User talk:Vaxorcist

Duplicate links

The Wikipedia Manual of Style's guidance on 'Duplicate and repeat links' seems sound (good) to me: "Generally, a link should appear only once in an article, but it may be repeated if helpful for readers". Not that it is a real problem to have a repeated link in a page! Jnc (talk) 17:49, 22 May 2022 (CEST)

750 option manuals

Do you have documentation for the CI750/DR750? I looked, but was unable to find anything on them (even the 1986 'VAX Hardware Handbook Volume 1') I did find mention of the second DW750 (I forget where I saw it - probably in the KA750 TD). Jnc (talk) 19:12, 29 May 2022 (CEST)

I will add that, I promise! Vaxorcist (talk) 21:56, 29 May 2022 (CEST)

That was not a 'push' to add content, but a real query. :-) RH750 Massbus Adapter mentions them, but I was unable to find any DEC documentation that mentions them. (Oh, I see BitSavers has the CI750 FMPS.) Jnc (talk) 23:38, 29 May 2022 (CEST)

750 Revision Control document

I am curious; where did the VAX-11/750 & VAX-11/751 Revision Control document come from? (It is a very interesting document, by the way; thank you for putting it online.) It does not seem to be online anywhere else. Did you scan/OCR a physical document that you have? Or did some VMS or diagnostics release include it? Jnc (talk) 00:29, 31 May 2022 (CEST)

See new page: "DEC MDS" Vaxorcist (talk) 09:26, 31 May 2022 (CEST)

Thanks! I wonder why Web search engines don't know of them? They must have robots.txt files, or something. Alas, I didn't see any PDP-11 information there, though! :-) Jnc (talk) 13:45, 31 May 2022 (CEST)

CMI clarification

I think we need to be more careful the CMI material. It turns out that is only one large backplane in the 750, into which plug:

• the KA750 cards (which have internal busses, such as the MBus and WBus, running between them)
• /750 CMI option cards (RH750, etc)
• memory array boards (in a separate section of the backplane, with different connectors from the other two types of boards)

The CMI appears on the CPU backplane, and goes to some slots/cards, but most of the 'main' slots (specifically, slots 1-6 and 10) are 'special'; i.e. they are customized to a particular board, which has to go in that slot - and that slot can't hold anything else. (An example is the MIC board's slot, 10; the CMI runs to it, but the internal memory bus to the memory array boards - which does not seem to have a formal name - also goes to this slot.) Similarly, according to the KA750 TD, pg. 15, the MBus and WBus both run to the DPM, MIC and FPA cards/slots; but the UBI card/slot has only the WBus, but not the MBus. The CMI runs to some cards/slots - MIC and UBI - but not others: not the DPM, nor the FPA.

So it would be wrong to describe the FPA as a 'CBI' card. It's not; it's part of the KA750, and plugs into the /750 backplane which carries the CMI to other slots, but that's all.

I think we shouldn't put much weight on whether boards plug into the 'main' slots (1-10) on the /750 backplane, because that section holds a mix of special-purpose slots, and 'CMI option' slots (7-9). Although cards that the CMI goes to (MIC, UBI, RDM, WCS) are in some sense 'CMI' cards... because they have dedicated, customized, slots, I would rather reserve the term 'CMI card' for the cards that can go in the CMI option slots: RH780, etc.

Does this make sense? Jnc (talk) 19:10, 2 June 2022 (CEST)

Yes, you are right! I read some manuals again caring how DEC named its components.

There is neither a "Memory Backplane" nor a "CMI Backplane", but only ONE "CPU Backplane" with 10 "Extended hex slots" for CPU cards including 3 "CMI option slots" (7, 8, and 9), and 9 "Hex slots" for memory boards. The 9-slot UNIBUS Backplane DD11 is a separate unit, of course.

So there is a CMI bus, and there are three CMI option slots in the CPU backplane, but there is no CMI backplane.

May I leave the corresponding corrections to you? Vaxorcist (talk) 13:18, 3 June 2022 (CEST)

Yes, I would be happy to do them; in fact, I have been thinking since last evening how best to arrange the overall 750 description. (And I uploaded that wonderful block diagram, File:VAX750block.jpg, which I believe should be central to most articles about the 750.) Let me go re-do the main 750 article (as the first step). Jnc (talk) 15:45, 3 June 2022 (CEST)

Wonderful diagram indeed - go ahead! Vaxorcist (talk) 18:31, 3 June 2022 (CEST)

OK, all done. In addition to trying to clean up the main /750 article, I also tried to rationally allocate content between it, and the KA750, MS750 and CMI pages. E.g. I left the 'CMI configuration' table in the CMI page, as it could logically go either there or the main /750 page, but leaving it in the CMI page meant the /750 page was shorter.

Thank you for putting up with my 'help' on the /750! :-) Jnc (talk) 23:50, 3 June 2022 (CEST)

Category: DEC Hardware

Category:DEC Hardware is for (as the header says) "ancillary mechanical hardware". So not boards of any kind. (Although there is a Category:DEC Boards, they mostly all go into separate categories Category:DEC Memories, Category:DEC Peripherals, etc - actually often sub-categories of those, such as Category:UNIBUS Memories.)

There are some pages in the Category:DEC Hardware (e.g. Three cycle data break) which aren't mechanical, and should probably be elsewhere - but the question is 'where?' We don't have a category DEC Electronics, or anything. Maybe time to add one, or something like that? Do you have any suggestions?

I see that MicroVAX I uses Template:InfoboxVAX-Data, which automagically adds any page that uses it to Category:DEC VAX systems, so that page does have a correct category already. (I think that is probably the best category for it. If you do a separate page for the processor board, that can/should go in Category:DEC VAX Processors - and probably in Category:QBUS Processors too. Actually, by analogy with Category:PDP-11 QBUS Processors, probably in Category:VAX QBUS Processors; I see we have several already, I will set that sub-category up, and move them into it.)

I am not wild about templates adding pages to categories; I feel that it is better to do it explicitly, where anyone working on the page can easily see exactly which categories it is in. I have left this template alone, though, as I am not up for changing all the pages that use that template to have an explicit category. Jnc (talk) 23:56, 14 June 2022 (CEST)

So, there's a good example of why having templates automagically add pages to categories is a bad idea! I went to set up Category:VAX QBUS Processors and move pages into it, and discovered that Template:InfoboxVAXCPU-Data was adding them to Category:DEC VAX Processors! @%$^$!! So I removed that 'feature', and now we can assign pages to categories as we see fit. Jnc (talk) 00:09, 15 June 2022 (CEST)