[TUHS] pdp11 question

[Jochen Kunz]

On Sat, 13 Nov 2010 14:38:29 -1000 (HST)
Tim Newsham <newsham at lava.net> wrote:

> How much does an old pdp-11 type system cost these days
Depending on the source you may get it for free or you may pay several
thousand $$$$.

> How much power do they take up to power on?
IIRC my PDP-11/73 with some periperal controllers and two 5.25" ESDI
disks takes less then 200 Watts.

> Whats maintenance like on those things?
Nothing special. Some peripherals may need maintenance like cleaning
tape drive heads.

There are several models of the PDP-11. From small systems like the /03
to big multi rack instalations like the /70. If you want a small system
to play around at home look for a later QBus model, i.e. PDP-11/[5789]3.
Those machines come in or can be reduced to a single 3U 19" rack mount
box called BA23. The BA23 can be mounted in a flor stand, no need for
a 19" rack.

There is a slightly larger box, the BA123. The BA23 and BA123 where
common boxes for MicroVAXen too. So if you get just the OBus card set
for a PDP-11 you can convert a MicroVAC to a PDP-11. Many peripherals
are comon to PDP-11 and MicroVAXen like RQDX3, TK50 / TK70, ...
All you need to convert a QBus MicroVAX to a PDP-11 are a QBus PDP-11
CPU and memory. (I went this route.)
-- 


\end{Jochen}

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