--- Bill Gunshannon <bill_at_cs.scranton.edu> wrote:
> Your thinking of the Heath H11 which was in fact an LSI-11/02. But it had
> none DEC hardware peripherals like the console SLU and disk controller.
My H-11 came with a KDF-11 CPU (11/23), but I don't know if it was shipped
that way or if my boss (who bought it new) upgraded it himself.
I have a couple of the Heath serial cards (one unsoldered!), the H-27
disk controller, the 8" floppies and a pile of misc DEC cards (memory,
BDV-11 boot card, etc).
> I believe it came with something billed as HT-11 which was RT-11 with the
> necessary heath drivers.
We ran RT-11 v5.something (c. 1987) with an RLV11 and RL01/RL02. Before
anyone jumps in, yes, I know the RLV11 uses the CD-interconnect between
the boards - my boss "extended" the width of the case with 6-32 threaded
rod and made his own CD-interconnect with Heath backplane connectors
and wire-wrap wire. I have folded the case back together and am trying
to debug the H-27 (he never used it). Except for the monsterous holes
he blew in the side to mount additional fans, and the holes in the front
he added for external console baud rate switches, it resembles its original
form once again.
This whole thing was a development machine for an ultrasonic parts inspector.
You would put the product in a water bath and the PDP-11 would run a motion
controller and ultrasonic pinger that took 4-bit samples every so many
milliseconds. Think of it as a slow scanner. The box had a 3rd party
"scatter gather" DMA card, a high-res video card (512x512) and a bunch of
PASCAL and assembler code to tie it all together. The production system
was a DEC PDP-11/73 w/4Mb physical memory and a Fuji Eagle for a disk. My
own development environment was a DEC PDP-11/23 (a returned "HASPBOX" I got
when I worked at Software Results as a bench tech - cost me $300) with 32kW
MOS memory, an RLV11 (in a BA-11N; no handmade jumpers in *my* box) and
an LPV-11 w/LA180 for printing program listings. I loved the fact that since
I recycled peripherals from my PDP-8/a, the $300 plus $100 for an RLV11 was
my only out-of-pocket expense to have my own development machine. My job was
to take a pre-existing data set and extract images according to a script and
display them on the screen as a training aid, then give quizzes - all in
MACRO-11 (customer spec - the listings were more than 300 pages). It was one
of the hardest programming jobs I've ever had, but was one of the most fun.
My bonus for getting it all done on time was a VAX-11/725 ($4000 at the time).
Wish I still had it. Glad I got the H-11 when the boss moved.
-ethan
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail.
http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
Received on Thu Apr 12 2001 - 11:27:19 BST