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RD54 hard disk

Yes and no.

You can un-box the drive or better, get an RQDX extender and cabinet kit. Either way you'll also need an RQDX3 to connect it to your system. (NO - on the controllers you have. Sorry)

I doubt it will go cheap... they usually climb to over $1000 once recognized. Still, you might get lucky as it's attributed only to VAX.
 
Thanks very much for the response and the information. Much appreciated.
I will not be going for this, so anyone else who may be interested is welcome to go for it.

smp
 
LOL - I doubt that would have stopped them from trying. We have a bunch a barracuda lurking around here.
 
For what it's worth, this drive would be perfect for my 11/83 - I've only got two RL02s now, and 2.11BSD is really cramped, so I'm going to take a crack at it...
 
With the 8013/14 you need a man size drive, the RL-01 that’s what those controllers want to work with. Couple months back there was some guy out in California who had a bunch of stuff from an estate and there were some RL drives along with the cables and such. Search back and maybe you can find the link. I bought some cards from him and he was all right to deal with, think all the stuff belonged to his dad.
 
Qbus said:
With the 8013/14 you need a man size drive, the RL-01 that’s what those controllers want to work with.
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Whoa! Yes, that'd be manly, that's for sure.

I'm working in a little 12x14 office room in my home, and I'm glad to have the space, but I'm afraid that some of this manly equipment will take up too much space for me. As well, I'm a bit timid about the power requirements for some of this manly gear. I'm not sure if I have the proper electrical service to support too much of it.

I'm currently having fun trying to get a good working SCSI drive going with my system, and another M7940 SLU should arrive in a couple of days, so I might be able to get the TU-58 tape emulator up and running. Here's hoping, anyway.

smp
 
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Space can be a problem with the RL01/02 drives, but I have never had a problem running two RL02s _and_ a fairly complete pdp11/83 system on one 15-amp circuit breaker - along with a VT320 terminal, two SCSI hard disks, and a laptop.
 
Roe said:
Space can be a problem with the RL01/02 drives, but I have never had a problem running two RL02s _and_ a fairly complete pdp11/83 system on one 15-amp circuit breaker - along with a VT320 terminal, two SCSI hard disks, and a laptop.
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Thanks very much for the info! I'm happy to hear that I shouldn't be so worried.

I have already found that packing and shipping costs for this stuff is rather outrageous (what else is new?). I'm assuming that the packing and shipping cost for an RL01/02 would be impressive.

BTW, are there things that would need to be done to properly prepare an RL01/02 for shipment? I'm sure it's in the documentation, but I was curious.

smp
 
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smp said:
Good for you! Congratulations. I hope it works out well for you.

smp
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Thanks. I've been looking for an MFM hard drive ever since I got an RQDX3 controller. In fact, I've already got the cabinet, power supply, cables... Everything but a drive :)
 
On the RL01/2 drives, It is _very_ important to lock the head assembly before shipping. If you need details, let me know and I'll post a link to the procedure. It's actually dead simple, loosen a screw, rotate a small metal plate 180 degrees, and tighten the screw.
 
smp said:
Will my M8013 & M8014 interface boards work with it?
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Hi All, I wonder why those rl02 drives require "disk" and "bus" controllers? What the purpose of those?
What way would be easier, emulate registers of rl02 controllers on qbus or emulate rl02 drive connected to M8013 ?
 
There have been many discussions about emulating RL drives, and a couple of successful results. Check back a couple of months for the most recent thread.
 
M8012/M8013 (the RLV11) were consolidated to one card later as the M8061 (RLV12). The RLV11 cardset was made to go in the AB/CD backplanes of the original 11/23 systems. (Note to anyone here - do not ever put them in an AB/AB backplane. If you do you will have to see my post on alt.sys.pdp11 some years back about how to fix what you will have fried.)

Emulation of the registers of the RL drive controller was indeed done by other vendors. I have an MTI MLV11-M which makes an MFM hard disk look like multiple RL02 drives.

Reinhard has developed an emulator for the drive itself that connects to an RL11/RLV11/RLV12/RL8A controller. It works pretty good (I built one) but has one bug that I have not solved yet. (I will work on it some more when the weather gets cold...) The referenced thread is here: http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showthread.php?35525-RL02-RL01-simulator-project-is-finished

RL drives are indeed manly and very reliable. When they have to be worked on, they are very easy to work on. I think we had an RL love-fest in another thread already recently. Here's a nice picture that Ray would appreciate: http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/album.php?albumid=63&attachmentid=4371

Roe, I hope that RD54 still works. I'll cross my fingers for you.

Lou
 
smp said:
This site:

http://gunkies.org/wiki/RD54

says it should be a Maxtor XT 2190.

smp
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Thank you! That sounds more like it. I've got a few drives in that category that are now surplus since the systems they belong to were stolen; any idea where I could find the Seagate/Maxtor/Micropolis equivalents to the other OEM drives?

Any issues re-LLFing drives that were used in another type of computer in order to use them in a DEC?
 
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