PDP-11/34 Progress Report

From: Jeffrey Sharp <jss_at_subatomix.com>
Date: Sun Mar 9 22:59:00 2003

On Sunday, March 9, 2003, Tony Duell wrote:
>> To do: My only existing cable that plugs into a DL11-W is for 20mA
>> current loop. I have a current loop VT52 that I haven't yet tested. I'll
>> see if I can do that tomorrow. After all, it would be nice to know if the
>> register printout is actually occurring.
>
> It's also not hard to make up the RS232 cable. I've done it many times.
> Let me know if you want to do this and need pinouts, etc.

Yes, very easy. But I do have a lonely current loop VT52 that (if it works)
desparately wants *something* to send it some bits and bytes to display. How
can I turn down a request like that? :-)

Maybe I'll build a RS-232 cable for the short term so I can test the machine
with a known good console terminal.

> I don't know what test gear you have

Sadly, all I have is one digital multimeter. It's an eBay cheapo special --
not the bottom of the barrel, but darn close to it. Oh, I also have a
Heathkit digital IC tester model IT-7400 that I swiped from a professor's
trash pile back in my college days (i.e. 4 months ago). It works.

I want to get an oscilloscope soon. I've got other things I need to spend my
salary on at the moment, but that might not be too much of a hindrance. My
current plan is to put a relatively large portion of my collection (which
isn't that large) up for trade and hope for a suitable scope in return. Or
maybe I'll sell some of it on eBay and use those proceeds to buy a scope on
eBay. About the best thing I have is a MINC-11 (when it rains it pours,
eh?), but there are also various PDP-11 parts, two HP-85s, a couple of
TRS-80s (M3 and M4), some IBM 5150 PCs, an AT&T 3B2/EXP, a bunch of Sun3s,
and some other stuff I can't remember. Sometime soon I'll make a more
detailed inventory, take pictures, and formally announce it. I figure all of
that stuff combined should (at least) net me one good scope or logic
analyzer.

-- 
Jeffrey Sharp
Received on Sun Mar 09 2003 - 22:59:00 GMT

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