It’s been forever since I updated here, hasn’t it!
Well. This is hard for me to say, but I think it’s time I officially give up on the 11/35 restoration. Wait, hear me out.
I’ve been poking at it over the last month or so, trying to make heads or tails out of what’s going on. And, unfortunately, I can’t. It has been exceedingly frustrating just trying to understand the problems with the startup status pulses, let alone repairing what looks like a completely flakey timing board, and possibly dead ROMs on the microword board.
When I received them, the board set was covered in rust and mouse piss. The IC legs (with the exception of the gold-plated ones, of course) were black, or red and spotted. I’m shocked I was even able to get the power supply back to life. So it’s really no surprise that the logic repair is above my skill level. Would it even be repairable to a DEC engineer? Maybe. I don’t know.
So tonight, I will regretfully put it back into the rack, clear off my workbench, and move on to some other projects. Maybe I’ll come back to this some day, if I ever find a replacement set of KD11-A boards. I do know someone who has a set. But for now, it’s time to move on.
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