[Simh] CI750 tech docs and VAX firmware

[Timothe Litt]

The CI interface is the KLIPA.  Its a KL10-only device that sits in an
RH20 channel slot.  It uses a port architecture similar to the CI780,
with queues and 36-bit pointers in physical memory.  It's supported in 7.04.

With respect to an earlier question about CI emulation:  The best
approach may be to emulate it as multicast ethernet.  Setup a couple of
groups for each star coupler.  Each coupler supports up to 32 nodes. 
For VMS, half o them hosts, half storage.  CI is a 50Mb/s (might be 70,
but I remember 50 from the initial doc) CSMA/CD bus.  The cabling is
redundant (A & B cables), so assign one MC group to each per star. 
(Yes, there are DECnet drivers for on multiple OSs.  I think it was
considered a multipoint medium with addresses related to (CI) node
numbers rather than an ethernet (broadcast) - but it's been a while.)


Have fun.

On 09-Mar-17 11:58, Tim Stark wrote:
> Folks,
>
> Hmm.   I checked TOPS-10 7.04 monitor source codes and found two files about SCS/SCA packet info but did not find any files about CI interface. 
> I think TOPS-10 can communicate through DECnet.
>
> I think that transport layers are SCS/SCA layers. 
>
> There is commercial emulator (Charon-VAX) emulates CI hardware and HSJ50 controllers.  They are much faster than actual CI hardware.
>
> So that we can implement them on SIMH and other emulators possibly.
>
> Tim
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Simh [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Rich Alderson
> Sent: Tuesday, March 7, 2017 2:37 PM
> To: simh at trailing-edge.com
> Subject: Re: [Simh] CI750 tech docs and VAX firmware
>
>> 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.
> Correct.  Only the HSC50 ever supported 576-byte sectors, and only on RA81 and smaller drives.  (We really wanted RA82s on our 4-system CI cluster at Stanford LOTS, but were informed that it would never ever happen.)
>
>                                                                 Rich _______________________________________________
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