[Simh] CI750 tech docs and VAX firmware

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2017-03-06 15:03, Timothe Litt wrote:
> There were also HSC40 & hsc60.

Right. Pretty similar to all the others. The differences (as far as I 
can remember) were mostly on the number of SDI/STI ports available, and 
the amount of cache in the machine.

> The differences in the hsc family members were the processor, cache,
> load device, number of channels, and maximum number of ports.  Some
> models were field-upgradable.  Also, later models supported
> (reluctantly) the K.scsi module, which allowed the HSC to serve SCSI
> disks and tapes.  (SCSI was carefully analyzed & found to have
> reliability/data integrity issues; DEC's answer was DSSI.  Rather like
> Beta & VHS - "good enough, but cheaper" won.)

Right. However, to use the K.scsi, you actually needed to upgrade. The 
HSC90 with the capability to use K.scsi was the HSC95. I don't think the 
HSC70 could at all. The 40 and 60 could, I think, but I wonder if they 
then were renamed 45 and 65. I think I still have some documentation 
somewhere, but it would take some digging to find this.

> At some point, support for 18-bit disks (576 byte sectors) was dropped.
> The HSC50 definitely had it; the HSC90 did not.  I'm unsure about the HSC70.

Unless I remember totally wrong, only the HSC50 could do 576 byte 
sectors. It was dropped in a pretty early version of CRONIC, before 
support for any other HSC controller existed.

	Johnny

>
> There's a fair bit of configuration information in
> http://decdoc.itsx.net/dec94mds/hscmnin2.pdf
>
>
> On 06-Mar-17 08:39, Tim Stark wrote:
>> I reviewed HSC50/70 tech docs.  Yeah.  They are PDP-11 machines.  HSC50 uses TU58 and is F11 processor.  HSC70 uses floppy drive and is J11 processor.
>>
>> They uses SDI and STI devices through two Qbus registers with MSCP/TMSCP packets.
>>
>> I am interested to get copies of floppy and tape images for loading software.
>>
>> I have not find HSC90 tech docs yet.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Tim
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Simh [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Anders Magnusson
>> Sent: Monday, March 6, 2017 7:33 AM
>> To: Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se>; simh at trailing-edge.com
>> Subject: Re: [Simh] CI750 tech docs and VAX firmware
>>
>> Den 2017-03-06 kl. 11:27, skrev Johnny Billquist:
>>> On 2017-03-06 09:51, Anders Magnusson wrote:
>>>> Den 2017-03-05 kl. 14:06, skrev Tim Stark:
>>>>> Folks,
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I discovered CI750 tech docs when I searched for some CPU processors
>>>>> for VAX emulation. I downloaded and reviewed it.  CI emulation can
>>>>> be implemented for emulator to link to other VAX/Alpha emulators as
>>>>> VMScluster. Does anyone find CI780 emulation for VAX-11/780 and VAX
>>>>> 86x0 yet?  Also I found HSC 50/70 tech docs but do not have software
>>>>> at this time.
>>>>>
>>>> Hm, there is a small chance that I may have the HSC50 Cronic floppies
>>>> somewhere, is that what you are thinking about?
>>> Heh. If it's for the HSC50, it will be DECtape II.
>>> We might still have a set around at Update, but it's been years since
>>> I saw them, and we don't have any HSC50 anymore. We still have a HSC90
>>> though, with the floppy.
>> Oh, of course!  Hm, it must be for a 70 (or 90) then.  Sorry :-)
>>
>> -- R
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-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol