Re: [pups] What hard drives to look for for PDP-11 use? - TUHS

13 Oct 2000

...
  Hi Bob - 
Hello.....

...
   From:
rdkeys(a)unity.ncsu.edu
 Steven.... I have been thinking of trying to find a PDP-11 of some sort
 (like hunting for needles in a hay stack in this part of the woods, but  
 	Interesting.   I wouldn't have thought an 11/73 or similar would
 	be too hard to find. 
Most of the PDP stuff has long since been surplussed, and I have trolled
the local newsfeeds but nothing seems to turn up.  VAXen are the usual
fare, since PDP's were not that common around here.  The RTP NC area did
not really get big into computering until the VAX era.

...
   1.  What mfm
hard drives from the non-DEC world could be adapted to
     work on a PDP-11?  
 	Tim has already jumped in with a pointer or two.

  2.  Can any scsi drives be used (RZ-23's or
that kind of thing?).  
 	Oh yes!   But you need to have a Qbus SCSI<->MSCP controller.  They
 	are easy to _find_ but quite *expensive*.   Not as expensive as
 	they were when I shelled out US$1500 for a new Emulex UC08 (and that
 	with a good discount - the sales person was sympathetic to my
 	explanation this was for a 'hobby').    Used CMD, Emulex or Dilog
 	controllers will run around $500-900. 
I fell into a MVII yesterday that has a Dilog controller.  Is that the
one you are talking about?  If so, that could be a lucky find.

Here's a crazy, but possible thought.... can I write 211BSD drives from
a MicroVAX II and move the card/drives over to the PDP-11 and have a
reasonable expectation that they will work, or at least boot to a root
or a miniroot or such?  It is a long shot, but if I am just dd'ing
images, it might work, I would think.

One of my goals with the MVII is to use it to write 9 track tapes, IFF
I can lay hands on one of several 9 trackkers in surplus in the next
few weeks.  They were originally used on a local VAXsystem 5400 crate
and are single ended scsi Ciphers.  Could they be used on a PDP-11, too?

...
  	Once you have gotten over the sticker/exchequer shock
the upside
 	is that you can use about many SCSI disk or tape drives that other
 	folks are tossing otu because they're too small.   The older ~300MB
 	and 1GB disks that are not useful on modern systems are great in
 	a PDP-11 environment.    Uh, don't bother putting a 73GB Cheetah
 	on an 11 ;) 
I have plenty of the RZ55/56/57/58ish things that have popped up in
surplus that I am using on my VAXstation toyz.  All the PeeCee types
avoid them like the plague, and I truck them out by the handfull.
MooU was big on those and DS5000/200 crates.  They are now hitting
surplus quite frequently.

...
  	One place that lists CMD and Emulex controllers is:

 		http://www.ficompinc.com

  I will assume the target OS is 2.11BSD or 2.9BSD,
since those seem
 to handle the greatest assortment of hardware types.

 Can any of these non-DEC drives be adapted to MVII use?  
 	At one time I had a uVax-II with a Dilog DQ696 (I think that was 
 	the model number) that had a couple ESDI drives on it - a ~300MB
 	Miniscribe disk and a couple Maxtor RD53 sized drives. 
I had one of those, too, a few months back, but stripped the MVI it came
out of, without thinking of hanging onto that card.  Minus two points for
me.  Someone else was lucky that day.....(:+}}...

...
   Can any of the
early MFM or ESDI Sun drives be used?  
 	Definitely.    Emulex QD33 and QD35 adaptors (in addition to the
 	Dilog DQ696) ring a bell as far as non-SCSI disks go. 
I have half a dozen of these early Sun drives in storage, so that is
good to know, and I did save the 650mb esdi drive from the MVI, thinking
I could use it on a Sun, but never got around to it.

...
  	Steven Schultz
 	sms(a)moe.2bsd.com 
Thanks for the tidbits folks!

Bob

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...
 From Wilko Bulte &lt;wkb(a)freebie.demon.nl&gt; Thu Oct
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Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 10:11:06 +0200
From: Wilko Bulte &lt;wkb(a)freebie.demon.nl&gt;
To: rdkeys(a)unity.ncsu.edu
Cc: "Steven M. Schultz" &lt;sms(a)moe.2bsd.com&gt;, pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au
Subject: Re: [pups] What hard drives to look for for PDP-11 use?
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rdkeys(a)unity.ncsu.edu on Wed, Oct 11, 2000 at 10:29:18AM -0400
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On Wed, Oct 11, 2000 at 10:29:18AM -0400, rdkeys(a)unity.ncsu.edu wrote:
...
   	It is going
to take some creative symlink and mount point work to
 	fit 2.11 into 20MB disks - the system really expects to have ~80MB
 	at least for /usr.   An RD54 at 159MB is more than enough but a RD53
 	paired with a couple RD32/3 would be adequate.

 	Steven Schultz
 	sms(a)to.gd-es.com  
 Steven.... I have been thinking of trying to find a PDP-11 of some sort
 (like hunting for needles in a hay stack in this part of the woods, but
 maybe something will surface).  Anyway... for the sake of discussion,
 and general dumpster diving knowledge....

 1.  What mfm hard drives from the non-DEC world could be adapted to
     work on a PDP-11? 
RD53 is a Micropolis 1375 (eh, no the MFM variant of it.. 75 is SCSI.
Maybe 1325??).

RD54 is a Maxtor or Newbury data drive.

I can look up the details if needed. As far as MFM drives go I would not
consider anything smaller than a 53.

-- 
Wilko Bulte  	 
wilko(a)freebsd.org 			Arnhem, the Netherlands

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