>I'm in Ottawa, and on my obligatory trip to the computer salvage place,
>picked up an M8190 Unibus 11/84 card.
How do you know that you've got an 11/84 "capable" 11/84? There
were many revisions:
A M8190 without any suffixes is a 15 MHz (11/73) CPU with an
unusable socket for the FPJ11 floating point processor.
A M8190-AB is a 15 MHz (11/73) CPU with "warm floating point", but
*will* accept the FPJ11 as an option.
A M8190-AC is still a 15 MHz (11/73) CPU, with a FPJ11 factory installed.
A M8190-AD is a 18 MHz (11/83 or 11/84) CPU with "warm floating point",
taking the FPJ11 as an option.
A M8190-AE is a 18 MHz (11/83 or 11/84) CPU with the FPJ11 factory
installed.
Even the above suffixes don't actually pinpoint the exact revision of
the CPU with respect to FPJ11 bugs, but they serve as a starting point.
To further complicate matters, within digital the CPU is identified
differently based on whether it has PMI memory installed or not.
(And, of course, it matters whether the PMI comes before or after
the CPU in the backplane!) So, for example, you may find a 18 MHz
CPU with non-PMI memory called a 11/73, but with PMI memory it's called
a 11/83.
An 11/84 is a 18MHz KDJ11-B with PMI memory and a KTJ11-B Unibus adapter
tacked on. I'm pretty sure the M8190 ROM's are the same whether
it's to be used as a 11/84 or an 11/83, and that the Unibus boot
ROM functionality is added in the KTJ11-B, which somehow coordinates
these issues with the CPU. (It's explained in the KTJ11-B processor
handbook, but I never read through it all without falling asleep.)
To a large extent, all this confusion is caused by the desire for
folks to say "this machine is a 11/x3" where x is 7 or 8. If you
really insist on the official classifications, you have to read
three of the Micronotes:
uNote 25: FPJ11, KDJ11-A compatibility
uNote 30: PMI on KDJ11-B and MSV11-J
uNote 39: KDJ11-A and -B differences.
The above micronotes - and many more - available from:
http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/hardware/micronotes/numerical/
>1. Any other support boards needed, or will this board run standalone,
>presuming available RAM?
If, indeed, you have the 11/84 capable version, you'll also need the
KDJ11-B and the 11/84 backplane, along with PMI memory, to have a
real 11/84 CPU.
>4. Is anybody else using this card successfully?
I've got several in use as "11/73B"'s.
--
Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa_at_trailing-edge.com
Trailing Edge Technology Voice: 301-767-5917
7328 Bradley Blvd Fax: 301-767-5927
Bethesda, MD, USA 20817
Received on Sat Oct 17 1998 - 14:25:46 BST