Electrician came; PDP-11 works!

From: Philip.Belben_at_powertech.co.uk <(Philip.Belben_at_powertech.co.uk)>
Date: Tue Dec 30 03:23:28 1997

> > Anyway, I hooked a terminal up to it and lo-and-behold, a prompt. Now, I've
> > never owned a PDP-11, so be gentile, here. How do I get it to run a command
> > shell? I have installed two RK05 drives, the 0: drive has a {supposedly
> > good} RT-11. Upon boot, I get the following on the terminal:
> >
> > 000000 170002 170002 165360
> > $
> >
> > I'm assuming that the "$" prompt is the monitor prompt. It seems to only
> > accept two-letter commands before performing an auto-carriage-return. The
> > "165360" is also on the front panel display.
>
> OK... Assuming all your hardware is working and at the standard addresses
> (it will be, unless somebody has messed about with it), try the following.
>
> 1) Turn on the machine, drives, terminal
> 2) Put a good boot pack in drive 0. Flip the load/run switch on the drive
> to run. The disk should start spinning, and after a minute or so the
> heads should load. The READY and ONCYL lamps should light. Keep a finger on
> the load/run switch and an ear to the drive. If you get unpleasant noises
> when the heads load, suggesting a partial headcrash (the sound has been
> described as a cat being fed backwards through a lawnmower!), then flip to
> LOAD at once and your heads may still be useable.
> 3) Type DK <CR> (or DK0 <CR>). It MUST be in upper case. The RD and WR
> lamps on the drive should flash a bit, and the machine will boot. If it
> doesn't do anything, then either you don't have the RK05 boot ROM in
> the system, or you have some hardware problem.

Rich, you don't say what flavour of PDP-11 you've got, but I have vague
memories of a '44. Certainly your description of behaviour sounds like
the '44 console program (which runs on an Intel microprocessor somewhere
in there.

If this is the case, I think Tony's description may be incomplete. The
'44 has a lever switch on the front panel marked something like HALT -
RUN - BOOT. You can try booting by toggling this to the BOOT position
and releasing it. Otherwise leave it in the RUN position and type:

B DK0

I suppose I'd better check this in the manual when I get home tonight -
If I'm wrong, Tony will never let me live it down...

Philip.
Received on Tue Dec 30 1997 - 03:23:28 GMT

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