11/45 pictures & questions

From: Zane H. Healy <healyzh_at_aracnet.com>
Date: Sun Dec 28 18:21:19 2003

>I couldn't wait, had to get the 11/45 off the trailer and dig around in it.
>Upon first close inspection, the thing is FILTHY. It will take some very
>major cleaning before attempting to do anything with it. However, from a
>first looksee - it definitely doesn't look "beyond all recall", it looks
>like it will clean up nicely. While very dirty, I can't see any rust
>anywhere. Good sign.

Looks like we know what you're going to be working on for a while :^)


>There is a separate power supply at the back top of the rack, which powers a
>DEC brand backplane mounted "pins forward" in the front. There's also some
>lights & switches here. There's some flipchips in it, and lots of what look
>to be D/A cards. Does anyone have any clue what this was used for? I took
>extra pictures of this part - tried different focus settings & all so
>hopefully some will be clear.
>
>Looks like the machine has no FP option, and 8K of core memory. I haven't
>decided what OS I want to run on this thing yet, maybe RT11, or RSTS, but I
>was really hoping to run 2.9BSD or Unix 7 or some flavor of unix. That's not
>gonna happen with 8K of core. I have some RL02's I could put on it. Anyone
>want to trade the bits to make it use semiconductor memory in exchange for
>the core backplane and core boards? Is FP required for anything I've
>mentioned? I'll get it up and running on 8K to test & refurb, but definitely
>want to go the semiconductor memory route so I can run one of the above
>O/S's. Hey, can this thing use any of the memory boards I have in my 11/44?

Do you know anything about the history of this system? Based on the odd collection of flipchips and such that you mention and the fact that it's only got 8k of RAM, I'm guessing that it was used as some sort of intelligent industrial controller.

With only 8k of RAM I'm not sure you can run anything other than the PTOS (Papertape OS). I'm not sure if DOS/Batch would fit on a 8k system as I've not messed with it. I'm fairly sure the RAM boards in your /44 won't work in a /45. Once you get a decent amount of RAM in the system I'd recommend RSTS/E for an OS (it seems the most appropriate to me), and failing that either RSX-11M/M+ or RT-11.

                        Zane

-- 
--
| Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh_at_aracnet.com (primary)    | OpenVMS Enthusiast         |
|                                  | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
|     Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing,    |
|          PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum.         |
|                http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/               |
Received on Sun Dec 28 2003 - 18:21:19 GMT

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