This is an Unibus ethernet card.

It needs a few extra’s to work: the UNA bulkhead cable assembly:

and the cable to connect the card and the bulkhead assembly:

The bulkhead assembly ends in a AUI connector. These were, at that time, meant to be connected to a “Vampire Tap” type of Ethernet connection through an AUI cable:

The top line is the actual Ethernet COAX line which, at that time, was 10 10Mbit/s bus structure where multiple devices would attach to that same COAX.

To connect the DELUA to a modern network we need an AUI to 10Base-2 adapter:

This can be plugged into the AUI connector and provides a RJ45 10Base-2 connector. You will need to connect this to a switch that still understands 10MBit connections!

Testing the DELUA controller in an Unibone rig

Like the RX02 before it, I want to test the controller in a standalone Unibone setup. The DELUA card has some rather hefty power requirements:

• 5V 8A

• -15V 1A

This will require some setup with lab PSUs; an empty Unibone setup already takes about 3.2A.. Luckily enough the real power use (at least at startup) is less: putting my KA3305 in parallel mode, with 5A per channel provides enough power (about 4A per channel).

We now also need -15V. This is found on pin FB2 of the backplane. See the power connector diagram for details.

Dip switches on the DELUA card at arrival:

The rightmost dipswitch defines the device address, and it is set to 774510 as per the manual:

The leftmost dipswitch defines the vector address, and should be set to 120 for the 1st controller:

which is correct too.