O05@PSUVM.BITNET (03/04/88)
It looks like we will be recieving a donation of three PDP-11/23's in the near
future, and no one here seems to know anything about them. So here I go
again. So here come the questions, ready or not:
1) What operating system does it run?
2) Can it be adapted (hardware or software) to be a PC-NETWORK
file server?
3) How good is software availability and diversity?
4) How popular is this machine?
5) Is it easy to operate, manage, and maintain?
6) Does anybody have any experience with the PDP-11 as a A/D recording
device for electrical circuit testing, etc ... and what was your
conclusions about using it for this?
7) What does it take to run this thing (power requirements,
peripherals, etc.), and what kinds of terminals does it require
(ascii dumb, vt-52, vt-220, vt-100, IBM-PC emulations)?
8) What is the base cost on a PDP-11/23 (I don't have specs on memory
or disk storage).
9) What do YOU use the PDP-11 for ?
Very general, but that's where we're going to have to start. Thanks in advance
for anything you may have to offer. I'm a PC man myself, but somebody's got to
do it!
Glenn S Piper
Consultant
Penn State Univ
Berks Campus
Bitnet: O05 @ PSUVMcetron@utah-cs.UUCP (Edward J Cetron) (03/08/88)
In article <35029O05@PSUVM> O05@PSUVM.BITNET writes: >It looks like we will be recieving a donation of three PDP-11/23's in the near >future, and no one here seems to know anything about them. So here I go >again. So here come the questions, ready or not: > > 1) What operating system does it run? lots: RSX-11M/M+, RT-11, TSX+, IAS, RSTS/E, even UNIX!! depends on what license comes with them. > > 2) Can it be adapted (hardware or software) to be a PC-NETWORK > file server? it depends on which PC-network protocol that you are using. it also depends on which of the above OS's you are running, but I'd say just offhand, relatively unlikely. > > 3) How good is software availability and diversity? Holy Huasfru, Batman - tons and tons and tons - DECUS has lots of 1600bpi magtapes full of PD software, I keep 50Mbytes of it online (and that is JUST for RSX and JUST the best stuff) > > 4) How popular is this machine? The PDP-11 business within Digital is roughly the size of COORS beer - nuff said? I think there are over 1 million RT-11 licenses alone. > > 5) Is it easy to operate, manage, and maintain? Ours break LOTS less than our 700-series vaxen, about the same as our micro-vaxen - once a year, maybe. > > 6) Does anybody have any experience with the PDP-11 as a A/D recording > device for electrical circuit testing, etc ... and what was your > conclusions about using it for this? We use ours for Data Acquisition of ALL kinds, nice stuff, clean, simple, and easy to understand. > > 7) What does it take to run this thing (power requirements, > peripherals, etc.), and what kinds of terminals does it require > (ascii dumb, vt-52, vt-220, vt-100, IBM-PC emulations)? just plug it into the wall with a good power surge protectors We have found the $40.00 model from EFI to be best. It will support most any rs232 async terminal, more or less dependent on the OS that you run. > > 8) What is the base cost on a PDP-11/23 (I don't have specs on memory > or disk storage). 'bout a couple thousand, roughly. > > 9) What do YOU use the PDP-11 for ? Damn near everything but workstations and number crunching -ed cetron center for engineering design univ of utah cetron@cs.utah.edu cetron@utahcca.bitnet