[rescue] Rescued VAX 4500 question

[Scott Newell]

>  Most of the pdp8 systems that are still in use are of the pdp8/a
>variety, most of which use semiconductor memory.  The core is
>generally pretty reliable in the 8/e systems if you keep the
>temperature under control, though.

You know, I thought it was core, but it may not have been.  It was
non-volatile--did they do nv semi memory?  (I'll see if I can find the
picture of the last one I worked one...seems like I took one of the front
panel.)


>  Having done pdp11 field maintenance for hire for a few years in a
>previous life, I can tell you that this isn't a representative case.
>The only big problems I ran into were heat...if you keep the air
>intakes clean and don't let metal chips get into the backplanes, those
>machines are about as close to indestructible as I've ever seen.  You
>specifically stated heat problems though, which does correlate with
>the most common issuss that I dealt with.

Shoot, they'd pull all the doors and covers and point box fans on high at
the card cage, and still not be able to run afternoons!  This is in the
middle of a hot machine shop in the Arkansas summer.


>  I've been doing a lot of embedded systems work lately, using
>8051-derived processors.  The C compiler I'm using (a relatively
>recent, free, and very good microcontroller cross compiler) is shipped

Link?


newell