My H11 lives!

[glenn.f...@gmail.com]

So not related to the “EB” in SEBHC, but definitely to the “HC”: I just looked in Quicken and see that it was exactly four years ago that I bought an H11/H27 combination on eBay. Price, including shipping, was $785 (which I felt was a pretty good deal). The H27 drive system was beyond my ability to repair it, plus I was only really interested in a solid-state boot solution, so I donated the ’27 to Dave McGuire and the LSSM. At the time, Dave worked diligently with me to get my H11 (it is an 11, not an 11A) to a point where I could boot it from his TU-58 emulator, but then I’m sure I got focused on something else (“Squirrel!”) and the machine has sat waiting for attention.

 

The project recently popped to the top of my stack, so I ordered an Emulex UC07 QBUS SCSI controller (Keyways on eBay) and a ZuluSCSI drive emulator. Fast forwarding past lots of experimentation, learning, and hand-holding … the machine is now up and running! (attached)

 

It has been a long time (40 yrs??) since I did anything with a PDP-11 or RT-11 so there’s still plenty of hill to climb on the learning curve. Huge thank you to Dave for his patience in helping me get this far!

 

Not sure how far I’ll go down this road but, as all of you know, there is great satisfaction in getting these machines up and operational. For now it’s just part of the fun…

 

• Glenn

 

 

 

[smb...@gmail.com]

Nice! H11 is still on my list of things I wish I had.

Now if only you had 3-4 of them laying around and you wanted to sell one on the cheap. :)

Scott

[Joseph Travis]

Congrats!  Very cool!  Are you booting HT-11 or RT-11?  What software do you have to play with?

BR,

Joe

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[glenn.f...@gmail.com]

RT-11.  The guts of the system are all DEC (plus the Emulex). Still limited to 16-bit backplane, but I understand that can be expanded with some mod’s to the backplane (??).  I currently only have a boot image shared with me by Dave so haven’t fully explored yet. Next goal is to figure out how best to move software into the system…

 

• Glenn

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[norberto.collado koyado.com]

Congrats and it  brings great memories when working at DEC on the LSI-11 and PDP family at Maynard, MA.

 

Here is a picture back then.

 

Norby

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[glenn.f...@gmail.com]

Great picture!

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[Joseph Travis]

Are you booting from the ODT prompt or using a custom ROM?

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[Mike Cassidy]

Great to see you bring this H11 back to life.  I've been reading a book about DEC (DEC is Dead, Long Live DEC - The lasting Legacy of Digital Equipment Corp).  The PDP11 is noted as part of the enduring legacy of DEC and is credited as being one of the most influential processor architectures - "every major CPU architecture after the PDP11 shows its influence." 

You have an important piece of history.  

[Dave McGuire]

On 11/18/25 19:29, glenn.f...@gmail.com wrote:
> RT-11.  The guts of the system are all DEC (plus the Emulex). Still
> limited to 16-bit backplane, but I understand that can be expanded with
> some mod’s to the backplane (??).  I currently only have a boot image
> shared with me by Dave so haven’t fully explored yet. Next goal is to
> figure out how best to move software into the system…

The 11/03 only has a 16-bit address bus, so to go beyond that you'll
also need a different processor. The obvious next step would be an
11/23 (KDF11) processor. Those are 22-bit but will work in an 18-bit
backplane.

About that...there's a lot of misinformation out there,
beware...every 11/23 processor you're likely to see has 22-bit
addressing. People on mailing lists everywhere assert that the
dual-width 11/23 processor (KDF11-A) has 18-bit addressing and is called
a PDP-11/23, and the quad-width 11/23 processor has 22-bit addressing
and is called a PDP-11/23-PLUS. Both assertions are wrong. The only
18-bit 11/23 processors are KDF11-A etch revs A and B, which are
extremely rare.

Anyway, to use 18-bit addressing you'll need to bus the other two
lines on the backplane. I've never done this on a Heath backplane, but
it should be doable.

The easiest path to getting stuff in our out of the system, for now,
would be Kermit through the console port. You can get the Kermit binary
into the machine by attaching the disk image (from the ZS board) to simh
and copying it in via that route.

-Dave

--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA

[norberto.collado koyado.com]

Next goal is to figure out how best to move software into the system…

Glenn,

Just connect the VDIP1 configured via serial port. Hopefully, you have a spare serial port to connect the VDIP1 and then teach RT-11 to read/write from the VDIP1.  I expect that RT-11 has some C or asm compilers that you can use for such task. You can do this on your sleep.

Norby

[glenn.f...@gmail.com]

It seems to me the PDP-11 was to DEC what the 360 was to IBM. My little piece of the PDP pie pales in comparison to the wonderful preservation work being done at LSSM, System Source and other vintage museums. It’s great to see these foundational systems preserved and given the honorable showcases they deserve!

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[glenn.f...@gmail.com]

I initially had things starting up with ODT but now I’ve got it set to autoboot from the Emulex board, which has the requisite boot code in ROM.

 

The Emulex ROM also has a built-in utility called Firmware-Resident Diagnostics (FRD). Initially I tried to get this to run, just to check things out, but was unable to get very far. Using ODT commands I was able to determine that the firmware was setting the stack to 177776, which is in the middle of the reserved (top 4K) I/O addressing space on this 16-bit machine (on an 18- or 22-bit machine it wouldn’t have been an issue). I patched the code to set the stack at 157776 and FRD fired right up!

 

• Glenn

 

 

From: se...@googlegroups.com <se...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Joseph Travis

Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2025 9:27 PM
To: se...@googlegroups.com

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[glenn.f...@gmail.com]

Thanks Dave. Yes I believe one of my next tasks needs to be setting up a simh environment. Hey Google: "put simh on my to do list" 😊

- glenn

-----Original Message-----
From: se...@googlegroups.com <se...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Dave McGuire
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2025 10:14 PM
To: se...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [sebhc] Re: My H11 lives!

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[glenn.f...@gmail.com]

Funny you should mention that Norberto!  Independently I’ve already been working on enhancements to the VDIP software to support the UART interface. While surely slower than the hardware-based FIFO solutions we’ve been using, the serial interface will let anyone use the VDIP  utilities to move files to/from their legacy computers with just a standard serial port.  When I look back to the original (2007) Circuit Cellar article that motivated our VDIP work I see that the author (John Hyde) used the VDRIVE2 device (https://mou.sr/3XxgwZV) which uses either serial or SPI modes for communication and comes in a nice panel-mountable form factor. There’s also a newer VDRIVE3 which is Vinculum-II-based. Just like the VDIP1 modules we’ve been using, these devices run the VDAP firmware for full USB host protocol support.

 

In the original article John even provided a reference implementation (written in Turbo C) that supports a VDRIVE2 device interfaced to an early (i.e. from before the days when USB was built in) DOS-based IBM PC. That code was very useful to me when I first wrote the VDIP software.

 

So yes, stay tuned for a software-based VDIP version that will let users more easily add USB capability to their legacy machines (including H8, H89, H11, Z100, Z150, etc.!)  I wish I could just “do this in my sleep” but not quite that easy! 😊

 

• Glenn

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[Christian Fandt]

Everyone,

Ahh, great! This is great info and acknowledgement there is H11 activity! Especially modern hardware and software apps which have been developed that can help.

In my retirement now, the 'to do' list is to finally get back into fiddling with my Heath computer gear. Seeing this I know there can be active support for getting back into this! :-)

I've got two H11s stashed around here, two H10 paper tape readers, (<let's see, do I have an H27 stuffed somewhere around here?? Been so darn long....>), plus some docs, etc.. Additionally, I have an H8 with most of the Trionyx upgrades, an H37, one or two H89/90s, nearly all docs, CP/M s/w, etc. etc. And even more, I've got a bunch of PDP-11 DEC gear (11/34A, a couple 11/23s, 11/73, docs, s/w on paper tape, etc., etc. plus a MicroVAX II and a partial VAX11/730 which can be a candidate for restoration in some manner. Then there's my DG Nova 1200 with a significant compliment of paper tape software. I'm 72 and all this seems itself enough to keep me busy (and rather importantly, brain-engaged) till end-of-life.

Jeez, I've got a huge bunch of stuff in this house. Kinda gridlock. Critically, and of extreme importance, I need to downsize a helluva LOT of stuff before I can focus on the Heath/DEC,DG gear plus share focus upon my long time antique radio hobby. And make my wife happy, too!

Thanks very much Glenn and everybody for undertaking and contributing to this thread!

Best regards,
   -Chris F.

================================================================
Christian R Fandt    
Jamestown, NY 14701
  >  Electrical/Electronic Collector & Historian: Radios, Early Computers, Test Equipment
  >  Radio restorations:  Pre-1970s Automotive & Home radios
  >  Retired engineer/consultant on electrical/electronic contact physics

Virus-free.www.avast.com

[glenn.f...@gmail.com]

So… welcome Chris!  And congratulations on retirement!

 

In our world there are many poor lowly people (e.g. me) who have no H10.  Many of us have never seen one. We dream about them. We hear stories about people who have one. People who laid out a small fortune to buy one. People who are restoring one that was caked in rust and have been painstakingly trying to bring it back to life.

 

But now we are among greatness. For surely nobody in the world could possibly have TWO H10s ?? could it be so? 😊 and a room (or two, or three) full of Heathkits, Antique Radios, PDPs and VAXen? Woohoo!

 

So congratulations also on all the toys you have to play with. I fear it is enough to keep you busy for 3 or 4 retirements. This list is a great group, and we’d love to help you and follow along in your upcoming retro adventures.  So don’t take too long to get rid of all that “stuff” so you can get to the fun “stuff”. Carpe diem!

 

Looking forward to hearing from you more!

 

• Glenn

 

 

From: se...@googlegroups.com <se...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Christian Fandt

Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2025 3:40 PM
To: se...@googlegroups.com

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[Dave McGuire]

Nice to see you here, Chris!

-Dave

>> * Glenn

>>
>>
> ================================================================
> Christian R Fandt
> Jamestown, NY 14701
>   >  Electrical/Electronic Collector & Historian: Radios, Early
> Computers, Test Equipment
>   >  Radio restorations:  Pre-1970s Automotive & Home radios
>   >  Retired engineer/consultant on electrical/electronic contact physics
>

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[Mike Ladwig]

The first computer I wrote code for was a PDP-8, toggling in on the front panel. The second, a PDP-11 with an old TTY. I always wanted one with the big front panel like them, but they're pretty pricy these days!

[B9]

On November 19, 2025 3:41:11 AM PST, glenn.f...@gmail.com wrote:
> I believe one of my next tasks needs to be setting up a simh environment. Hey Google: "put simh on my to do list" 😊
>
>- glenn

Google AI replies,

"I cannot directly add an item to your personal to do list. You can copy and paste one of the following "SMH" emojis which are commonly used to convey the sentiment of "shaking my head" (disappointment, frustration, or disbelief):


    🤦 Person Facepalming (and its gender variants 🤦‍♂️ and 🤦‍♀️) is the most widely recognized and used emoji for expressing frustration or embarrassment at a situation or person's ineptitude, often in a similar context to SMH.
    🙄 Face with Rolling Eyes is often used to express passive-aggressive rejection or exasperation.
    🙂‍↔️ Head Shaking Horizontally is a newer emoji (added in 2023) specifically designed to depict the non-verbal gesture of shaking one's head side-to-side to indicate disagreement or disapproval. "