W904 hex extender board for UNIBUS

[Mal]

Just wondering if anyone here has a W904 hex extender board?

If so, it would be great to see some high-res pictures of it.

I'd like to make a couple of them, and I'm keen to see some basic details (number of layers, whether there is an earth trace between signal lines, which pins are interconencted, etc).

It's referred to in the DZ11 Technical Manual EK-DZ110-TM-002 on page 5-1.

 

[reinhardtjh]

Joerg Hoppe has Gerbers for various width extender boards on his site: http://www.retrocmp.com/tools/dec-flip-chip-extenders

You still need the sockets. I bought some here: https://retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=boardinventory
Scroll down nearly to the bottom to "DEC (Digital) Boards (designed by Joerg Hoppe)"
Todd Goodman had a bunch of boards made up and bought a lot of 300 connectors. I bought a few boards and connecters and they assembled easily. Email him and it's an easy deal if you happen to be in the US (possibly Canada)
There were a couple threads on here about where to find the connectors. If I remember right someone in Germany had bought a bunch and may have some.
I wrote about it here: https://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum/g...flip-chip-edge-connectors?p=966704#post966704
Scroll back in that thread where it talks about someone else having ordered the connectors.
Here is Joerg's thread:https://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum/g...der-project?73778-Flip-Chip-Extender-project=

 

[gnupublic]

I still have some connectors, but I'm in Europe, Germany.

The connectors became much more expensive than planned afterwards. Half a year later I got a big bill from an incasso company ordered by the deliverer for the toll costs. So I have to take around 20€ per connector to meet the real costs. I will never do that crossborder business again in this form.

But if you are still interested and living in Europe, I can send some.

Volker

 

[Mal]

reinhardtjh thanks for all the helpful links. I've emailed Todd - If boards are still available that's the best option for me.

gnupublic Volker thanks. I'm in Australia - and the exchange rate to the Euro makes that even more difficult. I'm considering pulling apart a deceased backplane and using that.

I'm still keen to see some pictures of the original W904 to understand how they were constructed (see my original post). I have some Plessey dual-height and quad-height extenders. See attached photos. Plessey tied many of the ground connections together, and ran a ground trace between each signal trace. I'm wondering whether DEC did something similar with the W904 (and if so, which pins)? I haven't come across any published information about the W904.

Perhaps UNIBUS extenders are not as sensitive, but I've had a couple of occassions when testing QBUS boards that simple "ungrounded/unshielded" quad extenders failed, and the Plessey extenders worked just fine.

Malcolm.

 

[bigfix]

Malcolm, I just took pictures of my W904 - original from my DEC service days...
I hope the quality is good enough - only small sizes are possible here
if you want the full size pls contact me
Guenter

 

[Mal]

Hi Guenter, thanks. I've sent you a PM with my email address.
From the dark patches (which are different on both sides), it looks like this is a 4-layer board, with ground planes both sides?
Malcolm.

 

[bigfix]

Malcolm, Fullres Pics are out

There are two internal planes - not sure if both are ground
Side 1 facing plane is "dual" , covering two Connector Blocks (3 areas)
Side 2 facing plane is "single", covering each one Connector Block (6 areas)