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PDP-11/34 Video

Qbus

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 23, 2011
Messages
958
Location
Salisbury Maryland
My latest PDP-11 video showing the 11/34 that I have been working on. Just edited it and posted this morning. Have gotten the RL-01 drive up and running now also, discovered that boot responses have to be in upper case. Next step will be trying to find additional RL drive cables and trying to build RT-11 system disk for the RL transport. I have a couple RL-01 packs but only one with RT-11 that’s bootable.
The Video is on YouTube at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU8DOKVxDJ8

or search under my account name RAFANTINI8
 
The keypad is way more useful than I thought it would be. Because it auto increments’ entering a program is not that difficult. Cannot imagine how tedious it would have been to use the switches on an older system and do things in binary.
Big problems now will be trying to build new system disk on the old 11/23 system, format, copy and all that sort of stuff is complicated. Have built several RX disks that have RT-11 and Basic and the like but I am far from mastering the RL drive. Had just one RL disk that had RT-11 on it and just got a second disk pack the other day so up until that time have been afraid of writing on the good pack so now that I have a second pack will try building something on that . The goal is to have a RL pack with RT-11, utilities and Basic all on one directory. Sounds simple but not always, lots of back slashes and dots and things. Also would like to get maybe a second RX-02 or a M8256 to use the RX-02 that’s over on the second system. Just not ready to strip stuff from the other system yet.
 
Nice video - thanks!

The keypad is way more useful than I thought it would be. Because it auto increments’ entering a program is not that difficult. Cannot imagine how tedious it would have been to use the switches on an older system and do things in binary.
Been there, done that. Actually, the switches was grouped three and three, so it was quite easy to think in octal as you entered your code. But it was tedious, yes.
I think that "deposit and auto increment address" was something they figured out early in those days. :)
This was an old pre-ND (Norsk Data) computer, and the "front panel" was called OMP - Operator's Maintenance Panel.

Good luck with your further efforts on this project!
 
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Cannot imagine how tedious it would have been to use the switches on an older system and do things in binary.

Much to my surprise, it's much easier than you'd imagine. Since they're grouped by three, it turns out to be very very easy to bang in octal numbers. Of course there's a learning curve, but really you're only remembering 8 switch patterns. It's amazing how quickly that becomes motion memory, even when you don't do it that often. Then your fingers just "know" that a 5 is UP DOWN UP, a 3 is DOWN UP UP, etc. Easy peasy!

-Twylo
 
I can also attest that the binary panels aren't that hard to operate. You quickly learn the combinations for each group of three. And they definitely had deposit _and_ increment.

Great video! Makes me want to restore my two 11/34!
 
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