Re: Dec-10 Day announcement from Living Computers: Museum + Labs

[Eric Smith via cctalk]

On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 4:19 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> Oh, one detail I didn't look at: what's the physical interface this uses?
> Hopefully three of the Berg/DuPont connectors (i.e. what's on the RHxx
> boards, with flat cables going to the adapter to the standard MASSBUS
> connector, a device rejoicing in the name 'Receptacle Housing Assembly');
> the
> original MASSBUS cables (along with the 'Receptacle Housing Assembly' are
> now
> rare as hen's teeth). And there's also the MASSBUS termination...
>

It uses three 40-pin dual-row headers, so you can cable it to a real
Massbus connector (RHA), or you might be able to cable it directly to the
Berg headers of a DEC Massbus adapter.

Re: Dec-10 Day announcement from Living Computers: Museum + Labs

[Pontus Pihlgren via cctalk]

On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 08:59:46AM -0500, Paul Koning wrote:
> > 
> > I am and possibly the Update computer club and some of it's members. 
> > However, I have very little experience with making hardware. How would 
> > we aproach this?
> 
> There are plenty of companies in the "prototype production" business; they 
> will make either blank printed circuit boards, or assembled boards, in small 
> quantities.  For our purposes a group build probably counts as "small 
> quantity".  One I can think of (and have used for blank PCBs) is PCB Pool.
> 
> Depending on the parts involved and the skill level of the consumers, it may 
> be reasonable to get blank boards and a parts bag and have the user assemble 
> it -- or it may be better to let professionals do the assembly.
> 

I'm quite confident with a soldering iron when it comes to through hole 
components. I haven't looked at the BOM for this project yet but I guess 
there are surface mount components.

Perhaps an opportunity to learn.

/P 

Re: Dec-10 Day announcement from Living Computers: Museum + Labs

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Dec 11, 2017, at 4:45 AM, Pontus Pihlgren via cctalk 
>  wrote:
> 
> On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 06:19:10PM -0500, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:
>>> From: Ethan Dicks
>> 
>>> I look forward to taking a stab at this.
>> 
>> I suspect there are a number of people who'd be interested in MASSBUS storage
>> devices (e.g. me - suddenly all those RH11's I've got are no longer boat-
>> anchors :-). We should try and organize an group build, to share the load.
>> Anyone else interested?
>> 
> 
> I am and possibly the Update computer club and some of it's members. 
> However, I have very little experience with making hardware. How would 
> we aproach this?

There are plenty of companies in the "prototype production" business; they will 
make either blank printed circuit boards, or assembled boards, in small 
quantities.  For our purposes a group build probably counts as "small 
quantity".  One I can think of (and have used for blank PCBs) is PCB Pool.

Depending on the parts involved and the skill level of the consumers, it may be 
reasonable to get blank boards and a parts bag and have the user assemble it -- 
or it may be better to let professionals do the assembly.

paul

Re: Dec-10 Day announcement from Living Computers: Museum + Labs

[Pontus Pihlgren via cctalk]

On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 06:19:10PM -0500, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:
> > From: Ethan Dicks
> 
> > I look forward to taking a stab at this.
> 
> I suspect there are a number of people who'd be interested in MASSBUS storage
> devices (e.g. me - suddenly all those RH11's I've got are no longer boat-
> anchors :-). We should try and organize an group build, to share the load.
> Anyone else interested?
> 

I am and possibly the Update computer club and some of it's members. 
However, I have very little experience with making hardware. How would 
we aproach this?


(This is very good news, the chance of getting my 2020 running by year 
2020 is now a lot bigger. Also, as I've stated elsewhere, thank you to 
LCM and everyone involved!)

Regards,
Pontus.

Re: Dec-10 Day announcement from Living Computers: Museum + Labs

[Noel Chiappa via cctalk]

> From: Ethan Dicks

> I look forward to taking a stab at this.

I suspect there are a number of people who'd be interested in MASSBUS storage
devices (e.g. me - suddenly all those RH11's I've got are no longer boat-
anchors :-). We should try and organize an group build, to share the load.
Anyone else interested?

Oh, one detail I didn't look at: what's the physical interface this uses?
Hopefully three of the Berg/DuPont connectors (i.e. what's on the RHxx
boards, with flat cables going to the adapter to the standard MASSBUS
connector, a device rejoicing in the name 'Receptacle Housing Assembly'); the
original MASSBUS cables (along with the 'Receptacle Housing Assembly' are now
rare as hen's teeth). And there's also the MASSBUS termination...

Noel

Re: Dec-10 Day announcement from Living Computers: Museum + Labs

[Ethan Dicks via cctalk]

On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 3:21 AM, Rich Alderson via cctalk
 wrote:
> Happy DEC-10 Day!

Indeed!

> It is my honor to announce that we at Living Computers: Museum + Labs
> are releasing to the computing community our Massbus Disk Emulator
> and all the associated software.

Very cool.  I don't have any 36-bit hardware, but I do have a couple
of 11/70s and 11/750s.  I don't think I have any RH70s, but I do have
one RH750 (it used to talk to a TU78 that I wasn't able to save 20
years ago).

> https://github.com/livingcomputermuseum/MDE2
> https://github.com/livingcomputermuseum/MBS
> https://github.com/livingcomputermuseum/UPELIB

I look forward to taking a stab at this.

Thanks!

-ethan

Re: Dec-10 Day announcement from Living Computers: Museum + Labs

[Mattis Lind via cctalk]

>

>
> We expect that it will also work with the RH780 on the VAX-11/780 and
> VAX-11/785 although we have not yet tested it in this configuration.


Very interesting!

What about using this emulator on a VAX-11/750  with a RH750 adapter? Is
there anything in there that would prevent it working with the RH750?

Re: Dec-10 Day announcement from Living Computers: Museum + Labs

[Mark J. Blair via cctalk]

> On Dec 10, 2017, at 00:21, Rich Alderson via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> Happy DEC-10 Day!
> 
> It is my honor to announce that we at Living Computers: Museum + Labs
> are releasing to the computing community our Massbus Disk Emulator
> and all the associated software.

This is wonderful! And the timing of your announcement makes me giggle with 
delight. I don't have any Massbus equipment, but I still love this on general 
principle.

> We expect that it will also work with the RH780 on the VAX-11/780 and
> VAX-11/785 although we have not yet tested it in this configuration.

If somebody would like to sell me a Massbus-equipped 780 or 785 system, I can 
test that out for y'all. :)


-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X 
http://www.nf6x.net/

Re: Dec-10 Day announcement from Living Computers: Museum + Labs

[Lee Courtney via cctalk]

Very nice - thanks!

Lee C.

On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 1:31 AM, Rob Jarratt via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> > -Original Message-
> > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Rich
> > Alderson via cctalk
> > Sent: 10 December 2017 08:22
> > To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'
> > <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
> > Subject: Dec-10 Day announcement from Living Computers: Museum + Labs
> >
> > Happy DEC-10 Day!
> >
> > It is my honor to announce that we at Living Computers: Museum + Labs are
> > releasing to the computing community our Massbus Disk Emulator and all
> the
> > associated software.  This device connects via Massbus cables to the RH10
> and
> > RH20 interfaces on KI-10 and KL-10 systems, to the RH11 interface on
> KS-10
> > and small PDP-11 systems (including the front end 11/40 on the KL-10),
> and
> to
> > the RH70 on the PDP-11/70.  The MDE provides up to 8 emulated RP06 or
> RP07
> > disks (represented by disk files in the format used by the SimH emulation
> of
> > these systems).
> >
> > We expect that it will also work with the RH780 on the VAX-11/780 and
> > VAX-11/785 although we have not yet tested it in this configuration.
> >
> > The original MDE was designed by Keith Perez in 2005, and emulated up to
> four
> > RP06 drives connected to a KL-10.  The current generation was a redesign
> by
> > Bruce Sherry in conjunction with the restoration of our
> > DECsystem-1070 in 2012, and initially provided eight RP06 drives on the
> RH10.
> > It has undergone continual development, with associated software created
> for
> > us by Bob Armstrong, and is now being opened up for the use of the
> relevant
> > communities.
> >
> > To this end, we have placed the design files for the hardware and the
> source
> > files for the software to interface with it, along with our library of
> Universal
> > Peripheral Emulator routines, on public access repositories at Github.
> The URLs
> > for these repositories are
> >
> > https://github.com/livingcomputermuseum/MDE2
> >
> > https://github.com/livingcomputermuseum/MBS
> >
> > https://github.com/livingcomputermuseum/UPELIB
> >
> > These are released under a very liberal license which will allow for free
> use of
> > the MDE by any interested party.
> >
> > Happy Dec-10 Day!
> >
> > Rich
> >
> >
> > Richard Alderson, Sr. Systems Engineer
> > Living Computers: Museum + Labs
> > 2245 1st Avenue S
> > Seattle, WA 98134
> >
> > Cell: (206) 465-2916
> > Desk: (206) 342-2239
> >
> > http://www.livingcomputerss.org/
>
> All I need now is a PDP-10
>
> :-)
>
>
>
>


-- 
Lee Courtney
+1-650-704-3934 cell

RE: Dec-10 Day announcement from Living Computers: Museum + Labs

[Rob Jarratt via cctalk]

> -Original Message-
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Rich
> Alderson via cctalk
> Sent: 10 December 2017 08:22
> To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'
> <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
> Subject: Dec-10 Day announcement from Living Computers: Museum + Labs
> 
> Happy DEC-10 Day!
> 
> It is my honor to announce that we at Living Computers: Museum + Labs are
> releasing to the computing community our Massbus Disk Emulator and all the
> associated software.  This device connects via Massbus cables to the RH10
and
> RH20 interfaces on KI-10 and KL-10 systems, to the RH11 interface on KS-10
> and small PDP-11 systems (including the front end 11/40 on the KL-10), and
to
> the RH70 on the PDP-11/70.  The MDE provides up to 8 emulated RP06 or RP07
> disks (represented by disk files in the format used by the SimH emulation
of
> these systems).
> 
> We expect that it will also work with the RH780 on the VAX-11/780 and
> VAX-11/785 although we have not yet tested it in this configuration.
> 
> The original MDE was designed by Keith Perez in 2005, and emulated up to
four
> RP06 drives connected to a KL-10.  The current generation was a redesign
by
> Bruce Sherry in conjunction with the restoration of our
> DECsystem-1070 in 2012, and initially provided eight RP06 drives on the
RH10.
> It has undergone continual development, with associated software created
for
> us by Bob Armstrong, and is now being opened up for the use of the
relevant
> communities.
> 
> To this end, we have placed the design files for the hardware and the
source
> files for the software to interface with it, along with our library of
Universal
> Peripheral Emulator routines, on public access repositories at Github.
The URLs
> for these repositories are
> 
> https://github.com/livingcomputermuseum/MDE2
> 
> https://github.com/livingcomputermuseum/MBS
> 
> https://github.com/livingcomputermuseum/UPELIB
> 
> These are released under a very liberal license which will allow for free
use of
> the MDE by any interested party.
> 
> Happy Dec-10 Day!
> 
> Rich
> 
> 
> Richard Alderson, Sr. Systems Engineer
> Living Computers: Museum + Labs
> 2245 1st Avenue S
> Seattle, WA 98134
> 
> Cell: (206) 465-2916
> Desk: (206) 342-2239
> 
> http://www.livingcomputerss.org/

All I need now is a PDP-10

:-)

Dec-10 Day announcement from Living Computers: Museum + Labs

[Rich Alderson via cctalk]

Happy DEC-10 Day!

It is my honor to announce that we at Living Computers: Museum + Labs
are releasing to the computing community our Massbus Disk Emulator
and all the associated software.  This device connects via Massbus
cables to the RH10 and RH20 interfaces on KI-10 and KL-10 systems, to
the RH11 interface on KS-10 and small PDP-11 systems (including the
front end 11/40 on the KL-10), and to the RH70 on the PDP-11/70.  The
MDE provides up to 8 emulated RP06 or RP07 disks (represented by disk
files in the format used by the SimH emulation of these systems).

We expect that it will also work with the RH780 on the VAX-11/780 and
VAX-11/785 although we have not yet tested it in this configuration.

The original MDE was designed by Keith Perez in 2005, and emulated up
to four RP06 drives connected to a KL-10.  The current generation was
a redesign by Bruce Sherry in conjunction with the restoration of our
DECsystem-1070 in 2012, and initially provided eight RP06 drives on
the RH10.  It has undergone continual development, with associated
software created for us by Bob Armstrong, and is now being opened up
for the use of the relevant communities.

To this end, we have placed the design files for the hardware and the
source files for the software to interface with it, along with our
library of Universal Peripheral Emulator routines, on public access
repositories at Github.  The URLs for these repositories are

https://github.com/livingcomputermuseum/MDE2

https://github.com/livingcomputermuseum/MBS

https://github.com/livingcomputermuseum/UPELIB

These are released under a very liberal license which will allow for
free use of the MDE by any interested party.

Happy Dec-10 Day!

Rich


Richard Alderson, Sr. Systems Engineer
Living Computers: Museum + Labs
2245 1st Avenue S
Seattle, WA 98134

Cell: (206) 465-2916
Desk: (206) 342-2239

http://www.livingcomputerss.org/