| 02/2016 | It's about time to update several pages. Although there is still a lot of information
that can be added, I made a start by adding some pictures. Updated are the 11/03, 11/23+, 11/24, PDT-11/150,
VT180, VSV-11 and VT30H pages.
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| 04/2015 | Last year, I moved the collection to a new place. It is a former pig stable, and you
can smell that. It is 42 square meters, but after I moved my collection it still was just a storage.
So I rented another 42 square meters space. But then I heard the owner tell that he has another former
pig stable, but the floor has a new smooth horizontal concrete layer with a sealing (dust!). Before I
rented the place it was rented to 2 separate persons. One used it as a storage for his power boat, the
other guy rented it for 5 cars that he was repairing. My luck was that the power boat guy was leaving
the country, and the other could not afford the full rent. I negotiated with the owner and managed to
get a discount, because he already knew that once I am renting the space, it would be painted, cleaned
and has a rent for many years to come! I am happy with the 200 square meters, 2250 square feet! Now it is time to update many web pages. They have been added to the "Site navigation" but the content still needs to be added. I will add several terminals (including the VT05 and VT525), several printers, a low boy housed PDP-11/60, several VAX systems, the RC25 and TK25, PDP-11/23PLUS and microPDP11/73. More obscure stuff is the VSV-11 QBUS-based graphics subsystem and the VT30H UNIBUS-based Colour Mimic Display System. |
| 02/2013 | It has been 3 years ago that I made my last update to the website! I had some issues
in Real Life, and moved to another house some 30 km from the old house. I had to pay two mortgages for
almost 4 years, so that kept me "quiet". But the old house finally got sold, so I had to move the
last "few" items from my "machine room" to the new house. I do not have the room to put all machines
in some nice setup ... it is just in storage, but dry and warm, waiting for yet another home with plenty
of space. I found a few items that I even did not remember anymore that I had them! So, this was a good
moment to do some updating to the website. Pity, however, of most of these items I have no information.
So it is not much more than a few pictures. If you have any information, I love to hear it! Anyway, I
added the "modems" folder in "peripherals/comm". In the "modems" folder is the DF112 modem, and the bit
obscure "Remote Services Console". Further, I added in the "peripherals/disk" folder the RRD40 Optical
Disk (CD-ROM) Reader, and in the "test tools" folder the KM11 Maintenance Board Set. |
| 02/2010 | A firm in the middle of The Netherlands cleaned out their archive. As they started
as a company that rents and sells D|I|G|I|T|A|L equipment and offer maintenance support since the
seventies, and Edward and I were allowed to take any documentation after they pulled what they wanted
to keep (mostly modern QBUS stuff), we found a lot of interesting Print Sets and Manuals. It took a
whole day just go through 36 cabinets filled with binders. Some binders were almost empty, some were
"fuller than full". I went home with 6 heavy boxes. The "Available documentation" sections are updated.
If you are looking for specific parts of documentation, ask! Maybe it can be scanned. I do not work for
Océ anymore, so I do not have access to a fast and good quality scanner anymore. |
| 11/2009 | It was about time that I put some time in the website. There is still plenty of
goodies which are not described here. I added a new folder in the left section called BA11 boxes.
A few are only mentioned and descriptions will be added, but of one box, the BA11-VA I have written
a long page. It describes the small desktop box housing a complete PDP-11 system, with connections
to a PC for the console terminal and for the simulated TU58 mass storage from which this PDP-11
is booted ... |
| 10/2009 | Sometimes the website is a source for new systems! Rob found my website and wanted
to clear out his attic. Lucky for me that he found this website, I now entered the QBUS arena too!
I already had a microPDP-11/53 and microPDP-11/73 but never described them here; the folder is still
empty. However, this PDP-11/23 was housed in a nice "office cabinet", so it was also a great addition
for the museum. And Rob had an other great D|I|G|I|T|A|L collectors object: an original DEC table!
No picture yet of that table, but it will be put to good use, showing a few other "special" items. One of those "special" items is the DEC UNIVERSAL PROM PROGRAMMER (OEM Data I/O), also donated by Rob. Thanks! The PROM PROGRAMMER is shown in "test tools -> PROM programmer". |
| 08/2009 | After moving some stuff, I swapped a few peripheral devices to an other cabinet.
That was a good moment to write a page for the LPS-11, Laboratory Peripheral System (peripherals ->
comm -> interfaces -> LPS11). It is added to the PDP-11/35, but not yet connected or even powered
up. Some checking has not yet been done, and just powering up is not always the best way to "test" a
new acquisition. |
| 05/2009 | I am moving to a new house some 40 km from the old place. These are the times
I wished I collected stamps instead of PDP-11's. 70% of the collection is moved, now I first have to make some room before I get the rest. Damn, I moved, and still not enough space for the entire collection. I guess space will always remain a problem ... The PC05 papertape reader/punch and PR/S01 papertape reader pages (peripherals -> tape) had a major update and new pictures. The PDP-11/45 page now shows the (cool) console panel. |
| 12/2008 | The rest of the year was not exactly how I expected it would go, but I move
to a new house in the end of March, 2009. It will also have a nice heated room of approx 4x6
meters, so my PDP-11 collection will find a new home too! The only thing added are more short
XXDP diagnostic descriptions of the 11/03, 11/04, 11/24, RA80, RM80, TU45 and line printers. There is also some progress on the pdp8i full-size console, based on an FPGA, see the folder "my projects". |
| 03/2008 | New machines in the collection are the PDP-11/45 and the PDP-11/55, so I made
a start on writing pages for these great machines too. Far from finished though, so have an
occasional peek to check if I made some progress! |
| 12/2007 | Many changes during the year, and other projects kept me busy on other things.
However, I connected a DECprinter I to my 11/34C and repaired the DECwriter II. New pages are
written in the "peripherals/comm" folder, like the DECwriter I and its interfaces, and the DELUA,
the more modern version of the DEUNA, the 10 Mbps ethernet interfaces for UNIBUS
PDP-11's. |
| 11/2006 | Allright, moving on to the next system, my PDP-11/44. Although the machine was
working just fine when I switched it off some 3 years ago, it does not boot anymore :-( So,
this is a good time to update the PDP-11/44 pages on this site while working on the machine. In
the end, it turned out that a memory board kept the processor from running! Of course, Murphy was
present: the /44 has two different memory boards installed, one of 128k and one of 1M. Yes, the
larger one is defective. I installed the TU80 interface, but have not yet checked all, so powering
the TU80 will have to wait ... |
| 9/2006 | The Kennedy 9100 tape drive on the 11/84 is still a problem. The behaviour is erratic,
and often it does not even respond to pressing the "UNLOAD" button! Then, there is just one solution
and that is switching off the tape drive, and manually rewind the tape. I have the electrical
diagrams, but no extender board to make measurements easy. I still have the idea that the box in
the tape drive is missing the terminator boards. If you have a (working) Kennedy 9100, let me know!
|
| 7/2006 | The summer so far has been hot in The Netherlands. Too hot to run a PDP-11, so I
created a page for the TK50 and the TK70 tape cartridge drive and their controllers. These devices
are added to my collection, because I picked up a microPDP-11/53. This microPDP-11/53 is also described a bit in its own (new) folder. I am also working on new 6809 software to read a 3½" floppy disk, formatted at double density in Windows whatever or MS-DOS. That implies reading the FAT12 format, and at this moment I can do "dir" on the 6809 system and get a nice directory output. Retrieving a file from the floppy is the next step ... I have not yet decided if I will report the progress here, but in the end this "feature" is added to the pdp8/e simulation software for easy SIMH-pdp8 (on a PC) to my pdp8/e simulator file exchange. |
| 5/2006 | I spent some time getting the TU58 simulator working on my PDP-11/34C, but till now
all attempts were a failure, despite the great help from Jim (Beacon) and Don (North). I dropped this
and will return to it later. Installed a PDP-11/84 in an H960 cabinet together with a Kennedy
9100 tape drive and an RL02 disk drive. The system boots, but I get I/O errors from the Kennedy ... Most of my "PDP" time was spent on a new project cooperating with Vince (vrs) and Tim (Radde). It is a FlipChip tester based on the Core and I/O Boards of the Blinkenlight console. The project is still in the development stage, although we have a prototype ... software development and testing is in progress - check out the "my projects" section ! |
| 1/2006 | After many hours, I have restored my 11/34 to a working state. The final step for this
system is the addition of the RK611 controller and two RK07 disk drives. That action also did not go as easy
as I expected, but I succeeded booting RT11 from the first RK07! As a result of this work, the RK07 page is updated a bit more ... I also built the RX11 emulator of Pete McCollum. In short, it is a board that you install in the backplane of a UNIBUS machine, together with an M105 and M7821 module. You connect a PC (!) to this board, et voilà you have a working dual 8" virtual RX01 floppy disk drive! For details, check out Pete McCollum's RX11 Emulator Project . |
| 11/2005 | The power lines are installed! The first system that I fired up (the 11/34C) revealed
lots of problems. The console interface board and the 2 CPU modules are defective! But the 11/34C
booted RT11 from an RL02 cartridge. Both drives of the RX02 are having problems. I received a fantastic donation from Hans Schulz: the long-sought after "boot selector/switch" H324-UA, a TU60 DECassette subsystem (new peripheral in the collection!) and a non-functional, but complete PDP-11/10 equipped with core memory. The 11/10 will be a 'new' project ... and of course, all will show up on this site, so check back regularly. Thanks again, Hans! |
| 10/2005 | Started the long-postponed update of some web pages. Good progress on the RL01/RL02,
RK06/RK07, and the RA81 page. Have a look at peripherals -» disk. In peripherals -» tape I have added my TU80 (diagnostic stuff yet to be added). I still need to shoot a few pictures ... |
| 8/2005 | Added emulation control/debug commands and a trace facility to the pdp8/e simulator.
If you know the HP64000 development station, you will recognize the implemented commands! I needed some
advanced debug facilities in the pdp8/e simulator to find why OS/8 could not be booted.
The pdp8/e simulator now boots OS/8, and I ran SPACWR (a StarTrek game implementation) !
Added a folder "my projects" to keep the navigation tree short. Check out the contents! |
| 5/2005 | Added the PDP-11/60 folder and some content after my trip to the UK to haul a PDP-11/60
to my house. As the original low boy corporate cabinet was too big, you can read here what I did to install the 11/60 in an H960 tall rack. Also added brief XXDP descriptions for the 11/60 and the FP11-E. |
| 1/2005 | Although it seems that not much changed on this site, I have continually updated
the link "spin off" on the 'Homebrew PDP-11' page. The "spin off" page is now also a separate link
at the left side, called 'Homebrew PDP-8'. It describes the project to build a PDP-8/e on a Core and a single I/O Board, including simulated DF32 or RF08 (with 4 disks) support. The physical disk is a IDE hard disk (or Compact Flash card) connected to the I/O Board! |
| 9/2004 | Have been very busy with the 'Homebrew PDP-11' project. The Core and I/O Boards are
sent to all who joined this project. In the mean time I have been working on the PDP-8/e simulation
running on the 6809 CPU. That works fine, but it isn't exactly a speed devil! Together with Edward we have hauled a few RK07 disk drives, and the next thing to do is installing the RK611 controller in my PDP-11/34C. Since I have that device, some information about the RK07 / RK611 is added in the "peripherals/disk' folder. That includes descriptions of XXDP for it. While writing that down I also added the XXDP info for the RM03 / RH11/RH70 massbus controller. |
| 5/2004 | The 6802 front-end console has changed. Since the 6802 part is difficult to get, the
design is upgraded to the 6809. An advantage is that this is a more powerful CPU with some nice 16-bit
instructions and good support for high-level language programming (like C). The RealConsole software
has been adjusted too. Also found some information for the PDP-11/70 remote console! A link to a detailed command description is on the "to do" list. When you ask for it, the item will move up on the priority scale :-) |
| 4/2004 | The software of the PDP-11/35 6802 front-end console is debugged (...), and the changes
required for SIMH are updated for the latest release of SIMH (version 3.2-0). The debug phase is still
'on paper', but I expect to make the *real* connection between the PC (running SIMH) and the homebrew console
within a week. End of the month: I got the PDP-11 homebrew console working together with SIMH.
Check out the "Action!" link on the "homebrew PDP-11" page.
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| 3/2004 | In the Homebrew 'PDP-11' folder, I started to write down the description of my new
PDP-11/35 homebrew console, of course with some pictures. Next steps are checking the wiring and debugging the
6802 front-end software ... Also, I started some update work on the "peripherals" folder - added the RM03 disk drive. |
| 2/2004 | Check back regularly as I finally have time to update this site. I start to work on the lay-out. The site is best viewed with MS Internet Explorer and the screen resolution set at 1024 x 768. I used Netscape, but I noticed that most visitors use IE. In the "PDP-11/05" folder, I added in the "CPU" folder the Module Utilization for the 4 different backplanes. The "main boards" and "options" folders of the 11/35 CPU contain descriptions of the jumpers on the modules. |