Bringing up a PDP-8e

W2HX w2hx at w2hx.com
Sun Nov 27 13:46:46 CST 2016


Hi folks,

This is my first vintage computing project. I have a PDP-8/e with the following boards in this order.

FRONT PANEL
M8330      KK8E CPU Timing board (system clock), replaces M833
M8300 \    KK8E CPU Major registers
M8310 /    KK8E CPU Major register control
M837       MC8E Extended Memory and Time Share Control
M849       SHIELD
CORE1 \
CORE1 /
CORE2 \
CORE2 /
M8320      KK8E Bus loads

Each core pair is 16KW. There are a bunch of other non-DEC boards (ECRM) that I have removed for the time being.  You will notice that I have no serial board (yet. I have a line on one).

I have cleaned up the machine, removed and clean out the foam, cleaned the card sockets and card edges, tested the power supply. I am ready for the next step.

Next, I will put the boards back in and start testing. I am looking for some very simple programs that I can key in from the front panel to do some basic testing. I have found simple programs on the internet but they are all in assembler and I don't yet have the knowledge/tools to convert them to switch-enterable programs. For example, here are some good test programs but not directly enterable on the front panel (or at least I don't know how).
http://dustyoldcomputers.com/pdp8/pdp8i/testprogs/index.html

Can someone direct me to some simple sequence of switch settings to do some basic testing?

Many thanks in advance
Eugene W2HX
PS. Here is more on the machine as received:
http://w2hx.com/x/VintageComp/PDP-8e/
Also as you will find on the internet, the ECRM boards are from a company that produced electronic character recognition systems.





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