Subject: Restoration of a PDP-7: Update

From: Tore Sinding Bekkedal <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun Jun 1 16:12:00 2003

Hello! Thought I might bring you an update on the PDP-7.

IT FRIGGIN' POWERED UP!!!!
*ahem*
With shaking hands (afraid the huge caps would explode all over me), on
Wednesday 28th of May, I flipped the magic switch. Nothing happened. I
flipped it again, and it worked. The surprise of it not catching fire was
enough for me to yell without noticing it, "It WORKS, damnit!". I then
proceeded to point at it and make a funny sound. Video of this will come
up on http://tore.nortia.no/video when I have time to digitalize it.

The rest of the day was spent testing the memory and the CPU (which mostly
works). Thursday I tested the IO further, as did I on Friday. I got the
paper tape punch to revolve, and feed at the command of the conveniently
marked "Feed" button on the console.

Now, further I/O repairs need doing, and maybe constructing an emulated
Paper-Tape Reader is nessecary - - if so, I'll hook up the punch to it as
well.

Please see http://tore.nortia.no for continuing coverage. If you ever
worked on this machine, especcialy while on DEC's side, LET ME KNOW!
PLEASE; drop me a line!

And yes, we do have software. Lots and lots of it in good condition. Don't
know about the DECtapes though.

Love, Piece, and Understatements
 _____________________
/Tore Sinding Bekkedal\
[email-masked]   |
|+47 91 85 95 08      \_________________________
| Semi-proud resident of Norway since 1988      \
\_______________________________________________/

---

From: Hans Pufal <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jun 2 07:49:26 2003

> know about the DECtapes though.

If my experience is any guide the DECtapes will be fine. I have read at 
least 20 thirty year old tapes and I think had only 1 read error. Those 
things are indestructable!

If you can sort through the DECtapes and send me one or two which you 
have duplicates of I will try and recover images with our PDP-9. 
Alternatively, come on down and visit Grenoble with your tapes and we 
can image them all!

We can also do the paper-tapes, our reader and puch work fine.

Regards,

   -- hbp