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Folks, I recently acquired an empty PDP-8/m case that was empty of boards. The rest of the case is intact(ish), backplane, power supply, fans. There is no front panel, only a red plastic insert, and the keylock is just sitting inside the case (still wired). I am familiar with linear supply...

Folks, I have a board I’m restoring, but this is a more general topic, so starting a new thread. The board in question is. Vector Graphic disk controller board, and the condition is somewhat of a mystery. The rest of the system shows normal aging, and is in good condition. This board is the...

I have a VG MZ that I’m trying to bring up. I’ve been using the info at deramp.com to get the utilities set up. My MZ must be earier than the one covered on the deramp site: Z80 cpu board (no rom, ram, etc.) Flashwriter II 48k memory card 12k ROM/RAM card Disk interface card Bitstreamer 1...

Folks, I was in Minneapolis recently visiting my daughter. I went by one of my favorite junk stores in the area, Toms Tool and Tinker. I knew it was closed, but thought there was a slim chance it had been sold. There were actually people there. Tom fell ill, and his children sold the...

Greetings, My wife and I are taking a trip that will allow us to be in Rhode Island on July 14. I’m planning on dropping by the Rhode Island Computer Museum (RICM), for as long as I can, to see what they’re working on and talk with folks. Any pointers for my visit, other than bring my camera...

Folks, Are any of you going to the VCF East show? My friend Maki and I are driving up Friday morning and staying through Saturday. Hope to see some of you there! - Crawford

Folks, I was poking around for some OS/8 source code and I discovered this: http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-8/PQS8-related%20Files/ These files are recent (early 2015), which is astonishing, considering the scarcity (some might say absence) of real code, rather...

Folks, I'm working with Kyle Owen to improve on his excellent SerialDisk server. One thing has puzzled me - the reason for system vs. non-system device handlers in OS8. I know the technical differences, but would like to know why you'd use one over the other. If you had a system handler that...

Hi, I have a Pdp8a, and I got it running at the last MARCH workshop. It was booting OS/8 and everything seemed good. However, I had to disconnect the RX01 to bring it home, and can't get it to boot now. The CPU unit seems fine, I key in the accumulator test and the ASCII output test. But...

Folks, Not to steal thunder from Chuck(G), but I have successfully booted my 11/53 from a USB flash stick. It was actually pretty easy, starting with a cheap (24 USD shipped) Gotek floppy emulator from ebay http://www.ebay.com/itm/281215864477?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649...

Folks, So apparently my pdp 11/23 was once a pdp 11/03, and has a Q18/CD backplane (an H9273). This is all in a BA11. Since I want to use this chassis for an 11/53, I was thinking of converting the backplane to a Q22. BDAL18 (BC1) BDAL19 (BD1) BDAL20 (BE1) BDAL21 (BF1) Is it just a matter...

Folks, I've noticed that there are various limitations on OS disk volume sizes depending on the intended OS. Some are hard limits tied to the disk hardware of the time but there may be more practical limits. Any guidelines or lessons learnt for the more popular/useful OSes (e.g. Unix, rt11...

Folks, So, digging in my shop, I found two sets of m7606/m7608 ka630 CPU + memory boards. I shoved them in a backplane in q22/cd slots and plugged in the console panel. Both sets of boards halt at code 'C' which docs say is where it's looking for console ram. Since there's ram on the CPU...

Folks, I now have a pretty complete Pdp 11/53 with comms, 3.5mb of ram, floppies (5.25, 3.5) and hard disk. I've never installed a full OS on a PDP... RT11 seems the best bet (unix maybe later) What's the best approach? Floppies using PUTR? TU-58 emulation? Thanks for any advice. ? ; - )

Folks, As part of getting my franken-PDP11/53 running again, my H7864 power supply croaked. Rather than letting go in a smelly or spectacular manner (as some others have done) it just stopped working. The circuit breaker and internal fuse both register continuity, and the insides all look...

Folks, (sorry for the spam-like quality of my posts recently, I'm trying to get back into DEC stuff) So, I had the luck to see an Andromeda SCDC Qbus SCSI card on da bay.. and I have poor impulse control around my birthday in November. I have a shiny new(ish) blue Andromeda SCDC board. I...

Folks, So I found my old stash of DEC boards, and there is a KXJ11-CA board, which looks like the sister to the PDP-11/53 CPU. I think it was an instance of ebay 'click first, read later'. Oh well. So I have the bitsaver docs for this board, but they seem to fail to mention: What is this...

Folks, I have a chassis box, sort of a desk-side squarish box, marked Harris Computer Systems Model 160. I couldn't find anything on this chassis, but it's a nice lightweight box. The box has five rows of quad-wide slots, and it is for Qbus PDP-11 systems. I'm trying to figure out the right...

Folks, I have a BDV11 that I'm trying to figure out so I can get the latest ROMS on it using Lou's instructions. I read the EK-BDV11-TM-001_Mar78.pdf doc, but I'm missing something. Challenge one is : where are the "W1-4" and "W9-12" jumpers? I see some zero ohm things above E35, but no...

Folks, I just have to share this. David G. just got his straight-8 a couple of days ago. I helped him wrestle it down to his basement. http://www.pdp8online.com/straight8/pdp8.shtml It's in remarkable condition for a machine that came from British Columbia to the DC area just bolted to a...