On 2021-11-16 18:54, Dave McGuire wrote:
> On 11/16/21 11:54 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>> .ddb fang
>
> Speaking of ddb, does it do a DTR query across the network to access
> the data? Or something else?
Yes it does.
Sources are on MIM. See
MIM::HECNET:DDB.C
and
MIM::HECNET:DDBDTR.CMD
(Yes, DDB itself is written in C.)
>>> Sure. It currently only runs RSX-11M-PLUS v4.6, but eventually
>>> we'll set up RSTS/E, RT-11, and 2.11BSD system disks for it. I
>>> suppose the only other one that will appear on HECnet is RSTS/E. The
>>> goal for that machine, with its quad pack of RA73s, is to cover most
>>> of the OSs that people may want to run.
>>
>> Similar hardware as Magica then. Magica have four RA73, TU81, RL02,
>> DELUA and 3.5M of memory. Oh, and a paper tape punch and reader, and
>> an RX02. I think that's it... Might be a DH11 in there as well, but
>> nothing hooked up to those lines normally.
>
> It sounds like MAGICA is much bigger. We don't yet have a Unibus
> expansion chassis connected to FANG, so we have limited Unibus slots.
> There's an RL02 and an RX02 in its rack, but no place for their
> controllers to live.
What? You only have the four slots in the CPU backplane? That's a rather
unusal and limited 11/70 setup.
> We have a Unibus expansion chassis in an adjacent rack that is ready
> to be connected to Fang, but it just hasn't been done yet. (not enough
> hands to do the work)
I think it was pretty much standard that you had at least one BA11 box
in any 11/70.
> We also have an Emulex SC72 disk controller (actually a few of them),
> which is a board set that plugs into RH70 slots and implements an SMD
> interface. We have a Fuji Eagle prepped and ready to go onto that, but
> we still need to cable it up, format it, etc. I expect that to be much,
> much faster than the UDA50+RA73. Hopefully we'll get to that sometime
> this winter.
That could potentially be much faster, yes.
I haven't done any tests, but I suspect even some SCSI on the 11/70 and
some modern disk would be a big improvement. I think seek times on the
RA73 isn't that great.
But the Unibus on the 11/70 is also known as possibly the slowest Unibus
around.
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol