Upon the date 06:43 PM 10/6/99 +0100, Tony Duell said something like:
>> >VG DS is Vacuum Generators Data Systems or something like that. They're a
>> >company who make (made?) various lab instruments (mass spectrometers,
>> >etc). And the cards are interfaces (ADC, DAC, custom parallel interfaces,
>> >etc) between the PDP8 omnibus (I think I've seen Unibus ones as well) and
>> >the instument.
>>
>> I can believe this Tony as a European vacuum coating equipment company
>
>What I didn't tell you is that my father is a physical chemist and has
>done a _lot_ of vacuum work. He knows Vacuum Generators 'of old', and has
>few good things to say about them. Personally, I can't comment, so please
>don't flame me.
Re: VG, I agree with your dad! :-)
>
>He is _sure_ though that the VG boards in my collection come from the
>same 'Vacuum Generators' company.
>
>> named Balzers AG (from Liechtenstein) once used PDP-8 systems as a process
>> controller. Therefore I feel it would be quite logical that VG would have
>
>Oh the PDP8 (and the PDP11, and the Nova, and...) was used in all sorts of
>instrumentation systems. I had to repair some kind of device that forced
Indeed Balzers' use of the PDP-8 and -11 is not at all unusual for the
time. Especially in vacuum coater process controls, one needs realtime
response to events both to achieve a very accurate coating thickness and to
handle drastic things like a catastophic leak, E-gun arc-over, etc.
>mercury into a sample (and thus measured the volume of the pores) which
>had an Intersil 6100 inside. I am told that older models had a PDP8/e
>there. Similarly my Nova 1210 came off an electron microscope, and I have
>repaired a PDP11-a-like on anther similar electron microscope...
Bausch & Lomb Analytical Systems Division made a microscope Image Analysis
system back in the 70's using Nova 1200's and later Nova 4's. I used to
work for the company and that's where I got my Nova 1200, high speed tape
reader and docs.
>
>> made partial pressure analyzers, thin film deposition controllers, gas
>> controllers, etc which interfaced directly to Omnibus. They would have sold
>> them for a much more economical price. If any of you had seen the prices
>> Balzers charged for the same type of equipment, you'd probably concur.
>
>The prices these companies charged for even the simplest spares/upgrades
>made DEC look _very_ cheap ;-)
Yeah, Balzers wanted US$25k to simply upgrade the Process Controller from
basically a floppy disk-based 11/23 to a Falcon with hard disk plus some
other propriatary hardware. They also wanted US$350 for a small circular
phosphor bronze stamping, gold plated, used as the crystal contacts for the
six-position deposition thickness controller. Couldn't have been more than
40 mm in diameter. We had to buy that part as the controller was not operable.
Regards, Chris
-- --
Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian
Jamestown, NY USA cfandt_at_netsync.net
Member of Antique Wireless Association
URL:
http://www.antiquewireless.org/
Received on Wed Oct 06 1999 - 15:07:40 BST