Tim Shoppa <shoppa_at_trailing-edge.com> wrote:
> Luckily, a company called SETASI did consider, and has been selling
> Massbus-compatible interfaces to "modern" drives for the past
> two decades.
>
> DEC, as a matter of fact, has been selling several SETASI-produced
> units for the past several years. The SETASI Shelby has been listed
> as the DEC RM06 and RP12 in the DEC Systems and Options catalog for some
> time now.
>
> See http://www.setasi.com/DECPP.html for details.
Unfortunately that web page says nothing about whether they support
18-bit mode, which is critical to making the drives work on a PDP-10.
If they're focusing on the PDP-11 and VAX market (which it appears that
they are), they may have only designed it for 16-bit mode.
And I wouldn't bet on the things being cheap to purchase, although the
reduction in operating costs compared to running an RP06 or RM05 24x7
would probably pay for it in a few years. But I doubt that RCS/RI plans
to run any of their PDP-10s 24x7.
Perhaps if the thing *does* support 18-bit mode, Setasi could be convinced
to donate one to RCS/RI.
Received on Sun Nov 28 1999 - 15:03:07 GMT