>;) you betcha. Us mill rats were hacking things together that made the
>the infernal field circus nuts.
Yep...
>I worked for CSSE, the Field Circus engineering arm. Our cave was
>terminals and printers to year 0. However I was one of those that
>scrounged whereever I was for systems and put together some creative
>combinations that were not warmly recieved by the PDP-11 CSSE group we
>were colocated with. I can still hear Evans asking me how I got two
>RL02s, 2 BA11 11/23s and RX02 in the same 40" rack then plugged a LN01
>laser printer into it. He swore there was no compatable Qbus interface
>for the laser printer till I showed him a LPV11 with a LPV180 cab kit!
>There was the many examples of unsupported but works. Remnents of that
>beast followed me around from '84 and still sits in my room in a
>different rack.
And I worked in the RT-11 development team, but was the 'procurement
division' (scrounger) who would collect parts and put together systems
in our lab (the Cave). I also got involved with a lot of the
reconfigurations when an SPR came in reporting a problem with a
specific configuration.
My best scrounge, though, was an 11/84 system built from parts found
in various locations around the Mill (I regularaly walked around the
Mill looking for discarded -11 parts)
>Anywho, I've seen a lot of systems, the joke was missed on badge vs cpu
>installed. Most if not all were never what the badge said they were.
>If I wanted to be pendantic I do have the MicroPDP-11 handbooks. But
>like I'd said and I think Tim said in the end it's the contents not the
>label and whatever you do have, enjoy it. They are all in whatever
>current incarnation may now be, good systems that meet the "Robust and
>mature systems we know how to use." mantra.
Not lost on me... I've got a couple of BA123 systems at home which
very clearly are uVAXII/GPX systems (badge) -- but one is an 11/83+
and the other is an 11/93. I also have a BA213-based box which
states it is an 11/83, but is a mongrel VS3600 (or so).
Megan Gentry
Former RT-11 Developer
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry!zk3.dec.com |
| Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg!world.std.com |
| Compaq Computer Corporation | addresses need '_at_' in place of '!' |
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| Nashua, NH 03062 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler |
| (603) 884 1055 | required." - mbg |
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
Received on Fri Sep 24 1999 - 23:24:58 BST