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Identify minicomputer from sketch?

Much of it seems to be an abstracted artist's impression of real computer equipment and tape drives look the same from everybody. The terminals resemble VT-52s with the offset display; the printers and support tables look DEC influenced. On the other hand, the VAX 11/780 had 2 rows of vents on the front of the top and bottom section of the CPU cabinet while the art has 3 rows of vents near the top of the front of the cabinet.

What is the source for the image?
 
So a VAX system huh? Cool. This was from the cover of a handbook I came across some time ago.

It pertained to the equipment in the foreground - a system an electric utility could deploy to manage interruptible loads (air conditioners, water heaters, etc.) during system peaks, as well as the ability to remotely read meters, all using a 9-12kHz carrier overlaid on the 60Hz power lines. The large cabinet is the transceiver installed in the substation, and which tied into the distribution system using the coupler box next to it, and in the foreground is a load controller with two different kinds of remotely readable electric meters.

The minicomputer would have been in the main office and communicated with the transceivers to transmit load control commands and ping the meters for the readings. I would imagine as microcomputers became more popular in the late 1980s, the office side of the system would have evolved to reside on one or two PCs instead.
 
tech58761 said:
So a VAX system huh? Cool. This was from the cover of a handbook I came across some time ago.

It pertained to the equipment in the foreground - a system an electric utility could deploy to manage interruptible loads (air conditioners, water heaters, etc.) during system peaks, as well as the ability to remotely read meters, all using a 9-12kHz carrier overlaid on the 60Hz power lines. The large cabinet is the transceiver installed in the substation, and which tied into the distribution system using the coupler box next to it, and in the foreground is a load controller with two different kinds of remotely readable electric meters.

The minicomputer would have been in the main office and communicated with the transceivers to transmit load control commands and ping the meters for the readings. I would imagine as microcomputers became more popular in the late 1980s, the office side of the system would have evolved to reside on one or two PCs instead.
Click to expand...

I remember a project I worked on in the 1980s for Florida Power where a VAX communicated with power meters over the power lines. The interface in the VAX was fiber and the transceiver was on the high voltage side. They could read something like 100,000 power meters per day. Saved a lot of time and driving.
 
This system was developed by Westinghouse...

the transceiver in the substation fed the signal coupler next to it, and the high-voltage lead coming off the top went to the common point of a capacitor bank that served as the actual signal injection point.
 
Gary C said:
Looks like our old 11/750 with a couple of RL02 cabinets
Click to expand...

Yeah, the box next to the 9-track could only be an 11/750. I think the drives are supposed to be RK06/RK07s. Couple of VT100 style terminals. Maybe an LA120 & LP27 printer? TS-11 9-track maybe. That pix might be from the cover of one of the manuals.
 
The fact these are confirmed to be DEC machines actually jibes with a test procedure I found in an old tech manual for this system dating to 1984.
That procedure had a setup section detailing how to set up a PDP-11/03 system they apparently had on their production floor.
That PDP-11 apparently quickly gave way to a lowly IBM PC-XT, as the app on that machine dated to 1987.
 
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