Ajrljb Rl8a/Rl02 Drive Compatibility Test

Summary: This document details the RL02 Drive Compatibility Program (AC-F370B-MA), a diagnostic tool designed for PDP-8 systems. The program's purpose is to verify that RL02 disk drives are compatible across one or more subsystems, ensuring that data written by one drive can be accurately read by another, including operations involving over-write tests and adjacent cylinder writes.

Key features of the diagnostic include:

• System Requirements: The program requires a PDP-8 (A, E, F, or M) processor, at least 8K of memory, one or more RL8A/RL02 or RL278/RL02 controllers, and RL02 disk drives.
• Operational Tests: The software performs several specific tests, including verifying that each drive can write to selected tracks, write to adjacent tracks, over-write data from another drive, and read all stored data.
• Operator Interface: The program includes a dialogue-driven configuration process that allows the operator to specify the number of drives (2 to 4), their device codes, and their connectivity (single or dual system).
• Error Handling: It provides comprehensive error logging for various conditions, including fatal hardware/software errors, drive errors, and data inconsistencies. It also includes specific routines to manage bad sector files on disk packs.
• Technical Content: The majority of the document comprises the full program assembly listing, including all subroutines, register definitions, flag states, and memory maps required for the diagnostic's execution.