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Interface Standards IS-11: Help needed

B

braids

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Joined
Nov 12, 2010
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Hi All,

I plan to bring alive a Interface standards IS-11 PDP-11 qbus to Camac adapter inside a LeCroy desktop Crate and have the following questions:

1. Does anyone have manuals or a working system? I got this adapter 25 jears ago together with a couple of 5 1/4 drives. I haven't found yet any config information on the net.

2. Is that right that the 2 Slots inside the adapter are qbus slots that have to carry a CPU with on-board ODT (e.g. a M8186) and a memory card (e.g. 8044)?
last time ago there was an auction for one of this adapter carrying an M8044.

3. Are there additional camac cards required for a working minimal system?


Yours Sincerly,

Braids.
 
I' m starting a new try to bring a IS-11 back to work.

Does anyone have any documentation about this adapter? I haven't found any information about this part in the internet at this time.


Can i use any 2-slot-LSI11-CPU or does i need a SBC11/21?


Best Thanks, Braids
 

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Dunno nothing 'bout this gear, but, if you need ODT, it's an option on the 11/21, and is not usually found installed on it.
 
For starters, I don't see a CPU, just a UART (SMC COM2502) and two missing daughterboards. Given the nature of those edge connectors nothing from a DEC Qbus is going to fit there. The front panel controls in the bottom portion are certainly suggestive of an LSI-11 but the actual CPU could possibly be installed elsewhere on the CAMAC bus. My guess is that you'll need to find the missing pair of daughterboards that contain the CPU subsystem. Or there is a bespoke LSI-11 (set of four WD DIP-40; PNs 21-11549-01; 23-002C4; 23-001B5; 23-002B5-00) laid out on the lower, hidden, PCB. Suggest that you disassemble a bit in order to inspect the lower PCB and see what you have there. At a minimum it seems that you could examine the underside of the lower PCB and determine whether there are any DIP-40 ICs present and then whether they are laid out as four "bussed" side-by-side. If that pattern isn't present then I'm pretty sure that you haven't got an LSI-11 hidden in there.
 
At the lowest board there are a lot of TTL IC's, a couple of PROM's and four AM2914 interrupt comtrollers. Many years ago there was an Ebay auction with such a card and there was a M8043? memory board in one of these two slots
I don't know how to set the dip switches to proper positions to get this card working.


Braids
 
Please forgive this reply to this very old thread, I hope Braids is still listening. I've just gotten ahold of an IS-11 and some related hardware. I have a great interest in CAMAC and have several running systems (not IS-11 based, at least not yet!), and have designed hardware for it. Are you still out there, Braids?

-Dave McGuire, LSSM
 
This is very interesting and I'm glad to see it! I have two crates and an LSI-11 interface board, and also an IBM BC interface, and a good number of CAMAC modules. I was reverse engineering my way through getting this to work but if anyone has any software and/or documentation, I'm quite interested. I'm also glad to contribute my findings.

I discovered that CERN wrote a compiler called PL-11, based on PL-360, for PDP-11 with CAMAC in mind. I dearly hope to find a copy of this software, but I fear it may be lost to time.
 
Hey, another CAMAC hacker! I'd not heard of PL-11, that sure sounds interesting. Have you tried contacting CERN about it? They may still have it in their archives. One can hope.

I control my CAMAC crates in a few different ways. I wrote a library in C, along with a set of programs under Linux, called (unimaginatively) libcamac. That can talk to a crate via a LeCroy 6010 (serial), a LeCroy 8901 (GPIB), or via a USB interface that I designed that talks to a Serial Data Highway controller. For the latter, I've only tested it with a Kinetic Systems 3952, but I implemented the Serial Data Highway protocol (which isn't as serial as its name suggests! ;)) so it should work with the many similar modules from other manufacturers. Along with that library I've written specific device support for fifteen or so different CAMAC modules, so these can be driven from the command line, or one can write software and use the library to talk to them. This all works great.

I've also repeatedly scoured the network and collected a vast amount of documentation on dozens of CAMAC modules. I put up a wiki to gather all of that stuff in one place, along with NIMs and FASTBUS information, but I had to get back to work stuff and haven't gotten back to it yet.

I'm up for collaboration if you're interested. I love this CAMAC stuff; I have A LOT of it and have done a lot of neat stuff with it. I don't know why more people aren't into it; I guess most people are more interested in playing games these days. Up to now I've not run across anyone else who has done anything with it on a personal interest basis.

-Dave
 
I think I downloaded a bunch of your files Dave! I was doing my scouring too, and happened upon them; many of them relate to my hardware. I shall have to dig out all of my modules and catalog them so we can further support their documentation for others to use. I'm definitely interested in your work and could potentially collaborate. My work is far more electronics engineering oriented, but I'm into antiquated computer systems and can get into programming when I need to. My plan was to work back from the CAMAC standards and do machine code or possibly C programming on the PDP11/23 to which I have the LSI-11 crate controller attached. There is of course the option of doing this on PC with the PC ISA crate card as well! Both my LSI-11 and PC cards are very simple parallel bus interfaces with minimal logic; just enough to do some basics and some addressing, while the crate controller itself does the heavy lifting. Based on my studies, it looks like talking to a crate should be very simple.

Along with the LSI-11 and PC ISA crate controllers and their extension cards, I also have one or two GPIB modules, loads of analog interface stuff, word generators, scalers, timers, and the usual sorts of things one might expect to find in CAMAC crates. There's even an RS-232 terminal module!

Regarding contacting CERN directly; this is precisely what I plan to do. It wouldn't surprise me to discover they have the software. It was available on mail-order on 1/2" data tape, formatted based on the requirements for your particular system.
 
Hmm, I don't recall having put any of my files up anywhere, but I may have. I think we should try to get everything on the wiki. It's here: https://nimwiki.mcguirescientificservices.com/. You can see it's pretty barren at the moment, but it's a start. The intention is to cover NIM, CAMAC, and FASTBUS.

When I grabbed that IS-11 crate controller with the PDP-11 processor board (KXT11) in it last week, my wife exclaimed "Wow, it's like they made that just for you!" ;) Two of my favorite things in one box! I have a few different PDP-11 crate control systems, none working due to lack of docs, but this one looks more promising than the others: the address and vector settings of the CAMAC interface board are silkscreened on the PCB, and it came with a magnetic bubble memory "disk" subsystem, which is nonvolatile, so maybe there's still some software on it.

If CERN does still have the PL-11 code, even on tape, we should be able to read it. We do a lot of tape recovery work at the museum.

Man, I don't mind saying I'm pretty excited to make contact with another CAMAC aficionado. :)

I have to run for now, but in the meantime, here are some pics of my USB-interfaced CAMAC SHD controller.

-Dave
 

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Ah okay, I must have pulled from somewhere else! At any rate, I wouldn't quite call myself a CAMAC aficionado, but perhaps in time I will be! I'll see if I can set aside some time to document what I have and help get it into your wiki.
 
We use CAMAC I/O quite a lot on our nuclear training simulators where we interface a lot of digital and analogue I/O (to/from the control desk etc.) with the plant and auto control models.

On one site I support - we used to have a VAX machine interfacing with the CAMAC I/O - but this (and the associated SGI/IRIX machine running the plant model) was converted to a PC a number of years ago. The CAMAC I/O was refreshed as a result to communicate over TCP/IP with the Windows environment - rather than the original interface to the VAX (which was HDLC if I remember correctly).

Dave
 
Hi daver2, interesting! I wonder what crate controller it used that had an HDLC interface.
A few companies ended up making Ethernet and USB-connected crate controllers.

I spent a little time yesterday putting together a model number index, just a couple hundred modules so far indexed by make/model. It's on nimwiki (https://nimwiki.mcguirescientificservices.com), main page -> CAMAC -> CAMAC Instruments.

-Dave
 
Hi All,

mcguire wrote:
When I grabbed that IS-11 crate controller with the PDP-11 processor board (KXT11) in it last week, my wife exclaimed "Wow, it's like they made that just for you!" ;) Two of my favorite things in one box! I have a few different PDP-11 crate control systems, none working due to lack of docs, but this one looks more promising than the others: the address and vector settings of the CAMAC interface board are silkscreened on the PCB, and it came with a magnetic bubble memory "disk" subsystem, which is nonvolatile, so maybe there's still some software on it.
Click to expand...


I'm always searching for a proper processor card for my IS-11. Is it a KXT11-AA (M8063) or a KXT11-AB (M7676)? At the bay there are announces for both, the question is how long. Does it need additional DEC options? (e.G. ODT ROM)?

Thank You,

Braids
 
braids said:
KXT11-AA (M8063) or a KXT11-AB (M7676)? Does it need additional DEC options? (e.G. ODT ROM)?
Click to expand...
Yes, if the board does not already have a ROM with an ODT.

But.

Modified boards are often sold on eBay - with modified ROM content and with (most unpleasant) modified PLA content.

I myself bought two of these M7676. Fortunately, I managed to find a Soviet equivalent of the PLM chip and flash the "correct content". But it turned out that two memory chips were failing, so I had to make my own PLA content and, fortunately, there were two other memory chips on the boards with a capacity of 32 kb each, so I've got full RAM available.

Another board (M8063) was sent to me by a friend - but only the ROM turned out to be changed there.
 
braids said:
I'm always searching for a proper processor card for my IS-11. Is it a KXT11-AA (M8063) or a KXT11-AB (M7676)? At the bay there are announces for both, the question is how long. Does it need additional DEC options? (e.G. ODT ROM)?
Click to expand...

Mine came with a KXT11 with ROMs on it. I need some time to dig into it and see how it's configured, then I'll get that info to you. I can read the KXT11's ROMs if necessary.

-Dave
 
Hi All,

I've bought a M8063 KXT11-AA to test these camac adapter. Put them into a LeCroy 8013 mini crate.
The board came up with the on-board SLU1, fitted with a VT510 terminal. At the adapter the "I" (inhibit?) led is on, the rest is off. No reaction when i tilt the switches.
I will search for used addresses with a trap catcher program.
It seems like the roms are the original dec monitor / test / bootstrap at location 172000. For camac there probably may be a special rom to deal with the adapter?
The M8063 does only have 2 fixing holes at the front on both ends. The 2-row-CPU's for 11/23 and 11/02 does also have 2 holes in the middle. One of the threads
on the adapter is at the place of one of the holes in the middle.


Thank You,

Braids
 
I've not had a chance to do anything with mine yet, but now that I know you're working on yours, I'll try to make the time soon. I will read in the EPROMs in mine and see if they're anything other than ODT.
Yes, 'I' is Inhibit, it blocks any activity on the Dataway.
My guess is that the adapter has a flip-flop that keeps the Dataway in "Inhibit" state at power-up, and then it has to be initialized by writing to a CSR in the adapter. But that is just a guess.

-Dave
 
Hi All,

I've tried to get that IS-11 working with the SBC11/21. Found the address 174002 that illuminates the six led on the front. It works only when the switch is in the online position.
I've find also that the addresses at 175700 probably coupled with the four 2914 interrupt controllers (00/20/40/60). I will do a measuring job to find the other addresses (e.G. SLU)
and to find the data registers. I'm also build a led board for the camac ports.

Braids.
 
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