[HECnet] Drives for a VAX-11/730

[Bob Armstrong]

lee.gleason at comcast.net wrote:
I remember poring over the drawings for the RB730 at the time, 
wondering if a plain non-DEC SMD drive would have worked ....

  Yeah - I was wondering the same thing.   The RM80 Technical Manual doesn't seem to be online, but the RM MASSBUS Adapter Technical Manual

	http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/www.computer.museum.uq.edu.au/pdf/EK-RMADA-TD-001%20RM%20MASSBUS%20Adapter%20Technical%20Description%20Manual.pdf

has a lot of information about the RM80 too.   It looks like the RM80 used the same MASSBUS Drive Control Logic box as the RM0x drives.   As I remember, the RM02/3/5 were CDC 9760-something drives, which were SMD.   Of course it's possible that the DEC OEM versions had customized interfaces.

  The RB730 Technical Manual is also online

	http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/vax/730/EK-RB730-TD-001_VAX-11_730_IDC_Technical_Description_Sep82.pdf

and it has a description of the R80 interface, but this version doesn't look that much like SMD to me.

Bb