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Latest find - TS11

S

stargeezer

Experienced Member
Joined
Apr 1, 2011
Messages
118
Location
Western NY
I recently took possession of the venerable(terrible) DEC TS-11 tape drive last week. I had to disassemble/reassemble the drive to get it into my basement and now comes the fun part. Getting it to work. It powers up but will not load tapes. I even have the UNIBUS controller for it. :)

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Well after executing the bring-up procedure, the octal error code points to a bad M8929 module. Anyone with spare TS11 parts lying around?
 
marmotking said:
That's a great find. I have a TU-80 that I'm working on now, but the bigger the better, I say...
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I had a few of those at one point. I really like working on them. The controller for the TU81(Klesi) for the UNIBUS is something else I would like to find. I have an RC25 I would like to attach to my 11/44.
 
Great find huge peripherals are always better! Unfortunately the biggest I have is just a couple RL drives, nothing that would match the fun of tape. How do you manage to get stuff that’s all clean and shinny when everything I find is full of dirt and corrosion?
Ray F.
 
Qbus said:
Great find huge peripherals are always better! Unfortunately the biggest I have is just a couple RL drives, nothing that would match the fun of tape. How do you manage to get stuff that’s all clean and shinny when everything I find is full of dirt and corrosion?
Ray F.
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Hah, creative photography. Actually, this was very clean. It sat in a dry basement for the last 25 years. If you look in the background, I have a TE16. Thats a big drive. And it works(well at least it loads the tape) Unfortunately, the TM03 is missing a few boards. I have MASSBUS in my 11/44 and all the cables for it too.
 
Very impressive collection there. I love the TE16... MASSBUS is the best. I've got a TS05, and it's pretty cool.

That looks like a great basement environment. I'm curious... Is that concrete sealed?

Biggest mistake DEC made [maybe...] was using the UDA50 to connect MSCP RA series disks to the 11/70 via the UNIBUS. Caused disk I/O to hog the whole machine. I always wanted to order the MASSBUS version of the RA81 [VAX] to see if it worked on the PDP-11/70's RH70 as a MASSBUS device. Never had the balls to "just do it", and none of my DEC service techs could tell me if it would work ahead of time.

If I ever get that winning lottery ticket... a lot of these "eternal questions" will be answered.
 
I had both the basement floor and my garage floor sealed when I built the house. I keep the humidity around 55% all the time in the basement plus I have radiant heat so it helps in the cold winter months.

I hope to put up a nice building for my collection next year. They are taking down the building that housed our old data center at work this year so I will be getting the old raised computer floor, and there is a lot of it! It'll be fun determining where all the pieces will fit and all of the cabling for the different years of networking technology. I still have some old thicknet and vampire taps.
 
stargeezer said:
I had both the basement floor and my garage floor sealed when I built the house. I keep the humidity around 55% all the time in the basement plus I have radiant heat so it helps in the cold winter months.
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Very nice. I have work to do on mine if I stay here. Been over 20 years here, but it may be better to "move on" than to try to improve this to my final home. We'll see. So much has changed in the surrounding area over that time... the next 20 years will be bad.

Also the "seeing" here is only optimal 10% of the time any more. That's not going to get better either.

stargeezer said:
I hope to put up a nice building for my collection next year. They are taking down the building that housed our old data center at work this year so I will be getting the old raised computer floor, and there is a lot of it!
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A lot eh? How much is that... could you spare any?

Now there is something to trade... where on the globe are you? Anyplace close to Ohio?

stargeezer said:
It'll be fun determining where all the pieces will fit and all of the cabling for the different years of networking technology. I still have some old thicknet and vampire taps.
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Luckily, I avoided "Thicknet" altogether. Went big into "Thinnet" when it was introduced though. UTP came along so quickly after that... my world got re-invented twice that decade.
 
RSX11M+ said:
Very nice. I have work to do on mine if I stay here. Been over 20 years here, but it may be better to "move on" than to try to improve this to my final home. We'll see. So much has changed in the surrounding area over that time... the next 20 years will be bad.

Also the "seeing" here is only optimal 10% of the time any more. That's not going to get better either.
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In what way?


RSX11M+ said:
A lot eh? How much is that... could you spare any?
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I'll let you know. They are supposed to be demolishing the building by this fall. With all the state budget cuts, this could be one of those projects that gets shoved to the back burner. The trick is going in to get it before its hauled away. IT and Facilities are not exactly friends around here.

BTW, I am near Buffalo, NY.
 
stargeezer said:
In what way?
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My other "major" hobby is amateur astronomy. It would be really nice to live elsewhere. This area has "grown up" from a partially populated country area, to the point where it is now a "bedroom" community for a major metropolis. Consequently it has all the attendant ills... dense housing, little regard for light pollution in new public works or private construction, crime, ...you name it. And even through this recession / depression - we haven't stopped growing... only slowed.

So the prospect of staying isn't what it used to be. The sky simply isn't suitable, more and more, often. It's a bummer, but there it is.

stargeezer said:
I'll let you know. They are supposed to be demolishing the building by this fall. With all the state budget cuts, this could be one of those projects that gets shoved to the back burner. The trick is going in to get it before its hauled away. IT and Facilities are not exactly friends around here.

BTW, I am near Buffalo, NY.
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Well, that's not too far for me to drive. Timing may be difficult from what you say. As I recall that stuff is pretty heavy. How big are the tiles, 24"? I used to have my suction handle around here somewhere, but I haven't seen it in years. I think I'll need another. How tall are the stands, if I may ask? [space between the floor and the bottom of the tile]

Oh, and how "large" is this room? [maybe I'd better ask how much will remain after your needs are satisfied?]
 
RSX11M+ said:
My other "major" hobby is amateur astronomy. It would be really nice to live elsewhere. This area has "grown up" from a partially populated country area, to the point where it is now a "bedroom" community for a major metropolis. Consequently it has all the attendant ills... dense housing, little regard for light pollution in new public works or private construction, crime, ...you name it. And even through this recession / depression - we haven't stopped growing... only slowed.
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Hah! Kinda figured thats what you meant. Astronomy was a major hobby of mine up until a few years ago. My wife and I still go to Cherry Springs a few times a year with the camper but I no longer go to the star parties. Rarely even observe anymore. My site hasn't been updated in many years www.stargeezer.net. From the sounds of it, you live near 271 and all that construction mayhem south of Cleveland.

The squares are 24" and they are about 12 to 14" from the floor. The room I would say is 30 X 60.
 
stargeezer said:
...The squares are 24" and they are about 12 to 14" from the floor. The room I would say is 30 X 60.
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Far out. A foot...wow - great height. How much were you going to need? I could use a nice 10 foot slice off the end of that cake if you could spare it.

Yum, Yum!

I'm in the area of the Cincinnati Loop [275]. Looked at your site... beautiful solar images BTW, unusual to see. Your camera is quite a bit nicer than my old Pictor 416. You will know what I have if I say LX200-16, and LX200-12 for scopes. Very frustrating, since I haven't got a dedicated observatory like you do. I have to setup and tear-down when I want to do observing. Consequently, it's only a couple times a year that the weather, the seeing and my availability all coincide. Had to design a rig to be able to setup the "16" by myself, since I have no slaves to enlist.

I needs a permanent setup, especially so I can observe at an hours notice, and close up shop in even less time.
 
RSX11M+ said:
Far out. A foot...wow - great height. How much were you going to need? I could use a nice 10 foot slice off the end of that cake if you could spare it.
Click to expand...

Should not be a problem. I'll keep you posted on the progress. Won't be for a while yet.


RSX11M+ said:
I'm in the area of the Cincinnati Loop [275]. Looked at your site... beautiful solar images BTW, unusual to see. Your camera is quite a bit nicer than my old Pictor 416. You will know what I have if I say LX200-16, and LX200-12 for scopes. Very frustrating, since I haven't got a dedicated observatory like you do. I have to setup and tear-down when I want to do observing. Consequently, it's only a couple times a year that the weather, the seeing and my availability all coincide. Had to design a rig to be able to setup the "16" by myself, since I have no slaves to enlist.
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16" Nice! That guy needs a pier.

Those pics were from when I first started. I graduated up to a Tak Epsilon and a ST11K camera sitting on a CGE for imaging. I have some really nice shots blown up to 16X20 from those sessions. That was a few years ago. Things got outta hand with being an equipment junkie on top of all my other hobbies. I was building boats, guitars, tube amps, telescopes(2nd place at Stellafane one year), etc in my wood shop. TOTAL burnout ensued. Now just messing with the DEC stuff again.

I used to live in Lexington and remember seeing the glow of Cincinatti from there! I just drove through last week and I can't believe how much construction goes on in that city. I never take the bypass as I am always curious what is going on there. Was offered a job in Erlanger a few years back. I always like the Northern KY area.
 
Interesting note regarding the PDP-11 and astronomy, don’t know if it's still their but as recently as last year there was a PDP-11/34 or 44 used to control the Arecibo Radio Telescope. From what I was told they were intending to replace it due to maintenance issues but as recently as last year and possibly now may still be in use.
Ray F.
 
Qbus said:
Interesting note regarding the PDP-11 and astronomy, don’t know if it's still their but as recently as last year there was a PDP-11/34 or 44 used to control the Arecibo Radio Telescope. From what I was told they were intending to replace it due to maintenance issues but as recently as last year and possibly now may still be in use.
Ray F.
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Its nice to see this equipment still working away in all of the diverse industries. There is still a good amount of PDP8's in the field doing CNC.
 
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