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MicroSD disk controller for PDP-11

I vaguely remember that the bus on E85 was the same as on its pro--totype, including even inch based pitch. I might be wrong on that, but E85 is certainly a rare species on this side of the ocean. Pro 350/380 should be much more common

Cool. What part did you plan for physical connector? I realized later after writing that those board have weirdest jaw-pinch connector type. I would certainly be willing to sacrifice my color bit map board to de-solder the original DEC part connector, but that would not be a sustainable plan for a (limited) mass production. The main section of connector seem to be equivalent to ISA-8, but second section is shorter and closer to main than on ISA-16.

That would be very intriguing with respect to existing pro software that was using graphic capabilities of pro. But maybe from the point of view of available software it would better to be compatible with DVK/BK graphics. I was enjoying the native version of LAND for E85 on my 350 though

forced to upset
I do not plan to produce ready-made controllers yet
because in principle I do not know where to get the connectors

also now I do not have complete information on the operation of the bus in DECPro

also I don't have DECPro
i only have E85

i am planning to make PCB for experiments with AZ for firmware development
 
Now that my AZ board for qbus is working I decided to take a closer look at decpro. Specifically, I was curious if some generic female edge connector could be used. Looking through my spare boxes I found what looks like ISA connector. Placing it against decpro board showed the same pitch.
IMG_0782.JPG
But contact points seemed to be deeper into connector than on the board. So I decided to try it on my machine. Suprisingly, it snapped on quite tight, fitting into the slot without any modifications. I checked continuity on few pins, and it was solid. So looks like it might be feasible to try making ribbon cable from qbus slot to decpro CTI bus using ISA plug and try to make AZ board work there. Well, in my case I think I will make use of my spare DVK bus AZ board, as prospect of building working DVK chassis seem to be quite remote. Here is picture of physical prototype layout sans ribbon cable - note ISA connector in the last slot on the right.
IMG_0785.JPG
Looking at CTI bus (bitsavers, table on page 5-133 or 183) it seems to have the same set of multiplexed A/D plus same arbitration signals plus some extra signals that seems not needed :). So it might just work. Well, except boot loader I am afraid.
 
Technical demonstration of the graphic capabilities of the PDP-11 compatible computer BK on the processor KR1801VM1 using AZBK.
Working with a blitter in 256 color video modes.
Demonstration of the capabilities of the blitter and the use of various AZBK blitter commands.

The blitter starts working during the frame blanking and shows its real speed - it does not even have time to draw the ball, this is visible on the upper screen frames.This is easily corrected by switching the screen (buffering), but for a technical demonstration it is important to show the real situation. The sprite size is 64x64 256 colors.A more detailed analysis of the blitter commands is on my YouTube channel.
This video is a direct video capture from the VGA output of AZBK in a resolution of 1024x768 60fps.



I also recommend the channel https://www.youtube.com/@grfmaniak

He is developing the game Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion for the above-mentioned PDP-11-compatible computer
current state of development:
 
Hi, this is very interesting!

Are you sharing the design and code with the community for this?

The concept of the AZ driver working with a folder of files like TU58FS is very interesting, is the code and specification published so it can be tested / emulated in other projects? If it connected to a Windows or Samba file share it would be immensely useful and popular, I think.

Similarly, emulating a standard disk interface would make your hardware work with all operating systems, in principal - TSX, RSTS, Ultrix, BSD, RSX and so on with no need for you to write drivers - Are you looking to provide an MSCP emulation? - Or at least a simple RL02 or RK07 emulation that is already widely supported?

There are many more people with "real" PDP-11 systems than the PRO-3xx series, so Q-Bus systems are going to be the most popular target to address, I think

Just a thought - many, many people rely on SIMH to test and run their PDP-11 code, test, configuration etc. So anything that is not open source and cannot be integrated into SIMH and other emulators will automatically exclude itself from a large proportion of the PDP11 community, which would otherwise be able to use and contribute to it...

Robin
 
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Hi, this is very interesting!

Are you sharing the design and code with the community for this?

The concept of the AZ driver working with a folder of files like TU58FS is very interesting, is the code and specification published so it can be tested / emulated in other projects? If it connected to a Windows or Samba file share it would be immensely useful and popular, I think.

Similarly, emulating a standard disk interface would make your hardware work with all operating systems, in principal - TSX, RSTS, Ultrix, BSD, RSX and so on with no need for you to write drivers - Are you looking to provide an MSCP emulation? - Or at least a simple RL02 or RK07 emulation that is already widely supported?

There are many more people with "real" PDP-11 systems than the PRO-3xx series, so Q-Bus systems are going to be the most popular target to address, I think

Just a thought - many, many people rely on SIMH to test and run their PDP-11 code, test, configuration etc. So anything that is not open source and cannot be integrated into SIMH and other emulators will automatically exclude itself from a large proportion of the PDP11 community, which would otherwise be able to use and contribute to it...

Robin
Good day!

I will answer in detail

Unfortunately I don't have the resources to develop a version of AZ for PRO-3xx series. There are only controllers that work on QBUS or similar buses.
There are 2 product lines of controllers:

AZ*
Boards for QBUS, MPI (Soviet QBUS, differing in connector size), UKNC - a Soviet computer in which a terminal with a separate processor is built into one case were released for this line. In other words, a PDP-11/34 monoblock with a keyboard.

A single firmware exists and is updated for this entire line.

AZБК
This is AZ + advanced graphic functions in one case. This line was created for BK-0010/BK-0010.01/BK-0011M computers. They are on the KR1801VM1 processor, which is "almost" PDP-11/34.
more details about these computers can be found here
AZБК is currently released in a single version and receives regular firmware updates.

A topic dedicated to all AZ is here
I think you can easily use google translate to read.

The project is proprietary (the sources are closed, since it uses my commercial code from other projects), but the project is open for independent repetition and assembly for yourself.

AZБК https://forum.maxiol.com/index.php?showtopic=5619
AZ for UKNC https://forum.maxiol.com/index.php?showtopic=5492

The version for QBUS is not yet open for independent assembly, but I plan to do so.

Drivers:
currently released drivers AZ for RT11*, TSX and for RSX11
more details are written in this topic

This API also describes in detail how you can work with the controller and how you can easily write a driver for any OS.

Compatibility with MSCP was not provided since we did not initially set such a task. The goal was to make the simplest controller with a higher level of abstraction - where the disk image is a file [or even a network drive on the server].

I will clarify right away, the microcontroller on which AZ is made is not able to work with SAMBA, this is too heavy a protocol for such a small controller. However, I solved the problem by writing a daemon server for Linux and it is already working for all.

I wrote about it here and an open Network API for working with it

The development plans include personal clouds for working with your own software repositories.

About testing and developing software for PDP-11:
I actively use the bundle - macro11 kit (de facto it is an RT11 emulator that understands the command line)
as well as CURL - https://forum.maxiol.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=5490&view=findpost&p=59460
with which you can upload files directly to the RT11 disk image via WEBDAV.

I believe that according to the AZ API documentation, it is possible to write a module emulating AZ for SIMH.
Unfortunately, I myself have no idea how to do this because I have worked very little with SIMH, and I am limited in time.
However, I will be very glad if someone writes such an emulation. This will allow developing drivers for other OS.
 
As far as I understood you need a driver for RSX-11M+ and RT-11. If yes, do you make the source code and assembler instructions available?
 
As far as I understood you need a driver for RSX-11M+ and RT-11. If yes, do you make the source code and assembler instructions available?
There are now drivers for RT11 and RSX, but no drivers for UNIX
Drivers with sources for RT-11SJ/FB/SB (AZ.SYS), for RT-11XM (AZX.SYS) and for TSX-11 (AZ.TSX).
and https://forum.maxiol.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=5388&view=findpost&p=55431

RTX-11
it is be really cool if you make a driver for unix
API https://azwiki.maxiol.com/xwiki/bin/view/API контроллеров AZ/
 
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