[pups] AVIV vs. DigiData tape controller

[Carl Lowenstein]

> Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001 09:28:41 -0500 (EST)
> From: "Gregory R. Travis" <greg at ciswired.com>
> To: pups at minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au
> Subject: [pups] AVIV vs. DigiData tape controller
> 
> I've got an AVIV TFC-825 UNIBUS controller on my 11/44.  I'm virtually certain
> it emulates a TS11.
> 
> It appears to support Pertec formatted tape drives.  It has two
> cable interfaces, labeled Pertec P1 and Pertec P2.
> 
> I currently have a DigiData Pertec formatted 9-track drive plugged into a
> DigiData controller on my QBUS 11/83.  Works fine.   Now I'd like to use
> the drive to bootstrap the 11/44.
> 
> The DigiData drive's cables are both 49-pin ribbons.  Sure enough,
> the DigiData controller's cable headers are also 49-pin (what a wonderful
> world, eh?)
> 
> However, the AVIV controller's cable headers are 59-pin!

Are you sure those numbers aren't 50 and 60, respectively?  Most
of the connecting cables for tape drives used twisted-pair ribbon
cable.

> Anyone have any insight into what's going on here?  Isn't a Pertec
> interface a Pertec interface?  Or is the DigiData using some kind of
> proprietary (to DigiData) interface?

For what it's worth, there were two "standard" Pertec interfaces.
I think of them as Early Pertec and Late Pertec.  Late Pertec is
the two 50-pin cables.

Early Pertec connected to the drive with three cables, Read data,
Write data, and Control.  Usually there was a custom cable set
that broke out to three cables from the connectors on the controller.

    carl

        carl lowenstein         marine physical lab     u.c. san diego
                                                  clowenstein at ucsd.edu

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