What exactly is a MINC-11, and does anyone need one?

From: Jerome Fine <jhfine_at_idirect.com>
Date: Fri Jan 11 09:13:54 2002

>Jon Auringer wrote:

> Another item I keep forgetting about is a digital MINC-11. This appears
> to be a data acquisition system of some sort. The MINC chassis contains
> only a clock card and an AD card. The chassis is on a cart that also
> contains a digital RX02 dual 8" floppy drive enclosure.

Jerome Fine replies:

The MINC-11 was a box used to provide easy access to a Qbus backplane.
Normally, data acquisition was done with the system, as you suspect. It was
an 18 bit backplane with a number of Qbus slots at one side which held
an 11/23 CPU (usually the dual version M8186), memory, DLV11-J,
and a controller or two. The RX02 controller was normally standard
and the RL01/RL02 controller was also popular. An RXDX1 or RQDX2
could be added as well, but there hardware needed to be adapted to either
the RX50 or the hard drive.

In between the boards mentioned and the BDV11 on the other side was a
number of Qbus slots to hold data acquisition boards. This was a 1979 to
1980 item - I think that would be the time frame. Since the BDV11 boot
roms could not handle an 11/73 (odd address trap), that CPU could not
easily be substituted.

> The most curious thing is that there is a label stuck to the front
> warning that the unit "220VAC/50Hz only". I don't know if this is the
> only voltage it will run at, or if it is simply set for this voltage. I
> don't believe we ever used this equipment. I think we acquired it when
> we purchased some other surplus equipment back in the 1980s.

Probably JUST the setting in the power supply.

> Can anyone use this thing?

If you were closer, I would take the RX02 drive.

Sincerely yours,

Jerome Fine
Received on Fri Jan 11 2002 - 09:13:54 GMT