DECsystem-1090 (KL10) power requirements

From: Eric Smith <eric_at_brouhaha.com>
Date: Tue Sep 29 19:50:47 1998

Tony Duell wrote:
> Seems reasonable. I'd keep the original PSU, though, and make as few mods
> as possible. Just in case you want to go back to the original config at
> some time.

Absolutely!

None of the changes we intend to make to the KL10 involve any permanent
alteration. Aside from the power supply, we want to change two other
things:

Memory - We have an Ampex 4 megaword ECC memory box for the KI10-style memory
bus (which is interfaced to the KL10 through the DMA20 memory bus interface in
the I/O bay). However, it consumes massive amounts of power, and is
physically huge. The main CPU card cage has two "S bus" memory interfaces
(not to be confused with Sun's S-bus which came many years later). For each S
bus there is an ECL<-->TTL translator board, and a slot for cabling to the
DMA20. I've done preliminary design work on a board to plug into the S bus
cable slot and implement the 4 megawords of memory using six 8M*8 SDRAM
chips. I'd use a DIMM, but it won't fit mechanically due to the 12.7 mm
board spacing. Over 55% of the memory bits will go to waste!

Disk and tape I/O - Several companies made Massbus-to-SCSI adapters; most
of them only supported 16-bit Massbus transfers for use on VAXen and
PDP-11en, but a few of them supported 18-bit Massbus needed for the
DECsystem-10 and DECSYSTEM-20. I think I've talked someone who once
worked on these things to lend or give me one of the leftover prototype
units. I don't have it yet, though, so this part could still fall through.

We'll still need to have the capability of using the RP06 (and perhaps the
TU78) on occasion in order to deal with standard media.
Received on Tue Sep 29 1998 - 19:50:47 BST

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