Re: building a PDP-8 computer in your kitchen

On  8-May-00 at 10:18, Alan and Carmel Brain (aebrain@dynamite.com.au)
wrote:
> From: "Roger Books" <books@mail.state.fl.us>
> 
> > I have news for those in power in the Navy that have this silly idea
> > that you can power core memory down and back up.  If you use the
front
> > switch it is fine, but if you take an electrical casualty,
especially
> > one that kicks the emergency power on, when that pup comes back up
the
> > memory is going to be slicked.  It is much quicker and more reliable
> > to have a PROM with they system software.
> > 
> > Roger (Speaking from experience, I worked on a CP-642B.)
> 
> Interesting. We have a different experience with our twin-bay
AN/UYK-7Bs
> on our DDGs (which are basically Block II Charlie Adams with all the
> trimmings bar Mk 86 - and we've got that now too. SYS-1 of course
rather
> than BVP) Or at least we did back in the 80s when I was working on
them.
> At the CDSC (Combat Data System Centre) we had a whole heap of
> mains voltage problems in the mid 80s.

May have been the ship environment versus shore (I'm assuming CDSC was
a shore installation).	We always caught the voltage spike from hell
every time power came back on or we switched to the MGs during a drill.
It got so bad our CO ordered the engineering types to give us advanced
warning when they were having a drill so we could take our equipment
down.

Roger (Don't miss being a DS2 at all) Books