<How big is this classic likely to be?
Typically one rack or possible a BA23 pedestal may be a BA123 end table.
<Most PDPs I've seen were refridgerator sized, with washing machine
<sized disk drives, tape drives,etc. Is that about what I can expect,
< or is the 11/83 one of the later, smaller 11s?
Smaller though It could be in a single rack with a big drive or have big
drives in seperate racks. The cpu card is however a single board
about 10.5x9 inches. (It's mid->late80s design)
<How heavy might it be? Would it be a lifting job for 2? 4? 8?
If in H960 (31dx21Wx*h * can be 30,40,50,60 inches typically 40) rack two
as it can easily weigh 200-400 pounds depending on what in the rack with
it. all of the weight is the rack and peripherals. If ba23 (30x24x9 inches,
pedestal) about 90 pounds, ba123 (28x26x13 inches, end table) 110pounds.
<Does it require special power? My home isn't wired for anything beyond
<household current.
Not unless it's set up with external RA8x drives. The basic system
used MFM 5.25 drives and was not a power hog. My 11/73 and with
Rx02 and and RL02 is very light on power(2x->3x a PC) and it's of
similar scale. An excellent hobbiest machine of the small iron class.
<Any help would be much appreciated. I'd love to save this machine, but
<there are limits to my space/money/housemate's patience.
Grab it! if too big you can pass it on. The 11/83 was a really good
machine using the Qbus backplane and generally small in size. It likely
most Qbus PDP-11s can be expanded to really immense systems but in the ear
it was sold it was most likely a physically small machine.
Of the microprocessor version of the PDP-11 (11/03, 11/23, 11/53, 11/73,
11/83 and the 11/93) it's one of the faster ones and a good catch.
(hint {11/05, 11/10, 11/20, 11/3x, 11/4x, 11/60 11/70 11/84} it's a big 11
with unibus and (11/03, 11/23, 11/53, 11/73, 11/83. 11/93) it's a micro
based 11 with Qbus and generally smaller.
It can run RT-11, RSTS, RSX-11 and most of the *nix versions with 2.11
being a good fit. The PUPs list (pups_at_minnie.adfa.oz.au) can set you up
with a license for all PDP-11 unix for 100$ and also has an archive.
Allison
Received on Sat May 15 1999 - 20:11:17 BST