnny Billquist Subject: [MAILER-DAEMON@ai.mit.edu (Mail Delivery Subsystem): Returned mail: User unknown] To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Don't know why it scrambled the address... --------------- Return-Path: <@AIDA.CSD.UU.SE:MAILER-DAEMON@ai.mit.edu> Received: from AIDA.CSD.UU.SE by CARMEN.DOCS.UU.SE with TCP; Thu 20 Sep 90 02:20:44 Received: from life.ai.mit.edu ([128.52.32.80].#Internet) by AIDA.CSD.UU.SE with TCP; Thu 20 Sep 90 02:17:04 Received: by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AB13415; Wed, 19 Sep 90 20:18:21 EDT Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 20:18:21 EDT From: MAILER-DAEMON@ai.mit.edu (Mail Delivery Subsystem) Subject: Returned mail: User unknown Message-Id: <9009200018.AB13415@life.ai.mit.edu> To: ----- Transcript of session follows ----- Connected to uunet.UU.NET: >>> RCPT To: <<< 550 ... User unknown 550 ... User unknown ----- Unsent message follows ----- Return-Path: Received: from sunic.sunet.se by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA13411; Wed, 19 Sep 90 20:18:21 EDT Received: from AIDA.CSD.UU.SE by sunic.sunet.se (5.61+IDA/KTH/LTH/1.159) id AAsunic26227; Thu, 20 Sep 90 02:18:06 +0200 Received: from CARMEN.DOCS.UU.SE by AIDA.CSD.UU.SE with TCP; Thu 20 Sep 90 02:15:05 Date: Thu 20 Sep 90 02:18:04 From: Johnny Billquist Subject: Re: 11/70's To: apex!chuckh@uunet.uu.net Cc: ai.mit.edu!pdp8-lovers@uunet.uu.net, D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@carmen.docs.uu.se In-Reply-To: <9009192149.AA03701@uunet.uu.net> Message-Id: <900920021804.8.D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@CARMEN.DOCS.UU.SE> On Sep 19, Chuck Huffington writes: Wrong about price. Most of them have already been given or thrown away. I've seen whole systems sold for <$1000 or even scrapped. Might be different in the US. In Sweden they are still not that easy to come by... :-( >|> Disk: probably the CDC 9730-160 (I like drives that let you know that >|> they're working. It's a design >|> feature! ;-) >| >|You'll need a massbus controller. (Only the 11/70 had one as >|default, I think). > >Not quite correct. A lot of systems had massbus controllers. >Unibus 11's, 11/70's, VAXen, even 10's and 20's. > >Massbus was the bus between the controller and the drive adaptors. > >The Massbus controller on 11/70's was different. It was not a unibus >device and connected to the Cache/Memory "bus" in the 11/70. Hey! I wrote "default". All UNBIUS 11 (I guess except for 16-bit unibus) can have MASSBUS, but he would have to get one. I think they might be called RH11, but I'm not sure. As for other machines. I thought MASSBUS initially was designed for the pdp-10. Anyway, I was only discussing -11. By the way. I have heard *very* unconfirmed rumours, which I doubt, that there would exist a MASSBUS adaptor for OMNIBUS. Anybody got a definitive on this? (Not jut: I would very much doubt it). Johnny Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Wed, 19 Sep 90 20:50:35 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Wed, 19 Sep 90 20:48:24 EDT Received: from sunic.sunet.se by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA13477; Wed, 19 Sep 90 20:21:52 EDT Received: from AIDA.CSD.UU.SE by sunic.sunet.se (5.61+IDA/KTH/LTH/1.159) id AAsunic26317; Thu, 20 Sep 90 02:21:46 +0200 Received: from CARMEN.DOCS.UU.SE by AIDA.CSD.UU.SE with TCP; Thu 20 Sep 90 02:18:43 Date: Thu 20 Sep 90 02:21:41 From: Johnny Billquist To: John_Wilson@mts.rpi.edu Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu, D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@carmen.docs.uu.se In-Reply-To: <1949448@MTS.RPI.EDU> Message-Id: <900920022141.8.D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@CARMEN.DOCS.UU.SE> Date: Thu 20 Sep 90 02:21:41 From: Johnny Billquist To: John_Wilson@mts.rpi.edu Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu, D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@carmen.docs.uu.se In-Reply-To: <1949448@MTS.RPI.EDU> I might trade a RK8E with you, but I'd like to get some other omnibus stuff. Johnny Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Wed, 19 Sep 90 22:08:03 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Wed, 19 Sep 90 22:06:26 EDT Received: from EDDIE.MIT.EDU by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA14911; Wed, 19 Sep 90 21:48:15 EDT Received: by EDDIE.MIT.EDU (5.61/25-eef) id AA23261; Wed, 19 Sep 90 20:46:48 EST Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 20:46:48 EST From: Robert E. Seastrom Message-Id: <9009200146.AA23261@EDDIE.MIT.EDU> To: D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@carmen.docs.uu.se Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: Johnny Billquist's message of Wed 19 Sep 90 21:00:14 <900919210014.8.D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@CARMEN.DOCS.UU.SE> Subject: The quest begins Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 20:46:48 EST From: Robert E. Seastrom To: D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@carmen.docs.uu.se Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: Johnny Billquist's message of Wed 19 Sep 90 21:00:14 <900919210014.8.D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@CARMEN.DOCS.UU.SE> Subject: The quest begins Date: Wed 19 Sep 90 21:00:14 From: Johnny Billquist > 2. 100 zillion different DEC model/unit/whatever partnumbers. I'm > no DEC whiz (yet!), but most of the used computer adds seem about > as readable as a millitary nomenclature list. I'm sure there's a > way to make sense out of the mish-mosh. Any leads on decoding the > wonderful DEC system would be most appreciated. I didn't know they had a system... ;-) Well, actually, I know of the pdp8 stuff, but not much 11. DZ, DH, DL(?) is terminal controllers. RK11 and RK611 is diskcontrollers for RK05 and RK06/07 The Alphabet According to DEC (Modern and Late Model Traditional Products): A - D/A, A/D converters B - Boxes/Chassis, as in BA11, also cables as in BC03 C - Very Fast I/O (CI780), also some cables D - Data Comm as in DZ-11, DLV11J, DN87, DEUNA E - Floating point processors F - More Floating Point processors G - Analog logic modules (some older A/D converters, also core stack drivers and sense amps) H - Racks and power supplies as in H960, H9642 I - Some of the peripherals on a MINC have an "I" designation. IEEE488 also?? J - Unused K - CPUs and clocks, as in KA-10, KL11 L - Printing terminals and lineprinters/interfaces LP-11, LA36, LP26, LN03 M - Most logic modules, pieces of CPU, etc. A lot of other boards also have an M designation (a DZ-11 is also known as an M8xxx where the xxx stands for 3 numbers I forgot). N - Unused O - Unused P - Micros (PC278, PC350) Q - Software R - Disks. RP06, RM03, RL02, RK05, RA90 S - Storage arrays and... ?? SA482... specialty items? T - Tapes. TU77, TA79 TU10 U - Unused V - Video terminals. VT-100, VT-340, VT-52 W - Blank logic modules X - Unused Y - Unused Z - Unused > Disk: probably the CDC 9730-160 (I like drives that let you know that > they're working. It's a design > feature! ;-) You'll need a massbus controller. (Only the 11/70 had one as default, I think). Uh, no. He'll need an SC21-B1 or SC21-BX. The CDC 9730 is an SMD disk, not a massbus disk. The SC21 looks like massbus to the processor though. ---Rob From heal@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Wed Sep 19 22:34:44 1990 Return-Path: Received: from cunixf.cc.columbia.edu by watsun.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) id AA24474; Wed, 19 Sep 90 22:34:43 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) id AA30669; Wed, 19 Sep 90 22:35:00 EDT Received: from ux1.cso.uiuc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA15541; Wed, 19 Sep 90 22:20:11 EDT Received: by ux1.cso.uiuc.edu id AA14087 (5.64+/IDA-1.3.4 for pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu); Wed, 19 Sep 90 21:21:16 -0500 Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 21:21:16 -0500 From: Loren Heal Message-Id: <9009200221.AA14087@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: please... Cc: rs@eddie.mit.edu Please remove my name from the pdp8-lovers mailing list. Thank you.... Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Thu, 20 Sep 90 03:14:48 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Thu, 20 Sep 90 03:13:05 EDT Received: from BU.EDU by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA19178; Thu, 20 Sep 90 02:48:43 EDT Received: by BU.EDU (1.99) Thu, 20 Sep 90 02:48:37 EDT Received: by icad.COM (4.0/SMI-4.0) id AA03833; Thu, 20 Sep 90 01:59:52 EDT Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 01:59:52 EDT From: lcs@icad.com (Larry Stone) Message-Id: <9009200559.AA03833@icad.COM> To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Re: The quest begins Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 01:59:52 EDT From: lcs@icad.com (Larry Stone) To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Re: The quest begins The letters found on flip-chip handles also correspond to the color of the handle: > A - D/A, A/D converters Amber (seen in a laboratory interface for an 8/e) > B - Boxes/Chassis, as in BA11, also cables as in BC03 Blue (random flipchips of unknown purpose) > G - Analog logic modules (some older A/D converters, also > core stack drivers and sense amps) Green, yup, analog flip-chips (including power drivers in TU56) [I built a "homebrew" TU56 power bridge and wrote "H221" (or whatever the G-number was) on the handle...] > M - Most logic modules, pieces of CPU, etc. A lot of other boards > also have an M designation (a DZ-11 is also known as an M8xxx > where the xxx stands for 3 numbers I forgot). Magenta - digital logic flip-chips. > R - Disks. RP06, RM03, RL02, RK05, RA90 Red - RTL logic flip chips? > W - Blank logic modules White - does W also mean Wire-Wrap? Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Thu, 20 Sep 90 04:23:36 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Thu, 20 Sep 90 04:21:58 EDT Received: from watsun.cc.columbia.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA20280; Thu, 20 Sep 90 04:03:31 EDT Received: by watsun.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) id AA27473; Thu, 20 Sep 90 04:03:59 EDT Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 4:03:58 EDT From: Charles Lasner To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Message-Id: Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 4:03:58 EDT From: Charles Lasner To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu From: Charles Lasner To: lcs@icad.com (Larry Stone) Subject: Re: The quest begins In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 20 Sep 90 01:59:52 EDT Blue is for B modules; early high-speed modules which were "hotter" than R modules. Amber is indeed for lab peripherals. G is for green modules. Generally something to do with a special-purpose voltage module. Core stacks were partially G modules because there was a built-in power supply on the card, but some of the logic is also there, so it's a little confused. The TU56 example is better. H is a power supply notation, but no-handle modules in the core stack set had H numbers, which is also confusing. R is for Red modules. The original standard flip-chip cards. They are DTL, not RTL. RTL is an early plus supply chip-based logic which came in round multi-leaded packages, and also a little later in DIP packages. They were electrically compatible. Fairchild made the round ones and Motorola made the DIPs. The DIPs are in the W70X modules in the PT08. Some early DEC machines like the KA-10 and PDP-8 are made mostly of R series modules. When faster and beefier stuff was needed, sometimes the faster B series cards were used. S is a special variation on the R series modules. S modules are basically R modules with changed resistor values. This causes less fanout, but a little better speed. Used where the R module was just slightly marginal, not requiring a B card to do the job. Some cards were not part of the "stock" set, so they were designed specifically for a job. In some cases, these cards are ONLY available in S versions. Where applicable, you can modify an S=>R or R=>S if you are desperate. A separate discussion is needed on just what flip-chips are. The R and S series of cards are basically made of transistors, diodes, capacitors, and 1/4 watt 5% resistors. A common configuration is known as a DCD gate; there are other somewhat common variant interconnected components in somewhat standard values. These are not the complete implementation of the basic logic gate, but can be schematically dealt with as an entity. The logic drawings of the period do just that. Someone got the idea to fabricate a thick-film hybrid thing known as a flip-chip. Some early DEC pr was directed at the clean-room techniques needed to fabricate these things. It's somewhat little over-blown considering what little is in there; the only semi-conductor is a diode. The rest is resistors and the equivalent of a silver-mica capacitor. They were made to replace the equivalent discrete components. They also fail! So you just unsolder the flip-chip and put in the analog components and it works again. The problem is that they then got the idea to bother re-laying out the pc boards so that ONLY flip-chips would fit; they eliminated the lands for the discrete components and made only the flip-chips fit. If you are desperate, you can solder together a flip-chip equivalent and float it in fresh air hanging by its leads to replace it, but it's a pain. These are known as the "s1" variants on the etch. It's always better to have a "regular" version, since you know how to fix it trivially. I believe that virtually all S modules are not flip-chip laden. Somehow, the word flip-chip became associated with the modules, even though virtually all of them were designed without flip-chips. Other colors are W for white. It CAN'T be for wire-wrap, since the W modules in the PT08 are RTL and loaded with logic. The W103 and later W123 modified version (for use in newer -8s through the DW08A level convertor on faster buses like the -12 and KA-8/E) are device selectors for negative peripherals; similar numbers are for PDP-9 usage too. Some W cards are for jumpers, or are the designation for the ends of cables, like W023. They are all apparently white, anyway. Various wire-wrap and prototyping boards sometimes with copper-clad, or even holes for flea clips, etc. are indeed W modules. K modules are blacK handled. They are for relay logic levels as in the PDP-14. For some reason, they also made X,Y, and I have heard rumors Z modules. They are all Yellow handled. I found some X002s in a surplus store. They have some common transistors on them, plus some non-standard capacitors. I would guess that they interface with some "foreign" equipment. By the way, DEC also sells grey handles without modules. There is no associated module number at all. M modules come in 1,2,4, and 6 wide versions. Some are double-height. Metal spines without color or handles exist in quad (q-buss) and hex (UNIBUS and 8/A) versions. There are no Magenta handles as in the other M modules; maybe M means Metal here. Some M modules have hinges on them (RX cards), or aren't exactly pluggable at all. I guess that newer DEC people just thought that M meant Module, thus further confusing the nomenclature. Another confusion is DEC's use of numbers for equipment. Most are power supplies; some are power controllers, like 863. But power supplies are also sometimes Hxxx as well as xxx. There is a BIG difference between an H721 power supply and a 721 power supply. In many cases, these anomolous names exist in both forms viably - extremely confusing. Yet another issue: rack-mounted supplies once came in a shorter width than 19". The backs of DEC cabinets were about 17.5 inches, even though the fronts were 19 inches. The power supplies and power controllers were narrower than newer counterparts. Newer ones can't fit in older cabinets. But they brought out versions, sometimes adding an "A" to the end of the number, which meant that mounting "ears" were bolted onto the narrow panel to accomodate the 19 inch newer racks backs or plenum doors. The numbers are not consistent; sometimes the newer part has a lower number! If you want to be sure just what a module etc. does, you better ask someone who "knows", because there are just too many exceptions! PS: in some cases, a module is M and a 3-digit number. When obsoleted, the replacement adds an extra 0. M833 begat M8330, etc. When variations come out, they are often of the form -YA, -YB, or even -YC appended onto the end of the M number. Often this meant that the card was modified, and could not replace the generic original. cjl (lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu) Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Thu, 20 Sep 90 11:49:58 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Thu, 20 Sep 90 11:48:19 EDT Received: from watsun.cc.columbia.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA25531; Thu, 20 Sep 90 11:27:33 EDT Received: by watsun.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) id AA29809; Thu, 20 Sep 90 11:28:05 EDT Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 11:28:04 EDT From: Charles Lasner To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Message-Id: Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 11:28:04 EDT From: Charles Lasner To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu >From rs@EDDIE.MIT.EDU Thu Sep 20 10:01:48 1990 >Return-Path: >Received: from EDDIE.MIT.EDU by watsun.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) > id AA28850; Thu, 20 Sep 90 10:01:46 EDT >Received: by EDDIE.MIT.EDU (5.61/25-eef) > id AA20368; Thu, 20 Sep 90 09:00:16 EST >Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 09:00:16 EST >From: Robert E. Seastrom >Message-Id: <9009201400.AA20368@EDDIE.MIT.EDU> >To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu >In-Reply-To: Charles Lasner's message of Wed, 19 Sep 90 23:28:54 EDT >Subject: The quest begins > > Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 23:28:54 EDT > From: Charles Lasner > > On the 8/E KL is the serial port to the system console, etc., as in > KL-8/E, KL-8/F, KL-8/M, KL-8/JA. Actually KL-8/M is a modem control > option for all the others. > cjl That's why I said "late model traditional products". Before the Unibus PDP-11s, things were a *lot* more chaotic. ---Rob From: Charles Lasner To: Robert E. Seastrom Subject: Re: The quest begins In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 20 Sep 90 09:00:16 EST You contend that things were more chaotic in DEC's numbering/lettering schemes before the Unibus things happened. Well, I'm not sure anything really changed. DEC never really had these things under complete control before OR after. Why is the Unibus terminator known as an M930? It is totally passive, and has no Magenta or Metal handles, in fact it has no handles at all! In defense of DEC's earlier numbering schemes and the KL8 designation, I will say this: they mostly got the -8 stuff right. Until then, all complete -8 models were sold as complete machines, which includes a built-in system console function; just plug in a teletype into a designated slot. The only exception is the -8/s which wasn't complete anyway for other reasons. (More on this later.) So, when the 8/e came out, the serial port was needed as an integral part of the CPU, for at least MARKETING reasons, if nothing else, so the processor is known collectively as KK8F, and the console portion is KL8-E. Other variations and options to the serial port card continued the KL8 designation. KK8F is acceptable since the processor is for the 8/e, or 8/f, or 8/m. The PDP-10 CPU was sold without memory; the front panel says KK10, not KA10. Other PDP-8/e processor options are KA8E, the positive bus convertor for compatiblity with older peripherals, and KD8E, the data break portion thereof, since DMA is a separate portion of the positive bus, and not always needed. Older machines needed multiplexors to have more than one DMA peripheral; the 8/E just uses multiple KD8Es as necessary. The older machines support up to 8 DMA channels; the 8/e supports 13. The KL8-E itself has an interesting history which further confirms its role as an integral portion of a "complete" machine. Outsiders could point out that the KL8-E is a general-purpose card since it supports RS-232 as well as current loop, and can be devices other than 03/04. This makes it an option, not a CPU section. The KL8-E designation is for the M8650. But this is not the first generation of the card! For a limited time, the PDP-8/e was sold with 3-digit cards like M833, M831, M847, M835, M836, and yes M865. Most of these were obsoleted by their replacements, the same numbers with a 0 added. M847 survived as the bootstrap option, but all of the others were replaced, and also heavily ECO'd before getting "stable". The M865 was the original console-only card. It is viable even today IF you can put up with its limitations: a) Device 03/04 only (no jumpers to change!). b) Current loop only (great for teletypes!). c) 110-baud only (for teletypes!). d) No berg connector (solder lugs for your teletype cable!). This was CLEARLY a console-only card. They felt it was too limited, so they made the M8650, aka KL8-E. Other variations followed, including the KL8-F, an early attempt to use a uart instead of TTL. I prefer the chips, since they can run at megabaud speed if you need it! Later came the KL8-JA, which is an acceptable uart card. It could go as fast as 9600 baud "officially", and was available with a "special" uart (read hand-picked hotter chip here) that allowed use of an available jumper which replaces 9600 baud with 19,200 baud. Eventually DEC went to SMC uarts, so you can just set the jumper if you want 19,200 baud; they all work. The KL8-JA also can fixup for the VT05 LF problem, although quite brute-force. It also supports uart error handling as an option. There was even an option called KL8-M, which is a modem control card to be used with any of the other 3 cards, since they just tie the control leads high. You insert your modem cable into the KL8-M, and then jumper the modules berg <-> berg, and additional IOTs can control the modem signals directly. Now on to the (PDP-5 and) PDP-8/s: The 8/s cannot do all the instructions of the -8, so most software can't run on it. It is also DREADFULLY slow. It was an attempt to do serial instead of parallel logic. The vast majority of software for the -8's is for the classic -8 or better. This also locks out the -5 as well. We just ignore these two, although there are rumors that someone fixed up a -5 to be -8 compatible with a lot of outboard logic. The -5's biggest problem is that it doesn't have a program counter register! They created an additional major state of the CPU on the theory that gates were cheaper than flip-flops! This is the state that stores the updated PC into location 00000, from which it was originally fetched! JMP instructions are a write to memory, just like ordinary store instructions like DCA. The only useful thing that runs on a -5, or an -8/s for that matter, is FOCAL, 1969. It checks for the -8/s and changes some timing to allow slow-motion operation. You find out it is a -5 by storing a PC value into 00000 and winding up in a -5-handling routine. This routine dynamically fixes up the interrupts to go to 00001, not 00000. That's all it needs, since the -5 is only marginally slow compared to the -8. The -8 can do things in 1.5 microseconds; the -5 has 8 microsecond instructions, but some -8/s instructions take 78 microseconds! By the way, the original intention was to make a machine to be known as PDP-10. It was to be the -8/s, only it would be a throwback to drum memory with the DF-32 platter being its memory. This is why the DF-32 is the maximum size of PDP-8 memory, 32K exactly, including parity. They abandoned this, and produced the first quad-card, the -8/s core memory. The DF32 became a peripheral for any -8; fast but TINY! The -8/s was sold as a machine without a console, the first "controller" computer for various OEM uses. It wound up inside of lab instruments, etc. When configured as a "whole" machine, it needed the PT08, which was a complete and flexible serial interface, which came in single and dual configurations. The PT08, by the way, is a "PANELAID" design, meaning that it is not wire-wrapped. It has multiple PC boards soldered to the wrap pins to save labor. DEC tried to market a similar design known as an "OCTAID" as well. I am unfamiliar with them other than the PT08. The multiple PC boards were needed because each PC board is standard, no multi-layer boards here, and the wrap-equivalent was too complex for one card. So, ignoring the -8/s (a good idea!), DEC's nomenclature wasn't all that bad before Unibuses reared their ugly heads. cjl Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Thu, 20 Sep 90 14:04:36 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Thu, 20 Sep 90 14:02:58 EDT Received: from EDDIE.MIT.EDU by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA27953; Thu, 20 Sep 90 13:08:41 EDT Received: by EDDIE.MIT.EDU (5.61/25-eef) id AA28684; Thu, 20 Sep 90 12:07:44 EST Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 12:07:44 EST From: Robert E. Seastrom Message-Id: <9009201707.AA28684@EDDIE.MIT.EDU> To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: Charles Lasner's message of Thu, 20 Sep 90 11:28:04 EDT Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 12:07:44 EST From: Robert E. Seastrom To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: Charles Lasner's message of Thu, 20 Sep 90 11:28:04 EDT Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 11:28:04 EDT From: Charles Lasner The PDP-10 CPU was sold without memory; the front panel says KK10, not KA10. Where? The front panel of every KA-10 I've ever seen says "PDP-10" in white letters on a blue background in the upper left corner of the programmer's console. Doug, can you confirm or deny this? In an earlier message, someone wrote that the PDP-10 was full of R-logic. It's been a while since I looked inside a KA-10, but I seem to recall seeing lots of B and almost no R. The KI-10, if my folklore sources are right (I've never seen one in the flesh) is almost totally M-series. ---Rob From heal@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Thu Sep 20 12:53:37 1990 Return-Path: Received: from ux1.cso.uiuc.edu by watsun.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) id AA01065; Thu, 20 Sep 90 12:53:34 EDT Received: by ux1.cso.uiuc.edu id AA05000 (5.64+/IDA-1.3.4 for lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu); Thu, 20 Sep 90 11:53:59 -0500 Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 11:53:59 -0500 From: Loren Heal Message-Id: <9009201653.AA05000@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> To: heal@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu, lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu Subject: Re: please... I used to have an '8, but it fell out of my posession during a move. I have been reading the mail ever since, but now I've lost interest. Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Thu, 20 Sep 90 14:08:55 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Thu, 20 Sep 90 14:07:04 EDT Received: from mimsy.UMD.EDU by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA28745; Thu, 20 Sep 90 13:37:46 EDT Received: from tumtum.cs.umd.edu by mimsy.UMD.EDU (5.61/UMIACS-0.9/04-05-88) id AA06925; Thu, 20 Sep 90 13:37:35 -0400 Received: by tumtum.cs.umd.edu (4.0/3.14) id AA00807; Thu, 20 Sep 90 13:30:34 EDT Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 13:30:34 EDT From: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu (Doug Humphrey) Return-Path: Message-Id: <9009201730.AA00807@tumtum.cs.umd.edu> To: rs@eddie.mit.edu Cc: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu, pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: Robert E. Seastrom's message of Thu, 20 Sep 90 12:07:44 EST <9009201707.AA28684@EDDIE.MIT.EDU> Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 13:30:34 EDT From: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu (Doug Humphrey) Return-Path: To: rs@eddie.mit.edu Cc: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu, pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: Robert E. Seastrom's message of Thu, 20 Sep 90 12:07:44 EST <9009201707.AA28684@EDDIE.MIT.EDU> My KA-10 CPU (I owned serial number 9, and then number 44) (personally) said PDP-10 on the console. I have seen maybe 40 other KA10s in my life, and all of them had PDP-10. KK was not even the designation on the metal serial number tag in the CPU cab (right hand bay - console) which said KA10 sn 9 on it. There was also a tag for the fast registers option. An interesting note on the KA was that the super-early KAs (from the engineering protocype up to 12 or so I am told) had the second relocate/protect register as an option; after that they were standard, mainly because the Tops operating systems needed them. My KA ran the 2N series of monitors, single user and multi-user; this is pre-Tops. That is why I traded old #9 in for #44, which had dual R/Ps and was able to run more advanced system software, like 602 and 603lir (Limited Interim Release). Such a machine! Doug Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Thu, 20 Sep 90 14:19:01 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Thu, 20 Sep 90 14:17:23 EDT Received: from mimsy.UMD.EDU by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA28918; Thu, 20 Sep 90 13:43:04 EDT Received: from tumtum.cs.umd.edu by mimsy.UMD.EDU (5.61/UMIACS-0.9/04-05-88) id AA07063; Thu, 20 Sep 90 13:42:49 -0400 Received: by tumtum.cs.umd.edu (4.0/3.14) id AA00827; Thu, 20 Sep 90 13:35:48 EDT Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 13:35:48 EDT From: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu (Doug Humphrey) Return-Path: Message-Id: <9009201735.AA00827@tumtum.cs.umd.edu> To: rs@eddie.mit.edu Cc: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu, pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: Robert E. Seastrom's message of Thu, 20 Sep 90 12:07:44 EST <9009201707.AA28684@EDDIE.MIT.EDU> Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 13:35:48 EDT From: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu (Doug Humphrey) Return-Path: To: rs@eddie.mit.edu Cc: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu, pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: Robert E. Seastrom's message of Thu, 20 Sep 90 12:07:44 EST <9009201707.AA28684@EDDIE.MIT.EDU> Rob is right on the modules; the KI was pretty much solid M logic, sort of a KA done in early 7400 series. Many of the periphs were from the KA era, and had a lot of R and B.... Actually, the CPU on the KA was nearly solid B logic, since it was pretty fast. As you got away from the CPU things would get into R logic (5 megahertz I think), like the BA10 Hardcopy controller, BC10 Beer Cooler controller (seriously, but not a DEC product ;-)), etc. Doug From heal@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Thu Sep 20 16:17:03 1990 Return-Path: Received: from ux1.cso.uiuc.edu by watsun.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) id AA03582; Thu, 20 Sep 90 16:17:00 EDT Received: by ux1.cso.uiuc.edu id AA12491 (5.64+/IDA-1.3.4 for lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu); Thu, 20 Sep 90 15:17:26 -0500 Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 15:17:26 -0500 From: Loren Heal Message-Id: <9009202017.AA12491@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu, rs@eddie.mit.edu Subject: mailing list Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Please remove me from the pdp8-lovers mailing list. T'anks! From mrm@sceard.com Thu Sep 20 19:32:53 1990 Return-Path: Received: from RUTGERS.EDU by watsun.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) id AA04682; Thu, 20 Sep 90 19:32:15 EDT Received: from ucsd.edu by rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.4/3.08) id AA00903; Thu, 20 Sep 90 19:31:31 EDT Received: from sceard.UUCP by ucsd.edu; id AA13829 sendmail 5.64/UCSD-2.1-sun via UUCP Thu, 20 Sep 90 16:31:25 -0700 for columbia!watsun.cc.columbia.edu!lasner@rutgers.edu Received: by Sceard.COM (smail2.5/deliver1.5) id AA17493; 20 Sep 90 14:19:33 PDT (Thu) To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu Subject: Re: M930 Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Message-Id: <9009201419.AA17493@Sceard.COM> Date: 20 Sep 90 14:19:33 PDT (Thu) From: mrm@sceard.com (M.R.Murphy) In Message-Id: , Charles Lasner writes: [...] > You [] contend that things were more chaotic in DEC's >numbering/lettering >schemes before the Unibus things happened, well I'm not sure anything really >changed. DEC never really had these things under complete control before OR >after. Why is the Unibus terminator known as an M930? It is totally passive, >and has no Magenta or Metal handles, in fact it has no handles at all! The first one I saw was full length and had a magenta handle. After that they were the little stubby things. I reckon this major design change was effected to make it harder to pull out by mistake, and to make it easier to give a blood sacrifice from the knuckles when you reach in to pull one out. Speaking of little stubby things, how about LBT's? -- Mike Murphy Sceard Systems, Inc. 544 South Pacific St. San Marcos, CA 92069 mrm@Sceard.COM {hp-sdd,nosc,ucsd,uunet}!sceard!mrm +1 619 471 0655 Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Sat, 22 Sep 90 03:22:38 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Sat, 22 Sep 90 03:21:00 EDT Received: from BU.EDU by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA06804; Sat, 22 Sep 90 03:01:09 EDT Received: by BU.EDU (1.99) Sat, 22 Sep 90 03:00:39 EDT Received: by icad.COM (4.0/SMI-4.0) id AA13120; Sat, 22 Sep 90 02:46:50 EDT Date: Sat, 22 Sep 90 02:46:50 EDT From: lcs@icad.com (Larry Stone) Message-Id: <9009220646.AA13120@icad.COM> To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Minicomputer exhibit at Computer Museum Cc: drewry@decwrl.dec.com, jackson@speech.mit.edu, wdc@athena.mit.edu, woodward%wisp.decnet@vms.macc.wisc.edu Date: Sat, 22 Sep 90 02:46:50 EDT From: lcs@icad.com (Larry Stone) To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Minicomputer exhibit at Computer Museum Cc: drewry@decwrl.dec.com, jackson@speech.mit.edu, wdc@athena.mit.edu, woodward%wisp.decnet@vms.macc.wisc.edu The Computer Museum in Boston is planning a new exhibit of nine vignettes of historical computers. They would like two of them to feature minicomputers of the early 1970's, which naturally brings the PDP-8 to mind. They would also like to find a foreign-made minicomputer from the same era for the other vignette. The exhibit will be a full-scale, static, diorama showing the minicomputer at work. Spectators will not be able to touch it. They would like to reconstruct a real application that demonstrates some key features of the minicomputer that made it historically significant: 1. Inexpensive enough to dedicate to a single user or task. 2. Small and versatile, does not need special machine room. 3. Interface hardware connecting it to the outside world, monitoring instruments or controlling machines. 4. Ability to roll the entire computer around to different places. One theme they are currently investigating is a pdp-8/I-based hospital monitoring system used in an operating room. They were also interested in a rumor about Nabisco using pdp-8's. What do you know about pdp-8 applications from the late 1960's or early 1970's that are visually appealing, and understandable enough to make sense to a museum audience? (Controlling lasers or particle accellerators is plenty macho, but a little escoteric for family viewing..) I know there were typsetting systems, and someone put an '8 in a van to drive around to schools, but don't know any of the details. I may be lending the museum a couple of extra pdp-8/L's, so it would be nice if the application could use that model. The machine will not be running, but the fan and teletype noise and blinking lights may be simulated. Do you know anything about minicomputers made outside of the US in that time frame? Was Siemens making computers then? Do our Swedish correspondents have any non-DEC equipment? If they can't find a foreign computer, maybe they'll have to use another pdp-8 :-). thanks, -- Larry lcs@icad.com Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Sat, 22 Sep 90 07:41:05 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Sat, 22 Sep 90 07:39:29 EDT Received: from sunic.sunet.se by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA09539; Sat, 22 Sep 90 07:16:43 EDT Received: from AIDA.CSD.UU.SE by sunic.sunet.se (5.61+IDA/KTH/LTH/1.159) id AAsunic08986; Sat, 22 Sep 90 13:16:36 +0200 Received: from CARMEN.DOCS.UU.SE by AIDA.CSD.UU.SE with TCP; Sat 22 Sep 90 13:12:15 Date: Sat 22 Sep 90 13:16:09 From: Johnny Billquist Subject: Re: Minicomputer exhibit at Computer Museum To: lcs@icad.com Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu, drewry@decwrl.dec.com, jackson@speech.mit.edu, wdc@athena.mit.edu, woodward%wisp.decnet@vms.macc.wisc.edu, D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@carmen.docs.uu.se In-Reply-To: <9009220646.AA13120@icad.COM> Message-Id: <900922131609.11.D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@CARMEN.DOCS.UU.SE> Date: Sat 22 Sep 90 13:16:09 From: Johnny Billquist Subject: Re: Minicomputer exhibit at Computer Museum To: lcs@icad.com Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu, drewry@decwrl.dec.com, jackson@speech.mit.edu, wdc@athena.mit.edu, woodward%wisp.decnet@vms.macc.wisc.edu, D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@carmen.docs.uu.se In-Reply-To: <9009220646.AA13120@icad.COM> Computers outside the US in 1960-1970 time? I know that DATA-SAAB (a Swedish company) made computers at that time. I do not have any of them, not anybody I know. However. I know that there is a museum in stockholm who has a few of these beasts. I'm not sure if they can be called mini:s though. The museum in stockholm is Tekniska Museet I don't have the address. But if people in Boston are interested, I could find out. Coming to think of it, they were pre 1970. Mid '60 I'd say. Sorry, that's all I can come up with. By the way. DATA-SAAB was bought by UNIVAC long ago as well. Johnny Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Sat, 22 Sep 90 10:03:34 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Sat, 22 Sep 90 10:01:52 EDT Received: from isy.liu.se by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA10547; Sat, 22 Sep 90 09:52:08 EDT Received: from rainier.isy.liu.se by isy.liu.se with SMTP (5.61-bind 1.2+ida/IDA-1.2.8.2/LTH/LiTH) id AA27943; Sat, 22 Sep 90 15:51:53 +0200 Received: by rainier.isy.liu.se; Sat, 22 Sep 90 14:42:50 +0200 Date: Sat, 22 Sep 90 14:42:50 +0200 From: P{r Emanuelsson Message-Id: <9009221242.AA02419@rainier.isy.liu.se> To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Re: Minicomputer exhibit at Computer Museum Date: Sat, 22 Sep 90 14:42:50 +0200 From: P{r Emanuelsson To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Re: Minicomputer exhibit at Computer Museum Johnny Billquist : >However. I know that there is a museum in stockholm who has >a few of these beasts. I'm not sure if they can be called mini:s >though. > >The museum in stockholm is >Tekniska Museet They got some of them from Lysator. >By the way. DATA-SAAB was bought by UNIVAC long ago as well. And Ericsson. And then Nokia. Nokia recently opened their own exebition of old Data-SAAB computers here in Linkoping. A significant part of that exibition was donated by Lysator. The last D23 in Sweden was shut down in the early eighties, I think. But I could be wrong. -- Dept. of Electrical Engineering pell@isy.liu.se University of Linkoping, Sweden ...!uunet!isy.liu.se!pell Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Sat, 22 Sep 90 10:15:13 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Sat, 22 Sep 90 10:13:39 EDT Received: from isy.liu.se by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA10648; Sat, 22 Sep 90 10:04:03 EDT Received: from rainier.isy.liu.se by isy.liu.se with SMTP (5.61-bind 1.2+ida/IDA-1.2.8.2/LTH/LiTH) id AA28285; Sat, 22 Sep 90 16:04:00 +0200 Received: by rainier.isy.liu.se; Sat, 22 Sep 90 16:03:58 +0200 Date: Sat, 22 Sep 90 16:03:58 +0200 From: P{r Emanuelsson Message-Id: <9009221403.AA02516@rainier.isy.liu.se> To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Good-looking hardware Date: Sat, 22 Sep 90 16:03:58 +0200 From: P{r Emanuelsson To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Good-looking hardware How about a new thread: the most beautiful piece of DEC hardware. I'd vote for the PDP-15 console... /Pell -- Dept. of Electrical Engineering pell@isy.liu.se University of Linkoping, Sweden ...!uunet!isy.liu.se!pell Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Sat, 22 Sep 90 12:04:53 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Sat, 22 Sep 90 12:03:18 EDT Received: from watsun.cc.columbia.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA11531; Sat, 22 Sep 90 11:49:26 EDT Received: by watsun.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) id AA22774; Sat, 22 Sep 90 11:50:00 EDT Date: Sat, 22 Sep 90 11:50:00 EDT From: Charles Lasner To: PDP8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Message-Id: Date: Sat, 22 Sep 90 11:50:00 EDT From: Charles Lasner To: PDP8-lovers@ai.mit.edu >From rs@EDDIE.MIT.EDU Thu Sep 20 10:01:48 1990 >Return-Path: >Received: from EDDIE.MIT.EDU by watsun.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) > id AA28850; Thu, 20 Sep 90 10:01:46 EDT >Received: by EDDIE.MIT.EDU (5.61/25-eef) > id AA20368; Thu, 20 Sep 90 09:00:16 EST >Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 09:00:16 EST >From: Robert E. Seastrom >Message-Id: <9009201400.AA20368@EDDIE.MIT.EDU> >To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu >In-Reply-To: Charles Lasner's message of Wed, 19 Sep 90 23:28:54 EDT >Subject: The quest begins > > Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 23:28:54 EDT > From: Charles Lasner > > On the 8/E KL is the serial port to the system console, etc., as in > KL-8/E, KL-8/F, KL-8/M, KL-8/JA. Actually KL-8/M is a modem control > option for all the others. > cjl That's why I said "late model traditional products". Before the Unibus PDP-11s, things were a *lot* more chaotic. ---Rob From: Charles Lasner To: Robert E. Seastrom Subject: Re: The quest begins In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 20 Sep 90 09:00:16 EST You contend that things were more chaotic in DEC's numbering/lettering schemes before the Unibus things happened. Well, I'm not sure anything really changed. DEC never really had these things under complete control before OR after. Why is the Unibus terminator known as an M930? It is totally passive, and has no Magenta or Metal handles, in fact it has no handles at all! In defense of DEC's earlier numbering schemes and the KL8 designation, I will say this: they mostly got the -8 stuff right. Until then, all complete -8 models were sold as complete machines, which includes a built-in system console function; just plug in a teletype into a designated slot. The only exception is the -8/s which wasn't complete anyway for other reasons. (More on this later.) So, when the 8/e came out, the serial port was needed as an integral part of the CPU, for at least MARKETING reasons, if nothing else, so the processor is known collectively as KK8F, and the console portion is KL8-E. Other variations and options to the serial port card continued the KL8 designation. KK8F is acceptable since the processor is for the 8/e, or 8/f, or 8/m. The PDP-10 CPU was sold without memory; the front panel says KK10, not KA10. Other PDP-8/e processor options are KA8E, the positive bus convertor for compatiblity with older peripherals, and KD8E, the data break portion thereof, since DMA is a separate portion of the positive bus, and not always needed. Older machines needed multiplexors to have more than one DMA peripheral; the 8/E just uses multiple KD8Es as necessary. The older machines support up to 8 DMA channels; the 8/e supports 13. The KL8-E itself has an interesting history which further confirms its role as an integral portion of a "complete" machine. Outsiders could point out that the KL8-E is a general-purpose card since it supports RS-232 as well as current loop, and can be devices other than 03/04. This makes it an option, not a CPU section. The KL8-E designation is for the M8650. But this is not the first generation of the card! For a limited time, the PDP-8/e was sold with 3-digit cards like M833, M831, M847, M835, M836, and yes M865. Most of these were obsoleted by their replacements, the same numbers with a 0 added. M847 survived as the bootstrap option, but all of the others were replaced, and also heavily ECO'd before getting "stable". The M865 was the original console-only card. It is viable even today IF you can put up with its limitations: a) Device 03/04 only (no jumpers to change!). b) Current loop only (great for teletypes!). c) 110-baud only (for teletypes!). d) No berg connector (solder lugs for your teletype cable!). This was CLEARLY a console-only card. They felt it was too limited, so they made the M8650, aka KL8-E. Other variations followed, including the KL8-F, an early attempt to use a uart instead of TTL. I prefer the chips, since they can run at megabaud speed if you need it! Later came the KL8-JA, which is an acceptable uart card. It could go as fast as 9600 baud "officially", and was available with a "special" uart (read hand-picked hotter chip here) that allowed use of an available jumper which replaces 9600 baud with 19,200 baud. Eventually DEC went to SMC uarts, so you can just set the jumper if you want 19,200 baud; they all work. The KL8-JA also can fixup for the VT05 LF problem, although quite brute-force. It also supports uart error handling as an option. There was even an option called KL8-M, which is a modem control card to be used with any of the other 3 cards, since they just tie the control leads high. You insert your modem cable into the KL8-M, and then jumper the modules berg <-> berg, and additional IOTs can control the modem signals directly. Now on to the (PDP-5 and) PDP-8/s: The 8/s cannot do all the instructions of the -8, so most software can't run on it. It is also DREADFULLY slow. It was an attempt to do serial instead of parallel logic. The vast majority of software for the -8's is for the classic -8 or better. This also locks out the -5 as well. We just ignore these two, although there are rumors that someone fixed up a -5 to be -8 compatible with a lot of outboard logic. The -5's biggest problem is that it doesn't have a program counter register! They created an additional major state of the CPU on the theory that gates were cheaper than flip-flops! This is the state that stores the updated PC into location 00000, from which it was originally fetched! JMP instructions are a write to memory, just like ordinary store instructions like DCA. The only useful thing that runs on a -5, or an -8/s for that matter, is FOCAL, 1969. It checks for the -8/s and changes some timing to allow slow-motion operation. You find out it is a -5 by storing a PC value into 00000 and winding up in a -5-handling routine. This routine dynamically fixes up the interrupts to go to 00001, not 00000. That's all it needs, since the -5 is only marginally slow compared to the -8. The -8 can do things in 1.5 microseconds; the -5 has 8 microsecond instructions, but some -8/s instructions take 78 microseconds! By the way, the original intention was to make a machine to be known as PDP-10. It was to be the -8/s, only it would be a throwback to drum memory with the DF-32 platter being its memory. This is why the DF-32 is the maximum size of PDP-8 memory, 32K exactly, including parity. They abandoned this, and produced the first quad-card, the -8/s core memory. The DF32 became a peripheral for any -8; fast but TINY! The -8/s was sold as a machine without a console, the first "controller" computer for various OEM uses. It wound up inside of lab instruments, etc. When configured as a "whole" machine, it needed the PT08, which was a complete and flexible serial interface, which came in single and dual configurations. The PT08, by the way, is a "PANELAID" design, meaning that it is not wire-wrapped. It has multiple PC boards soldered to the wrap pins to save labor. DEC tried to market a similar design known as an "OCTAID" as well. I am unfamiliar with them other than the PT08. The multiple PC boards were needed because each PC board is standard, no multi-layer boards here, and the wrap-equivalent was too complex for one card. So, ignoring the -8/s (a good idea!), DEC's nomenclature wasn't all that bad before Unibuses reared their ugly heads. cjl Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Sat, 22 Sep 90 12:05:43 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Sat, 22 Sep 90 12:04:08 EDT Received: from watsun.cc.columbia.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA11512; Sat, 22 Sep 90 11:47:51 EDT Received: by watsun.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) id AA22760; Sat, 22 Sep 90 11:48:13 EDT Date: Sat, 22 Sep 90 11:48:13 EDT From: Charles Lasner To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Museum suggestions Message-Id: Date: Sat, 22 Sep 90 11:48:13 EDT From: Charles Lasner To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Museum suggestions Re: Usage of PDP-8's in applications. Some possibly lend themselves to museum display. The -8 was used in a variety of places. Here's just a few: Controlling Baseball message boards; Three Rivers Stadium in Pittburgh. Creating Video Baseball and other sports box scores for video feed of news to cable etc., by Reuters (using the VK-8/E later packaged in a VT05-like case by DEC as the VT-8/E). Controlling planetarium hardware at several planetaria; Vanderbilt in Long Island, and another in the Rochester, NY area are two I have heard of. National defense. As recently as 3 years ago we have heard of a military installation using an -8 (not a newer model) at the DEW line. I know of an 8/i which is involved with submarine surveillance currently, but I won't say more 'til it is totally declassified. Point-of-sales terminals and inventory control. Burger King used hundreds of -8/m stripped-down machines, without the front panels, the true OEM version, to make a custom-made AMF terminal become a cash-register/inventory control terminal. Each site had up to 3 AMF terminals and one 8/m and a modem. The idea was to tell a central computer about the ordering needs of the store by what they sold. This was largely given up because it was expensive to maintain (problematic AMF terminals), and Burger King changed business policies so that most of their stores are NOT company-owned, but rather are franchises, and each store can opt to maintain its own supplies. Most buy independently, often making local deals with MacDonald's or other competitors for group discounts from local food distributors. Some even get their own Burger King napkins, etc. from local sources, which vaguely violates company copyrights, but in any case makes them true independent franchises. In any case, no new computer vendor has ever replaced the 8/m systems, because the replacements cost too much. Today, most Burger Kings use less technology, merely having some form of electronic cash register. Education. Many people who grew up in the 70s learned BASIC in grade school or high school. This occurred in many scattered school districts in the US where BASIC, but not much else, was offered on a variety of -8 configurations eventually known as EDU-SYSTEM xx, where xx was a number designating an entire package of hardware and software. Due to DEC's ever burgeoning "Madison Avenue" tactics, which were starting back then, the use of sub-models made it totally impossible to comprehend which system was "bigger" merely by model of package. This was a deliberate tactic, so many of these schools were "taken", in that they were made to believe that they needed a certain model, when an intelligent alternate could be pieced together from stuff DEC would sell to anyone smart enough to specify the order particulars. Matters were made worse by companies like EDUCOMP. These companies basically made the old "value-added" pitch, but the cost of the added value far exceeded the worth. What these companies did was to send salesmen to these schools, to prey upon naive educators. They usually sold DEC's very packages at high markup. Remember, DEC's original package was no bargain, just a recommended combination at full price. So these packages were sold at ABOVE list price. Further, DEC could have granted an educational discount to the local school district that was smart enough to buy several systems, but instead they paid premium prices to the middle-man. The added value usually consisted of nothing useful to the educator: DEC had preprinted cards for entry of BASIC statements on a 40-column punched-card format, but you used pencils instead of keypunchs. The system included a mark-sense card reader. These cards already said DEC on them; the value added was the rubber stamp of the middle-man! One such vendor had the ego to bother to modify the silk-screen of the PDP-8/e which originally says "digital pdp8/e" to "digital pdp8/educomp" to further "personalize" the system, but of no real value to the user. DEC field service also came with the package, at then current prices. The customer was made aware of the fact that he was dealing with DEC field service, but they were misled into believing that the middle-man was arranging some great favor! Remember, the hardware was 100% DEC sold; the customer could have gone to his nearest DEC sales office and gotten the same deal for less! Eventually these vendors did come up with non-DEC options, such as a primitive PDP-8 COBOL, rumored to be written in Fortran, and ETOS, a form of time-sharing system, but the majority of systems sold were EDU-SYSTEMS right from DEC. I remember that DEC even tried to start a newsletter for EDU-SYSTEMS. Issue number one had a letters-to-the-editor column called "Letters to EDU-Man." The very first one had a hack letter: Dear EDU-Man, since this is issue number 1, how come there are letters to EDU-Man? There are other sleazier aspects of the treatment of educators at the hands of DEC, as well as other hardware vendors. If there is interest in this subject, perhaps we can start an independent gripe session. My purpose here was to suggest a scene, right out of DEC advertising literature, where children sit at an -8 learning BASIC, which I think is an appropriate subject for the museum to display. This is reaching a little: while it is true that the public can't really relate to an -8 or -8/s inside of a laboratory instrument from Picker etc., because they don't understand the overall purpose of the instrument, many people are aware of psychology experiments with humans and rats. PDP-8's were often used to collect data, and even control the experiments. The rat-in-a-maze ideas can be dramatized well in that environment, and the PDP-8, surrounded by other lab equipment like meters, 'scopes, etc., with some white-lab-coat-wearing scientists nearby, could be at the control center for the experiment. I personally know of LINC-8's being used for this kind of stuff. DEC even had some white-paper reports on "Computers in the Psychology Laboratory" which I believe even spread to multiple printed volumes. The vast majority of the computers mentioned in these reports were -8's. Those hospital monitoring systems are not far afield from the CLINICAL-LAB-12 systems, which were definitely in use less than 10 years ago. These systems could monitor the activities of blood-testing and other machines, and also manage patient billing as well. The PDP-12's were an unusual color - white cabinets with PDP-15 blue-colored console parts. Nothing was green here! PDP-8's delivered news 'round the world. Various commercial news-wires like AP used them in their private comm networks by the hundreds. You could re-create a newsroom filled with editors, etc., with the PDP-8 in the background running all the fast terminals and slow teleprinters. Western Union also used them to implement the Mailgram network. The PDP-8/e did all the work, except for the central machines (Univac 1108) which acted as the routing switcher, and each serving Post Office, which used an -11 to merely print the final copy one at a time as it came down the line using a DataProducts 80-column parallel printer. (Note: what a waste of money, using an -11 for such a trivial purpose, when an -8 could have done it for less money, power and space! And this was duplicated in hundreds of Post Offices.) You could show a customer ordering Mailgram copy, and the operator typing it into the -8 console teletype, while the -8 transmitted the copy back to the central 1108 over the leased phone lines (they used BI-SYNC and the DP-8/E). Here is a specific application, but I doubt if the museum could use it. DEC was contacted to help create a TV show. I went to its only pre-premiere showing. It was called THE COMPUTER GAME, hosted by "Dandy" Dan Daniels, the former New York area radio DJ. The object was for contestants to beat MINI, the Mini-computer. The show opens with an extreme close-up of the PDP-8/e orange and brown front panel, then pans back to show the whole machine: Rack-mounted with RK05's and DECtapes. They have slightly modified the DECtapes, so the white reels have black plastic electrical tape strips on them. This is so the camera can pick up the tape motion. On cue, the -8 rocks the tape drive reels in sync with the "spiel" of the off-stage announcer "pumping up" the audience. The contests can't really win, because the computer can cheat. The contestants are playing word games against a computer with the entire dictionary on-line! I think the object was to see which contestent got beat last by the computer. The music was awful, but typical of game shows. The "contestants" for the pilot show were well-known faces - actors in tv commercials. Perhaps it was fortunate that the network chose to ignore this show other than the pilot! It's hard to make a visual display that captures the utility of the PDP-8, or any other computer for that matter, in many applications that "ordinary people" can relate to; I hope we can think of some to allow the PDP-8 to get the proper credit for its role as the original minicomputer. cjl Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Sat, 22 Sep 90 12:40:10 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Sat, 22 Sep 90 12:38:32 EDT Received: from isy.liu.se by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA11795; Sat, 22 Sep 90 12:23:38 EDT Received: from rainier.isy.liu.se by isy.liu.se with SMTP (5.61-bind 1.2+ida/IDA-1.2.8.2/LTH/LiTH) id AA00469; Sat, 22 Sep 90 18:23:33 +0200 Received: by rainier.isy.liu.se; Sat, 22 Sep 90 14:31:28 +0200 Date: Sat, 22 Sep 90 14:31:28 +0200 From: P{r Emanuelsson Message-Id: <9009221231.AA02409@rainier.isy.liu.se> To: lcs@icad.com, pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Re: Minicomputer exhibit at Computer Museum Date: Sat, 22 Sep 90 14:31:28 +0200 From: P{r Emanuelsson To: lcs@icad.com, pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Re: Minicomputer exhibit at Computer Museum The Swedish manufacturer of that time, DataSAAB, mostly made mainframes (D21, D22, D23, etc. (D23 was the last of that series)). The one corresponding to the -8 in age should be the D22. There are still some of these running in eastern Europe. Regarding minis, one spring to mind: the D5. It was used e.g. as an intelligent I/O processor for the D22, sitting beneath the printer on the console. It was a general computer, though, but didn't have any fascinating blinking lights etc, so it looks fairly uninteresting. Btw, neither did any of the D2?-series models. Except for the console, which was separate from the rest of the computer. The Lysator computer club has been running all these DataSAAB models, but the D21 and D22 systems were scrapped about three years ago, along with most of the D5:s. We still have one D23 running a FORTH in microcode. The D23 was built as an extremely general processor, to be able to emulate other computers. To accomplish this it was completely microprogrammable, but more difficult operations like address calculations were implemented in hardware on boards called "VLS" (Variable Logic Sets). The computer could have several of these VLS boards and a complete architecture change was accomplished by just loading new microcode. The only computer "implemented" on the D23 was the D22, however, for backwards compatibility of course. The D23 was also asynchronous. The only thing which you could call a clock was the regular feeding of microinstructions to the execution unit, but even that could be asynchronously interrupted. Processor, arithmetics and memory were considered as three separate units, each containing internal general-purpose registers, talking to each other asynchronously using a hand-shake protocol. Sorry to fill this otherwise interesting list with things unrelated to the -8. Ah, the old D21 tape stations. Blue metal cases with glass doors. The two shining 1" tape drives (Ampex?). Nostalgia... -- Dept. of Electrical Engineering pell@isy.liu.se University of Linkoping, Sweden ...!uunet!isy.liu.se!pell Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Sat, 22 Sep 90 15:49:30 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Sat, 22 Sep 90 15:47:56 EDT Received: from uxc.cso.uiuc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA13806; Sat, 22 Sep 90 15:31:52 EDT Received: from convex.UUCP by uxc.cso.uiuc.edu with UUCP id AA03949 (5.64+/IDA-1.3.4); Sat, 22 Sep 90 13:54:14 -0500 Received: from concave by convex.COM (5.61/4.7) id AA02874; Sat, 22 Sep 90 13:52:46 -0500 Received: from lovecraft by concave (5.61/7.0) id AA06058; Sat, 22 Sep 90 13:52:44 -0500 Received: from Messages.7.14.N.CUILIB.3.45.SNAP.NOT.LINKED.lovecraft.convex.com.sun3.4 via MS.5.6.lovecraft.convex.com.sun3_4; Sat, 22 Sep 1990 13:52:41 -0500 (CDT) Message-Id: Date: Sat, 22 Sep 1990 13:52:41 -0500 (CDT) From: "Anthony A. Datri" To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Re: Museum suggestions In-Reply-To: References: Date: Sat, 22 Sep 1990 13:52:41 -0500 (CDT) From: "Anthony A. Datri" To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Re: Museum suggestions In-Reply-To: References: > Controlling Baseball message boards; Three Rivers Stadium in >Pittburgh. Are you sure this was an 8? I took a tour of Three Rivers when I was a wee lad, and I remember them telling us that it was a 7. They even let us play with it -- you could type messages on a TI teletype they had, which would punch them onto tape, and you could walk over and feed the tape to the reader, and out your message would come on the scoreboard.. They also had a "custom" peripheral -- a device that would read colored-in transparencies. You'd have a grid on the transparency, and you'd fill in the pixels you wanted to be turned on on the display, and this box would read them. Impressed the hell out of me at the time. I'm pretty sure that it's been replaced by now, though. At CMU a couple of years ago, I was told that the lighting for the Fine Arts auditorium was run by an 8 of some kind. beak is beak is not From digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu Sat Sep 22 16:39:40 1990 Received: from mimsy.umd.edu by watsun.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) id AA25140; Sat, 22 Sep 90 16:39:37 EDT Received: from tumtum.cs.umd.edu by mimsy.UMD.EDU (5.61/UMIACS-0.9/04-05-88) id AA20378; Sat, 22 Sep 90 16:38:44 -0400 Received: by tumtum.cs.umd.edu (4.0/3.14) id AA03580; Sat, 22 Sep 90 16:31:42 EDT Date: Sat, 22 Sep 90 16:31:42 EDT From: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu (Doug Humphrey) Return-Path: Message-Id: <9009222031.AA03580@tumtum.cs.umd.edu> To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu Cc: rs@eddie.mit.edu, digex@ai.mit.edu Are you suggesting that one of the machines at project MAC (or to be more general LCS and AI) was purchased without memory? I have seen and used every 36 bit machine that they have ever had (and helped de-install most of them) and none of them said KK10 on the console. In point of fact, I can tell you the original memory configurations for the KA's, the KL, the KS's as received at the labs. Where was this KK10 installed anyway? Do you know what CPU serial number it was? Doug Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Sat, 22 Sep 90 17:42:45 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Sat, 22 Sep 90 17:41:01 EDT Received: from mimsy.UMD.EDU by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA15067; Sat, 22 Sep 90 17:27:09 EDT Received: from tumtum.cs.umd.edu by mimsy.UMD.EDU (5.61/UMIACS-0.9/04-05-88) id AA20856; Sat, 22 Sep 90 17:27:02 -0400 Received: by tumtum.cs.umd.edu (4.0/3.14) id AA03659; Sat, 22 Sep 90 17:20:00 EDT Date: Sat, 22 Sep 90 17:20:00 EDT From: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu (Doug Humphrey) Return-Path: Message-Id: <9009222120.AA03659@tumtum.cs.umd.edu> To: pell@isy.liu.se Cc: lcs@icad.com, pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: P{r Emanuelsson's message of Sat, 22 Sep 90 14:31:28 +0200 <9009221231.AA02409@rainier.isy.liu.se> Subject: Minicomputer exhibit at Computer Museum Date: Sat, 22 Sep 90 17:20:00 EDT From: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu (Doug Humphrey) Return-Path: To: pell@isy.liu.se Cc: lcs@icad.com, pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: P{r Emanuelsson's message of Sat, 22 Sep 90 14:31:28 +0200 <9009221231.AA02409@rainier.isy.liu.se> Subject: Minicomputer exhibit at Computer Museum I used to have a Honeywell 316 which might have fit the bill for a mini of that time, maybe a bit later. These were used in a lot of things, but the application that people here might remember best was that of ARPAnet TIP (Terminal Interface Processor). A lot of us spent a lot of time dialed into Honeywell 316s illegally in our younger days... Doug (founding member - DC Turist Assination Squad) Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Sat, 22 Sep 90 18:15:08 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Sat, 22 Sep 90 18:13:31 EDT Received: from uunet.uu.net by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA15353; Sat, 22 Sep 90 18:01:02 EDT Received: from mimsy.umd.edu by uunet.uu.net (5.61/1.14) with SMTP id AA02217; Sat, 22 Sep 90 18:00:57 -0400 Received: from tumtum.cs.umd.edu by mimsy.UMD.EDU (5.61/UMIACS-0.9/04-05-88) id AA21097; Sat, 22 Sep 90 18:00:53 -0400 Received: by tumtum.cs.umd.edu (4.0/3.14) id AA03725; Sat, 22 Sep 90 17:53:51 EDT Date: Sat, 22 Sep 90 17:53:51 EDT From: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu (Doug Humphrey) Return-Path: Message-Id: <9009222153.AA03725@tumtum.cs.umd.edu> To: apex!chuckh@uunet.uu.net Cc: ai.mit.edu!pdp8-lovers@uunet.uu.net In-Reply-To: Chuck Huffington's message of Wed, 19 Sep 1990 10:30:07 PDT <9009191734.AA12888@uunet.uu.net> Subject: The quest begins Date: Sat, 22 Sep 90 17:53:51 EDT From: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu (Doug Humphrey) Return-Path: To: apex!chuckh@uunet.uu.net Cc: ai.mit.edu!pdp8-lovers@uunet.uu.net In-Reply-To: Chuck Huffington's message of Wed, 19 Sep 1990 10:30:07 PDT <9009191734.AA12888@uunet.uu.net> Subject: The quest begins As someone that has had (oh wow, how many?) 2 or 3 11/70 systems, and a pair of 11/44s, and an 11/73 (the 44s and the 73 run in a comercial setting making real money...) I have to say that the 11/70 is really not an option for home use. It is going to be less reliable than the 44 or the 73 because if has orders of magnitude more parts, and while it is faster than the 44, the 44 and the 73 are plenty fast... More later... Doug Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Sun, 23 Sep 90 12:54:34 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Sun, 23 Sep 90 12:52:35 EDT Received: from mimsy.UMD.EDU by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA23496; Sun, 23 Sep 90 12:33:37 EDT Received: from tumtum.cs.umd.edu by mimsy.UMD.EDU (5.61/UMIACS-0.9/04-05-88) id AA02521; Sun, 23 Sep 90 12:33:34 -0400 Received: by tumtum.cs.umd.edu (4.0/3.14) id AA04638; Sun, 23 Sep 90 12:26:30 EDT Date: Sun, 23 Sep 90 12:26:30 EDT From: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu (Doug Humphrey) Return-Path: Message-Id: <9009231626.AA04638@tumtum.cs.umd.edu> To: enders@plains.nodak.edu Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: Todd Enders - WD0BCI's message of Wed, 19 Sep 90 11:52:13 -0500 <9009191652.AA06586@plains.NoDak.edu> Subject: The quest begins Date: Sun, 23 Sep 90 12:26:30 EDT From: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu (Doug Humphrey) Return-Path: To: enders@plains.nodak.edu Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: Todd Enders - WD0BCI's message of Wed, 19 Sep 90 11:52:13 -0500 <9009191652.AA06586@plains.NoDak.edu> Subject: The quest begins The 11/73 CPU is selling for around $1,000+ from the various mail order places (the big ones like Midwest or Newman). I have some contacts in that business that can undoubtedly do better, but it would be best to have a system configuration in mind before contacting them, since they don't like people to waste their time (that is part of what you pay such high prices for at Midwest; the option to sit on the phone for an hour with them asking strange questions and costing them bucks). The 73 would be a lot better as a home system than a 44, but the various parts for the 44 (including options like comm and controllers) will cost somewhat less than the Q buss equivs for exactly this reason; the 73 parts are more desirable. What operating system do you want to run? This is a critical question at this point. If you are looking at PDP11s, then you have your choice of many; RSTS/E RT11 RSX11 2.9/2.10 BSD UNIX and a host of others that are really obscure. I have RSTS on my 11/34a here at home, since it is a kind of all purpose operating system. RSX is more cryptic, but better for realtime things. RT is the best there is for realtime, but does not do a whole lot more than that.... Please folks, no big flames, this is painting with a wide brush so that people will get a general idea. So, what do you want to DO with it? Contrary to popular thought, there is not as much *useful* software for the 11s as there is today for the IBM PC world. Sure, I can get you a package that runs a Cyclotron for the 11 (I wrote it!) but that does not do you a lot of good in your basement. A real nice system, for example, would be an 11/73 CPU, a meg of memory (or more, but for a single person running a few tasks a meg is fine), SC03 SMD disk controller from Emulex, Fuji 2284 disk drive (very reliable and I can give you a great source for one (I might even be getting rid of one to upgrade to 2294s)), DEC DZV comm (4 lines) or able DH clone if you can find one cheap (8 lines). One question to ask is if you really need to have a 9-track tape. Sure, you want one, and it makes the place look like there is a real computer here ;-) but the fact of the matter is that it will take a lot of space, cost a couple hundred in shipping, cost some real bucks (bad tape drives (old TU16 and TE16) are cheap, and you get exactly what you pay for, headaches; good tape drives (CDC Keystone, etc) cost real money because they actually work...) Maybe the ultimate in slowness, the TK50? Who can tell.... For backups, and interesting option is to get a second disk drive and use that for a backup, and then power it down to protect it. Cheaper than a tape drive, using $500 as a price for the Fuji 2284K (160 megs). More later... Doug Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Sun, 23 Sep 90 12:55:21 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Sun, 23 Sep 90 12:53:44 EDT Received: from mimsy.UMD.EDU by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA23517; Sun, 23 Sep 90 12:37:34 EDT Received: from tumtum.cs.umd.edu by mimsy.UMD.EDU (5.61/UMIACS-0.9/04-05-88) id AA02545; Sun, 23 Sep 90 12:37:22 -0400 Received: by tumtum.cs.umd.edu (4.0/3.14) id AA04654; Sun, 23 Sep 90 12:30:19 EDT Date: Sun, 23 Sep 90 12:30:19 EDT From: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu (Doug Humphrey) Return-Path: Message-Id: <9009231630.AA04654@tumtum.cs.umd.edu> To: D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@carmen.docs.uu.se Cc: enders@plains.nodak.edu, pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu, D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@carmen.docs.uu.se In-Reply-To: Johnny Billquist's message of Wed 19 Sep 90 21:00:14 <900919210014.8.D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@CARMEN.DOCS.UU.SE> Subject: The quest begins Date: Sun, 23 Sep 90 12:30:19 EDT From: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu (Doug Humphrey) Return-Path: To: D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@carmen.docs.uu.se Cc: enders@plains.nodak.edu, pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu, D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@carmen.docs.uu.se In-Reply-To: Johnny Billquist's message of Wed 19 Sep 90 21:00:14 <900919210014.8.D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@CARMEN.DOCS.UU.SE> Subject: The quest begins 11/70 systems are free now. No problem there. Nobody wants them for all sorts of reasons, mainly the power and maintenance issues. Those of you who think they are reliable are thinking of 11/70s that you used years ago maybe; years have gone by, and they tend to get the flakes after a while, just like the old KA10s did. Too many cards, too complex a backplane, etc. Doug Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Sun, 23 Sep 90 14:19:50 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Sun, 23 Sep 90 14:18:10 EDT Received: from mimsy.UMD.EDU by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA24472; Sun, 23 Sep 90 14:07:12 EDT Received: from tumtum.cs.umd.edu by mimsy.UMD.EDU (5.61/UMIACS-0.9/04-05-88) id AA03377; Sun, 23 Sep 90 14:07:11 -0400 Received: by tumtum.cs.umd.edu (4.0/3.14) id AA04780; Sun, 23 Sep 90 14:00:07 EDT Date: Sun, 23 Sep 90 14:00:07 EDT From: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu (Doug Humphrey) Return-Path: Message-Id: <9009231800.AA04780@tumtum.cs.umd.edu> To: John_Wilson@mts.rpi.edu Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: John_Wilson@mts.rpi.edu's message of Wed, 19 Sep 90 19:47:50 EDT <1949448@MTS.RPI.EDU> Date: Sun, 23 Sep 90 14:00:07 EDT From: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu (Doug Humphrey) Return-Path: To: John_Wilson@mts.rpi.edu Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: John_Wilson@mts.rpi.edu's message of Wed, 19 Sep 90 19:47:50 EDT <1949448@MTS.RPI.EDU> KS10s are harder to get now than they were, because a lot have been scrapped and frankly there are a lot of people (well, a lot might only mean 10 or 20) that want them now. 11/70s are really cheap, and have been going to the scrap heap by the hundreds. I threw 2 away a while ago because I didn't have anywhere to put them, and nobody that I talked to about taking them was interested once they saw the real power/heat/space numbers... Call all of the used computer places and say "I will pay you $200 each, and will cover all shipping costs, for all the 11/70 systems that you want to send to me" and watch how quickly you and your abode dissapear under a pile of scrap iron and boards! The KS10s are more difficult. If you are really interested, send mail to RS@eddie.mit.edu and ask to be put on the PDP10 list, where we discuss things. Just as a strange aside, I am looking to build a 'portable' KS10 system to take to science fiction cons and run ITS on (or tops-10 or tops-20 depending on my mood). This is going to be a real KS10 and associated stuff that has been freed from its rack and repackaged smaller, etc. Disks are the big trouble, since it is not a realistic thing to drag an RM80 around with me; building a SCSI adapter for the system would be a good idea, but not something I have the time to do... anyone out there think of strange ideas on how to kluge/kludge something? Doug Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Sun, 23 Sep 90 15:01:09 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Sun, 23 Sep 90 14:59:31 EDT Received: from akbar.cac.washington.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA24879; Sun, 23 Sep 90 14:45:54 EDT Received: from tomobiki-cho.cac.washington.edu by akbar.cac.washington.edu (5.64/UW-NDC Revision: 2.19 ) id AA06104; Sun, 23 Sep 90 11:45:19 -0700 Date: Sun, 23 Sep 1990 11:30:54 PDT From: Mark Crispin Subject: (response to message of Sun, 23 Sep 90 14:00:07 EDT) To: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu Cc: John_Wilson@mts.rpi.edu, pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: <9009231800.AA04780@tumtum.cs.umd.edu> Message-Id: Date: Sun, 23 Sep 1990 11:30:54 PDT From: Mark Crispin Subject: (response to message of Sun, 23 Sep 90 14:00:07 EDT) To: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu Cc: John_Wilson@mts.rpi.edu, pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: <9009231800.AA04780@tumtum.cs.umd.edu> I have a rack-mounted 8/e that is more or less a basket case, but which has several salvagable boards. It also has a TU56 (I have no idea if this works or not). My idea is to take the TU56 out of the rack and connect it with my 8/f which is much closer to running. The 8/f actually runs the BIN loader, but crashes when running FOCAL. I think the problem is in interrupt handling or possibly in the TTY board's interrupt logic. The other possibility is to get the 8/e working to take advantage of the extra Omnibus slots, but I think the console is shot. I have two TD8 boards and probably more memory than I can fit in the 8/f, so if anyone is visiting the Seattle area and would like to help me hack, you could take some stuff back with you. Once I get the 8/f running with DECtapes, I hope to get OS/8, etc. on it. I have had this 8/f for several years now, with 12K memory and an EAE, but the only software I've had for it was the paper tape kit with 4K FOCAL! On KS10's, I have three of them; two working, one a basket case salvaged for parts. I'm quite interested in any sources of RM03 disk drives, or in any project to build an SCSI controller for a KS. I'll help out with software. Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Sun, 23 Sep 90 22:13:42 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Sun, 23 Sep 90 22:12:06 EDT Received: from mimsy.UMD.EDU by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA00244; Sun, 23 Sep 90 21:52:48 EDT Received: from tumtum.cs.umd.edu by mimsy.UMD.EDU (5.61/UMIACS-0.9/04-05-88) id AA08270; Sun, 23 Sep 90 21:52:41 -0400 Received: by tumtum.cs.umd.edu (4.0/3.14) id AA05209; Sun, 23 Sep 90 21:45:37 EDT Date: Sun, 23 Sep 90 21:45:37 EDT From: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu (Doug Humphrey) Return-Path: Message-Id: <9009240145.AA05209@tumtum.cs.umd.edu> To: John_Wilson@mts.rpi.edu Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: John_Wilson@mts.rpi.edu's message of Sun, 23 Sep 90 15:24:30 EDT <1954240@MTS.RPI.EDU> Subject: Some questions: Date: Sun, 23 Sep 90 21:45:37 EDT From: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu (Doug Humphrey) Return-Path: To: John_Wilson@mts.rpi.edu Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: John_Wilson@mts.rpi.edu's message of Sun, 23 Sep 90 15:24:30 EDT <1954240@MTS.RPI.EDU> Subject: Some questions: I will note that MRC did not say that he is up for building a SCSI controller for the KS10; he said that he would help on the software side, meaning making Tops-20 (and maybe ITS) talk to it is someone else builds it. The hardware has long been a question. I could give my basic talk here on how the KS10 busses work; maybe a simple version without graphics ;-) The knee bone is connected to the ... The CPU has its own backplane which is really not a 'buss' per se. It has 3 slots for 3 Unibus Adapters (UBAs). DEC didn't ship many with 3 UBAs, but it can have 3. Each UBA has an adapter board that goes to a Unibus backplane (in a 2020 it is housed in the BA11-K in the same cab as the CPU box). The usual configuration is to have two Unibi (plural of Unibus?) one with the disks and the other with tape and comm. Some sites that I know have used the third for more disk. On the Unibus you have a unique beast; the RH11-C. We are all familliar with the RH11-A/B which is the classic Unibus Massbus controller for disk or tape. The RH11-C is an RH11-A/B with some extra chips epoxyed onto one of the boards (the RH11 is a 9 slot backplane) to turn the data path from 16bits with 2 parity to 18bits, no parity. Yep, we have a real problem to deal with here, because this is Unibus equipment (16 bits) operating on a 36 bit machine. But Wait! they cry, big dec-10s and 20s had these things on them! Wrong. Big 10s and 20s had PDP-11s on them, and the 11s had Unibi on them. Since the KS10 does NOT use PDP11 systems for DTE/DN front end service, somewhere those extra 2 bits need to be delt with. As we will see, this is a major pain in the butt. So, from the RH11-C, we are into Massbus (which someone correctly identified as working across all of the major product lines) and into the Massbus disks (well, only the ones that know how to do 18 bit transfers). The key thing to note here is that we are transfering information in 18 bit chunks, not 16. This limits the range of equipment that can be tossed into a KS10 configuration. From the Massbus, we go to one of the following DEC drives: Known to work with KS10: RP06 big, fast, loud, heavy, power-sucking, 176megs (formatted) RM03 small, single phase 120volt, medium/fast, 67megs (formatted) RM05 big, fast loud, heavy, power-sucking, >200 megs (formatted) RM80 small, single phase 120volt, fast, fixed, ~130 megs (formatted) Suspected to work KS10: RP07 big, fast, not so loud, very heavy, very power-sucking something over 400 megs formatted. Many concerns that this drive, even in slow mode, is too fast on burst transfers for the RH11 to deal with. Only 11 I have ever seen them work with are 11/70 using RH70 controller. MIT is trying to get an ITS device driver written for RP07 (for ITS) to test. Fuji 2284/2294 small, fast, quiet, light, easy on power (by comparison) 160/320 megs *unformatted*. Does not do a specific 18 bit transfer, but I am looking at ways to monkey the MBA from an RM03 to let the KS10 see this as an extended RM03 drive, or in the case of the 2294 a *very extended* RM03. I want to have this cabled to my KS10 test-bed in my basement by the end of the year for testing. SCSI Interface - This is the modern dream for the KS10. Many people who own KS10s are interested (myself, RS, MRC, and the gang at FTP Software to name a few) but the question is, who has the time to hack the hardware to make all this work? I will consider lending a KS10 to someone who wants to hack on this, but only to someone who fully understands what is involved, and then still wants to do it (a rare fool indeed!). So, that is (in a large nutshell) the situation on KS10s for disks. Hope that it enlightens. Doug Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Mon, 24 Sep 90 11:05:56 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Mon, 24 Sep 90 11:04:00 EDT Received: from speedy.cs.pitt.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA07536; Mon, 24 Sep 90 10:27:19 EDT Received: by speedy.cs.pitt.edu (5.61/1.34) id AA11491; Mon, 24 Sep 90 10:26:48 -0400 Date: Mon, 24 Sep 1990 10:26:46 EDT From: Bob Hoffman To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Re: Oldest File? Message-Id: Date: Mon, 24 Sep 1990 10:26:46 EDT From: Bob Hoffman To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Re: Oldest File? > >>I've got diagnostics for my PDP-8/e on paper tape that are dated 1966. > >>So there. Ptttthhhhh! > > > >The diagnostics for my PDP-4 are dated 1962. So there, too! > > I'm almost sure enough that there was no PDP-2, 3, or 4 to be > positive you are fooling, but 1962 would be about the right date. > So, really, do you have one? If so, please copy the reply to > pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu. Larry et al, No fooling! I really have a PDP-4B, serial number 32. Here is a quick history of the early PDPs. PDP-1: An 18-bit computer, first shipped in November, 1960. A typical system cost about $120,000. There were 50 systems built. PDP-2: This designation was saved for a 24-bit machine but none were ever built. PDP-3: This was a 36-bit system designed on paper, but none were built by DEC. In 1960, a customer (Scientific Engineering Institute, Waltham, MA) built a PDP-3. It was later dismantled and given to MIT; as of 1974, it was up and running in Oregon. PDP-4: An 18-bit computer, first shipped in July 1962. The cost for a typical system was $65,500. There were 45 systems built. The PDP-4 was designed to be a low-cost follow-on to the PDP-1. It featured 62% of the speed at 54% of the cost. All of this information comes from a book that should be in the library of every good DEC historian: Computer Engineering: A DEC view of hardware systems design by C. Gordon Bell, J. Craig Mudge, and John E. McNamara, Digital Press, 1978. ---Bob. Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Mon, 24 Sep 90 12:48:15 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Mon, 24 Sep 90 12:46:27 EDT Received: from sunic.sunet.se by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA10226; Mon, 24 Sep 90 12:09:45 EDT Received: from AIDA.CSD.UU.SE by sunic.sunet.se (5.61+IDA/KTH/LTH/1.159) id AAsunic10452; Mon, 24 Sep 90 18:09:34 +0200 Received: from CARMEN.DOCS.UU.SE by AIDA.CSD.UU.SE with TCP; Mon 24 Sep 90 18:04:53 Date: Mon 24 Sep 90 18:09:04 From: Johnny Billquist Subject: Re: (response to message of Sun, 23 Sep 90 14:00:07 EDT) To: mrc@akbar.cac.washington.edu Cc: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu, John_Wilson@mts.rpi.edu, pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu, D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@carmen.docs.uu.se In-Reply-To: Message-Id: <900924180904.15.D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@CARMEN.DOCS.UU.SE> Date: Mon 24 Sep 90 18:09:04 From: Johnny Billquist Subject: Re: (response to message of Sun, 23 Sep 90 14:00:07 EDT) To: mrc@akbar.cac.washington.edu Cc: digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu, John_Wilson@mts.rpi.edu, pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu, D89.JOHNNY-BILLQUIST@carmen.docs.uu.se In-Reply-To: Mark. If you are interested, I can send you the different diagnostics for the 8/e on paper tape. I think I have them lying around somewhere. (Even some docs, I think...) Johnny Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Mon, 24 Sep 90 13:40:23 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Mon, 24 Sep 90 13:38:45 EDT Received: from watsun.cc.columbia.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA11972; Mon, 24 Sep 90 13:06:30 EDT Received: by watsun.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) id AA14304; Mon, 24 Sep 90 13:07:02 EDT Date: Mon, 24 Sep 90 13:07:01 EDT From: Charles Lasner To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Message-Id: Date: Mon, 24 Sep 90 13:07:01 EDT From: Charles Lasner To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu From: Charles Lasner To: Bob Hoffman Subject: Re: Oldest File? In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 24 Sep 1990 10:26:46 EDT Where did this question first surface? (I am relatively new to this mailing.) You are incorrect when you say you have 1966 dated PDP-8/e diagnostics simply because there wasn't an 8/e to run it on before late '70 in-house and '71 in user hands. Having PDP-8 diagnostics from 1966 isn't impressive because the -8 was available in 1965. I would only be impressed with late '64 pre-release -8 diagnostics (if any), since all of us original -8 "diagnosticians" have a complete set of those tapes and more. Some date from '65, others are later only because they were re-released. But we all have those diagnostics including the write-ups with numbers like MAINDEC 804. This predates the new numbering system like MAINDEC-08-D1EC-PB, which they switched over to later. Speaking of early diagnostics, most of us with LINC-8's have the modified "St. Louis Tests" from the original LINC project circa '62. I even have the prints of the original LINC: a set of REALLY big books! One volume, which most LINC-8-ers have, is these diagnostics, which have been patched to run on the LINC-8 (slightly different from the LINC due to hardware incompatibilities which are minor). They were never quite "official", but everyone knows about them, because they are acquired from DEC field service on THEIR copy of SUDSY. If you make your own SUDSY tape, from the paper-tapes, or use the delivered tape which came with your machine, you don't get ST. Louis. But SUDSY ignores the tape region where ST. Louis resides. I may have the only copy left (from the LINC prints) of the LINC diagnostic volume which DOESN'T have the LINC-8 modifications penciled in! cjl (Your computer is as old as you feel!) Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Mon, 24 Sep 90 15:19:19 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Mon, 24 Sep 90 15:17:35 EDT Received: from silver.LCS.MIT.EDU by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA13936; Mon, 24 Sep 90 14:54:37 EDT Received: by silver.LCS.MIT.EDU (5.57/ultrix3.0/m4.4) id AA02623; Mon, 24 Sep 90 14:54:58 EDT Date: Mon, 24 Sep 90 14:54:58 EDT From: sgw@silver.lcs.mit.edu (stepehen g. wadlow) Message-Id: <9009241854.AA02623@silver.LCS.MIT.EDU> To: convex!datri@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: "Anthony A. Datri"'s message of Sat, 22 Sep 1990 13:52:41 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Museum suggestions Date: Mon, 24 Sep 90 14:54:58 EDT From: sgw@silver.lcs.mit.edu (stepehen g. wadlow) To: convex!datri@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: "Anthony A. Datri"'s message of Sat, 22 Sep 1990 13:52:41 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Museum suggestions > Date: Sat, 22 Sep 1990 13:52:41 -0500 (CDT) > From: "Anthony A. Datri" > References: > > At CMU a couple of years ago, I was told that the lighting for the Fine > Arts auditorium was run by an 8 of some kind. The old lighting system in the kresge theatre was a skirpan lighting system run on a PDP-8/E (I believe) complete with light-pen interface, core memory and I seem to remember some RX01's. It was a bit crufty, but generally worked well. steve > beak is beak is not "in the sunshine of time mankind is told to refresh himself...." -- David Yokeson IV Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Mon, 24 Sep 90 19:02:18 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Mon, 24 Sep 90 19:00:41 EDT Received: from uxc.cso.uiuc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA18154; Mon, 24 Sep 90 18:41:59 EDT Received: from convex.UUCP by uxc.cso.uiuc.edu with UUCP id AA07233 (5.64+/IDA-1.3.4); Mon, 24 Sep 90 17:07:55 -0500 Received: from concave by convex.COM (5.61/4.7) id AA13926; Mon, 24 Sep 90 17:06:54 -0500 Received: from lovecraft by concave (5.61/7.0) id AA29966; Mon, 24 Sep 90 17:06:50 -0500 Received: from Messages.7.14.N.CUILIB.3.45.SNAP.NOT.LINKED.lovecraft.convex.com.sun3.4 via MS.5.6.lovecraft.convex.com.sun3_4; Mon, 24 Sep 1990 17:06:45 -0500 (CDT) Message-Id: Date: Mon, 24 Sep 1990 17:06:45 -0500 (CDT) From: "Anthony A. Datri" To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Re: In-Reply-To: References: Date: Mon, 24 Sep 1990 17:06:45 -0500 (CDT) From: "Anthony A. Datri" To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Re: In-Reply-To: References: >MAINDEC-08-D1EC-PB This "MAINDEC" business has been driving me crazy for years -- many of my DECtapes are thus labelled -- what does it mean? >isn't impressive because the -8 was available in 1965. I'm the proud owner of a real DECUS (I think it's DECUS, could be DEC (it's not at hand)) papertape dated my birthday in 1965 (uh oh -- I just dated myself as a whippersnapper). beak is beak is not Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Mon, 24 Sep 90 19:39:56 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Mon, 24 Sep 90 19:38:20 EDT Received: from rpi.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA18607; Mon, 24 Sep 90 19:13:41 EDT Received: from MTS.RPI.EDU by rpi.edu (4.1/SM47-RPI-ITS); id AA15898; Mon, 24 Sep 90 19:11:52 EDT for pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Date: Mon, 24 Sep 90 19:11:44 EDT From: John_Wilson@mts.rpi.edu To: convex!datri@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu, pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Message-Id: <1956031@MTS.RPI.EDU> Subject: MAINDEC Date: Mon, 24 Sep 90 19:11:44 EDT From: John_Wilson@mts.rpi.edu To: convex!datri@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu, pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: MAINDEC Hey, '65 was a great year! I just wish I wasn't still an undergrad... (people keep saying "wow, you're SOOO OLD!". this shouldn't be happening yet!) I believe MAINDEC means MAINtenance DEC. The Field Circus guys seemed to like scribbling "MAINT" all over all my DECtapes before I got them. John Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Tue, 25 Sep 90 01:19:46 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Tue, 25 Sep 90 01:11:24 EDT Received: from EDDIE.MIT.EDU by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA23630; Tue, 25 Sep 90 00:52:17 EDT Received: by EDDIE.MIT.EDU (5.61/25-eef) id AA26151; Mon, 24 Sep 90 23:50:41 EST Date: Mon, 24 Sep 90 23:50:41 EST From: Robert E. Seastrom Message-Id: <9009250450.AA26151@EDDIE.MIT.EDU> To: convex!datri@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: "Anthony A. Datri"'s message of Mon, 24 Sep 1990 17:06:45 -0500 (CDT) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 90 23:50:41 EST From: Robert E. Seastrom To: convex!datri@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu Cc: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: "Anthony A. Datri"'s message of Mon, 24 Sep 1990 17:06:45 -0500 (CDT) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 1990 17:06:45 -0500 (CDT) From: "Anthony A. Datri" I'm the proud owner of a real DECUS (I think it's DECUS, could be DEC (it's not at hand)) papertape dated my birthday in 1965 (uh oh -- I just dated myself as a whippersnapper). Hey, I'm the *list maintainer*, and I was born the same month the PDP-8/L was released... ---Rob Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Tue, 25 Sep 90 06:38:10 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Tue, 25 Sep 90 06:36:30 EDT Received: from cc.usu.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA01080; Tue, 25 Sep 90 06:15:09 EDT Date: Mon, 24 Sep 90 09:45 MDT From: Roger Ivie Subject: Add me to the mailing list, please... To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Message-Id: <2CF58498347F00071E@cc.usu.edu> X-Envelope-To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu X-Vms-To: IN%"pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu" Date: Mon, 24 Sep 90 09:45 MDT From: Roger Ivie Subject: Add me to the mailing list, please... To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu X-Envelope-To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu X-Vms-To: IN%"pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu" ...and don't forget the 'w' in my username this time! Roger Ivie slsw2@cc.usu.edu Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by BUGS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU; Tue, 25 Sep 90 19:10:15 EDT Received: from life.ai.mit.edu by ELI.CS.YALE.EDU; Tue, 25 Sep 90 19:08:34 EDT Received: from EDDIE.MIT.EDU by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA18379; Tue, 25 Sep 90 18:51:58 EDT Received: by EDDIE.MIT.EDU (5.61/25-eef) id AA10416; Tue, 25 Sep 90 17:50:44 EST Date: Tue, 25 Sep 90 17:50:44 EST From: Robert E. Seastrom Message-Id: <9009252250.AA10416@EDDIE.MIT.EDU> To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Ouch! Date: Tue, 25 Sep 90 17:50:44 EST From: Robert E. Seastrom To: pdp8-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Ouch! OK, it's time to clarify the PDP-10 list story... I do not maintain a PDP-10 mailing list. At one time, I started KS-AT-HOME mailing list for people who were interested in owning the only PDP-10 that could fit *in* a spare bedroom, rather than *taking over* the house. There was not enough interest in the KS-AT-HOME mailing list, so when the last ITS machine (MC.LCS.MIT.EDU) was finally shut down, I didn't bother to move it along with PDP8-LOVERS to ai.mit.edu. Ever since Doug mentioned the PDP-10 mailing list here, I've been deluged with mail asking to be added. Well, I'm more than willing to give it a try again, but I can't run a mailing list with just people who are interested in listening but nobody who can post and speak authoritatively. There are two DEC 36-bit-related mailing lists that I know of: tops-20@score.stanford.edu (you are supposed to be a 20x sysadmin to get on this list) and ks-owners@stacken.kth.se (you are supposed to own or be about to acquire a ks-10 to be on this list - lists of owners and their machines' names and serial numbers are broadcast to the list every so often. ---Rob