Once you consider iconic parings, your mind most likely goes extra to “cookies and milk” than “DEC and Ikea” however after watching [Dave]’s newest on Usagi Electrical the place he places a PDP-11 into an Ikea desk, you might rethink that.
The PDP-11 is classic {hardware} that really lived inside a distinct desk, as soon as upon a time, serving because the management unit for an FTIR spectrometer. Whereas the lab gear has fortunately survived the a long time, the desk didn’t and when [Dave] bought the unit it was as a pile of elements. He revived it, after all– it’s form of what he does– but it surely didn’t get a brand new desk for years, till his newest store re-organization.
The one concession to modernity– and lacking elements– is utilizing switching energy provides slightly than the cumbersome linear PSU that may have initially powered the unit. It’s a superb factor, too, or now we have hassle picturing how all the pieces would match! This explicit PDP-11 comes with the excessive efficiency vector processing unit with a purpose to crunch these spectrographs, and apparently these chips idle at about 60C, so the desk-case bought some decent-sized 120V followers to maintain all the pieces cool and working for years to return.
This isn’t essentially the most aesthetic or fanciest case-mod we’ve seen, principally being made from surplus plywood and scrap steel fittings, but it surely definitely will get the job carried out. Provided that the PDP-11 has been crammed into each form-factor recognized to man, from a system-on-a-chip (earlier than anyone actually talked about SOCs) to desktop workstations, and naturally the hulking cupboards with their iconic blinkenlights-– it’s onerous to say that this set up isn’t fairly genuine, even when it isn’t the unique desk.
