[Simh] NH14 and TR01
Timothe Litt
litt at ieee.org
Sat Feb 27 17:00:42 EST 2016
> Timothe,
>
>
> This list that you published an excerpt from, it it available online
> somewhere?
>
> I am curious to understand what the DEC options NH14 and TR01 were?
>
> Are they listed there as well?
>
I don't have info on the NH04...but we know that N* is "pulse height
analysis equipment". But if we look elsewhere, we
find:
So the NH14 is a dual 12-bit Analog-Digital converter, built by DEC's
computer special systems group in Merrimack, NH.
Probably designed for the PDP-9 and used on the PDP-15; the DW15 would
be an I/O Bus interface module.
API probably isn't what you think. It's likely "Automatic Program
Interrupt" - that is, you can get an interrupt on
conversion done rather than polling.
The TR01 isn't listed, but it would be a magtape controller or
transport. Probably the latter. The TR02 went EOL in 1973, so
the TR01 would be earlier than that. From the age, likely 7-track,
perhaps 200 BPI. But those are guesses.
Note that a DEC part number is a 4-2 or 2-5-2 format. The suffix can
make a big difference, even if it's blank.
I didn't work with either device mentioned.
I don't remember where I found my copies of the OML. (Though I
sometimes wish I'd saved the unedited copies that I once had.)
On 27-Feb-16 16:24, Mattis Lind wrote:
> Timothe,
>
>
> This list that you published an excerpt from, it it available online
> somewhere?
>
> I am curious to understand what the DEC options NH14 and TR01 were?
>
> Are they listed there as well?
>
> /Mattis
>
> 2016-02-27 21:27 GMT+01:00 Timothe Litt <litt at ieee.org
> <mailto:litt at ieee.org>>:
>
> On 27-Feb-16 14:19, Bob Supnik wrote:
>> Thanks, Tim. Burroughs made a lot of fixed head disks at the
>> time. I can't identify the model, but the IA2 (see page 7-4 of
>> the B6700 Hardware Handbook, on bitsavers) seems like a
>> possibility. It has 7552 sectors per surface vs 8000, but
>> Burroughs sectors were longer than DEC sectors (180 x 8b = 1440b
>> vs 32 x 36b = 1152b), so perhaps DEC format had more sectors per
>> track.
>>
>> While the 18b- and 36b-groups used the same disk buyout, they
>> went to different vendors for drums. The Type 24 and RM09 came
>> from Vermont Research; the RM10B from Bryant.
>>
>> /Bob
>>
>> On 2/27/2016 12:00 PM, simh-request at trailing-edge.com
>> <mailto:simh-request at trailing-edge.com> wrote:
>>> Message: 3
>>> Date: Sat, 27 Feb 2016 09:31:59 -0500
>>> From: Timothe Litt<litt at ieee.org> <mailto:litt at ieee.org>
>>> To:simh at trailing-edge.com <mailto:To:simh at trailing-edge.com>
>>> Subject: Re: [Simh] RB09 == RD10
>>> Message-ID:<56D1B35F.3040206 at ieee.org>
>>> <mailto:56D1B35F.3040206 at ieee.org>
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>>
>>> On 27-Feb-16 08:23, Bob Supnik wrote:
>>>> >Max Burnet gave me a pointer from some old price lists,
>>>> showing that
>>>> >the RD10 had very similar specs to the RB09. The RC10 manual
>>>> confirms
>>>> >it - same BCD addressing of tracks and sectors, same number of
>>>> tracks,
>>>> >same sectors per track, same words per sector (32 x 36b for
>>>> the RD10,
>>>> >64 x 18b for the RB09). So the "RD10s" on some PDP-9s in the
>>>> services
>>>> >listing are actually RB09s, at least at the drive level.
>>>> >
>>>> >I still don't know what an RC09 is. Alternate name for an RB09?
>>>> >Half-sized variant? Another mystery is who made the actual drive
>>>> >mechanism. It precedes DEC's first internally designed fixed head
>>>> >disk, the RF09/RS09, by two years.
>>> According to the option module list, the RC09 is a "Control for
>>> Burroughs Disk" The design engineer was J. Milton.
>>>
>>> That makes sense, as the RC10 was the PDP10 controller for disk
>>> and drums.
>>>
>>> FWIW, Family members: the RD10 was made by Burroughs. The RM10B
>>> drum
>>> was by Bryant. SW documentation was removed from the PDP-10 doc
>>> set in
>>> the 80s, but as I wrote previously, I believe the tech manuals
>>> are on
>>> the FS microfiche. The section with the red stripes on top.
>>>
>>> The drums were notoriously unreliable. Especially the ones in
>>> the Mill,
>>> though things improved when someone realized that they tended to
>>> crash
>>> when semitrailers bumped into the loading dock above them....
>>
> I think this is confusing due to the hierarchy/bundling. It's not
> complicated,
> I think :-)
>
> Summary:
>
> RB09 = RC09 + RD10. (-A for 50 HZ)
> Probably salable part number.
>
> RC09 = Controller
> Probably not salable, except perhaps as FS spare.
>
> RD10 = Drive
> Probably not salable, ditto
>
> FS probably used the controller on the contract rather than the
> bundle. They did that
> a lot. Remember that these early drives each had a dedicated
> controller. Later (e.g. Massbus
> disks), they'd be listed separately. Or the first drive +
> controller had a part number,
> add-on drives would be listed separately. But in this timeframe,
> which they picked
> was arbitrary.
>
> FWIW, in this case, the FS list indicates that the RC09 shipped
> much later than the rest
> of the system. The system shipped in july 65; the RC09 in jan 69.
>
> One other bit of trivia from the OML - the RB/RC09 went status 6
> in July of 71. (6 = Obsolete, but
> can still be built.) "TPL" = "traditional products line"; I think
> they were in Salem NH at that time.
>
> Supporting data:
>
> The (1974) OML edition that I have lists the RB/RC09 & RD10. The
> 'C' would indicate controller
> (thanks to Dick Best's semantic part number scheme.) I would
> guess that RB decodes to
> "Rotating magnetic memory", Burroughs" :-) The coding got more
> creative as time went
> on as the "good" letters were used by early products. (E.g. RK
> for "Rotating Kartridge disk")
>
> There is also an entry for the RB09 and RB09-A - listed as "RC09 &
> RD10" and "RC09 & RD10-A"
> The -A are 50 Hz versions.
>
> There are RC controllers for the 7, 9, 10 & 11. (The RC11
> references the RS64 "65K 16 bit DEC DISK".)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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