mason@noscvax.UUCP (Nicholas B. Mason) (11/27/85)
*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE *** Hi. I need some help. We have a PDP 11-34 system and need to find someone who has used the enable on the memory management expansion card to expand the system memory to 1 MB so we can run 2.9 BSD. Any info is useful. thanks in advance. Nick Mason NOSC San Diego , CA ihnp4 \ akgua \ decvax ------------------!sdcsvax!noscvax!mason dcdwest / ucbvax /
glenn@ll-xn.ARPA (Glenn Adams) (11/29/85)
In article <125@noscvax.UUCP>, mason@noscvax.UUCP (Nicholas B. Mason) writes: > > Hi. I need some help. We have a PDP 11-34 system > and need to find someone who has used the enable on the > memory management expansion card to expand the system > memory to 1 MB so we can run 2.9 BSD. First of all, you don't need 1Mb of memory to run 2.9BSD on an 11/34. You can run an overlaid kernel (8 overlays) with 124Kw of standard memory. However, I would recommend that you buy a Nishho N1100 CPU board to replace your 11/34 CPU. It uses the J11 Chip set and runs with 2Mb of memory. It also contains 2 serial line units and the line frequency clock. All of this is located on a single hex module. Its cost is $8500.00 for the 2Mb version and $8000.00 for a 1Mb version (you can plug in your own chips to upgrade to 2Mb). I have been using one with 2.9BSD for about 3 months and like it quite a bit. Since the J11 uses a split I/D address space, it solves a lot of problems with the 11/34. In my system, it replaced 8 cards: Datapath, Control, FP11A, 124Kw MS11, Bootstrap/Terminator, Front Panel Interface (KY11B), and two DL11Ws. Besides opening up previously used backplane slots, it also uses 8.0 Amps at +5V whereas the DEC hardware used 28.2 Amps. In terms of performance improvements, I've benchmarked it with the Dhrystone test as follows: SYSTEM CPU O/S Compiler WO/REG W/REG PDP 11/34A - UNIX/2.9BSD cc 446 500 NISHO N1100 DEC-J11 UNIX/2.9BSD cc 537 617 The kernel in the above tests was configured identically as an overlaid kernel and did not take advantage of the extra memory of the Nishho. Therefore, this data reflects a speedup stricly from the CPU. Overall system performance will be greatly improved by using a non-overlaid kernel and the full 2Mb of memory. The board plugs into your standard DEC backplane with very minimal backplane rewiring. (At minimum, you must remove one wire on the backplane; at most, four wires must be removed and 12 wires added). In fact, you don't even need a CPU backplane, it will plug into a standard UNIBUS backplane! For more information, see "Late-Life Kicker" by Geoffrey L. Cohler, Digital Review, September 1985, pp. 71-74. The following are addresses for the manufacturer and distributors: West Coast: Nissho Iwai American Corp. 700 S. Flower St. Los Angeles, CA 90017 (213) 688-0600 East Coast: MCS Computer Products P.O. Box 635 Shelburne, VT 05482-0635 (802) 985-2911 -- Glenn Adams MIT Lincoln Laboratory ARPA: glenn@LL-XN.ARPA CSNET: glenn%ll-xn.arpa@csnet-relay UUCP: ...!seismo!ll-xn!glenn ...!ihnp4!houem!ll-xn!glenn