First Pass PDP-8/E Replica Front Panel
Robert Krten
PDP-8/E replica front panel that I'm in the process of making.
The guy from the shop says that it'll be on the order of CAD$100
a piece to make.
Right now, I'm playing with the light holes and hoping to find
the exact correct font. Zooming in on the picture you'll notice
differences between the real DEC font and the closest thing I
could find in Powerpoint. Suggestions welcome; I'm planning on
making the powerpoint "slides" for this available on the website
when finalized.
http://www.pdp12.org/pdp8/pdp8e/restore7.html
Cheers,
-RK
--
Robert Krten, PDP-8 collector looking for PDP-8 and PDP-8/S
minicomputers; check out their good home at www.pdp12.org
pdptim
Get me one of a KA-10 and I would be very happy. :) I have a very
nice scan of one finally from a friend.
I had thoughts for awhile of running a KA-10 in an FPGA, and hooking
up a home made front panel. But
I believe the costs of the panel would just be too much.
BTW, I hope the 8e is OK. To damage the front panel that much I'd
expect the unit itself might have been
damaged too? I hope it's Ok. Your replacement looks very good.
Tim Radde
Robert Krten
> On May 21, 5:26 pm, info2...@parse.com (Robert Krten) wrote:
> > At the bottom of the URL (below) is a good shot of the 1st pass of the
> > PDP-8/E replica front panel that I'm in the process of making.
> > The guy from the shop says that it'll be on the order of CAD$100
> > a piece to make.
> >
> > Right now, I'm playing with the light holes and hoping to find
> > the exact correct font. Zooming in on the picture you'll notice
> > differences between the real DEC font and the closest thing I
> > could find in Powerpoint. Suggestions welcome; I'm planning on
> > making the powerpoint "slides" for this available on the website
> > when finalized.
> >
> > http://www.pdp12.org/pdp8/pdp8e/restore7.html
> >
> > Cheers,
> > -RK
> >
> > --
> > Robert Krten, PDP-8 collector looking for PDP-8 and PDP-8/S
> > minicomputers; check out their good home atwww.pdp12.org
> Get me one of a KA-10 and I would be very happy. :) I have a very
> nice scan of one finally from a friend.
Should be around $150 or so, can't imagine it being that much more.
If you have some trading materials, I'd be happy to do the artwork
for you in Powerpoint.
> I had thoughts for awhile of running a KA-10 in an FPGA, and hooking
> up a home made front panel. But
> I believe the costs of the panel would just be too much.
:-)
> BTW, I hope the 8e is OK. To damage the front panel that much I'd
> expect the unit itself might have been
> damaged too? I hope it's Ok. Your replacement looks very good.
Dunno. It didn't power up, but then I don't believe I've ever had
that particular one powered up anyway! More stuff to fix... :-/
lfe...@alumni.princeton.edu
Looks pretty good so far. In what form are you providing the artwork
to the print shop? Can you supply them the retouched scan of the front
panel of my 8/e? Then the fonts will be absolutely correct (the most
noticeable difference between the real thing and the prototype).
$100CDN seem reasonable given the low volume.
Finding the right font is not easy. I could not find an exact match
when I wanted to make an 8/e style (but much, much simpler) panel for
my SBC6120.
The KA10 panel that Tim mentioned was the scan I made of my father's
KA10 panel. I had to splice two 11"x17" scans together because the
panel is so long.
Lou
lfe...@alumni.princeton.edu
http://nedbatchelder.com/blog/200712/ancient_history_the_digital_logo.html
?
I know nothing about user defined postscript fonts. Is there more than
"digital" here?
Lou
Robert Krten
> Robert,
> Looks pretty good so far. In what form are you providing the artwork
> to the print shop? Can you supply them the retouched scan of the front
> panel of my 8/e? Then the fonts will be absolutely correct (the most
> noticeable difference between the real thing and the prototype).
> $100CDN seem reasonable given the low volume.
I'm doing a "from scratch" Powerpoint. I chose not to do a retouch of
the original artwork because the colours would need to be quantized
as well as the rasterization of the original. By doing it from scratch,
(apart from the damn fonts!) I was able to come up with something that's
like the original 100% :-)
> Finding the right font is not easy. I could not find an exact match
> when I wanted to make an 8/e style (but much, much simpler) panel for
> my SBC6120.
> The KA10 panel that Tim mentioned was the scan I made of my father's
> KA10 panel. I had to splice two 11"x17" scans together because the
> panel is so long.
The print shop seems to be able to print feet at a time :-)
Robert Krten
Looks like it's just |d|i|g|i|t|a|l|, I had problems with the "maynard"
part too...
Michael Heimbach
> Finding the right font is not easy. I could not find an exact match
> when I wanted to make an 8/e style (but much, much simpler) panel for
> my SBC6120.
Nor did I, see http://www.daheimrum.de/oldworkstations/sbc6120.html
My SBC6120 front panel is based on a 8/e front panel artwork done in
Corel Draw (PDP8E.CDR). This one I happend to find at
http://www.pdp-11.nl/homebrew/pdp8/pdp8startpage.html
Michael
Lawrence D'Oliveiro
da899a...@e21g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>, lfe...@alumni.princeton.edu
wrote:
> I just had another thought about fonts. Have you seen this:
> http://nedbatchelder.com/blog/200712/ancient_history_the_digital_logo.html
> ?
Custom run-time minilanguages FTW! :)
> I know nothing about user defined postscript fonts. Is there more than
> "digital" here?
Just trademark characters taken from the "Symbol" font.
Lawrence D'Oliveiro
> My SBC6120 front panel is based on a 8/e front panel artwork done in
> Corel Draw (PDP8E.CDR).
While in message <c0fb8$4a1610dd$4c0aad39$23...@TEKSAVVY.COM>, Robert Krten
wrote:
> I'm doing a "from scratch" Powerpoint.
Have you folks considered that, 30 years down the track, you (or someone
else) might be desperately trying to track down usable copies of PowerPoint
and Corel Draw so that they can read these files, to access the artwork, so
they do future recreations of these old machines?
Just seems to me that the use of open, interchangeable document formats
would appeal to folks with any sense of the vagaries of history.
Robert Krten
> In message <gv5m2o$3sm$1...@online.de>, Michael Heimbach wrote:
> > My SBC6120 front panel is based on a 8/e front panel artwork done in
> > Corel Draw (PDP8E.CDR).
> While in message <c0fb8$4a1610dd$4c0aad39$23...@TEKSAVVY.COM>, Robert Krten
> wrote:
> > I'm doing a "from scratch" Powerpoint.
> Have you folks considered that, 30 years down the track, you (or someone
> else) might be desperately trying to track down usable copies of PowerPoint
> and Corel Draw so that they can read these files, to access the artwork, so
> they do future recreations of these old machines?
:-)
Nah. The artwork I did took only a few hours, and it's not "precise" in
that the fonts aren't up to snuff. Therefore, if someone was *seriously*
doing this, they too would start "from scratch" and simply have their
personal AI generate a new front panel on their energy-matter converter,
or an entire machine for that matter :-)
> Just seems to me that the use of open, interchangeable document formats
> would appeal to folks with any sense of the vagaries of history.
OpenOffice can read Powerpoint...
lfe...@alumni.princeton.edu
That panel looks great. I like how the lights came out. I did not
put the effort into getting the lights right like you. See mine:
http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/album.php?albumid=2&pictureid=273
. I scanned the panel from the front of my 8/e, and then had a field
day in photoshop. I changed the "e" to a "c". It was easy, and "c"
seems appropriate for the next 8 after an 8/a
I also like your low profile case.
Lou
cjl
Isn't the KA10 panel the same length as the LINC-8 panel? To my
knowledge, the two machines [and perhaps some others, anyone?] are
totally cabinet compatible. My primary working 4K [modified to allow
P?S/8 to run on it; the 8K machine to run OS/8 on it is another
machine with the same mods; there is an 8K min P?S/8 for unmodified
LINC-8 that could run on the machine prior to the mods, but OS/8
requires 8K and mods] machine came with an expander cabinet as well.
These all seem fairly similar to the original PDP-8 cabinets in all
relevant dimensions, but there are no powder-blue sides or any such.
Clearly all of the ones mentioned are prior to -8/i or -12 or newer
style cabinets; I guess the easiest form factor to categorize is that
only the front spaces take 19 inch racks while the plenum door mounts
the "narrow" kind of panel. [A slight divergence: The LINC-8 needs
an "extra" standard neg power supply; since is mounts in the front,
not the door, it actually has the 19" wide "ears" added on or actually
is made to 19" width. Similar stuff to be mounted on any of the
plenum doors has to be the 17" variant; one such peripheral was
mounted in the expander cabinet, which was a DEC-made custom interface
one-off from CSS to talk to a CDC 160G, an even older 12-bit machine.]
Perhaps someone who knows 18-bit machines can chime in on this cabinet
series and front panel considerations.
cjl
Mike Ross
>Isn't the KA10 panel the same length as the LINC-8 panel? To my
>knowledge, the two machines [and perhaps some others, anyone?] are
>totally cabinet compatible.
Yes. The LINC-8 uses the same style cabinet as the pdp-12, the pdp-9, and the
KA10 console. The odd one out is the pdp-12, of course, as the console itself is
only 19" wide - all the others use the full width of the wide rack.
The pdp-15 used 19" racks exclusively.
I'm probably teaching granny... :-)
One that's missing; I know the general theme, with square pushbuttons, but I've
never seen a *good*, recent high-resolution shot of a KI10 console...
I need a replacement front panel for one of my pdp-12s, I'd like KI and KA
panels, just for devilment, and I'd *love* to replace the front panels, and
indicator light panels (for RP15 disk, FP15 etc.) with 'real' silk-screened
panels, instead of the sticky blue plastic abominations they used on the XVM
(both of mine are XVM configuration: http://www.corestore.org/15b-6.jpg )...
Mike
--
http://www.corestore.org
'As I walk along these shores
I am the history within'
cjl
> On Sun, 24 May 2009 02:05:33 -0700 (PDT), cjl <clasyst...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >Isn't the KA10 panel the same length as the LINC-8 panel? To my
> >knowledge, the two machines [and perhaps some others, anyone?] are
> >totally cabinet compatible.
>
> Yes. The LINC-8 uses the same style cabinet as the pdp-12, the pdp-9, and the
> KA10 console. The odd one out is the pdp-12, of course, as the console itself is
> only 19" wide - all the others use the full width of the wide rack.
The PDP-12 uses a wide variant of the 19" cabinet. To my knowledge,
the PDP-9, and I've been told the KA10, and definitely the LINC-8 use
the wide variant of the older cabinets where the plenum door is not 19
inch, thus when mounting power supplies on the door, they have to be
the 17" variety. [Notice that some 17" varieties can be mounted in
the front or on newer cabinets using some extender "ear" metal.]
However, none of these cabinets use the power-blue-painted metal of
say the straight-8 cabinets; they are all black, and I believe there
is a lighter gauge metal associated with the sides or in the LINC-8
case the back door skin. Can someone flesh this out with regard to -8/
i when mounted in the older-style cabinet?
cjl
>
> The pdp-15 used 19" racks exclusively.
>
> I'm probably teaching granny... :-)
>
> One that's missing; I know the general theme, with square pushbuttons, but I've
> never seen a *good*, recent high-resolution shot of a KI10 console...
>
> I need a replacement front panel for one of my pdp-12s, I'd like KI and KA
> panels, just for devilment, and I'd *love* to replace the front panels, and
> indicator light panels (for RP15 disk, FP15 etc.) with 'real' silk-screened
> panels, instead of the sticky blue plastic abominations they used on the XVM
> (both of mine are XVM configuration:http://www.corestore.org/15b-6.jpg)...
>
> Mike