In the Beck correspondence out of Tulane is a bunch of more behind the scenes stuff about setting up the D-17B initiative. I think Beck was an extremely smart guy. Those surplus machines were good value for the students that got access to them and in that documentation they make a lot of good arguments as to why they should get them. Also in that set of documents is a little bit where the Navy rejects the whole idea. I think I have all the documents to do with the blood serum testing work now to. It is just a lot to sit down and read.

I believe it all came out of two folders associated with the internal business of running the program rather than the front end MCUG document collection. Also worth noting is that in all this office work related stash is a clear note saying that MCUG-2-71 had definitely gone off to the printers. A price list for the various documents. Price lists for joining the MCUG an so on. I feel like this was the document stash at the very heart of the MCUG and yet no schematics to be found. So somebody wiser than me possibly needs to start giving me suggestions as to why. Things like maybe the documents in question were in a folder attached to the machines and such like. Mysteries!

Autonetics has also developed an Input/Output Interface for the Minuteman I D-17B computer. It comes with or without an ASR-33 Teletype. With, $5200 (all electronics are in the TTY console); without, $3500. Interface schematics are not available separately.

I think I located these documents today over at the NTRL. I have placed them in the AFIT section since they were in theory also at AFIT and pushed out of AFIT to NTRL. It is all the missing thesis work to. Also the documents for the assembler. But still no schematics. I feel like the absence of these documents ( MCUG-2-71 ) … time seems to easy an explanation given we have everything else … it is very strange …

NTRL site is a rich hunting ground for old obscure technical documents it seems …

Yeah in the youtube link here: https://youtu.be/Otdy_bfPseY He talks about this. I came at it a different way which was to go between the wire guide and the card guide for the D-17B and compare. The DNA is really apparent and the D-17B is a bit later. But certain things like the setup of the flip flop logic is shared. And actually it seems like at least one board ( but in different format ) is directly shared. We actually have enough documentation to do a ‘retro’ Recomp II pretty much directly I think. Part of what is going on here is I have been looking for a carded mini type computer to build. You could almost make an argument that going for the Recomp II first would then enable one to get to the D-17B quite easily. Both would need a card ( or external module ) that simulated the drum/disk. Not impossible. Bit of the way into that for the D-17B. Really isn’t as complicated as it sounds. Just about the worst memory board one can imagine designing but doable! That advert with the two guys carrying it. Been trying to find that since I saw it.

I saw a youtube clip of one of these machines. I grabbed all the manuals off of bitsavers and began going through it. I did a cross reference against the card list I have been building for the D-17B. Thing I am doing now is zeroing in on the instruction set. It has lots more technical documentation about than the D-17B does. I did find today the document that contains all the details for building a D-17B MCUG style control panel. Including a parts list! It is neat!

I’ve been working on both a schematic and some VHDL that simulates the signal distribution board that the disk drove. The idea that the disk has the timing track on it makes so much sense. The fixed heads. The whole thing. But I keep thinking about how when this disk was produced disk platters were still insanely large. To me the disk unit in particular is a gem of an idea. if you can overcome what must surely have been some anxious physics to get the thing to survive a ballistic flight you sure do get a lot out of it.

I found right clicking and opening image in new tab worked. Apparently I need a style setting somewhere or something!

To have an image expand to full size when clicked on lemmy.world, upload it directly using the image icon in the create post editor, rather than pasting a link. Lemmy handles uploaded images by creating thumbnails that, when clicked, open the original, full-sized image

Great contextual details. Seeing how the NS10 was arranged is neat. Something I have been wondering about is the design decision to have all the boards so they are chucked ‘outwards’. This seems a terrible idea for something that spins in flight? That is to say all the edge connectors are on the inside of the system. Not on the outside.

I believe neither. They are clocked SR is my take. Tried today to build one on breadboard. But have lost my good supply with +/- rails around here somewhere to feed it. Somebody else with more experience might be able to chime in. Little bit peculiar in a way I have not identified yet!

Here is better picture …

Recomp II manuals will be in the repo shortly. If you cannot wait they are on bitsavers.