Sunday, July 7, 2024

Repaired 3817 card that accomplishes parity checks; still have dim light

OUTPUT LEVEL INVALID ON THE 3817 CARD AT 0.9V

I pulled the 3817 card that implements the parity checking to see why the output wasn't up near 3V. After some reverse engineering I could see that the card uses 361435 SLT modules (AC multitrigger) for its three flipflops, one of which is the Parity Error state.  


By comparing the readings against the two working flipflops (setting the two parity check bits during a write to memory), I spotted an anomaly with transistor T3 of the module, which if it were partially conducting would produce the results I saw. I looked through all of my spare card stock but none had a 435 module I could swap for the suspected bad one on this card.

Fortunately, the machine was configured to support a paper tape punch, but does not have that peripheral. I could therefore grab the SLT cards for the feature and make use of any 435 modules on one of them. I yanked all the tape punch cards out of the machine (from gate A compartment B1) and indeed there are quite a few 435 modules on those cards. 

Bottom of the SLT module

Removed from donor card

Module replaced on card

I swapped over a module from one of the cards and plugged my 3817 back into the 1130. It still generates correct parity and detects parity errors, so the fix didn't make things worse. However, we still have the 0.9V output when it should be pulled up to 3V. 

I plan on pulling the 3817 card from B-B1 and the 3819 (lamp driver) card from A-C1, then measuring the signal path to look for something pulling 3V down to 0.9, causing the error. 

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