Posts Tagged Minicomputers
The Nova 3/12 Console is repaired
Posted by Tommie in Data General Minicomputer Projects, The Data General Nova 3 Restoration Project on Wednesday 24 February, 2010
The ”Stop/Reset” toggle switch wouldn’t toggle back to its center position so I took a switch from my other Nova 3 console. Turns out that this switch would not make contact in the “Stop” position and I had to grab yet another switch from my other front panel. Looks as this front panel rapidly is becoming an assembly to salvage parts from.
All indicator lights are now replaced. The leads of the ones that did work where extremely brittle and since incandescent lamps have limited lifetime I decided to replace all lamps. Lights 7 – 12 would not lit or if they did, they lit very dimly and sporadic. The driver chip, DG part # 113-7748 was faulty and I replaced it with a NTE74LS06 chip (Hex Inverter Buffers/Drivers With Open-Collector High-Voltage Outputs).
Now that the console is working (apart from lacking the XX2065 key which I have ordered), I can start testing the cpu and memory.
Nova 3 Console disassembled
Nova 3 Console Lamp Driver DG part 113-7748
Nova 3 Console Lights works fine after replacing all lamps and a driver IC
Data General Nova 3/12 Power Supply drawings
Posted by Tommie in Data General Minicomputer Projects, The Data General Nova 3 Restoration Project on Sunday 7 February, 2010
I have two Nova 3/12’s. One equipped with:
- NOVA 3 CPU, PWRFAIL, PRLOAD, 256KW
- NOVA 3 TRIPPLE OPT, MMPU, PAR, MUL/DIV, RTC
- 64KW Plessey, 128K SC, W PAR, 0-127
- DGC NOVA CASSETTE I/O, $TTI/O, 9600 B, RTC
- DISK CARTRIDGE CONTROL DGC NOVA, DKP, 4234, 6030
- DGC NOVA CASSETTE I/O, $TTI/O, 9600 B, RTC
The other is an empty chassis, both with faulty power supplies. I contacted Bruce Ray of Wild Hare Computer Systems and Bruce provided me with Nova 3/12 Power Supply and backplane drawings. I still have to troubleshoot and repair the power supplies, but at least I now have the drawings and the tools.
Just received some pictures of the S/280
Posted by Tommie in Data General Minicomputer Projects, The Data General Eclipse S/280 Restoration Project on Thursday 28 January, 2010
Today my contact at FMV sent some pictures of the S/280 and the disk he has in storage and that they will donate for free to me. The guy is extremely friendly and helpful and so is his boss. The world would be a much better place if people were like these guys and I owe them a big “thank you“! Will work out with FMV how to ship the equipment to me.
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- Eclipse S/280 front view
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- Eclipse S/280 side view
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- S/280 Disk Drive
Brought the Nova 3 home to work on it
Posted by Tommie in Data General Minicomputer Projects, The Data General Nova 3 Restoration Project on Tuesday 17 November, 2009
I brought the Nova 3 home and put in on a workbench in the hallway with the intention of:
- stripping it to pieces
- clean the metal parts from dust and rust
- clean the plastic front panel
- clean the PCB’s from dust, dirt and oxide
- check the power suplly for correct voltages and ripple
- assemble the parts
- test cpu and memory