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Clearpoint QED1 4MB Qbus PMI Memory

Yep, and all PMI jumpers out again.

Hey, there's that super weird clock board at the very bottom. I have one of those, does anyone know of any docs/drivers for it? Would be nice to have a TOY clock to give M+ approximate time before TCP/IP and NTPD comes online...
 
reinhardtjh said:
On a side note... What kind of deranged person leaves a group (!) of PDP-11/83's out in the elements for years, apparently???? :oops:
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My first 11/780 was stored in a shed with a leaky roof along with all the documentation. Fortunately, I found a second one that was being parted out and assembled a fraken-780 that may (or may not) work if I ever move somewhere with space and power to run it.

CW
 
Bitly said:
My first 11/780 was stored in a shed with a leaky roof along with all the documentation. Fortunately, I found a second one that was being parted out and assembled a fraken-780 that may (or may not) work if I ever move somewhere with space and power to run it.

CW
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That's how it goes! My PDP-11/10 was in a very damp basement in an old mansion on a hill in MA, with a "looks like someone knocked everything in the floor" chemistry or photo lab. Mystery noxious fun times everywhere.
 
reinhardtjh said:
On a side note... What kind of deranged person leaves a group (!) of PDP-11/83's out in the elements for years, apparently???? :oops:
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The RICM has a PDP-12 that sat on a dirt floor cellar for decades, and a PDP-8/I that sat in an abandoned, leaky, mouse infested factory for several years. Both took significant restoration and are running nicely now.
 
glitch said:
Do we want to group buy this pile and split it up? I could use a spare KJD11-B apparently :p I can buy and distribute if that is desired, like with the MTI QBus controllers.
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Well, ya gotta figure there was a reason why they salvaged the J11's off of them...
 
leegleason said:
Well, ya gotta figure there was a reason why they salvaged the J11's off of them...
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The ones in Paul's eBay link looks like the J11s are still there! The pictures are somewhat poor though, and some of the boards definitely have damage (the ESDI board looks like the ASIC got delidded).
 
Thread drift! Thread drift!

Hey, can we move the ebay discussion to DEC units on ebay and keep this one about the Clearpoint memory boards? Someone will thank us two years down the line when the ebay listing is long over and they're trying to figure out how to get a QED1 working...
 
Steve Toner said:
Thread drift! Thread drift!

Hey, can we move the ebay discussion to DEC units on ebay and keep this one about the Clearpoint memory boards? Someone will thank us two years down the line when the ebay listing is long over and they're trying to figure out how to get a QED1 working...
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Heh, like this'll be findable in two years :p That's what the writeups and gunkies cross-posts are for.
 
glitch said:
The ones in Paul's eBay link looks like the J11s are still there! The pictures are somewhat poor though, and some of the boards definitely have damage (the ESDI board looks like the ASIC got delidded).
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Note that two of the KDJ11-B CPU M8190 listed include the FPJ11 ... verified by the one with a board photo. And there are four M8637. Not a bad deal overall at half their asking price. Too bad they didn't rescue the 11/84 backplanes as well.
glitch said:
Heh, like this'll be findable in two years :p That's what the writeups and gunkies cross-posts are for.
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I'm hoping that someone with suitable access and skills will write up the QED1 findings in gunkies since there's already a starter-reference there. Anyone planning to do that?
 
pbirkel@gmail.com said:
Note that two of the KDJ11-B CPU M8190 listed include the FPJ11 ... verified by the one with a board photo. And there are four M8637. Not a bad deal overall at half their asking price. Too bad they didn't rescue the 11/84 backplanes as well.
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No kidding :/ I started a separate entry about it on the DEC hardware thread.

pbirkel@gmail.com said:
I'm hoping that someone with suitable access and skills will write up the QED1 findings in gunkies since there's already a starter-reference there. Anyone planning to do that?
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Yes, and I'll link to a writeup on glitchwrks.com as I did with the PDP-11/10 PSU.
 
glitch said:
No kidding :/ I started a separate entry about it on the DEC hardware thread.


Yes, and I'll link to a writeup on glitchwrks.com as I did with the PDP-11/10 PSU.
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Thanks! Also remember everyone that the 11/84 versions of the DEC PMI have a bug where they will drop data and screw up transactions from Burst mode/Block mode DMA transfers to the J11 cache. This will corrupt your RSX11 disk at random times and is nasty.

Turning off faster DMA is possible on some controllers, but the resulting system speed sucks. They can work in Q22 mode as 2mb boards, but that also sucks compared to the glory of PMI access.....
 
czunit said:
Thanks! Also remember everyone that the 11/84 versions of the DEC PMI have a bug where they will drop data and screw up transactions from Burst mode/Block mode DMA transfers to the J11 cache. This will corrupt your RSX11 disk at random times and is nasty.

Turning off faster DMA is possible on some controllers, but the resulting system speed sucks. They can work in Q22 mode as 2mb boards, but that also sucks compared to the glory of PMI access.....
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Yes, that is something to consider on the MSV11-J! The last two etch revisions (-D for 1 MB, -E for 2 MB) are not affected, but earlier revisions (-B and -C, I've never seen a -A) are.

Update on my two QED1s: I reconfigured the MicroPDP-11/83 this morning to try and figure out if it's a backplane problem or CPU problem. With the KDJ11-B in the third slot, a PMI board in the second slot, and nothing in the first slot, I get CPU errors during power-on diagnostics. As far as I know, this is a dumb but not illegal configuration (e.g. don't need to jump for the RUN light or anything). I then put the KDJ11-B in slot 1, with the QED1 in slot 2, and got intermittent CPU errors on startup or lockup during the 9-step memory test.

I reconfigured again with a KDJ11-A in slot 1, the QED1 in slot 2, a DLV11-J in slot 3, and the Emulex UC07 in slot 4. I had to type in the UC07 bootstrap through ODT, forgetting as usual that the manual is wrong for 22-bit QBus! It booted XXDP just fine and has been running `VMJAB0` with switches set to 000261 since around 0900 Eastern, no stoppages, no yellow or red LEDs on the QED1, no error printouts. I am thinking the QED1s are probably fully functional now, and that I have a failing KDJ11-B.

If someone has a spare to test against, I'd really appreciate being able to confirm before spending on another and then having to qualify it as well. I can't really offer any guesses on why mine has started acting up, it passed over 200 cycles of `OKDAG0` with the switches set for extensive cache data and tag tests. Just bad luck that it happened to start failing during repairs on the QED1s I guess :p
 
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