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Unknown Omnibus Boards

antiquekid3

antiquekid3

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 10, 2009
Messages
594
Location
Alabama
I know all of them are Omnibus except perhaps the Plessey main board with daughterboard, as the others came straight out of an 8/E. The daughterboard was fastened to the back of an orange/white DEC Data System rack which an 8/E was in when I started work on it. I assume it too belongs in the 8/E, but the Plessey main board was not in the machine when I got to it. The card was actually mixed in with Qbus cards.

http://imgur.com/a/oJQZ5

I know the Plessey boards at the bottom are 8k core, and are unfortunately dead. It'd be nice to get some info on those and see what's wrong. Hopefully it's just some drivers.

And obviously the second-to-last board is a real-time clock. Any info as to who made it?

There was also an ETOS board (not pictured) in the system, along with another 16k of DEC-brand core. I'll be attempting to revive the system in the next few weeks, as time permits.

Thanks,

Kyle
 
Lou - N2MIY said:
The first card is a disk controller for a DSD210 or 440 RX02 floppy drive. I have one of these.
Click to expand...

So I assume it's useless without the correct drive with formatter board? I see from the rather tiny connector that connects to the formatter board that it is likely not compatible with a standard RX02.
 
antiquekid3 said:
I know all of them are Omnibus except perhaps the Plessey main board with daughterboard, as the others came straight out of an 8/E.
Click to expand...

The disk controller may be a Qbus RK11 emulator. I don't see any bus grant jumpers and it looks like there are only signals on A/B
 
Al Kossow said:
Correct. I have a 440, but no omnibus interface card.
Click to expand...

I'll talk to the owner of the boards and see if we can work out a deal, assuming you're interested. In the mean time, do you want some better pictures to put up on bitsavers? I noticed there were a few DSD shots, but none of the Omnibus stuff.
 
Al Kossow said:
The disk controller may be a Qbus RK11 emulator. I don't see any bus grant jumpers and it looks like there are only signals on A/B
Click to expand...

On that note, is there an easy way to tell Omnibus from Unibus from Qbus by examining the card slot connections? I haven't looked much at the bus structure, but I did notice that ground seems to be common to Qbus and Omnibus at the very least. It'd be neat if there were a reliable way of identifying which bus a board goes to. I can get backside pictures too in the next couple of days when I'm back up in the computer room.
 
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