Posts

Elektronika BK-0011

Elektronika BK-0011 from 1989. This machine is successor of BK0010, same in english. Both use PDP clone-like CPU K1801WM1. The CPU is said to be fully compatible with PDP11 CPUs, but does not implement EIS instructions. See articles in OldComputerMuseum, PDP11 Instruction set CPU runs at 4Mhz. has 128KB RAM. Monochrome/Color output via DIN connector. Built-In speaker and (russian) keyboard. Parallel and serial ports. QBUS available at back side of case.

TV Tuner

Tuner ENV578E1G3 Tuner from 1996. Main chips are TSA5511AT and MT06A. While TSA5511 is the PLL Synthesizer, which generates all required frequencies, the MT06A is unknown to me. But it must be the RF mixer, which produces the IF output by mixing input signal with PLL synthesizer output. Connector has 5 small pins and 4 large pins. In my listing, numbering starts with outermost small pin. To check against reality, compare against my image from the original TV board.

ATU-100 Antenna Tuner

Antenna Tuner, designed by N7DDC, 1.8-50MHz, up to 100 Watts. Bought for 97€ in 12/2021. OLED display and tune button Power switch, power supply connector, antenna and TX input connector 15 relais… The PIC16F1938 microcontroller References ATU-100 mini User Manual ATU-100 Extended Board User Manual https://github.com/Dfinitski/N7DDC-ATU-100-mini-and-extended-boards http://oe1iah.at/Hardware/AutoTuner_ATU100.shtml Large thread on QRPForum.de (german) - https://www.qrpforum.de/forum/index.php?thread/13177-auto-antennentuner-nach-n7ddc/&pageNo=1 ATU-100 mini original thread (russian) http://www.sdr-deluxe.com/forum/7-17-1

RM Italy RL-203

RM Italy produces nice RF amplifiers. Some of them are for the CB “Export” market and produce a lot of watts for a few bucks. The official ham radio amplifiers are much more expensive. They cover the common ham HF frequencies between 3 and 30 MHz. The CB ones focus on around 27 Mhz of course. For RL-203, I read that it is possible to modify such a cheap amp to use it on complete HF range.

Yaesu FP-301 Power Supply

This is a power supply from the 80ies or even older. It contains a linear regulated power supply and a speaker. It offers 13.5 volts DC at 25 Ampere. Weight is about 10 KG, and this weight comes mostly from the big transformer. There is plenty of space inside the casing. We can see the transformer. two large 10.000 µF capacitors, the speaker on the right. 4 regulator transistors are with their heatsink at the left.

Checking a defective memory module with QBone

This post describe my effort to fix a broken M8044 PDP11 RAM module. For tracing down the bug, I’ve used QBone. I own a defective M8044 RAM board. This board came as part of my OBA-11 PDP11. It was obviously checked by DEC, found to be broken and has a red defective badge. Setting up test bed I’ve created a testbed, consisting of: QBone An unused backplane H9278-A with 8 slots The device under test, the M8044 As power supply, I took a 5V/4Ampere power supply from my parts bin +12V (used by M8044) supply comes from a lab power supply First test with QBone: Check if board responses to bus requests QBone has its tests and many features in a single executable.

QBone

What is QBone? QBone is a fascinating project by Jörg Hoppe. It is based on a PDP QBus module that can be inserted into any QBus backplane. It implements all features required by the QBus, so this module looks like any other QBus module from the PDP11 perspective. The module integrates a BeagleBone Board (BBB). This is an ARM-based modern computer, like Raspberry PI. The biggest advantage of BBB over Raspi is: that the board contains two separate I/O processors called PRU (Programmable Realtime Unit).

DEC VAX 4000 Boards

My DEC VAX 4000 boards All boards seem to come from a VAX 4000-300 machine. See http://gunkies.org/wiki/VAX_4000_series ebay seller text DEC VAX 4000-300 Boards CPU KA670 L4000 in Module Plastic Case (99-08536) 2x MS670-CA L4001-CA und 1x64MB Clearpoint Memory KA670 CPU board 22 Bit QBus board. CPU clocked with 143 Mhz. CPU chip is called REX-520 There is a FPU on board called CD523. Built-in Ethernet and 2xDSSI (disk) controllers

Logic analyzers

Over the years, I’ve owned several logig analyzers. For a long time, I used a Tektronix HP1241 and later an HP 16500 These were large and heavy devices, weighting twenty kilos or more. Usually equipped with a noisy fan. These old logic analyzers usually suffer from a very small capture memory of some kilobytes. If you know the exact situation where some hardware situation to be tracked occurs, then this is ok.

DEC Digital OBA11-MF

DEC Digital OBA11-MF bought in poor condition from ebay. It has no case, has some physical damage. Sold of course as defective. All together this seems to be a kind of “embedded” PDP 11/03 with only a bare minimum of boards and no intention for extending it later on. Maybe used as a control unit in some chemical plant or whatever. here someone has a picture of another device like this.