{"id":4663,"date":"2021-07-27T11:23:16","date_gmt":"2021-07-27T11:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/avitech.com.au\/?page_id=4663"},"modified":"2025-09-09T15:46:32","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T15:46:32","slug":"dec-rk05-notes","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/?page_id=4663","title":{"rendered":"DEC RK05 Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Apologies for the rough nature of this page. In it&#8217;s present state, this page just captures notes from my attempts to get some RK05 drives working on my PDP-11\/34<\/p>\n<h4>Really Basic Stuff<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Inside the RK05, check the lever switch is in the UP position<\/li>\n<li>Under RT11, the RK05 shows up as RKn: (ie RK0:, RK1:, etc)<\/li>\n<li>When a cartirdge is loaded (and the PDP-11 is turned on) the PWR, RDY and ONCYL lights will be on<\/li>\n<li>ONCYL seems to indicate that the drive is NOT seeking (ie it does not mean &#8220;on cylinder 0&#8221;)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>RK05B S\/N WF8032<\/h4>\n<p>I started working on this drive in June 2021.<\/p>\n<p>This is the drive that was in the Industrial 8 H967 cabinet.  It needs new rubber isolation mounts.<\/p>\n<p>PAKs don&#8217;t always sit properly on the right-hand pin support.<\/p>\n<p>Front panel uses bulbs.  All checked\/replaced in June 2021.  Lovely and bright.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been able to initialise, read and write 2 RK05 cartridges with this drive.  However, over time they have deteriorated and one of them now has bad blocks in the system area and can&#8217;t be used.<\/p>\n<p>However, on 27\/7\/21 I decided to INIT\/BADBLOCKS a 3rd pack. It did lots of seeking during the INIT process, but reported 0 bad blocks.  I was then able to install date-patched RT-11 5.3 on to it from DX0. That worked well, and it boots without error. This 3rd PAK has been reserved to use exclusively with this drive.<\/p>\n<p>On 27\/07\/21 I also made a 4th PAK the same as the 3rd one. This also did lots of seeking during INIT\/BADBLOCKS but also reported 0 bad blocks.  Date-patched RT-11 V5.3 was installed on it, and it boots fine. This 4th PAK is intended to be used on other RK05 drives.<\/p>\n<h4>RK05 Cartridge S\/N ??<\/h4>\n<p>This cartridge has a manufacture date underside of &#8220;OCT 23 &#8217;79&#8221;.<\/p>\n<h5>27\/07\/2021<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>INIT\/BADBLOCKS done in WF8032<\/li>\n<li>0 bad blocks!  But lots of seeks<\/li>\n<li>RT11 v5.3 date patched installed<\/li>\n<li>Boots OK<\/li>\n<li>Don&#8217;t use in any other drive<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5>25\/04\/2022<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>Cleaned and inspected<\/li>\n<li>Upper surface has minor damage at Cylinder 0<\/li>\n<li>Lower surface has no damage<\/li>\n<li>Did INIT\/BADBOCKS on WF27046 with no badblocks and no re-seeks<\/li>\n<li>RT11 v4.3 Y2K patched installed<\/li>\n<li>Boots fine on 11\/34<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5>26\/04\/2022<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>Used copy\/sys\/verify to copy 259 files (4362 blocks) on to this disk.  No re-seeks or errors<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5>23\/06\/2024<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>Used as scratch disk in WF8032, without errors<\/li>\n<li>Did INIT\/BADBLOCKS with no bad blocks and no re-seeks!<\/li>\n<li>used COPY\/SYS\/VERIFY to load RT11 v5.3 from DX0<\/li>\n<li>Boots on 11\/34 from DX0<\/li>\n<li>Then used PDP11GUI to write RT11V4 with 4 Advent files (rt11v4-20240623.rk05)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>Links<\/h4>\n<div style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\n<p>Vince&#8217;s page -> <a href=\"https:\/\/svn.so-much-stuff.com\/svn\/trunk\/Eagle\/projects\/DEC\/Mxxx\/M993\/\" target=\"_blank\">M993 files<\/a> <\/p>\n<p><\/dev><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Apologies for the rough nature of this page. In it&#8217;s present state, this page just captures notes from my attempts to get some RK05 drives working on my PDP-11\/34 Really Basic Stuff Inside the RK05, check the lever switch is in the UP position Under RT11, the RK05 shows up as RKn: (ie RK0:, RK1:, ..<\/p>\n<div class=\"clear-fix\"><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/?page_id=4663\" title=\"read more...\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4663","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P7xTsk-1dd","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12665,"url":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/?page_id=12665","url_meta":{"origin":4663,"position":0},"title":"George Wiley&#8217;s RK05 Emulator","author":"malcolm","date":"25-June-2025","format":false,"excerpt":"This page is a collection of notes made while I was getting familiar with this emulator at the RK8E workshop session in late June 2025 in the U.S. and subsequently at home in July\/August 2025 in Melbourne. Getting the images for the MicroSD card The V1 emulator uses \".rk05\" files.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2447,"url":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/?page_id=2447","url_meta":{"origin":4663,"position":1},"title":"SerialDisk Operational Notes","author":"malcolm","date":"1-August-2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I use Kyle Owen's excellent SerialDisk software to run OS\/8 on my PDP-8\/e. This page sets out my notes relating to the ongoing care and maintenance of my existing SerialDisk setup. It does not explain how to initially setup SerialDisk. Note: I also have a separate webpage (not yet on\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":120,"url":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/","url_meta":{"origin":4663,"position":2},"title":"Welcome","author":"malcolm","date":"3-May-2016","format":false,"excerpt":"This site houses my collection of articles and blog posts relating to my adventures with vintage computers (and other hobbies). Here you will find write-ups about my restoration projects, how-to articles, events I've attended, and links to other useful resources. You will find both static Pages and blog-style Posts here.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/avitech.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/cropped-20151018_091917-1.jpg?fit=512%2C512&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2514,"url":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/?page_id=2514","url_meta":{"origin":4663,"position":3},"title":"SerialDisk Integration to SIMH","author":"malcolm","date":"20-August-2017","format":false,"excerpt":"This page describes the process of setting up an interface between SIMH and SerialDisk, so that SIMH has read\/write access to the same image files as SerialDisk serves up to a real PDP-8. Most of what you need to do this is already set up in Kyle's distribution of SerialDisk.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":951,"url":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/?page_id=951","url_meta":{"origin":4663,"position":4},"title":"Scanned documents","author":"malcolm","date":"27-July-2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Camintonn Camintonn CM-DLV11-J 4-Channel Serial Interface Installation Manual Webster Webster PCLV11-J Multifunction Unit Technical Manual Webster WQSMD QBUS Winchester Disc Controller GRC DLV11: GRC DLV11 Interface Specifications GRC DLV11 Schematic GRC RXV21: General Robotics Corporation: RXV21 User Manual GRC TBC (Terminator \/ Bootstrap \/ Clock): General Robotics Corporation: TBC User\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3372,"url":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/?page_id=3372","url_meta":{"origin":4663,"position":5},"title":"OMNIBUS Bootstrap Loader Prototype v1.0","author":"malcolm","date":"23-July-2018","format":false,"excerpt":"This is my first attempt to build a Bootstrap Loader board for the OMNIBUS. The mode of operation is largely modelled on the MI8-E (M847). I have some more information about a real MI8-E here. The OMNIBUS Bootstrap Loader Prototype v1.0 has been constructed and is working well (July 2018).\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/avitech.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/omnibus-bootloader-300x169.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4663"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13130,"href":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4663\/revisions\/13130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}