RK11-D and RK11-E Moving Head Drive Controller User's Manual

This document is the User's Manual for the RK11-D and RK11-E Moving Head Disk Drive Controllers for the PDP-11 system, published by Digital Equipment Corporation in September 1976.

The manual provides comprehensive information on the installation, operation, and programming of these controllers.

Key aspects covered include:

• Controller Functionality: The RK11-D and RK11-E are designed to control up to eight daisy-chained RK05 moving head disk drives, facilitating block-oriented data transfers (16-bit for RK11-D, 18-bit for RK11-E) via the PDP-11 Unibus at the Non-Processor Request (NPR) level.
• Operations: It details various control functions (Control Reset, Seek, Drive Reset, Write Lock) and data transfer functions (Write, Read, Write Check, Read Check), along with hardware polling capabilities for simultaneous operations and interrupt management.
• Disk Drive Overview (RK05): It describes the RK05's data storage format, including its 203 cylinders, 2 surfaces, 12 sectors per track, and 256 data words per sector, detailing the structure of a sector (preamble, header, data, checksum, postamble).
• Installation: Provides guidance on power and cabling requirements (Unibus and DR BUS), configuring RK11-D/E options through jumper settings, and installation testing using diagnostic programs.
• Programming Considerations: Outlines the software interface via seven programmable hardware registers (e.g., Drive Status, Error, Control Status, Word Count, Bus Address, Disk Address, Data Buffer registers), explaining their functions for controlling operations, handling interrupts, managing data format, and addressing timing and power fail conditions.

The manual emphasizes that it covers the controller aspects, directing users to separate documents for detailed information on the RK05 disk drives themselves and the Unibus operation.