[rescue] New to me PDP-11/23+

[Jerry Weiss]

The most direct way to create images on the Zip media might be to get a 
USB Zip drive.  Use SIMH to create a bootable image on OS/PC of your 
preference as John suggests.  Then do a block by block (dd or 
equivalent) transfer of the image to the Zip Media.  Presuming that the 
SCSI controller is DEC MSCP - the DU handler in RT11 is just looking for 
sequential (logical) disk blocks.

I see various prices around for these drives, starting around $40.

You also might want to check out https://classiccmp.org/cctalk.html.  
Lots of advice on these types of systems to be found there.

   Jerry

On 10/10/22 11:48 PM, John Hudak wrote:
> A nice system - Congrats.  This should keep you entertained for hours.
> The bulkheads for console SLU differed according to what the machine 
> was (Qbus, Unibus) and they varied within the backplane family.
> Without having my notes in front of me, the information on this 
> wikipedia page is very helpful.  From what I can remember, this looks 
> to be correct:
> https://gunkies.org/wiki/DEC_asynchronous_serial_line_pinout
> The pinouts on the various bulkheads show what pins on SLU 
> connector/CPU board to connect to.
>
> Back in the day, I designed and built my own SLU interface/bulkheads 
> for our lab machines. If I can find my notes, I'll update the info.
> If you haven't already, you should check out bitsavers for some very 
> useful documentation on the KDJ11-B. Specifically the KDJ11-B CPU 
> Module Users Guide EK-KDJ1B-UG-001
> and
> KDJ11-B CPU system Maintenance EK-247AA-MG-001
>
> Useful information on how to configure the jumpers on the board, and 
> set the baud rate for the SLU.  The joys of ODT are well explained in 
> the second manual.  The User Guide does a good overview but the System 
> Maint manual has more detail
>
> You can configure the CPU board to use the onboard SLU as the console 
> or another asynchronous serial card such as the DLV11-J. Not sure what 
> config you have. The manual for the DLV11-J is also on bitsavers.
>
> Software - I can't help much here as my machines use RL02 and I have 
> actual packs for RT11 and RSX11.  OS's can be loaded using SIMH in at 
> least a couple of ways.  There is a TU-58 emulator via a serial line 
> interface.  As you mentioned, you need to get the SLU working to use 
> it.  IIRC, there are RT and RSX-11M versions (documents and compressed 
> images , RL01 format I think). I think you will need to know the disk 
> type emulation the cpu is expecting to boot from.  This info is 
> contained in the boot proms and configured via the onboard jumpers.
> Not sure how to get the images onto the zip drive.
> IIRC, the 11/23 could only run UNIX v5, V6.  To run BSD 2.x requires 
> separate I&D space and the usual upgrade was to exchange the 11/23 cpu 
> board for a 11/73 board.
> Good luck
> J
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 10, 2022 at 7:01 PM Steve Hatle <steve.hatle at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>     I recently came into an 11/23+ machine. It has a KDJ11-B CPU board, a
>     MSV11-Q memory board, a SCSI board that was driving a SCSI Zip
>     drive for
>     boot media, and two cards that were used to control a laser cutter.
>
>     First issue is that there is no "bulkhead" to bring out the console
>     connection, so I need to figure out how to get a terminal
>     connected to
>     the J1 SLU connector. This is 9 pins, but I can't seem to find
>     definitive info on what the pin assignments are here, and exactly
>     which
>     pin is #1. Once I know these things, I'm sure I can make a cable with
>     TX/RX/GND to get a console going. Anyone have pointers? I found a
>     set of
>     schematics but what I think is showing J1 doesn't make sense to me.
>
>     Then, I need to figure out how to get software set up to run the
>     thing.
>     I didn't receive any of the Zip media previously used, or any
>     documentation for the machine. I'm guessing I can use SIMH and
>     perhaps
>     build a bootable Zip or other SCSI drive, but that will need to wait
>     until I can at least talk to the thing. Lacking any other serial
>     ports,
>     I don't think I'll be able to take advantage fo the TU58 emulator or
>     other solutions.
>
>     Looking forward to getting this guy up and running!
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     rescue list - http://sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue_sunhelp.org
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> rescue list -http://sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue_sunhelp.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://sunhelp.org/pipermail/rescue_sunhelp.org/attachments/20221011/a6f7eeb3/attachment-0001.html>