[comp.unix.questions] 11/23's

marco@andromeda.UUCP (01/29/87)

What can you do with PDP 11/23 's ?? I've got a couple of the things
hanging around from old projects, and while I hate to throw 'em out,
I really can't think of anything useful to do with the beasties.  They're
too tall for terminal stands and too big for paperweights :-)  I think
they have something like 16 K and two RL02's each.  Any ideas ?


	                                         W.rat

If I put three of them together will I get a PDP 11/69 ?

kludge@gitpyr.UUCP (01/30/87)

In article <221@andromeda.UUCP> marco@andromeda.UUCP (the wharf rat) writes:
>
>What can you do with PDP 11/23 's ?? I've got a couple of the things
>hanging around from old projects, and while I hate to throw 'em out,
>I really can't think of anything useful to do with the beasties.  They're
>too tall for terminal stands and too big for paperweights :-)  I think
>they have something like 16 K and two RL02's each.  Any ideas ?

   I use mine mostly for a terminal emulator.  It can turn my cheap
Televideo into any possible terminal, even an IBM EBCDIC machine.  Very
useful.  And RT-11 is a fun operating system for process control.  Put
some more core in your machine and you got a nice thing for running a
BBS, for use as a printer controller or terminal controller, and so on.
Hey, after seeing UNIX running on an 11/03 with 8-inchers, I am astounded
at the power of these 'primitive' machines.  
   Of course, if you have nothing else to do with them, you could
give them to me.  I could always use another one.  They make nice
coffee tables, if youm put them on their side :-).


-- 
Scott Dorsey   Kaptain_Kludge
ICS Programming Lab (Where old terminals go to die),  Rich 110,
    Georgia Institute of Technology, Box 36681, Atlanta, Georgia 30332
    ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!kludge

yerazuws@rpics.UUCP (01/31/87)

In article <221@andromeda.UUCP>, marco@andromeda.UUCP (the wharf rat) writes:
> 
> What can you do with PDP 11/23 's ?? I've got a couple of the things
> hanging around from old projects, and while I hate to throw 'em out,
> I really can't think of anything useful to do with the beasties.  They're
> too tall for terminal stands and too big for paperweights :-)  
	
Use them for LAT's.  If they have enough terminal boards...and an
ethernet card.
	
Or donate them to some high school.

	-Bill Yerazunis

ciaraldi@rochester.UUCP (02/01/87)

In article <221@andromeda.UUCP> marco@andromeda.UUCP (the wharf rat) writes:
>
>What can you do with PDP 11/23 's ?? I've got a couple of the things
>hanging around from old projects, and while I hate to throw 'em out,
>I really can't think of anything useful to do with the beasties.  They're
>too tall for terminal stands and too big for paperweights :-)  I think
>they have something like 16 K and two RL02's each.  Any ideas ?

As some who followed this newsgroup a few months ago know,
I know someone who ran a large bookstore with  an 11/23.
He had 256K RAM, 2 (later 4)  RL02's, and 3 terminals,
all running TSX+.

The system worked fine for many years, and was recently
(2 weeks ago) upgraded to an 11/73.

Thanks to the help and suggestins of several people on the et,
we were able to upgrade by buying a new (to us)  22-bit chassis,
11/73 processor, and a 4Meg memory board.  Cost was about $5500.
Now it runs three times as fast, and should be able to handle
the 6 terminals we want quite easily.

Only snag so far is that the version of TSX+ we have (2.1) will
only address 256K, so we have to spend another $600 to get
the new release (6.4).

The lesson is that, with enough memory (not all that
expensive), a PDP-11/23 can do quite a bit.

My recommendation:  Either find a used computer
dealer who will buy the parts, or donate it
to  a school or other non-profit organization.
It will be a lot more useful than the
Ataris peole are giving them.

Mike Ciaraldi
seismo!rochester!ciaraldi

dje@datacube.UUCP (02/03/87)

Use them for small Unix systems.  We ran Venix and then Xenix both on
LSI-11/23s a few years back.  You'll need at least 10 MB  of disk and
256K RAM, both pretty cheap on the surplus market.   Slow, but cheap.
We souped them up  with DZ  terminal controllers,  multiple disks for
system / data, mag tape, floppies, etc.  

Maybe we can sell you a used XENIX distribution. Is that legal?

Little known fact:  The 13 MHZ oscillator on a 11/23  can be replaced
with 20-25 MHz with a proportional increase in computrons.  Rumor has
it that DEC purposely slowed it down so as not to infringe on the 
'expensive' PDP 11/34 (Unibus) market.

				Dave Erickson
------------------------
Datacube Inc. 4 Dearborn Rd. Peabody, Ma 01960 	617-535-6644
------------------------
[ihnp4 | mirror]!datacube!dje