Dublin Core
Title
Disk Controller Panel
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation
Description
This is a control panel blank that appears to be related to a disk drive or disk drive controller: all of the sections of the panel refer to the classic magnetic disk addressing scheme of cylinder/head/sector, data handling, and error detection.
This may be related to the PDP-10 series, but we don't have any solid evidence of this. The various registers are 36-bits, but that appears to be common across different computer architectures (e.g., the RP11 controller on a PDP-11 had 36-bit shift registers.) One interesting note is that the bit ordering on the panel implies "big-endian" while later controllers would use "little-endian". PDP-6, PDP-8, and PDP-10 were big-endian systems, while PDP-11 on were little-endian.
This may be related to the PDP-10 series, but we don't have any solid evidence of this. The various registers are 36-bits, but that appears to be common across different computer architectures (e.g., the RP11 controller on a PDP-11 had 36-bit shift registers.) One interesting note is that the bit ordering on the panel implies "big-endian" while later controllers would use "little-endian". PDP-6, PDP-8, and PDP-10 were big-endian systems, while PDP-11 on were little-endian.
Date
c.1970
Contributor
Robert Glorioso
Identifier
2023.26
Artifact Item Type Metadata
Materials
Plastic
10" x 19"
10" x 19"
Condition
Excellent
Storage
AB13
SU14-4