The RKV11D was a weird little device, but it really made sense at the
time. Technically when the 11/03 came out it was a 16 bit only device,
small, and I think DEC realized they had no hard disks at all for it
once it got to marketing. I mean they sold it as the 11V03 with the 4k
memories, maybe a 16k MSV11-CD and an RX01 floppy drive but that was
literally it for support.
To give it SOMETHING they did the RKV11: They took the 4 slot RK05
controller from a Unibus system, built the bus interface board to
support 16 bit Q-Bus and used the box to box interconnect cables to
connect it. Quick, dirty, and got them a drive. Then they got the RL01
shipping, tried putting it on a card, and realized all the analog
circuitry needed on the hex height RL11 was not going to fit on a single
Q bus card. And thus came the CD interconnect.
Only problem was the BA11-M was not going to fit that, so they dumped
the BA11-M for the N, a 9 slot backplane with 18 bit support and CD bus
so you could install the RLV11 cards. As for the 11/V03's they are
pretty, make a good end table, but really fell off the rails for
support, the only thing you could do was run a RXV11 system, get a
RKV11, or toss it all and go to a BA11-N.
Fun times. (Disclaimer, I have an 11/V03 that had the above path taken.
Going to RL01's instead of the RX01's was a game changer for 4 user MUBasic)
CZ
