On Friday 02 January 2009, Kent A. Reed wrote: >Stuart and Jon: > >You got me with your talk of PDP11 memory tests and "insanely complex >systems with PDP-11s with hundreds of ISR addresses"...I was immediately >transported back to the 1970s. I still have the tactile memory of keying >in the bootstrap loader from the front panel, over and over and over, as >we debugged our laboratory control programs, and keying in our patches >because it was too time consuming to reassemble and link code in our >"high speed" punched papertape environment. I have also worked with >PDP8s, HP2100s, DG Novas, and even Interdata minis, but I loved the >PDP11 the most. > >I know some lucky folks have original PDP11 front panels. I was too >young to think to salvage mine when the relay racks were forklifted out >of the lab. > >Those were the days!
Yeah, they were. I once had a CBS supplied PDP-11/23 that ran the networks (CBS) satellite system here at WDTV. It slowly fell apart, with final uptimes measured in minutes and the DEC folks replaced everything in it but the frame rail with the seriel number without effecting the problem. And when it was found to have crashed, it often had to be rebooted several times, each instance of which was about a 10 minute process because it actually compiled the pascal srcs each time it booted, this to make it easy to upgrade the software, just download the new srcs from the sideband channel on the satellite signal and reboot. And it was costing us money because we were airing ads for dog food only sold in So Cal because a src switch was not performed & they refused to pay us to carry it. Finally Hugo, the computer guru at CBS traded me his test mule machine for mine, which pissed off the DEC folks, but I never had to call them again. But that put Hugo out of business fixing other stations problems, so in about 3 months CBS was forced to convert their whole system to something that ran on an industrial IBM with an artic controller board, which actually did all the work. So no, I don't have fond memories of either the PDP-11/23, or of the quality of DEC's service protocols. Genuine new parts were simply not used, if it booted in their test mule, it was good and went back to the field techs. >Regards, >Kent > > >---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >-- _______________________________________________ >Emc-users mailing list >Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net >https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) The F-15 Eagle: If it's up, we'll shoot it down. If it's down, we'll blow it up. -- A McDonnel-Douglas ad from a few years ago ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
