Small Peripheral Controller

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Small Peripheral Controller or SPC was DEC's name for a board slot in the backplanes of UNIBUS PDP-11s into which small device controllers, etc, could be plugged. It was a quad-high slot, occupying rows C-F in a hex slot.

It was originally conceived to hold a dual-height device-specific card, along with single-height M105 Address Selector and M782 Interrupt Control FLIP CHIPs (later, the M7820 and M7821 revisions). (Among the dual-width controllers which did this were the KL11 (M780), the PC11 (M781), the DR11-A (M786), and the CR11 (M829).)

The appropriate UNIBUS signal lines (address, data, etc) were thus wired to the appropriate rows/pins in SPC slots. Other pins were wired to allow the necessary communication between the cards, without requiring cables between them.

It soon became more cost-effective to fabricate an entire device on a single quad card, but the pinout was retained. (For the pinout of an SPC slot, see here.)

Grants

SPC slots were wired to bring all 5 UNIBUS grant lines through the device; this was performed in rows C (for NPG) and D (for BGx).

The device board generally had a header which routed the grant (and matching request) line for the desired priority level to the interrupt circuitry, and passed the other grant lines through. Un-occupied slots needed to have a G727 installed.

The NPG grant line generally had a jumper on the backplane at each slot (between pins CA1 and CB1), which had to be removed if a DMA device was plugged into that slot, or installed if one was removed; alternatively, a G7273 grant continuity card could be installed.

SPC Extensions

On some systems, some SPC pins were recycled for other purposes.

In the PDP-11/04 and PDP-11/34, on the DD11-P backplane which holds the CPU card(s), along with the KY11-LB Programmer's Console (which plugs into an otherwise-standard SPC slot), the CPU and the Programmer's Console do some communication via the backplane. Pins CP1 and CR1 are Halt Request and Halt Grant, respectively; they allow the KY11-B to tell the CPU to halt.

Pinout

The following table gives the pinout of an SPC slot. Pins are identified in the standard DEC manner. There are four connectors in a slot, C, D, E and F; pins on the component side are 1, those on the solder side are 2. Pins are identified by the 'DEC alphabet', A-V, with G, I, O and Q dropped.

Signal Assertion Termination Pin
Initialization and Shutdown
DC LO L Slow CN1
AC LO L Slow CV1
INIT L Fast DL1
Arbitration
NPR L Fast FJ1
BR7 L Fast DD2
BR6 L Fast DE2
BR5 L Fast DF2
BR4 L Fast DH2
NPG H Grant In-CA1; Out-CB1
BG7 H Grant In-DK2; Out-DL2
BG6 H Grant In-DM2; Out-DN2
BG5 H Grant In-DP2; Out-DR2
BG4 H Grant In-DS2; Out-DT2
SACK L Fast FT2
Addressing
A00 L Fast EH2
A01 L Fast EH1
A02 L Fast EF1
A03 L Fast EV2
A04 L Fast EU2
A05 L Fast EV1
A06 L Fast EU1
A07 L Fast EP2
A08 L Fast EN2
A09 L Fast ER1
A10 L Fast EP1
A11 L Fast EL1
A12 L Fast EC1
A13 L Fast EK2
A14 L Fast EK1
A15 L Fast ED2
A16 L Fast EE2
A17 L Fast ED1
Data
D00 L Fast CS2
D01 L Fast CR2
D02 L Fast CU2, FE2%
D03 L Fast CT2, FL1%
D04 L Fast CN2, FN2%
D05 L Fast CP2, FF1%
D06 L Fast CV2, FF2%
D07 L Fast CM2, FH1%
D08 L Fast CL2, FK1%
D09 L Fast CK2
D10 L Fast CJ2
D11 L Fast CH1
D12 L Fast CH2
D13 L Fast CF2
D14 L Fast CE2
D15 L Fast CD2
Control
C0 L Fast EJ2
C1 L Fast EF2
PA L Fast CC1
PB L Fast CS1
BBSY L Fast FD1
MSYN L Fast EE1
INTR L Fast FM1
SSYN L Fast EJ1, FC1%
Power
Ground N/A N/A xC2
Ground N/A N/A xT1
+5 N/A N/A xA2
-15 N/A N/A xB2

Entries of the form 'xYN' mean that that is available on all 4 connectors (C, D, E and F) in each slot.

% For forward compatibility, use the first pin rather than the second.

See also