So as you will know, I have serviced and cleaned the various power supplies and PCBs that make up the PDP-8 clone.
It’s time to get it back together for the first time. I expect to strip the machine down again before too long when I’ve decided how I want to treat the rusty 19″ rack.
First of all, I cleaned out the card cage and vacuum cleaned the inside of the rack. I refitted the three power supplies and the fan tray and turned on the mains.
No smoke or fireworks and the fans came on and span quietly. Result.
Next, I fitted the regulator boards in the right hand side of the cage as we are looking at it and powered on again.
Still no smoke.
Finally, I refitted the rest of the boards and turned on again.
Still no smoke.
I was hoping to see some activity on the front panel but there was very little. The LED that indicated the “Fetch” cycle was lit but that was about it. The buttons had no effect and the 7 segment LED displays didn’t light.
I am going to have to start to understand how PDP-8s work now to find out why mine does not.
Wish me luck.
Wish you luck? Well, of course. Looking forward to many more interesting intallments and photos
Thanks Neal,
I’ve always enjoyed hearing about your retro-adventures so it’s nice to see you on my patch!
I worked on these machines, as a hardware service engineer, in the late 1970s. It is a CCI “KeyEdit 50” key to disk system. I wrote my very first program on this machine, entering it though the front panel shown.
Much more info at
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bnAw1ilBibRNix1Q9gqmhUkPxQNbRTIL/view?pli=1
Also the terminals connected to it
https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/1IDuvr3SR5jtkzHUFUYpFmRH76adsuTZI?usp=drive_open
Hi Ian,
Thank so much for commenting. That’s great information.
As you can tell from my posts, I really had no idea at all what it was so I look forward to working my way through the info you posted, especially the filed service and installation manuals.
This really has expanded my knowledge enormously so thanks again,
Andy.