DEC Pro 380 Info Request

From: Charles H. Dickman <chd_1_at_nktelco.net>
Date: Tue Oct 7 11:42:47 2003

I now have a DEC Professional 380 that was originally a VAX Console.
Inspecting it, I find a floppy interface, a Winchester interface, and an
RTI interface (used for the VAX I think). The disk is an RD52 with a big
piece of red tape that says TOP SECRET.

I have lots of questions....

After looking for pinouts, I have attached a NEC Multisync 3D monitor
and an LK201 keyboard to the VIDEO 1 port. During the self test I get an
error saying a key is stuck on the keyboard. This may indeed be true, I
have not tested the keyboard before. It also says hit <RESUME> to
continue. The keyboard has no <RESUME> key. I suspect there were various
markings for the keycaps. Any suggestion on which key might be <RESUME>?

What are the monochrome monitor specifications (horizontal frequency,
vertical frequency, etc)? It looks like the NEC 3D can barely get the
correct sync. This monitor is a bit old and when it warms up it loses
sync. Not sure if this is a problem with the monitor, or I am just
stretching its specs too much. A NEC XV17 I tried would not even begin
to sync.

I read that the printer port is also a console for the Pro. After
finding the pinouts, I connected a terminal to the port and a break
dropped me into ODT. Is there microPDP-11/83 style firmware in there
somewhere that I can use on the PR 1 port or do I have to use the
keyboard and video?

Using ODT, I can see that there are 512kB of memory.

The RTI seems interesting, but I have not seen any pinouts for the 62
pin connector. From what I can find there are two serial ports, a 24
line bi-directional I/O port and an IEEE-488 port. Pretty cool, but
useless without a pinout...

-chuck
Received on Tue Oct 07 2003 - 11:42:47 BST