Geeking.

Damn. One full month since I last posted to the blog. Where to start? One twelfth of the new year is about to be done with. And what's to show for it?

Firstly, I've become involved in an extremely cool project, the Nordic Simulator Center, NSC. One day, a man with the nickname "kaasen" entered a local academic IRC channel I dropped by, and asked if anyone in there knew anything about these PDP-11 computers. Well, someone immediately pointed me out (Gee, wonder why...) and we started talking. Apparently, somebody has gotten their hands on a full "Level B" (whatever that means) DC-10 simulator, made by Link-Miles in 1977. Well, what kind of computers control a flight simulator made in 1977? Well, a cluster of PDP-11s, of course.

We quickly made contact and I wanted to stop by. And stop by I did. Crikey, what a setup. A full DC-10 cockpit with original instruments. Downstairs, there's a five-rack configuration of three PDP-11/45 CPUs. The blinkenlights fanatic in me goes mad. :)

The machines had been powered up in the past, so the PSUs have been verified. The voltages all seem in spec (a common problem with the PDP-11/45 series). On the second day, I got CPU B running. On the third day, I got CPU NVS *somewhat* running. Things are progressing.

There is more, I'll post about it tomorrow.