PDP-11/45: LA30 repair IV

Sat 09 December 2017 by Fritz Mueller

Received replacement components for the blown G380 solenoid driver channel. After this repair, all pins are firing and printing correctly. Calibrated left margin. Checked pin drive signal, which was within specifications and required no adjustment.

Went to check carriage return pulse timing calibrations, but as it turns out the G396 clock accelerator card in this LA30 has not had ECO 2 applied and therefore has no timing calibration pots. Carriage return seems to be functioning correctly and reliably after the left margin adjustment in any case.

Inspected and cleaned the M7910 interface card; it appears to be in good shape. Rejumpered the base address and interrupt vector for console operation. Slotted it into the PDP-11 in place of the DL11 I had been using up until now, and cabled up to the LA30. Booted to the M9301 monitor and then on into RT-11, and everything seems to be working fine! Here's a short video of the RT-11 boot, followed by the start of a session of Adventure: