[cctalk] Re: IBM 1410 FPGA Status

On Jul 11, 2023, at 3:23 AM, Jay Jaeger via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote: Over the past couple of months I have been working on my FPGA implementation of the IBM 1410 1960's era pre System/360 system again. I am pleased to share that the CPU now passes a significant diagnostic, CU01, which tests almost all of the instructions, and also tests I/O with overlap and the priority feature (interrupts). Also, it runs at generally the same speed as the original machine (comparing the IBM estimates for 1000 passes), using the same logic as the original machine (though no doubt optimized by the process of taking in VHDL logic statements and turning combinatorial logic into lookup tables (LUTs), and some additions of "D" flip flops to avoid race conditions in latches and logic loops.) (The speed is the same because its "oscillator" - crystal controlled in the original - is now a clock divider/counter off of the FPGA chip clock.) For more details, see https://www.computercollection.net/index.php/ibm-1410-fpga-implementation/ Mostly the ALD (Automated Logic Diagram) data capture seems to have been very accurate. I really only had to do four things this year to get it to this point: - Make the necessary logic gate deletions / changes for configuration option S40/$40 - 40K of core - Add the ability to transfer a core image from the PC support program to the FPGA. - Fix some issues in the Assembly Channel because while almost all of the ALDs are for a 1410 with the Accelerator feature, several pages of the very important Assembly channel were for the base 1410 model. - Deal with a race condition during overlapped I/O These are generally discussed in individual blog posts off the above link. I really was quite happily surprised that when capturing the data on over two hundred ALDs with over 10,000 logic gates, over 4,200 individual unique signals, more than 12,000 signal names on individual ALDs, and more than 32,000 interconnections that there were not a lot more problems than these. (I may run into some as yet undiscovered errors involving the channels as I add I/O devices, though). I suppose that there were not more problems because for most of the individual sheets and in many cases groups of sheets I wrote VHDL test benches using the Intermediate Logic Diagrams (ILDs) as a guide, and of course took considerable care during the data entry process from the ALDs, checking connection counts on each logic block, for example. The last post ("Off to the Races") on the aforementioned web page also discusses the next expected steps: some more work on the PC/Console support program, more diagnostic tests, other support program enhancements, and figuring out how to go about I/O, especially since I don't have ALDs for the 1414 I/O Synchronizers. But I no longer have any doubts about the viability of this process, so long as the FPGA logic clock is somewhere around 10x the logic clock of the simulated machine. (I expect to try and "push it" by speeding up the 1410 logic clock to see at what ratio of the FPGA clock to the CPU clock things break down, as well). JRJ