PDP-11: Disk over Serial proposal

Tim Shoppa shoppa at alph02.triumf.ca
Mon Dec 8 04:05:23 AEST 1997


> > Many (most) Q-bus processors have TU58 bootstraps in firmware.
> > Certainly all 11/73B, 11/83, 11/93, 11/84, and 11/94 have the
> > bootstraps.
> 
> Are you sure, Tim?  My 11/73 doesn't

Is this a KDJ11A (dual-height, no boot ROMs on the CPU board) or
a KDJ11B (quad-height, boot ROMs on the CPU board)?  If you 
have a KDJ11A, then your boot ROM resides in a MXV11, a BDV11, or
elsewhere (possibly a third-party controller) in your system.  (You'll
notice that I said "11/73B" in my above message, because the
KDJ11A has no boot ROMs at all...)

My KDJ11B has the following built in bootstraps (listed through
"Setup" in the boot menu or with a "Boot" followed by a "?"):

 DU     0-255   CPU ROM  RDnn, RXnn, RC25, RAnn
 DL     0-3     CPU ROM  RL01, RL02
 DX     0-1     CPU ROM  RX01
 DY     0-1     CPU ROM  RX02
 DD     0-1     CPU ROM  TU58
 DK     0-7     CPU ROM  RK05
 MU     0-255   CPU ROM  TK50, TU81
 MS     0-3     CPU ROM  TK25, TS05
 XH     0-1     CPU ROM  DECNET ETHERNET
 NU     0-15    CPU ROM  DECNET DUV11
 NE     0-15    CPU ROM  DECNET DLV11-E
 NF     0-15    CPU ROM  DECNET DLV11-F
 
If your KDJ11B doesn't allow you to see the above list, then
the boot menu has been disabled and it has been set to only
auto-boot.  I can tell you how to reconfigure to get at the
boot menu.

> and according to my microPDP-11
> Maintenance Manual, only the 11/23+ and microPDP-11/23 have TU58 -- the only
> tape devices listed for 11/73 and 11/83 are TK25 and TK50 (my manual is too
> old to include 11/53 and 11/93).

Part of the confusion may lie in the fact that TU58's appear to the system
to be disk (block-addressable) instead of tape devices :-).  The downside,
of course, is that it's a disk with a 30-second seek time!

I certainly don't want anyone to think that I'm extolling the TU58 as a
perfect wonderful device.  There are lots of reasons to *not* use them.  My
point was mainly that the RSP (radial serial protocol) used to speak to
them is well-defined and already exists; there's no use in re-inventing
the wheel.

Tim. (shoppa at triumf.ca)

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