[cctalk] Re: Wang TTL BASIC

Ocht ... Ben >> "FPGA logic is too vendor specific to have portable code. who needs 3 ns when 5 volt logic levels and simple packaging are more important in my mind when it comes to vintage equipment." Not if you write in VHDL / Verilog, the instantiated lumps (eg memory) will be different but no more than the API between M$ and Borland C. And if your interest is in vintage architecture rather than vintage hardware, 5V logic has little relevance. Ben >> " Can we still get the chips?" The narrow answer is given the source VHDL/Verilog you don't need legacy silicon. Taking DG Conway's PDP/4 as an example the XC4010 is probably no more obtanium than a DS8641, and the Spartan family is only now going out of production. Ben >> " I was thinking of the western digital chip set, that had the PDP 11 or Pascal in microcode." Acording to goo's AI the Intersil 6100 and Harris HD6120 both implemented a PDP-8 on a chip; IIRC microcoded. And IIRC the DEC T-11 chip was also microcoded with an 8 bit data path. Martin -----Original Message----- From: ben via cctalk [mailto:cctalk@classiccmp.org] Sent: 05 May 2025 01:28 To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org Cc: ben <bfranchuk(a)jetnet.ab.ca> Subject: [cctalk] Re: Wang TTL BASIC On 2025-05-04 3:13 p.m., Martin Bishop via cctalk wrote: FPGA logic is too vendor specific to have portable code. who needs 3 ns when 5 volt logic levels and simple packaging are more important in my mind when it comes to vintage equipment. http://fpgaretrocomputing.org/pdp4x/ Can we still get the chips? I was thinking of the western digital chip set, that had the PDP 11 or Pascal in microcode. A version of BASIC could have been developed, had not Microsoft cornered the basic market. Here is $10.00 bribe to support RISC. Ben.