From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2010 09:14:35 +0100 Subject: [TUHS] pdp11 question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20101114091435.4c5a5e71.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Sat, 13 Nov 2010 14:38:29 -1000 (HST) Tim Newsham wrote: > How much does an old pdp-11 type system cost these days Depending on the source you may get it for free or you may pay several thousand $$$$. > How much power do they take up to power on? IIRC my PDP-11/73 with some periperal controllers and two 5.25" ESDI disks takes less then 200 Watts. > Whats maintenance like on those things? Nothing special. Some peripherals may need maintenance like cleaning tape drive heads. There are several models of the PDP-11. From small systems like the /03 to big multi rack instalations like the /70. If you want a small system to play around at home look for a later QBus model, i.e. PDP-11/[5789]3. Those machines come in or can be reduced to a single 3U 19" rack mount box called BA23. The BA23 can be mounted in a flor stand, no need for a 19" rack. There is a slightly larger box, the BA123. The BA23 and BA123 where common boxes for MicroVAXen too. So if you get just the OBus card set for a PDP-11 you can convert a MicroVAC to a PDP-11. Many peripherals are comon to PDP-11 and MicroVAXen like RQDX3, TK50 / TK70, ... All you need to convert a QBus MicroVAX to a PDP-11 are a QBus PDP-11 CPU and memory. (I went this route.) -- \end{Jochen} \ref{http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/}