pdp11/70 / MK11

From: Bill Pechter <pechter_at_pechter.dyndns.org>
Date: Fri Apr 7 07:50:16 2000

> Just so I'm not making a serious assumtion here, an MK11 is the high-
> density memory cabinet for the 11/70, right? What I have is an entire
> H960 rack with one BA-11 that houses 16 256K boards (mess-o-4116 DRAMs)
> and some incidental memory controller cards. Do I have what I think
> I have?
>
> -ethan

Sure sounds like MK-11 to me.

My last 11/70 service call was a year after I left DEC.

Reminds me of the time I went on a TRW support call to Skokie
to Grainger and found the techs working (for weeks) on an 11/70
running RSTS/E.

They had a memory problem which got so bad they couldn't boot XXDP+.
They claimed they swapped memory... and the controller.

Well, these Vax trained weenies were dead in the water and the customer
was hot... I asked for some error logs and ERRDIS printouts showed intermittant
correctable memory errors back to Sept. (this was Jan.)...

The folks had been swapping the cache.

I toggled in 014747 _at_ 10000(is my memory correct) and found it
failed on accesses to addresses with 2 and 6 as the last byte
I moved the MK memory to one side of the box and it booted without
interleaving...

Case closed. Actual time less than an hour to get these guys on track.
The techs also had down an RM05 an 11/34a which wouldn't boot RSX11/M.

I just had 'em swap the RM05 and found a bad backplane in the 11/34a
to get myself on a plane out of there for home.

I decided not to make fun of DEC techs after working for the third party
competition -- which was usually worse -- less training, less diags,
less parts, less understanding and often less paid.

These folks would get one or two of the better DEC guys and have em
support a bunch of right out of tech school board swappers who were ok
at the low end uPDP11's and LSI's -- and VAX systems -- but who choked
bigtime on large 11's with diverse comm and real time device
connectivity.

The best DEC techs new the OS as well as the hardware... and could
troubleshoot with both diags and scopes. AND COULD READ ERRORLOGS.

Bill

-- 
bpechter_at_monmouth.com      |     Microsoft: Where do you want to go today?
                           |     Linux:     Where do you want to go tomorrow?
                           |     BSD:       Are you guys coming, or what?
-- 
bpechter_at_monmouth.com      |     Microsoft: Where do you want to go today?
                           |     Linux:     Where do you want to go tomorrow?
                           |     BSD:       Are you guys coming, or what?
Received on Fri Apr 07 2000 - 07:50:16 BST

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