On Apr 14, 1:36, Tony Duell wrote:
> Pete Turnbull wrote:
> > Isn't a DX11 an IBM channel interface? Originally a big cabinet with a lot
> > of flip chips and lamps? I've seen two, working.
>
> That's right.
> Where on earth did you see one of those?
A few summers ago, Leeds University were getting rid of an Amdahl mainframe and
supporting equipment, which included several PDP-11s and two DX11s. I managed
to invite myself along with a couple of friends, one of whom acquired a
complete working DX11 and one in bits, plus cables. I think there was a doc
set as well. I got an 11/73 with a much smaller 3rd party Qbus version, which
I've since passed on, as the same friend actually has a 360 which he's hoping
to get going again.
> I really must cable one of mine up again, re-read the printset, and
> figure out what on earth to use it for...
First find a System/360 :-)
Then find a lot of space with a strong floor. Jim put his in a room which he'd
prepared with a false floor. Unfortunately the materials supplier had provided
the wrong grade of board, and apparently the main unit rolled in OK, but when
it came to its proper position, there was a crunching sound, and the 360
settled a few inches as several of the castors punched through the floor
panels. Jim wasn't too pleased (he did get it fixed, though).
BTW, the little DX11-alike in the 11/73 was accompanied by a "Camtech Ethernet
QBus Interface". It's a quad-high Q-bus board, with a 68000 and a 68450 (PGA
types), a 68230, 68564, some memory, and the usual AMD ethernet chip set.
There's a 20-pin header for the ether i/f, and two 26-pin ribbon cable
connectors near a pile of 26LS30s and MC3486's, so I assume this is some sort
of terminal concentrator or PAD (there's also a 2.4576MHz xtal, which implies
standard 300/600/1200... baud rates). I was told the firmware didn't support
TCP/IP, but some other protocol. Anybody know what that would be? Is it any
use for anything? Can it be changed to use TCP/IP?
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
Received on Tue Apr 14 1998 - 08:28:40 BST