Small Peripheral Controller

From Computer History Wiki
Revision as of 20:59, 24 February 2016 by Jnc (talk | contribs) (A modest start...)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to: navigation, search

Small Peripheral Controller was DEC's name for an I/O board slot in the backplanes of UNIBUS PDP-11s. It was a quad slot, and could hold any kind of device.

SPC slots were wired to bring all 4 UNIBUS grant lines through the device; the board generall had a header which routed the grant (and request) line for the desired priority level to the on-board interrupt circuity, and passed the other grant lines through. The DMA (NPG) grant line generally had a jumper on the backplane, which had to be removed if a DMA device was plugged into the slot. Un-occupied slots needed to have a grant continuity card installed.