PDP-8.co.uk » KL8A http://pdp8.co.uk A guide to the preservation and restoration of PDP-8 computers Mon, 07 Jun 2010 08:39:29 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 Overview of my PDP-8/A (1 of 2) http://pdp8.co.uk/2008/11/23/overview-of-my-pdp-8a-1-of-2/ http://pdp8.co.uk/2008/11/23/overview-of-my-pdp-8a-1-of-2/#comments Sun, 23 Nov 2008 08:53:42 +0000 Toby Russell http://www.pdp8.co.uk/?p=33 I have two identically spec-ed PDP-8/As which I purchased a couple of years ago across ebay. The machines were originally from a CNC machine and feature 16KW of memory together with paper tape readers.

The cards fitted are as follows:

  • M8315 – KK8A PDP-8/A CPU board (hex wide)
  • M8317 – KM8AA PDP-8/A bootstrap, powerfail (hex wide)
  • M8316 – DKC8AA PDP-8/A I/O serial/parallel/clock (hex wide)
  • G650 – MM8AB PDP8A 16K Memory stack (hex wide)
  • H219B – MM8AB PDP8A 16K Memory control (hex wide)
  • G650 – MM8AB PDP8A 16K Memory stack (hex wide)
  • H219B – MM8AB PDP8A 16K Memory control (hex wide)
  • Third party paper tape drive controller

My intention my second 8/A in this configuration, however for the first I am going to upgrade it to create a fairly highly spec-ed machine. I have the following additional cards:

  • M8319 KL8A PDP-8/A 4 channel serial I/O
  • M8357 RX8E RX01/RX02 interface
  • M8416 KT8AA PDP8A Memory Management (hex wide)
  • M8417 MSC8DJ PDP8A 128K MOS Memory (hex wide)
  • M8433 RL8A Disk controller for RL01/02 (hex wide)

I will be removing the current core memory and paper tape controller as part of this upgrade. In theory I believe the memory might be reusable in my PDP-8/M (at least the PDP-8 FAQ suggest it can), although I a moderately sceptical due to the cards being hex slot and an Ms backplane only being quad slot.

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