What to look for in a PDP machine?

What to look for in a PDP machine?

[rdkeys]

Interesting, there may be a PDPsomethingorother machine come available in
surplus here.  A quick glance at it showed it to be in a 1/2 height rack,
with some custom name that meant nothing to me.  But, it had two rack
cabinets about 6 inches high each, with definite looking DEC cards,
4 wide cards, with an interconnecting cable between the two cases.
The thing had a half gig scsi drive and scsi tape (60 or 150mb).
Alas, I was able only to make a quick glance at it, before I had to
leave.  What might such a critter actually be?  It had half a dozen
RS232 terminal lines out the back, and a wyse terminal sitting on top
of the case.  It is not the kind of thing the PeeCee mongers are going
to dive into, so it might go for a song if I wait a couple of weeks.
It was not DEC badged, but definitely had what I would interpret as
DEC boards inside.

Bob

What to look for in a PDP machine?

[rdkeys]

> Interesting, there may be a PDPsomethingorother machine come available in
> surplus here.  A quick glance at it showed it to be in a 1/2 height rack,
> with some custom name that meant nothing to me.  But, it had two rack
> cabinets about 6 inches high each, with definite looking DEC cards,
> 4 wide cards, with an interconnecting cable between the two cases.
> The thing had a half gig scsi drive and scsi tape (60 or 150mb).
> Alas, I was able only to make a quick glance at it, before I had to
> leave.  What might such a critter actually be?  It had half a dozen
> RS232 terminal lines out the back, and a wyse terminal sitting on top
> of the case.  It is not the kind of thing the PeeCee mongers are going
> to dive into, so it might go for a song if I wait a couple of weeks.
> It was not DEC badged, but definitely had what I would interpret as
> DEC boards inside.

Revisitation of the thing (my curiosity got the better of me and it was
only a couple blocks away), yields some more info.

A tag on the back says it is a scsi upgrade for a Digital Bright V.
The ID plate says it is a Model BF-111/64.

Examination of the cards indicated it was full of Perception Technologies
cards rather than DEC cards, with what looks like modem transformers on
them (10 cards and 80 ports?).  Is this a telephone system of some sort?

The drive cabinet had a panel on it with:

           RDY  1  WP
           RDY  0  WP
           HALT  RESTART
           DCOK    RUN

buttons on it.  That seems DECish.  The rest, I dunno.

Anyone have any ideas as to what it might be?

Thanks

Bob


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From: Tim Shoppa <SHOPPA@trailing-edge.com>
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>The drive cabinet had a panel on it with:
>
>           RDY  1  WP
>           RDY  0  WP
>           HALT  RESTART
>           DCOK    RUN
>
>buttons on it.  That seems DECish.

It sounds like a BA23, the DEC standard 8-slot Q-bus chassis.

>Anyone have any ideas as to what it might be?

Q-bus CPU's can be anything from a PDP-11/03 up to a Microvax,
and even some third-party CPU's with odd things like 68000's
and Z80's on them.  You really gotta look in the CPU box and
find the CPU board to determine what it is.  The badge on the
front of the BA23 may bear no relation to what's installed in
it.

If it is an -11, it's very likely an 11/73, /83 or 11/93,
possibly a 11/23.

-- 
 Tim Shoppa                        Email: shoppa at trailing-edge.com
 Trailing Edge Technology          WWW:   http://www.trailing-edge.com/
 7328 Bradley Blvd		   Voice: 301-767-5917
 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817           Fax:   301-767-5927

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Subject: RE: What to look for in a PDP machine?
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Could be any number of things...  The cable is probably
a bus connector and the cabinet in the other rack is
an expansion cabinet.  What you are looking at could
be a PDP 11/05 (I used to have one), although since you
didn't mention there being a row of switches across the
front, probably not.  

There are so many different possibilities.  If you could
describe the front of the boxes that are in the rack it
would be very helpful.  The PDP 11 possibilities and fit
in a 5 1/4" (half box) would be a pdp 11/05 (with a 
row of white keys (16 of them), a pdp 11/23 (which is 
mostly white with 3 white keys in a small inset area)
and others that might have a rotary switch or perhaps
a telephone-like keypad).  Otherwise I would wonder if
it is even a DEC machine...  If it has an orange lighted
rocker switch it might be any number of later Q-BUS 
machines....  (and probably so if this has a SCSI device).



Andy

> -----Original Message-----
> From: rdkeys at unity.ncsu.edu [mailto:rdkeys at unity.ncsu.edu]
> Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2000 3:19 PM
> To: pups at minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au
> Cc: rdkeys at unity.ncsu.edu
> Subject: What to look for in a PDP machine?
> 
> 
> Interesting, there may be a PDPsomethingorother machine come 
> available in
> surplus here.  A quick glance at it showed it to be in a 1/2 
> height rack,
> with some custom name that meant nothing to me.  But, it had two rack
> cabinets about 6 inches high each, with definite looking DEC cards,
> 4 wide cards, with an interconnecting cable between the two cases.
> The thing had a half gig scsi drive and scsi tape (60 or 150mb).
> Alas, I was able only to make a quick glance at it, before I had to
> leave.  What might such a critter actually be?  It had half a dozen
> RS232 terminal lines out the back, and a wyse terminal sitting on top
> of the case.  It is not the kind of thing the PeeCee mongers are going
> to dive into, so it might go for a song if I wait a couple of weeks.
> It was not DEC badged, but definitely had what I would interpret as
> DEC boards inside.
> 
> Bob
> 
> 
> 

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From: Warren Toomey <wkt@cs.adfa.edu.au>
Message-Id: <200006010025.KAA49471 at henry.cs.adfa.edu.au>
Subject: Future Direction for PUPS and UHS
To: pups at minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (Unix Heritage Society)
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2000 10:25:34 +1000 (EST)
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All,
	A discussion has started up on the PUPS volunteers list about the
future direction we should take in terms of the PUPS Archive.

For those people new to this list, here's a bit of background. Originally
I set up the PDP-11 UNIX Preservation Society, the mailing list and the
Archive as that was my interest.

Since then, we've attracted people with interests in other Unixes, such
as the 4BSDs, and other hardware platforms such as the Vax, the 68k Suns
etc.

A while back, I changed the charter of the mailing list to encompass any
Unix-related questions, epecially to those systems which are now treated
as `ancient' by the mainstream, even if they are being maintained (e.g
2.11BSD and the Quasijarus project).

I also tried to create an umbrella organisation, the Unix Heritage Society
(http://minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au/TUHS/), which would allow a number of groups
like PUPS and Quasijarus to form, and so that we could co-ordinate their
efforts. I must admit I haven't put much effort into this idea.

Now, the PUPS Archive (PUPS in name, but it contains lots more than PDP-11
stuff) is accumulating more and more stuff. Some people want to see a
mainly PDP-11 archive, other want to try and archive everything before it
goes off to /dev/null.

So, I want to survey the mailing list here for ideas about the charter of
the Unix Heritage Society, and a way of setting up one or multiple archives,
mailing lists, web pages etc. as I originally envisioned.

Questions:
	- should we keep one archive, or have multiple archives?

	- if one, what structure (divisions on platforms, on vendors etc.)

	- if you have a keen interest in one platform/system, would you
	  consider becoming the leader of an interest group that could
	  sit under the Unix Heritage Society umbrella?

	- do you want to set up and maintain a more specific archive,
	  mailing list, web site, that the Unix Heritage Society could
	  point to?

	- do you want this current mailing list to stay ``all-encompassing'',
	  or would you rather have more specific lists?

One final comment before you answer. There's a very diverse bunch of
people on this mailing list, some with strong opinions. Please be prepared
to accept someone's comments as what they want, don't tell them that they
are wrong, but let us know what you'd like to see.

Many thanks,
	Warren

[ now stands back for the deluge! ]

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Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2000 18:53:57 +0200
From: Wilko Bulte <wkb@chello.nl>
To: Warren Toomey <wkt at cs.adfa.edu.au>
Cc: Unix Heritage Society <pups at minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au>
Subject: Re: Future Direction for PUPS and UHS
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On Thu, Jun 01, 2000 at 10:25:34AM +1000, Warren Toomey wrote:

> So, I want to survey the mailing list here for ideas about the charter of
> the Unix Heritage Society, and a way of setting up one or multiple archives,
> mailing lists, web pages etc. as I originally envisioned.
> 
> Questions:
> 	- should we keep one archive, or have multiple archives?

Multiple.

> 	- if one, what structure (divisions on platforms, on vendors etc.)

I'd distinguish by CPU / machine / vendor. Eg. PDP, VAX, Sun68k, etc.
Maybe one should also distinguish by source code / binary-only. People like
David are mostly interested in the sources, which I think makes good sense.
But if you find yourself with an old box a binary kit sure beats no OS at
all.

> 	- do you want this current mailing list to stay ``all-encompassing'',
> 	  or would you rather have more specific lists?

Depends on the traffic. One could argue a generic 'announce' list and 
a set of platform dependent lists would be best. But maybe it is too early
to nail this down.

> One final comment before you answer. There's a very diverse bunch of
> people on this mailing list, some with strong opinions. Please be prepared
> to accept someone's comments as what they want, don't tell them that they
> are wrong, but let us know what you'd like to see.
> 
> Many thanks,
> 	Warren
> 
> [ now stands back for the deluge! ]

<splash> ;-)

-- 
Wilko Bulte 	FreeBSD, the power to serve  	http://www.freebsd.org