Photos of newly-assembled PiDP-10s!

[Andy]

Dear PiDP-ers, If you've got your PiDP-10 built, please post a photo here (I am a n embarrassingly slow solderer so personally I won't be among the first 😊)

Yours, in anticipation....

Andy

[Heinz-Bernd Eggenstein]

And while you are at it, maybe (and I know this will cause heated debates ... :-) ) people can comment on the type of solder they use for the assembly in their pictures: old school "leaded" or "lead-free", so we can have a little poll about this.

[johntk...@gmail.com]

I think everyone prefers lead-based solder of course, but it's poisonous and bad for the environment so you know.. there are good reasons not to use it.

These days I am lead-free (unless it's a specific task like reworking an old board with leaded solder on it) and it all works out fine. Maybe not as shiny as it could bet, but it's all good. 

Can't beat that smell of burning flux and skin!

[Bradford Miller]

So… no fear of tin whiskers?

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[Heinz-Bernd Eggenstein]

We'll see. I don't  want to hijack this thread wrt lead-vs-lead-free, so I'm looking forward to see people post images of their new assembled kits, also with close-ups perhaps.
And then maybe we can see then whether there is any visible difference wrt the sort of solder used.

[Andy]

PiDPs proudly tin-free since 2016!

[The Oracle]

Fully leaded, is the only way for me!

[Mike Ross]

Here goes nothing.... 



Couple of wrinkles but I'll post about them in the appropriate thread. 

Cheers

Mike 

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http://www.corestore.org
'No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother.
Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame.
For one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see.'

[johntk...@gmail.com]

Looks beautiful! 

[Paul J. Schneider]

Nice job Mike! Can’t wait to get mine. Of course, I need Oscar to activate the ordering page. (Patiently waiting)

Oh, and j-Stf-001 + SnPb-eutectic solder for me.  (Not sure if this is the right thread for this comment)

Paul

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[Lars Brinkhoff]

Rapid progress over here: https://twitter.com/sdf_pubnix/status/1768740694213181645

[Malcolm Ray]

I love the comment "ship it" in that thread! True PDP-10 fans will spot the reference!

On Fri, 2024-03-15 at 14:36 -0700, Lars Brinkhoff wrote:

Rapid progress over here: https://twitter.com/sdf_pubnix/status/1768740694213181645

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[Andy]

nice work!!!

[Ian Schofield]

Taking a line from the famous movie .... 'we deal in lead friend'! Unfortunately the tin/lead solders have a lower melting point and better flow characteristics.

 I use good old fashioned Ersin Multicore. Touch times can be as low as 1-2 seconds with this stuff. No problem with the sockets.

[Henk Gooijen]

Here are my first steps in the assembly of the PiDP-10.

Tip: make sure to have sufficient workspace, these boards are BIG.

Before heating up the soldering iron, I started with bending the leads for 75 LEDs, and 26 resistors.

To mount the diodes neatly, I only put 4 diodes at a time on the board, keep them in place with painter's tape, and then solder one lead.

Remove the painter's tape, check that he cathode (black ring) is on the right side, aling the diode (if needed), the solder the other lead.

After all 75 diodes are soldered (74 on the switches PCB, one on the LEDs PCB), this is the result. Count that you indeed have 74 diodes on the switches PCB  :)

I cannot hurt to do an inspection. Polarity of all diodes correct?  All leads soldered (not forgotten one ...)?

Remark: the building instructions say that the diode on the LEDs board goes "above" the HC138 ... that should be "above" the HC238, but it is obvious.

Next, I soldered the 8 resistors near the IC sockets, then the 18 resistors near the Pi header, and finally the IC sockets.

I used other sockets than supplied in the kit, but that's just me ...

I also soldered the socket for the MAX232. I figured it wouldn't hurt.

That's all for now. This soldering job took playing one album of Heart and two albums of the Eagles (Peaceful easy feeling).

The following instructions say to mount the Pi GPIO connector, then the 3 IC sockets, and then the LEDs.

As you can see, I have a different order ... the IC sockets are already soldered  :)

[Heinz-Bernd Eggenstein]

Nice!! Thanks for the close-ups!
I like the way you align the resistors even tho polarity doesn't matter and noone will see them after assembly ...but still....

And yes, I'll need a bigger bench...maybe I'll do that at some "Maker Space" around here.

hb

[Alen Shapiro]

Serial #15. This was end-of-day Friday 15th progress. I'm away for the weekend so Monday is "Switches Day". (I'm in soldering withdrawal (/cry)).

Resistors and Sockets installed:

Lamps placed (before soldering). I used 2 strips of Kapton Tape to hold the LED Cover in place:

Angle magnifying glass with stand was *really* useful while soldering:

Adding a GIF puts me over the group's per-message MB limit... I'll try to add the GIF as a reply to this post.

[Alen Shapiro]

Ribbon Cable installed, RPi-5 attached. Tested with no errors (so far :-) ).

Back on Monday. Switches to follow. Onward!

[DR]

Well, those lights certainly are blinken!

Is this the standard 'test' or 'demo' routine that Oscar has included?

Very nice.

[Alen Shapiro]

Yup, the test was from the build instructions in

    https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-10-building-instructions

“pdpcontrol stop

sudo /opt/pidp10/bin/pidp10-test”

Very busy lights :-)

[Henk Gooijen]

Here is my LED mounting job.

I used painter's tape to hold the LED cover in place.

According to Oscar's description, the LED cover lets the LEDs protrude through the holes for just a millimeter. However, the LED cover goes completely over the LEDs. The LEDs go flush against the PCB, the LED cover goes till the small "edge" around the LED housing.
I soldered the LEDs before the Pi connector.

I did not need to "adjust" an LED, so "just" soldering some 250 leads.

After cutting the leads, fine fragments of resin, pins or solder may be laying on the PCB. To clean up, I used an old toothbrush.

Pi header will be next ...

[Michael Thompson]

When you do the final assembly you will need to lift the LED cover so that it just fits over the LEDs. Otherwise the light from adjacent LEDs that are lit will light up an indicator that should be off.

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Michael Thompson

[Henk Gooijen]

To keep the LEDs PCB steady on the table, I put 4 LEDs at the top (of the 7 that you are not supposed to solder).

Of course, I did not solder the LEDs, just put them in there to avoid the LEDs PCB "wobbling" while soldering the 124 LEDs.

[Ian Schofield]

Dear All,

 Working and why not use them all. The PiDP10 is running LLOGO under ITS. The PiDP11 is running the VT11 display slave under RT11 linked to port 10019 of the PiDP10.

 Then, I have run the most trivial LLOGO programme to draw the picture in the VT11 window.  Ummm, zero programming points.

 Needless to say, everything else works as well. And apologies to all the photography people for the dreadful lighting! But I have included a fruit bowl !!!!!

 Zero photography points!

Link: https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipNp5AQaEaqwHgP7pnmymEwNpGCJrT34-FPkIX6O

I would note that this was a pretty painless build which needed a lot of solder. I was short one diode and 2 leds but the spares box came to the rescue.

I will admit to one error which luckily didn't cause any damage as in I put the 74HC138/238 in the wrong sockets ... zero hardware points as well!

Maybe I will score some points for something one day.....

I really think we should all thank the design team a lot for coming up with a such engaging project. I haven't had some much build fun since the PiDP11 project

despite building various bits and pieces that attach to MRI scanners including RF coils ... a black art.

Thanks again team PiDP10, Ian.

[Lars Brinkhoff]

Ian Schofield wrote:

The PiDP10 is running LLOGO under ITS. The PiDP11 is running the VT11 display slave under RT11 linked to port 10019 of the PiDP10.

 Then, I have run the most trivial LLOGO programme to draw the picture in the VT11 window.

You get points for having a PiDP-10 and 11 talk toghether.

Did you port the display slave over to RT11?  Points for that!

[Ian Schofield]

Hi Lars,

 Thanks for this. I am feeling better already!

 NB Very minor patch of JDC;VT07   43 from one of your dump tapes. Shall I put a copy somewhere?

BW.

[Glenn Babecki]

Okay, I will plead mercy on the court for this reply, but as soon as my "retro-brain" (or perhaps more reptilian brain) saw these blinking lights I had a flashback to all those Irwin Allen 60's TV shows that had these massive computers with a lot of blinking lights.

Only recently did I bother to learn the equipment were parts of a junked Sage ANSF-Q7 simplex console used in US Air Force radar systems and still in some prop warehouse today (probably next to the Ark of the Covenant in the crate).

https://www.iann.net/timetunnel/behindscenes/props/computers/computers_001.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=6Dz2t5EV_NA

I'll wander off and hopefully have not disrupted the serious fun going on, but will leave with this thought.  If you want blinkenlights, I propose the next computer console challenge should be an IBM 360 Model 195; now that's a console!

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&sca_esv=7fd1d106578ed93d&q=ibm+360+model+195+computer+console&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiUqu2sgPyEAxXHD1kFHchCAS4Q0pQJegQIEBAB&biw=2176&bih=1045&dpr=1.76#imgrc=RfEawDoD-t6e7M

Again, many apologies for the diversion.

[Alen Shapiro]

I wonder if anyone told the TV show that they stacked the IBM 360s upside down?

That was sobering, TY. Trouble is now I feel like I’m playing in the kindergarten. Will we ever graduate to a wall of lights, like the adults used to work with?

:-)

[Antti Louko]

Here is the link to my photos of my PiDP-10: https://alo.fi/PiDP-10/

[Drew Rogge]

I think I recognize that System Operator from when I used to run APT on a CDC-7600 at LLL.

On 3/17/24 2:21 PM, Antti Louko wrote:
> Here is the link to my photos of my PiDP-10: https://alo.fi/PiDP-10/
>
> On Sunday 17 March 2024 at 23:00:31 UTC+2 sof...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> I wonder if anyone told the TV show that they stacked the IBM 360s upside down?
>
> That was sobering, TY. Trouble is now I feel like I’m playing in the kindergarten. Will we ever graduate to a wall of lights, like the adults used to work with?
>
> :-)
>
> On Sunday, March 17, 2024 at 3:57:14 PM UTC-4 glenn....@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Okay, I will plead mercy on the court for this reply, but as soon as my "retro-brain" (or perhaps more reptilian brain) saw these blinking lights I had a flashback to all those Irwin Allen 60's TV shows that had these massive computers with a lot of blinking lights.

> Tunnel-24L.jpg
> Only recently did I bother to learn the equipment were parts of a junked Sage ANSF-Q7 simplex console used in US Air Force radar systems and still in some prop warehouse today (probably next to the Ark of the Covenant in the crate).
> https://www.iann.net/timetunnel/behindscenes/props/computers/computers_001.htm

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=6Dz2t5EV_NA <https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=6Dz2t5EV_NA>

>
> I'll wander off and hopefully have not disrupted the serious fun going on, but will leave with this thought. If you want blinkenlights, I propose the next computer console challenge should be an IBM 360 Model 195; now that's a console!

> ibm-195.jpg
> https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&sca_esv=7fd1d106578ed93d&q=ibm+360+model+195+computer+console&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiUqu2sgPyEAxXHD1kFHchCAS4Q0pQJegQIEBAB&biw=2176&bih=1045&dpr=1.76#imgrc=RfEawDoD-t6e7M <https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&sca_esv=7fd1d106578ed93d&q=ibm+360+model+195+computer+console&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiUqu2sgPyEAxXHD1kFHchCAS4Q0pQJegQIEBAB&biw=2176&bih=1045&dpr=1.76#imgrc=RfEawDoD-t6e7M>

>
> Again, many apologies for the diversion.
> On Saturday, March 16, 2024 at 5:35:14 PM UTC-4 sof...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
> Ribbon Cable installed, RPi-5 attached. Tested with no errors (so far :-) ).

> ezgif-5-c66820a517.gif
>
> Back on Monday. Switches to follow. Onward!
>
>
>

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Drew Rogge
dr...@dasrogges.com

Phone: 8934OOO629OO4829631OOOOOOO

[johntk...@gmail.com]

There hasn't been a PDP computer running at Microsoft for a few years now..

[Ian Schofield]

Very nice photo. But, Microsoft manual of style Vol 4.... Well, this must be bloatware!!!

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[Henk Gooijen]

Hi Michael,
indeed, I was already wondering about "light leakage", but I have not yet come to the point of mounting all, including the PDP-10 front, in the housing.

The holes in the LED cover are too large to fit just +/- 1 mm on top of the LEDs. So, you need to have some "supports" between the LEDs PCB and the LED cover.

But that creates an opening between the LED lense and the LED cover thus will also create some light leakage. Maybe that is not as bad as no LED cover at all.

[Clem Cole]

FWIW: with a different project - I took standard 6mm diameter black plastic drinking straws and cut small sleeves.   Since a traditional LED is 5mm, they fit over them nicely, and you can not see the sleeve with the front panel (which, in that case, is frosted).  It's not been an issue with the PiDP-8 or -11, so never bothered.  

ᐧ

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[oscarv]

On Monday, March 18, 2024 at 8:13:03 PM UTC cl...@ccc.com wrote:

FWIW: with a different project - I took standard 6mm diameter black plastic drinking straws and cut small sleeves.   Since a traditional LED is 5mm, they fit over them nicely, and you can not see the sleeve with the front panel (which, in that case, is frosted).

That may be the solution!

To the problem: the LED cover panel is made from PCB material. And drill holes in a PCB depend a tiny bit on how new the router bit is that the manufacturer is using. They wear thinner after a while. That never matters. Except in this case: the hole must always be wide enough to catch on the LEDs, never so wide as to fall over it. There is just a tiny bit at the top of the LED that goes from straight to the round top. It took me a dozen tries to figure out what the issue was, and what then the always-safe diameter in the gerber files to the manufacturer should be...

I must say, if the LED cover panel sits a bit deeper, like in the current batch (meaning, the manufacturer used a relatively new bit), I on't think it is a major problem. But a straw clipping makes minor problem a non-problem for perfectionists!

A more important 'manual mod' is actually that the PROGRAM DATA < MEMORY DATA > indicator lights are triangles, but the LED behind them is round and slightly too big. Shielding those two LEDs so they only illuminate the little triangle and don't shine around it, that is something to do.

Kind regards,

Oscar.

[DR]

for those of us who have  yet to begin our assembly, what is the optimal
length to cut the straw to in order to accomplish the shielding,  yet
not impede the correct cover insertion?

Thx. Dale

[oscarv]

Dale,

I would argue, first do the build without the straw; you might not find it matters. But ideally, the round heads of the LEDs just pop out of the cover panel.

Kind regards,

Oscar.

[DR]

I will do so.  There sounded like enthusiasm for this, but these little
tweaks are worth doing the first time if it does make a difference.

Dale

PS  Thank you for all the attention you're giving this project at this
stage and all us anxious builders!  Now, back to enjoying yourself!

[a...@papnet.eu]

Built my PiDP-10 yesterday. Now isn't this a nice lineup?

On Thursday, March 14, 2024 at 3:58:48 PM UTC+1 Andy wrote:

Dear PiDP-ers, If you've got your PiDP-10 built, please post a photo here (I am a n embarrassingly slow solderer so personally I won't be among the first 😊)

Yours, in anticipation....

Andy

[Lars Brinkhoff]

Angelo wrote:
> Built my PiDP-10 yesterday. Now isn't this a nice lineup?

You win!

[Anthony Eros]

Way cool!  What’s the system on the right?

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[Bradford Miller]

Wait, you have a 1?! I don’t know if I should be envious or just in awe!

I only saw a physical 1 once, when an MIT electronics club I had been a member of was in the process of trading it back to DEC to put in their museum. Never saw it working!

On Mar 19, 2024, at 8:40 AM, a...@papnet.eu <a...@papnet.eu> wrote:

Built my PiDP-10 yesterday. Now isn't this a nice lineup?

<PXL_20240319_122219350.jpg>

On Thursday, March 14, 2024 at 3:58:48 PM UTC+1 Andy wrote:

Dear PiDP-ers, If you've got your PiDP-10 built, please post a photo here (I am a n embarrassingly slow solderer so personally I won't be among the first 😊)

Yours, in anticipation....

Andy

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<PXL_20240319_122219350.jpg>

[Eric Bruno]

This is at the computer history museum in Mountain View, CA it is fully operational can be seen working 1st and 3rd Saturdays of the month.

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 19, 2024, at 06:27, Bradford Miller <bradford...@gmail.com> wrote:

Wait, you have a 1?! I don’t know if I should be envious or just in awe!

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[a...@papnet.eu]

This PiDP-1 is one of a handful of prototypes Oscar and I have built. Hopefully we'll have a production model in the foreseeable future :)

[Glenn Babecki]

I was going to ask if Oscar has been holding out on PiDP-1; mystery solved.

As a freshman entering MIT in September of 1971, I got immediate exposure to a lot of labs care of one of our fraternity brothers.  I got to play Spacewar on the MIT PDP-1 while it was still there and operational. Too bad I didn't have a cell phone back then to take a picture, but the image is etched in my brain.

The TX-0 was in the same lab, but I didn't get to program it.

I still have the mimeograph manuals for the PDP-1 and TX-0 along with the DEC PDP-10 Reference Handbook and miscellaneous other DEC handbooks.

I did my undergrad thesis on the AI Lab PDP-10.  I still have the DECtapes with my source and data files.  I'd like to figure a way to read and transcribe those tapes.  Why? Just 'cause.

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[Anthony Eros]

I thought that might be the case, but I wasn’t sure. 

Looking forward to seeing them available!!

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[DR]

I see the handbook Introduction To Programming in some of the photos.

Does anyone have a link to an online .pdf that can be downloaded?  After
studying that one summer as a high school student (I wrote to DEC and
conned them into sending me one) I wrote my first assembler program to
read and echo back info off a teletype.  I cannot find my original copy,
but sure would like to wander down memory lane if I could find a digital
copy (no pun). Dale

[Anthony Eros]

https://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp8/handbooks/DEC-08-XINPA-A-D_intrPgm_75.pdf

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[Bob Eager]

There is a lot of stuff at Bitsavers, much of it in the innocuously
titles 'Software Notebooks'. There is a text file with a master list.

 http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/dec/pdp10/TOPS10_softwareNotebooks/

I was also sent a couple of large books by DEC. I still have them on my
shelf. They will be 50 years old come November.

[DR]

I was given a link yesterday, thank  you, and tried 'backing  up' the
tree and there are directories with tons of stuff that I have to look
over and choose a few to download.

Not all places have that kind of access so this IS a treasure trove for
those of us like me that want to page through stuff.


Thanks.  Those little known (well to some of  us) places that are real
libraries of info.


Thank  you, everyone, for sharing the tips. Dale

[Lars Brinkhoff]

My contribution to this thread.  Including a 3D printed 1:10 scale model of the KA10 processor.  Future 340 display at the bottom.

[Lars Brinkhoff]

Alen Shapiro wrote:

Trouble is now I feel like I’m playing in the kindergarten. Will we ever graduate to a wall of lights, like the adults used to work with?

I'd like to point out the PiDP-10 only has a small percentage of the in total over 1000 lights on a real PDP-10.  That's why there's an expansion port.

Undisirregardless of the brand, I guess this is how many of us feel.

[Glenn Babecki]

That's a great photo!  It does kind of sum up the feeling.  Who needs touch screens or voice input when you can flip switches, turn knobs, and see the results in oh so many lights.

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[Andy]

Angelo - you have a beautiful PDP family!

[Alen Shapiro]

My kit arrived with all but one self-tapping screw present. I left the most conspicuous missing screw location exposed, just because :-). “P-touch” printed the serial number.

I bought an Active Cooling assembly with the Raspberry Pi-5 and noticed the striped cover plate in the kit does not accommodate the nylon attachment posts that poke through the Pi-5 board. Easily fixed with some flux and a drill (the flux dabbed on the Active Cooling posts to mark the striped cover plate when the plate was pressed into its screw-guided location. Then center-punching the marked location (reverse side of the plate), followed by the application of a drill to the marked/punched locations). The result is the two extra white posts poking through the striped cover plate shown in the above photo.

Then there’s the very busy blinkenlights (of course)!

Now back to the software. I wonder, since ChaosNet/TCP-IP gateway is getting attention, if we should try to get SpaceWar or a Empire/NetTrek look-alike working (multi player) across a new network of emulated PiDP-10s? 

[Lars Brinkhoff]

Lars Brinkhoff:

I'd like to point out the PiDP-10 only has a small percentage of the in total over 1000 lights on a real PDP-10.  That's why there's an expansion port.

I overestimated this.  By my count, there are exactly 602 lights in total across the console and two CPU bay panels.

[Henk Gooijen]

Finally, some progress.

I had ordered, together with the Pi5, a miniHDMI cable. Turns out, that's not correct. It should have been a microHDMI cable. DOH.

I did not want to proceed without having tested the Pi5, and after that, tested the Pi5 mounted on the LED board.

Got the microHDMI cable, and all tests were successful. All those blinking LEDs are a feast for the eye :) 

I also tested *every* switch, using a paperclip and checking the 5 numbers printed on the screen. All fine.

So, ready for the next step: mounting the front panel and the LED board in the PiDP-10 housing.

During the testing I had checked how much difference the LED cover makes, regarding light leakage. It seems that the light leakage is not really something to worry about, but it is "now or never". So, I cut small strips of double-sided carton from an IKEA package and glued them with double-sided adhesive tape onto the LED board. Note to keep the ventilation slits for the PI open!

Then I put that adhesive tape on the top of the strips and placed the LED cover over it.

I am happy with the result, although it might be a bit difficult to see the LED cover "hovering" above the LED board.

[Bob Eager]

Any ideas on the supports?  The cover panel is very loose on mine. I have the straws, not cut yet. But how to hold the panel against them?

[oscarv]

On Monday, April 1, 2024 at 7:53:57 PM UTC-4 warp...@gmail.com wrote:

Any ideas on the supports?  The cover panel is very loose on mine. I have the straws, not cut yet. But how to hold the panel against them?

So this is for the LED cover panel, right? The (non-)issue with it is that the size of the holes for the LEDs vary a tiny bit from production run to production run. The drill bit used to make the holes at the PCB manufacturer get a bit thinner as they wear, and so there is a fraction of a mm difference in the hole size between boards.

That has been the case for the PiDP-8 and PiDP-11 for years, but it just is not a problem. Sometimes the cover sinks a bit deeper over the LEDs, sometimes a bit less. I would not worry about it, it's not of any significance re how the LEDs appear. Of course, a perfectionist can do the straw trick but really, it's not an issue.

Kind regards,

Oscar.

[steve...@gmail.com]

The newest member of the PiDP-10 family. A beautiful machine. More photos with its PiDP-11/70 and PiDP-8/I siblings, later.

Oscar, what's my serial number?

-- steve

[steve...@gmail.com]

And now, the PiDP-10 along with its PiDP-8/I and PiDP-11/70 siblings and a real pdp-8/e (1973).

How is that for a "technology stack"?  -- smile

-- steve

[Ethan Dicks]

Here's a quick video of mine ramping the LEDs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrojbabZYQM

-ethan

[Steve Pitcher]

Steve...  Awesome pic... I had an 8e at work, back about 1971/72.  Looks so familiar.  Thanks for posting.

[Bob Eager]

Thank you for that tip. I would have encountered that issue tomorrow!

[Andy]

Took me a fair while - but here she is! 

Serial number 0000024 perched on a steel brackets with velcro stopping it from wandering off.

Able to sign into TOPS-10.  Want the little panasonic terminal printer above to by my CTY... not sure how to do that yet

thanks Oscar - your greatest kit yet!!

best wishes

Andy

[Malcolm Ray]

Serial number 0149 just completed, pictured here with essential coffee.

There were no real problems during the build. Just a few points:

I was concerned that the upper case was somewhat warped, but that went away when it was screwed to the lower case.

As someone pointed out, the cover plate for the Pi doesn't fit when you have a Pi 5 with the official active cooler. But this isn't a big deal, since I'll be fitting an NVMe base anyway. Still, I think this ought to be addressed in rev 2.

For case assembly, I'd have preferred to see threaded brass inserts, though I know that would add to the cost.

Although I insulated the top of the Pi, as instructed, there was actually plenty of clearance.

Since someone asked about solder: I used Sn63Pb37 0.5mm, from Kester.

On Thu, 2024-03-14 at 07:58 -0700, Andy wrote:

Dear PiDP-ers, If you've got your PiDP-10 built, please post a photo here (I am a n embarrassingly slow solderer so personally I won't be among the first 😊)

Yours, in anticipation....

Andy

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[Brian Denley]

Let me know.  I have 4 Osbornes that work.  Might be fun.

Brian

Brian Denley

KB1VBF

Sent from my iPad

On Apr 27, 2024, at 10:33 AM, AB <lordha...@gmail.com> wrote:



hoping one day my Osborne will be able to connect and act as a terminal.  Mind you, I probably need to fix it first.. hasnt successfully powered up in 20+ years :-)

cheers!

On Fri, Apr 26, 2024 at 10:30 PM Brian Denley <b.de...@comcast.net> wrote:

Looks great next to the Osborne!

Brian

Brian Denley

KB1VBF

Sent from my iPad

On Apr 26, 2024, at 9:48 PM, Andy <lordha...@gmail.com> wrote:



Took me a fair while - but here she is! 

Serial number 0000024 perched on a steel brackets with velcro stopping it from wandering off.

Able to sign into TOPS-10.  Want the little panasonic terminal printer above to by my CTY... not sure how to do that yet

thanks Oscar - your greatest kit yet!!

best wishes

Andy

On Wednesday, April 24, 2024 at 5:15:42 AM UTC-4 warp...@gmail.com wrote:

Thank you for that tip. I would have encountered that issue tomorrow!

On Wednesday 20 March 2024 at 15:30:14 UTC sof...@gmail.com wrote:

My kit arrived with all but one self-tapping screw present. I left the most conspicuous missing screw location exposed, just because :-). “P-touch” printed the serial number.

I bought an Active Cooling assembly with the Raspberry Pi-5 and noticed the striped cover plate in the kit does not accommodate the nylon attachment posts that poke through the Pi-5 board. Easily fixed with some flux and a drill (the flux dabbed on the Active Cooling posts to mark the striped cover plate when the plate was pressed into its screw-guided location. Then center-punching the marked location (reverse side of the plate), followed by the application of a drill to the marked/punched locations). The result is the two extra white posts poking through the striped cover plate shown in the above photo.

Then there’s the very busy blinkenlights (of course)!

Now back to the software. I wonder, since ChaosNet/TCP-IP gateway is getting attention, if we should try to get SpaceWar or a Empire/NetTrek look-alike working (multi player) across a new network of emulated PiDP-10s? 

On Thursday, March 14, 2024 at 10:58:48 AM UTC-4 Andy wrote:

Dear PiDP-ers, If you've got your PiDP-10 built, please post a photo here (I am a n embarrassingly slow solderer so personally I won't be among the first 😊)

Yours, in anticipation....

Andy

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[Andy]

thanks Brian - will do!

[wjegr...@gmail.com]

It's alive! Just finished the lamp panel, did it this morning, works great. I'll do the switch panel tomorrow. I'll post a pic when done. What amazing fun.

[wjegr...@gmail.com]

And I think it's (amusing, amazing, ....) that the power just for all those lights swamps the few watts the PiDP uses, and it's massively faster than the 10. Tech has certainly progressed in huge leaps. I was babbling to some of my tech friends about how amazing it is that a little, tiny card can not only emulate the 10, but at the same time 11's, 8's, all the while also presenting a full graphical UI to the native OS. Which of course is really the old Unix reimagined. Talk about OS longevity. I have light switches that are running lightweight Linux. Go figure.

[terry-...@glaver.org]

I'm pretty sure that by now Oscar and CEDS have shipped more PiDP-10

kits than the number of KA10's DEC ever built...

[Michael Thompson]

Not quite yet. I believe that 274 KA-10 processors were shipped, so this batch will make 200 PiDP-10s. The next batch will put PiDP-10s over KA-10s.

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Michael Thompson

[Carlos Sancho]

Still pretty impressive.

El 28 abr 2024, a las 21:26, Michael Thompson <michael.9...@gmail.com> escribió:



To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pidp-10/CAH1BU%3D8onLK-6mwUNJLXffeg_%3DHAq_b0GM%3DT1WfiGdKkN8sN5g%40mail.gmail.com.

[wjegr...@gmail.com]

Supposedly Compuserve had at least 200 KLs. Dec must have loved them.

[Mark Lawler]

I have been chronicling my step-by-step PiDP-10 build on Twitter, just as I did with my PiDP-8 and PiDP-11 builds.  I'm at the halfway point, where I verified all my solder connections.  It passed!  Yay!

https://x.com/mark_lawler/status/1784267156127133881

Best,

-Mark

[Ethan Dicks]

On Sun, Apr 28, 2024 at 4:40 PM wjegr...@gmail.com <wjegr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Supposedly Compuserve had at least 200 KLs. Dec must have loved them.

I don't remember the exact number but I know it was many dozens. 200
could indeed be correct. At one point, I was told they were stacked
as double-deckers because there wasn't enough floorspace.

I never got inside the NOC in the grand old days, but I did walk by
some of the Systems Concepts clones in 2002 in the Hilliard Datacenter
(what was going to be the new HQ until CompuServe was carved up
between AOL and Worldcom, and Worldcom got the new building and AOL
got the original HQ in Upper Arlington plus the Dublin datacenter).

Good times.

-ethan

[wjegr...@gmail.com]

It's alive!

[Manuel Maseda]

Build looks great.  I also had no bad solder joints.  I did have 1 LED that was totally dead and 2 that were a little green in color so I changed them.   I had 9 spare LEDs in my kit.

Manuel

[Carlos Sancho]

Hi all,

Serial #099 reporting in. I had one dead LED that had to replace. Although it was already soldered by me I’m pretty sure it was dead before soldering (temperature controled soldering at 300°C, less than 2s of exposure by leg, cut legs after soldering).

The second issue I had was that mi rpi hung like at 12h of being started. It turns out that the rpi 4 works fine without fan as long as is not under heavy load. However when the screensaver kicked in core temperature rose up and hung the rpi. Leasson learnt: disable screensaver and put disipator an a fan in the rpi.

Regards

El 29 abr 2024, a las 22:12, Manuel Maseda <mmas...@gmail.com> escribió:

Build looks great.  I also had no bad solder joints.  I did have 1 LED that was totally dead and 2 that were a little green in color so I changed them.   I had 9 spare LEDs in my kit.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pidp-10/8e0f46f8-d996-4d4b-9505-cb308f14ec56n%40googlegroups.com.

[Mark Thorpe]

I am pleased to report that PiDP-10 Serial No.39 is now complete - several interuptions to the build and much sorting of my poor soldering!

All workimg with a fresh git pull and now to explore ITS.

Key is to follow the instructions :-I)

Thanks Oscar, please will you put me down for the "ornament" Maintenance Panel.

Mark

[Heinz-Bernd Eggenstein]

Serial No 74 is alive and kicking, near friends and family:

It took about 4 evening sessions to build, and that was really fun. It looks like a lot of work at first but once you get into a flow while doing the soldering, time really flies.

This one will run ITS. All my PiDP-xx have some "real" work assigned so they are blinking for a reason, e.g. the PDP-11 (under 2.11BSD) is doing a bit of signal processing on my seismic data, it listens for interesting astronomical events on the Internet and it peroiodically sends (remote) uptime stats (also from some blinkenless VAX-780/11 and another 11/70 instances) to the PiDP.8 which will then show it on the dot matrix display at the top.

So now I'll have to copme up with some background task for the 10.

Just out of curiosity I tried to google if anything can be found out about the real, historic KA-10 with serial number 74, but it's not in the lsist of known serial numbers that I was able to find.

Thanks Oscar for this great new toy.

Happy hacking

HB

[Andy]

very nice!  BTW... Is that LED ticker display your system uptime?

[Heinz-Bernd Eggenstein]

> BTW... Is that LED ticker display your system uptime?

Yes: it is the system date, uptime of several hosts, and a random "motto of the day". It's essentially

((date;ruptime | tr -cs 'A-Za-z0-9\:\,\.\-\+\012' '\040'; cat ${HOME}/.motd.txt;) | tr '\012' '*';echo "";cat eot.asc) | telnet snoopy 8008 2> /dev/null > /dev/null

 

and will produce a line for the ticker tape output like :

"

Sun May 12 10:04:56 GMT 2024*charlie up 3+22:04, 0 users, load 0.00, 0.00, 0.00*lucy up 3+21:57, 0 users, load 0.23, 0.19, 0.00*schroeder up 3+21:48, 1 user, load 0.26, 0.19, 0.00*MOTD: The more we disagree, the more chance there is that at least one of us is right.*

"

Cheers

HB

[wjegr...@gmail.com]

Re PDP-1, I'm running out places to stack all of these. PiDP-8, 11, and now the 10. I have a very vague memory of playing spacewar on a PDP-1 at MIT, it was somewhere in one of the RLE buildings, I think. The TX-0 was there also.  The thing that kind of stuck with me was the vector display, huge round CRT and a light pen. BTW RSX has been up continuously for 2/3 of a year. Would have been much longer, but Linux crashed.

[Mitchell Wolrich]

here’s mine, with 4 serial ports.  Fan is disconnect-able,  via a connector.

The small panel where 2 of the DB9’s are mounted is made by LCOM, and 2 of the 4 holes lined with the smaller fan holes Oscar’s has..

Mitch

[wjegr...@gmail.com]

Interesting. I've done the fans but I used the key switch for turning them on and off. Amusing for a short time to hear them, then not so much. :) What are people doing with those serial ports? I guess I'm not retro enough, modern Putty or VNC is fine by me. Maybe I can scrounge up one of those ancient IBM Selectrics. But while contemporary, that was never MIT-AI, that was all the Multics guys. Snobs. Oh wait, I was one....

[Mitchell Wolrich]

I have several VT100/VT52 clone serial terminals, they all use VGA / HDMI monitors and either older PS2 keyboards, or USB keyboards.

You can "telnet" to ITS via a serial terminal as well, so they don't have to have native ITS support

I have just received 10 of the blank PCB's for this VT100 clone RS232 terminal (VersaTerm) and this one looks promising as it supports either PS/2 or USB keyboards, and either VGA or an HDMI monitor for the display..  I'm probably going to be listing the 7 of the extra PCB's on eBay (I am building 3, 2 for myself and 1 for a friend), the parts to complete the PCB run about $50, and everyone has spare displays and keyboards around, at least I do, lol

Here is the "VersaTerm" Github page, you can see pictures of the completed PCB and order everything you need to build it from links on the Github page

https://github.com/dhansel/VersaTerm/

I also have 2 of the VT132 Standalone Edition VT100 serial terminals, they come as a kit for $50 (plus shipping) from an Australian who runs "The High Nibble", these only support VGA monitors and PS/2 keyboards (he does have an option for a USB keyboard, but it's either or, not both)

https://thehighnibble.com/vt132/#vt132-designed-for-rc2104-edition

This is the first terminal board I bought, this is made by "Legacy Pixels" and comes all assembled and tested, if you don't like ordering parts or building kits, these are $45, and only support VGA displays and PS/2 keyboards

https://www.legacypixels.com/other/index.html

Mitch

On Sun, May 12, 2024 at 2:25 PM wjegr...@gmail.com <wjegr...@gmail.com> wrote:

Interesting. I've done the fans but I used the key switch for turning them on and off. Amusing for a short time to hear them, then not so much. :) What are people doing with those serial ports? I guess I'm not retro enough, modern Putty or VNC is fine by me. Maybe I can scrounge up one of those ancient IBM Selectrics. But while contemporary, that was never MIT-AI, that was all the Multics guys. Snobs. Oh wait, I was one....

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[Steven A. Falco]

On 5/12/24 02:52 PM, Mitchell Wolrich wrote:
> I have several VT100/VT52 clone serial terminals, they all use VGA / HDMI monitors and either older PS2 keyboards, or USB keyboards.
> You can "telnet" to ITS via a serial terminal as well, so they don't have to have native ITS support
>
> I have just received 10 of the blank PCB's for this VT100 clone RS232 terminal (VersaTerm) and this one looks promising as it supports either PS/2 or USB keyboards, and either VGA or an HDMI monitor for the display..  I'm probably going to be listing the 7 of the extra PCB's on eBay (I am building 3, 2 for myself and 1 for a friend), the parts to complete the PCB run about $50, and everyone has spare displays and keyboards around, at least I do, lol
>
> Here is the "VersaTerm" Github page, you can see pictures of the completed PCB and order everything you need to build it from links on the Github page

> https://github.com/dhansel/VersaTerm/ <https://github.com/dhansel/VersaTerm/>

>
> I also have 2 of the VT132 Standalone Edition VT100 serial terminals, they come as a kit for $50 (plus shipping) from an Australian who runs "The High Nibble", these only support VGA monitors and PS/2 keyboards (he does have an option for a USB keyboard, but it's either or, not both)

> https://thehighnibble.com/vt132/#vt132-designed-for-rc2104-edition <https://thehighnibble.com/vt132/#vt132-designed-for-rc2104-edition>

>
> This is the first terminal board I bought, this is made by "Legacy Pixels" and comes all assembled and tested, if you don't like ordering parts or building kits, these are $45, and only support VGA displays and PS/2 keyboards

> https://www.legacypixels.com/other/index.html <https://www.legacypixels.com/other/index.html>

Thanks for the links. Those terminals look interesting.

A few years ago I built one of my own design, based on an FPGA board. It has a Motorola 68000 soft-core inside the FPGA. I used 16x32 characters for a smooth look with good character descenders, and because 1280x1024 VGA monitors are a lot easier to buy than 640x480 monitors these days.

https://github.com/stevefalco/ansi-terminal-hardware
https://github.com/stevefalco/ansi-terminal-firmware

Steve

[Karl Schuneman]

Versa term HDMI connect soldering 19 pins is tight, my next build is not installing this.

[Steve Pitcher]

SN # 0105 checking in:

AND... With a little help from my friends (!) it works!  Thanks, all.

- stp

[Andy]

#105 already!   Any idea how many are out in the wild so far?

[Heinz-Bernd Eggenstein]

Interesting instance of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_tank_problem

:-)

Cheers

HB

[Bob Darlington]

PiDP-10 #0137 having a seizure: https://youtu.be/Z8x1unUozt0?si=0q6R5fJ6nhmViAlx

The photo is one of the elusive reverse polarity LEDs that made it into the kit.   Caught before soldering. 

-Bob

On Thu, Mar 14, 2024, 8:58 AM Andy <lordha...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear PiDP-ers, If you've got your PiDP-10 built, please post a photo here (I am a n embarrassingly slow solderer so personally I won't be among the first 😊)

Yours, in anticipation....

Andy

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[George Hines]

Serial number 171 is alive and working well.  No problems to report,  a superb kit with excellent instructions.   I went slowly and enjoyed the build.

Sits next to the pipd8, pipdp11.  With places reserved for future kits.

Please sign me up for the pidp-1 and am game for just about anything else!

Bravo!

[Heinz-Bernd Eggenstein]

Fantastic, this means we are now close to, or past the point when there are more PiDP-10 up and running than there ever were KA-10s.

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[Tim Radde]

That is a pleasant thought.