These are pictures of KS10 S/N 4469, which I got from John Wilson, who was
holding it for Gordon Greene. Gordon let me have it so I could have a
refrence model to help make e10 go. I also plan to run ITS on it when I
get a harddisk for it.
We had to drive from Peoria, IL to Troy, NY to get the machine. This was
interesting in and of itself. It's just barely started snowing here in
Illinois but it's winter in full swing out there. I have a 1995 GMC
Sonoma, which is a medium-sized truck with a decent engine, so I expected
to make it OK. My friend Nate came along with me, partially because he's
also interested in old machines, but mostly because he can lift more
weight than I can. ^_^ In any case, we had planned to drive out there,
toss the machine and it's tape drive in the back of the truck, tie it
down, cover it with a tarp, and blast off. It didn't work that way - The
KS was bigger than we had expected. Also, instead of the 12 hours I
thought I'd take to get there, the trip was actually closer to 16 or 20
hours. So, after we showed up, it was too cold to do anything and we were
too tired to do anything useful, so we crashed at John's for the
night.
The next morning, we rented a U-Haul trailer and shoved the machine and
it's tape drive in the trailer and truck, respectively. Gawked at John's
toys for awhile, then took off. Not only is this my first long
cross-country drive, this is the first time I've ever had to pull a
trailer. By the by, the U-Haul trailers say the speed limit for them is
45 - We were at 65 once, but the trailer was behaving funny, so we slowed
off some. 55 or 60 is closer to the real limit.
We had planned to bring the digital camera along to take pictures, but it
was forgotten at home. So, we couldn't get any pictures until I got back.
In a couple of them, I let the silly lenscap get into the frame - you
cannot see this from the viewfinder on our particular camera and I just
now figured it out. The dogs ate the camera's datalink cord so I
can't retake them.
Current status of the machine is - I have an RM03 now, but it's still in
New York. We're looking at shipping options. The TU45 still wants
adjusting, I'm looking for service manuals. Also, the TM02 power supply
is missing it's power-line interface (The one I have is for 220 volts).
The mighty-mite problem is solved. It was caused by a marginal component
and a non-functional cooling fan. I have microcoded the machine and it
does work as far as executing instructions are concerned. The missing
RH11 parts are still missing.
This is what the U-Haul trailer looked like
loaded. We pulled all the sheetmetal off the sides of the KS to put it
inside. We ended up using about 50 feet of rope to tie it in there - it
worked beautifully, the machine didn't move an inch. You can see the
spare TU45 formatter too - it's the box in the lower left hand side of
the picture (as viewed - I had to snap this one sideways).
This is the KS10 as packed in the trailer.
And this is the TU45 as tied into the
truck. We pulled the tarp loose so you could (kinda) see it.
With the help of a few co-operative neighbors (and a few confused
onlookers) we pulled everything out and pushed it into the garage. Thank
Goddess for casters! ^_^
This is the front of the KS itself. Nice and
heavy. I'll take another pic later when I get the skins on and cleaned
up.
Same here, but this is the back of the
rack.
This is the DECSYSTEM 2020 logo from the panel.
Someone has written "Alpha" over the "d" in digital with an ink pen.
I don't know what was meant by this, but it'll likely go away when I clean
the machine up later.
This is the Mighty-Mite, which is the KS10
power supply. They're rare, hard to fix, and (I'm told) easy to
break.
This is the KS10 CPU cardset. Ignore the
lenscap. :P
Here is the TU45. It's heavier than the CPU
is. Some of the buttons got pushed back into the case - I have to
figure out how to get that apart without killing myself later to fix
this.
And this is the VT100 I'm using for a console.
The nameplate was one from a pharmaceuticals company, and I took it out,
hoping the DEC one was underneath - It wasn't. Now I have two holes. :P
New pictures taken on Christmas Eve:
This is the 2020 with the covers on and the TU45
next to it. The front cover is still missing, because I'm missing a
bracket at the bottom of the rack which holds the door on. I'm going to
try salvaging one from my PDP-11 stuff.
Here is the VT100 and the MicroVAX that make
up the KS console. Does anyone know how to change the console port speed
on one of these? It's a VAXServer 3100, running NetBSD. (Yes, I know
about stty, I mean the ROM console port speed).
This is the wire in the logic cage that doesn't go
anywhere. I suspect it belongs to my missing interlock.