> From: Ben Sinclair > A while back I was talking to someone else who suggested using a ribbon > cable from the controller to directly inside the drive.
I've heard that suggestion too... > That technically will fit if I remove the ribbon inside the drive that > goes to the external connectors, but then I won't have a terminator > installed. I do have a terminator though! The cable from the CPU would have to have two connectors on the RL02 end; one would plug into the drive's logic board, and the other to the outbound connector, where you can plug in the terminator. AFAIK that cable is purely a bus (i.e. no radial per-drive wires), so you should just be able to run it to the second connector, no issue. However, I'm too lazy to check to make sure that's absolutely 100% accurate. :-) > I think what I really need, since I don't have a cab kit or anything, > is a bc80m, which I believe is a ribbon with a ground lug on the > controller side, and whatever type of connector the drive uses on the > other end. I think you mean a Berg connector which will plug directly into the RLV11, not "ground lug", right? Yes, if you don't have a cab kit, that's the cable you need. It's not a ribbon cable, but a round cable (the connectors the drives use only come in regular cable form, not ribbon cable - AFAIK). > Not that I can even find a cable like that anywhere currently... RLOx cables of _any_ kind are very hard to find. There are discussions under way about making new ones; there is a supply (used) of the wierd-ass connector that plugs into the back of the drive which could be used. > I unfortunately don't have an extender card... Others have pointed you at Douglas; here's the page for all their extender cards: http://www.douglas.com/index.php/off-the-shelf-solutions/bread-boards-by-function/board-extender.html which includes a hex, but those aren't any use (that I can think of) to people with QBUS machines. (Useful things to have it you're trying to maintain a vintage PDP-11; one is, perforce, forced to become one's own Field Circus person - unless you're lucky and happen to live close to a PDP-11 hardware expert who's willing to come salve one's machine.) > From: Johnny Billquist > Well, not important. We're now beyond that point. The boards are > working well enough that we can address them... Well, but he might still have a problem on them. Although fixing such would be a challenge... Noel