(last updated: 11-Feb-2017)
Other than a couple of minor adjustments to the board order in the backplane, and re-addressing one of the memory boards, this is the 'as acquired' configuration.
| H9273 | A | B | C | D | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q22/CD | 1 | M8186 : KDF11-AA : LSI-11/23 CPU w/ MMU | (empty) | ||
| 2 | M8044-DE : MSV11-DD : 32KW (64KB) Memory | (empty) | |||
| 3 | M8044-DB : MSV11-DD : 32KW (64KB) Memory | (empty) | |||
| 4 | M8044-DK : MSV11-DD : 32KW (64KB) Memory | (empty) | |||
| 5 | M8043 : DLV11-J : 4-SLU | (empty) | |||
| 6 | M8029 : RXV21 : RX02 Floppy Controller | (empty) | |||
| 7 | M8013 : RLV11 : RL01 Disk Controller | ||||
| 8 | M8014 : RLV11 : RL01 Bus Controller | ||||
| 9 | M8012-YA : BDV11 : Boot, Termination, Diagnostic | ||||
16-Mar-2006
I vacuumed and cleaned the outside of the CPU box with Windex.
I removed the boards. Everything was very dusty. I removed the power supply cables to the backplane, and removed the ribbon cable to the front panel, all of which I photo'd. I removed the front panel/bezel, and the card cage from the box. I photo'd the ribbon cable from the power supply to the backplane as well, so that I could get the proper orientation when reinstalling everything.
I vacuumed the set of boards and photo'd each on in sequence from slot 1 to slot 9.
On the power supply, I removed (7) screws from the 'front' of the power supply 'tray' to release the power supply PCB. I had to cut the two zip-ties holding the two big capacitors to the tray, also photographed.
21-Mar-2006
After general cleanup, the power supply is ready for checkout. Capacitor reformation is in the works, using a 10mA current limit.
For each cap, as I raised the voltage level very slowly, I saw a nice even rise to the new voltage. It was rapid (<1 to 2 seconds) at each stage, and I take that as a sign that the caps are in good condition.
After doing each cap, I connected them in parallel, and left them at 50V overnight, about 12 hours total.
22-Mar-2006
I reassembled the power supply. I didn't have any of the original style large wire ties to anchor each of the 200V caps to the power supply tray, but I made do by daisy chaining 3 small ties. This worked fine.
I then reassembled the CPU box.
Without any of the boards in the card cage, and the front switch panel disconnected, I powered up the box. The fans spun up. I checked voltages at the backplane terminals and saw 5.07V and 10.5V. I don't know why the 12V line was so low. Also, as I watched it slowly dropped in value, all the way down to about 9.7V over a period of several minutes.
I connected the front panel with the 10-pin ribbon cable, and re-powered the box. I got a power indication on the front panel LED. Checking voltages, I now saw a rock-steady 5.01V and 11.65V. I guess the 12V line needed some work to do.
22-Mar-2006
With this success, I decided to install the boards, and hook up my PC as a console terminal. I scrounged up a 4-SLU bulkhead cable assembly and hooked up my PC using a null modem cable.
With the front switch in HALT, I powered up. I saw the ODT '@' prompt! I switched to RUN, and rebooted. I got the ROM boot 'START?' prompt! It's alive!!!
I left it running and fiddled with the console on and off for over an hour and a half. Works great! I think this unit is ready to go, power supply wise.
01-Apr-2006
I connected the RX78 (RX02 in desktop cabinet) subsystem, and I booted! Both drives are functional!
05-Apr-2006
After initially cabling up the system, I was getting FAULT lights on the RL01 drives. I've determined that it was a reversed ribbon cable that connects the RL01 controller in the CPU with the cabinet bracket which connects to the fat cable.
Still, though, I'm not successful with the drives. I can't get either of the two drive's READY light to illuminate. As I describe in each drives own notes, they are noisy and probably in need of some lubrication on the spindle and motor. I'll look into that.
In the meantime, I 'borrowed' the two RL01 drives from the 40-inch rack, just to see if I can get further. Each of these drives *does* show ready when I mount the Longmont #001 disk pack, but they are not recognized. Doing a SHOW lists the DY, LP, TT, etc., but not the DL device. I tried to load the DL device manually (LOAD DL) but it failed.
After some thought, I decided to pull the RL controller card with the address and vector switches (M8014) and see if these are set correctly. After a review of my handbook, *indeed* the CSR address setting is off by one bit!
07-Apr-2006
I changed the single DIP switch which corrosponds to the proper factory default CSR address, and plugged the board back into the backplane.
I booted from my working floppy, and typed in the SHOW command. Indeed, the DL device is now shown in the list, so the system has recognized the controller! Yahoo! I mounted up the Longmont #001 RL01K disk cartridge and after the drive showed READY I did a DIR. Wahoo! It listed out a whole pile of stuff, which looks like an RT distribution.
Just for grins, now that I can read the drive, and with the WRITE PROTECT switch engaged, I typed BOOT DL1:. It booted to the RT11 5.03 FB monitor! Looks like a full distribtution of RT11 v5.03. This is great!
09-Apr-2006
Okay, I pulled my working DLV11-J one more time, and I noticed that Port 0 is wired separately to the 9600 baud post (0 to N), without being daisy chained with the other ports. There is hope yet! If I can just unwind the wire-wrap wire from post N and connect it to post Z, then I'm on my way. Yeehaw! I was able to do it. It's flimsy and may not tolerate a lot of jerking around, but it should work.
I plugged the board into the backplane and fired up the system. The console still works (good!), and I started up the TU58 emulator with a new .INI configuration file, specifying 34800 as the baud rate. The emulator started up without complaint, though it shows the baud rate as -27136, but it is working! I can talk to the emulator now four times faster!
I started some disk cartridge imaging, beginning with Longmont #001. I did four packs today, Longmont #001-004. Each one takes 38 minutes to make an image copy.
07-Aug-2007
I was just updating my Board Inventory spreadsheet and realized, after all this time, that there are three MSV11-D memory boards in this system. A thought crossed my mind...wasn't I seeing only 128KB in the system CONFIG? I should see 196KB, right, if I have three of these boards?
I pulled all three memory boards, and the CPU board, to check their configurations. Perhaps the third board is addressed high, leaving a gap in the memory map. If so, that would explain why the system isn't seeing it.
The second memory board (M8044-DB) is set so that its starting address is gapped (600000) and thus it isn't seen during memory test and boot. I'll set it switches to start at address 400000, and that should put it adjacent to the other memery, giving me 96KW (192KB) total.
Yes! It works fine, and I see 96KW (192KB) total memory!
I then played a bit more with the bootstrap program. I should be able to use 'Y' or 'N' as special case responses. 'Y' should boot the default device, but since I don't have on enabled (I think) it should just restart the bootstrap process. 'N' should drop me out to ODT. In both (either) case, the system just hangs. More investigation needed.
12-Aug-2013
Witht the intent of exercising thie system for a while, and installing BASIC on it, when I powered up I heard a short two- or three-second buzzing from the RX02 floppy subsystem. Further investigation showed that it was coming from the Drive 0 only, not Drive 1. I was able to remove the bottom tray/pan from the drive and manually rotate the head positioner shaft to where the device would not buzz whenever the CPU was initialized, but the drive would still not work. I was able to boot from Drive 1.
I removed the subsystem from the rack, and went so far as to physically swap the two drives in the chassis, making Drive 0 into Drive 1, and Drive 1 into Drive 0. Results were exactly the same. Again I was able to boot from Drive 1 (the old Drive 0 physical drive), but not Drive 0. The buzzing recurred on the new Drive 0, too.
This indicates to me that the R/W board (M7755?) is faulty. I'll have to do some more investigation to try to determine what's wrong there, but my electronics troubleshooting skills are pretty weak.
In the interim, I cabled the external table-top RX78 subsystem (RX02-in-a-box) to the system and it works fine.
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