Subject: RE: Free DEC MINC-11 in NW England

From: Adrian Vickers <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Mar 3 12:38:00 2003

At 00:48 01/03/2003, Witchy wrote:

>I'm on it - I'm maybe 2 hours away from there so I can pick up, assuming a)
>I can get it in the garage and b) my girlfriend doesn't kill me :)

Top chap - I'd pretty well decided it was too far away for me to 
realistically collect, seeing as how I don't have an estate car or similar.

-- 
Cheers, Ade.
Be where it's at, B-Racing!
http://b-racing.com

---

From: "Witchy" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Mar 3 22:36:27 2003

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]On
> Behalf Of Adrian Vickers
> Sent: 02 March 2003 08:51
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: RE: Free DEC MINC-11 in NW England
>

It's all in the garage, complete with a DECWriter II and DECWriter III. I
have to preen at this point and say that was the best bit of car packing
I've ever done - *nothing* moved on the way home, and those Lake District
roads leave a lot to be desired. Had to take the cover off one of the
DECwriters to get it in the back though; thanks to DEC for welding the
bloody legs on the stands of those things, and thanks to VW for giving the
Passat estate a big load area :)

Anyway; the haul included MINC with 2 modules and the following boards:

M8012 boot board
M8043 DLV11 4 channel MUX for console etc.
M7954 IBV11 IEC/IEEE interface
M8029 RXV21 RX02 controller
M8044 MSV11 RAM board
M7270 (I think) 11/23 CPU

RX02 twin set
Manuals including 'Unpacking MINC' and 'Using MINC' plus programming guides
etc
3 years worth of MINC newsletter from V1 #1
VT100 tech ref.
RX02 user guide
Original system and demo disks plus PASCAL and FORTRAN disks
Full schematics.

All in all, that's a pretty good haul! (I'm a poet, etc :)

The only thing that's been powered up recently was one of the DECWriters,
and the magic smoke escaped from the print head apparently, but considering
all of this has been stored in an outbuilding that used to be a milking shed
20 years ago I think it's all lasted quite well.

First thing to do will be a full dismantle and clean I think......

Pix soon.

cheers

--
adrian/witchy
www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the online computer museum
www.snakebiteandblack.co.uk - monthly gothic shenanigans

---

From: [email-masked] (Tony Duell)
Date: Wed Mar 5 06:03:31 2003

> Anyway; the haul included MINC with 2 modules and the following boards:

Only 2 modules (I assume the DAC and Clock that were mentioned) :-(. 
Pity. You really need at least the ADC to do anything useful with it.

> M7270 (I think) 11/23 CPU

Isn;t that an 11/03?

Odd there's no LPV11. That was standard on the MINC IIRC. Apart from 
that, it sounds like a standard MINC configuration (the IBV11 is a GPIB 
interface, BTW...)

-tony

---

From: "Witchy" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed Mar 5 21:38:05 2003

> Behalf Of Tony Duell
> Sent: 04 March 2003 23:17
> Subject: Re: Free DEC MINC-11 in NW England - rescued!
>

I'm sure one will turn up sometime in the future; knowing my luck someone
will give me another fully populated MINC next week :) And then I'll get
battered off the missus.
The DAC has one cable coming off it that terminates in a female D25, but the
previous owner didn't know what it was used for since he was given it by
someone else!

> > M7270 (I think) 11/23 CPU

Yep!

> that, it sounds like a standard MINC configuration (the IBV11 is a GPIB

If one or both of the DECwriters that came with the bundle were used on the
MINC they'll have been serial anyway, so no need for an LPV11....

cheers

---

From: [email-masked] (Tony Duell)
Date: Thu Mar 6 22:18:33 2003

> will give me another fully populated MINC next week :) And then I'll get

That happeend to me. I bought a couple of hard-disk MINCs (actually both 
had a fair selection of modules) for a fair amount of money. I then went 
to a factory sale auction where there was a floppy drive MINC. I noticed 
it contained the (IMHO somewhat rare) pre-amp and thermocouple modules, 
neither of which I had. Amazingly I got it for the opening bid of \pounds 
2.00

> previous owner didn't know what it was used for since he was given it by

Is this connected to the top edge connector (which should have a 
connector block with screw terminals plugged onto it), or is it wired to 
component leads on the PCB or what?

> MINC they'll have been serial anyway, so no need for an LPV11....

Sure, but for some odd reason MINCs seem to have them. All mine do, and 
AFAIK none were ever used with a parallel printer.

-tony

---

From: "Witchy" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Mar 7 16:30:07 2003

> neither of which I had. Amazingly I got it for the opening bid of \pounds

Hehe, just like London Buses eh? :)

> component leads on the PCB or what?

It's on the top edge connector and also has some sort of resistor stuck in a
big plastic box wired to one of the lines.

> AFAIK none were ever used with a parallel printer.

Weird, unless the aim was to use the serial lines for other connections?

The MINC Newsletters are great; full of 1970s boffinry and blokes with
beards prodding things while MINC does the data collection and plots it
nicely on the VT105 :) I just need the extra module for my VT100 and I'm
sorted!

---

From: [email-masked] (Tony Duell)
Date: Sat Mar 8 02:30:17 2003

> Hehe, just like London Buses eh? :)

Yeah, ypu wait for ages then 3 come along at once :-)

> big plastic box wired to one of the lines.

As you've probably discovered by now, the top connectors on the MINC 
modules are for user I/O. The DAC outputs (and other I/O lines) are 
there, for example. So presumably this was a connector for the user's 
experiment.

-tony

---

From: "Witchy" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun Mar 9 23:30:09 2003

> Sent: 07 March 2003 22:53

Oh aye, definitely. It just would've been nice to know what it was plugged
into in the first place, but there's no point asking the bloke I got it from
'cos he just received it from a friend and stuck it in his workshop where it
sat ever since.