Re: Unknown DEC indicator panel

[Noel Chiappa]

> I suppose I should try and round up images of 19" x 5-1/4" PDP-10
> panels, too

So there are quite a few, although I'm not sure they are exactly the same as
the ones used in the PDP-11's, PDP-15's, etc. Those use a plastic bezel which
is the same as the blank panels in the H960 racks, into which the inlay is set
from the front, and glued down to the lip inside the bezel. The PDP-10 ones,
from the pictures, and my vague memory, use metal bezels which cover the
panels from the front, holding them on, so the shape of the inlay may be
subtly different.

Anyway, I found images (not great - all B+W illustrations in manuals) of the
following PDP-1 panels:

DF10
DA10
RC10
BA10
TD10
TM10
DS10
RM10B
DC10
RP10-C

MB10
MD10

I'll add them to the page at some point. If any has actual images of any of
these, they'd be appreciated. (And no, none of them is the mystery panel in
the RSTS manual.)

Noel

Re: Unknown DEC indicator panel

[Eric Smith]

On Wed, Nov 2, 2016 at 7:20 PM, Jon Elson  wrote:

> Yup, in fact, I think you could turn a PDP-5 into a PDP-8 with about 25
> boards
> (one tray of system building blocks) and some wire.  Mostly, add an
> electronic
> instruction counter register and alter the instruction fetch logic to stop
> accessing
> location zero.  That's the only difference visible to the programmer, I
> think.
>

And changing the interrupt location, which IIRC was 0001 on the PDP-5.

Re: Unknown DEC indicator panel

[Jon Elson]

On 11/02/2016 12:10 PM, Brian L. Stuart wrote:

On Tue, 11/1/16, Jon Elson  wrote:

   Also, some IBM  publications (where I'm more
familiar with their models) had  some photos
of machines that probably were in-house
prototypes that were quite different than the
production  version.
  
Along the same lines, the picture in the original PDP-8

manual was of a machine that had a front panel that
looked more like the PDP-5 panel than the one shipped
on the 8s.  Given how close the machines were in
architecture, it wouldn't be surprising for a prototype.
As it turns out, I saw the picture in the manual a few
years before I ever saw a real straight-8.  To this day,
the real straight-8s look a little "wrong" to me.

BLS

Yup, in fact, I think you could turn a PDP-5 into a PDP-8 
with about 25 boards
(one tray of system building blocks) and some wire.  Mostly, 
add an electronic
instruction counter register and alter the instruction fetch 
logic to stop accessing
location zero.  That's the only difference visible to the 
programmer, I think.


Jon

Re: Unknown DEC indicator panel

[Brian L. Stuart]

On Tue, 11/1/16, Jon Elson  wrote:
>  Also, some IBM  publications (where I'm more
> familiar with their models) had  some photos
> of machines that probably were in-house 
> prototypes that were quite different than the
> production  version.
 
Along the same lines, the picture in the original PDP-8
manual was of a machine that had a front panel that
looked more like the PDP-5 panel than the one shipped
on the 8s.  Given how close the machines were in
architecture, it wouldn't be surprising for a prototype.
As it turns out, I saw the picture in the manual a few
years before I ever saw a real straight-8.  To this day,
the real straight-8s look a little "wrong" to me.

BLS

Re: Unknown DEC indicator panel

[Paul Koning]

> On Nov 1, 2016, at 6:53 PM, ste...@malikoff.com wrote:
> 
>> ...
> I have been looking but not yet found a picture of the DEC-trimmed RC11 etc. 
> drum
> indicator panel to establish how close it is to the Fox one. The 1972 
> Peripherals
> Handbook only shows the drum part of the RC11/RS64 but no indicator panel 
> photo.
> If anyone could point me to a photo of the RC11/RS64 DECdisk panel - to be 
> honest
> I don't know if it even had one? 

The one I used in college (on the physics department 11/20) did not have a 
display panel.  

paul

Re: Unknown DEC indicator panel

[Noel Chiappa]

> From: Steven Malikoff

> I have been looking but not yet found a picture of the DEC-trimmed RC11
> ... If anyone could point me to a photo of the RC11/RS64 DECdisk panel
> to be honest I don't know if it even had one?

I'm not sure it did. The list of available inserts (in the Indicator Panel
Assembly drawings, available in the RF11 prints, pp. 186-190) doesn't list an
RC11 insert, and that list does include the RF11, which is a later controller
than the RC11.

I tried looking online for RC11 engineering drawings, to see if it included
an indicator panel connector (the way the RK11-C does), but I could not find
_anything_ substantial about the RC11 online.


> From: Jon Elson

> These look VERY posed, so don't be sure ANYTHING in the picture was a
> fully working system.

Yeah, I'd come to that conclusion...

> If those panels look like something off a KA10 controller

Well, I'm not sure. Most PDP-10 gear had rows of 36 lights, which is the full
width of these 19" indicator panels (i.e. every light in a row - like the top
row of the RP11 panel, see the page for an image), and I don't see that in
this one. But I suppose I should try and round up images of 19" x 5-1/4"
PDP-10 panels, too (ISTR that there are a few).

Noel

Re: Unknown DEC indicator panel

[Jon Elson]

So, the CHM has an RSTS-11 brochure:

   
http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/DEC/pdp-11/Digital.PDP-11.1970.102646128.pdf

which shows in a couple of places (front cover, page 6, 7, 10, 11) an
indicator panel which I haven't been able to identify:
These look VERY posed, so don't be sure ANYTHING in the 
picture was a fully working system.  If those panels look 
like something off a KA10 controller, then they very well 
could be.


Remember IBM and a few other vendors have had publications 
that had plywood mockups of systems that bore LITTLE 
resemblance to the production versions.  Also, some IBM 
publications (where I'm more familiar with their models) had 
some photos of machines that probably were in-house 
prototypes that were quite different than the production 
version.


1970 was in the VERY early days of the PDP-11, and they may 
have hacked up device controls from other models with 
different word lengths, so as to have working gear for 
software development.


Jon

Re: Unknown DEC indicator panel

[steven]

> So, the CHM has an RSTS-11 brochure:
>
>   
> http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/DEC/pdp-11/Digital.PDP-11.1970.102646128.pdf
>
> which shows in a couple of places (front cover, page 6, 7, 10, 11) an
> indicator panel which I haven't been able to identify: it's the one where
> there are four full-length light rows on the left, and the lower right row
> of lights is broken up in the three groups - small, large, small. (The other
> indicator panel is known, it's an an RF11).
>
> I have been searching for these panels for quite a while now, and have a page
> for them:
>
>   http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/DECIndicatorPanels.html
>
> _but_ ... I have never seen that panel.
>
>
> I am quite sure that it is _NOT_ an RK11-C panel; although no image of such
> has ever been found (I think because it was never produced - no DEC manual or
> print set refers to it), the RK11-C prints show the wiring for the connector
> to the indicator panel (which would presumably have been a standard DEC 19" x
> 5-1/4" panel of the kind documented on the page above), and from that it's
> possible to predict what it would look like, as shown here:
>
>   http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/pdp11/RK11-C_inlay.txt
>   http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/pdp11/RK11-C_inlay.pdf
>
>
> Can anyone shed any light (no pun intended :-) on what this is?
>
> The RF11 engineering drawings list (on page 187/188) all the inserts
> available (as of that date) for the standard 19" x 5-1/4" indicator panel,
> and I don't have pictures of all of them, so it's possible this is one of
> them. (It's clear from the brochure that this wasn't necessarily a working
> system, since it appears in a number of different configurations. So maybe
> they just grabbed up a random indicator panel and plugged it in to make the
> system look cool.)
>
> One possibility is that it's a prototype that was never produced - or perhaps
> it was the indicator panel for an earlier RK11 controller (although I can't
> find any mention of an RK11-B or RK11-A, and the list above doesn't contain
> an RK11 entry).
>
> Anyone have any ideas?
>
>   Noel


FWIW the layout pattern also doesn't look anything close to a drum indicator, 
well
at least not the Foxboro-trim version shown in their doc that used the RC11
controller (M7219 through M7225).

I have been looking but not yet found a picture of the DEC-trimmed RC11 etc. 
drum
indicator panel to establish how close it is to the Fox one. The 1972 
Peripherals
Handbook only shows the drum part of the RC11/RS64 but no indicator panel photo.
If anyone could point me to a photo of the RC11/RS64 DECdisk panel - to be 
honest
I don't know if it even had one? - I would be grateful. I would know then if the
Fox indicator panel was an own-design or a rebadged DEC item.

I have the RC11 boards and the Foxboro drum interface print set but sadly no
indicator panel nor drum. Foxboro used a DDC 'drum'/fixed-head disk apparently, 
the
Fox doc shows a different drive unit to the RS64) and also a different indicator
panel to the DDC offering.

Steve.

Re: Unknown DEC indicator panel

[Rod Smallwood]

Looking at the setup and the misalignment of some of the panels it may 
just a bunch of stuff for photographic purposes.


Rod



On 01/11/2016 15:13, Noel Chiappa wrote:

So, the CHM has an RSTS-11 brochure:

   
http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/DEC/pdp-11/Digital.PDP-11.1970.102646128.pdf

which shows in a couple of places (front cover, page 6, 7, 10, 11) an
indicator panel which I haven't been able to identify: it's the one where
there are four full-length light rows on the left, and the lower right row
of lights is broken up in the three groups - small, large, small. (The other
indicator panel is known, it's an an RF11).

I have been searching for these panels for quite a while now, and have a page
for them:

   http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/DECIndicatorPanels.html

_but_ ... I have never seen that panel.


I am quite sure that it is _NOT_ an RK11-C panel; although no image of such
has ever been found (I think because it was never produced - no DEC manual or
print set refers to it), the RK11-C prints show the wiring for the connector
to the indicator panel (which would presumably have been a standard DEC 19" x
5-1/4" panel of the kind documented on the page above), and from that it's
possible to predict what it would look like, as shown here:

   http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/pdp11/RK11-C_inlay.txt
   http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/pdp11/RK11-C_inlay.pdf


Can anyone shed any light (no pun intended :-) on what this is?

The RF11 engineering drawings list (on page 187/188) all the inserts
available (as of that date) for the standard 19" x 5-1/4" indicator panel,
and I don't have pictures of all of them, so it's possible this is one of
them. (It's clear from the brochure that this wasn't necessarily a working
system, since it appears in a number of different configurations. So maybe
they just grabbed up a random indicator panel and plugged it in to make the
system look cool.)

One possibility is that it's a prototype that was never produced - or perhaps
it was the indicator panel for an earlier RK11 controller (although I can't
find any mention of an RK11-B or RK11-A, and the list above doesn't contain
an RK11 entry).

Anyone have any ideas?

Noel


--
PDP-8/e PDP-8/f PDP-8/m PDP-8/i
Front Panels ex Stock - Order Now

Unknown DEC indicator panel

[Noel Chiappa]

So, the CHM has an RSTS-11 brochure:

  
http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/DEC/pdp-11/Digital.PDP-11.1970.102646128.pdf

which shows in a couple of places (front cover, page 6, 7, 10, 11) an
indicator panel which I haven't been able to identify: it's the one where
there are four full-length light rows on the left, and the lower right row
of lights is broken up in the three groups - small, large, small. (The other
indicator panel is known, it's an an RF11).

I have been searching for these panels for quite a while now, and have a page
for them:

  http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/DECIndicatorPanels.html

_but_ ... I have never seen that panel.


I am quite sure that it is _NOT_ an RK11-C panel; although no image of such
has ever been found (I think because it was never produced - no DEC manual or
print set refers to it), the RK11-C prints show the wiring for the connector
to the indicator panel (which would presumably have been a standard DEC 19" x
5-1/4" panel of the kind documented on the page above), and from that it's
possible to predict what it would look like, as shown here:

  http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/pdp11/RK11-C_inlay.txt
  http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/pdp11/RK11-C_inlay.pdf


Can anyone shed any light (no pun intended :-) on what this is?

The RF11 engineering drawings list (on page 187/188) all the inserts
available (as of that date) for the standard 19" x 5-1/4" indicator panel,
and I don't have pictures of all of them, so it's possible this is one of
them. (It's clear from the brochure that this wasn't necessarily a working
system, since it appears in a number of different configurations. So maybe
they just grabbed up a random indicator panel and plugged it in to make the
system look cool.)

One possibility is that it's a prototype that was never produced - or perhaps
it was the indicator panel for an earlier RK11 controller (although I can't
find any mention of an RK11-B or RK11-A, and the list above doesn't contain
an RK11 entry).

Anyone have any ideas?

Noel