OMSI PDP-8 (was OS8 Source listing)

[Rick Bensene]

> 
> On 10/14/09, Rick Bensene <rickb at bensene.com> wrote:
> > OMSI had a Straight-8, with quite a bit of RAM(er...core something
like 24K?), one of the fixed head
> > disk drives (was it RA32?)...
> 
> Probably a DF32.  "R" for disks came a short time later (like with the
> RF08 or RK8).  The "F" means "fixed" in DEC's naming scheme, while "A"
> would mean it's an SDI disk (RA60, RA70, RA80, RA81, RA92...)

Yup, that's it...DF32.  It was housed in a full-height rack.  I recall
the controller filled quite a bit of the rack...seemed the controller
was more complex than the Straight-8.  I remember that the folks there
were always very afraid of power failures.  I was there once when the
power did bounce a bit, and everyone got very nervous that the drive
might crash.   It seemed to make it through OK.

Another thing I remember is that one time something went awry with the
DECTape controller.  A DEC FSE came to fix it.  Turned out it was
something with the power supply for the controller.  The power supply
was replaced, but somehow a connection got swapped somewhere, and when
it was powered up, the controller let out all of its magic smoke. It
took a couple of weeks before the controller was fixed.

Somewhere around here I have a DECTape from that system...I took an
assembly language programming class there and my class project (printing
text banner pages on the Centronix printer) files were on the tape.  

-Rick