[HECnet] pdp-11/83-84

[Steve Davidson]

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE 
[mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Dave McGuire
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2012 03:53
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: Re: [HECnet] pdp-11/83-84

On 07/05/2012 02:22 AM, Boyanich, Alastair wrote:
Quick question. I've just snaffled an M8190-AE with what I think is 
the
21-21853-06 FPU as an upgrade for either the 11/70 or 
11/23Plus at home.

  Nice!

I've seen reference to CIS microcode for these boards about 
the place 
and am extremely keen to have a go at it with macro. I'm 
not "actually"
sure if it has it in the PROMS, but being handy with a EPROM 
programmer hopefully I can find it. Does anyone have any reading 
material on how to figure out if the CIS microcode is installed ?

  Huh?   That's a J-11 based board, and I'm pretty sure the 
CIS option for the J-11, while planned, was never actually 
shipped.   It would have been two additional chip carriers on 
the bottom side of the big white
J11 multi-carrier chip.

  The only ROMs on a KDJ11-Bx board contain the boot/diag 
code, not microcode, and conversely, the only microcode on a 
KDJ11-Bx (or any J11-based board for that matter) is in the 
microcode ROM, which is a part of the "control" chip, which 
is one the two chips on the J11 multi-chip carrier itself.   
No microaddress lines or any other internal state machine 
stuff is brought out to the pins of a J11.

  (sorry!)

  You CAN, however, get a CIS option (if you can find it!) 
for your 11/23!   I too would love to mess with CIS a bit; 
I've never done so.   I have two CIS option board sets for my 
11/44s but have not yet installed them.

                        -Dave

--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA




The node PLUTO:: is a PDP-11/23+ with both CIS and FPU running RSTS/E.
You can run an emulated one using SimH if you do not have the physical
hardware.   I have both running.   You would be hard pressed to know if
the system running (and connected to HECnet) was the real one or not!
COBOL was the reason that CIS was designed for the 11/23+.   Other
languages can also make use of it.   One that comes to mind is DIBOL.

-Steve