Nuclear Data 66?

From: Jerome Fine <jhfine_at_idirect.com>
Date: Thu Jan 31 09:49:24 2002

>Ethan Dicks wrote:

> >--- Andreas Freiherr <Andreas.Freiherr_at_Vishay.com> wrote:
> > There was a variant of the VT100 that had a LSI/11 built in. Apparently,
> > DEC weren't the only ones to make something like this.
> Strangely enough... it's the VT103! Had optional dual drive TU58 mounted
> under monitor (got one, gotta replace the rollers with tygon tubing).

Jerome Fine replies:

It is also possible to replace the TU-58 with a 5 1/4" hard drive. At one
point I had a DEC VT103 re-wired to be a 22 bit backplane so that
up to the full 4 MBytes of memory could be used. I also used a Sigma
MFM controller (dual card with boot ROMs). The power was just
barely sufficient to support an ST412 (actually used an RD51) or
a Micropolis 1325 (actually used an RD53). But probably not for too
long. For a short demo of 15 minutes, the hard disk was run from
internal (to the VT103) power. But for longer periods, the switch
on the front (added of course) allowed the power to be supplied
from an external PC power supply which was also used for the
second MFM drive with the extra cables that could be exposed
from inside the PDP-11 section. At the very end - just for
a test, I put in 5 cards - M8192-AC, DLV11-J, 4 MBytes of Memory
(Christlen), Sigma RQD11-EC Quad ESDI disk controller and a DHV11.
There was, of course, insufficient power to run the ESDI hard drives, so
they were just on the desk using a PC power supply and each also had
its own fan.

Now I also use a PC power supply to run my hard drives when I run
RT-11 and boot from a real DEC TU-58, but that is another story.

> I haven't been so lucky to run across some of the third-party DEC stuff.
> Most of my Qbus collection is straight DEC. One card I have that I wish
> I could find docs on, looks like a Systems Industries(?) CS-1 SCSI card.
> It does not live at any of the usual MSCP-interface addresses. Beyond
> that, I suspect it's a tape-only interface, so perhaps I didn't look
> where a TMSCP device lives.

About the best (and most expensive) host adapter for the Qbus is the
SCSI CQD-220A/TM from CMD. It is a dual board which has boot
ROMs and supports both disk drives (hard, optical and Zip) and tape
drives. It is no longer made - which is perhaps why the price now stays
high.

Sincerely yours,

Jerome Fine
Received on Thu Jan 31 2002 - 09:49:24 GMT