Do you add non-microprocessor systems to this list, such as MSI/SSI machines
like the PDP 11/34?
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Ronald Wayne
Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2005 1:49 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Retrochallenge, 2005
> Hmmm ... are you the same Ronald Wayne who was the third founder of
> Apple and sold out for $800?
No. That is an alias I used while signing up for gmail. I realised that it
was a very silly alias when I signed up for this list. My name is Byron
Desnoyers.
Anyhow, I'll add processors when people suggest that they want to use it.
The general rule of thumb is that some version the processor must have been
introduced prior to March 1993. Processors like the 8085, 6809, and Z80 are
dead simple to add (I just have to confirm what they are). I'm sure that
some of you guys can throw much more difficult decisions my way too.
On 6/14/05, Computer Collector Newsletter <news at computercollector.com>
wrote:
> Hmmm ... are you the same Ronald Wayne who was the third founder of
> Apple and sold out for $800?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org
> [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]
> On Behalf Of Ronald Wayne
> Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2005 2:30 PM
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> Subject: Re: Retrochallenge, 2005
>
> Bah, don't let that serve as an excuse. All three of those processors
> have been added to the list.
>
> On 6/14/05, John Hogerhuis <jhoger at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Worse than that... the Z80, 8085, and 6809 (the first two of which I
> > actually use on a daily basis) are not in the list of qualifying
> > processors.
> >
> > -- John.
> >
> >
>
>
I have some front panels laying about:
http://www.mixweb.com/tpeters/pix/DEC/index.html
There is a wicked pretense that one has been informed. But no such
thing has truly occurred! A mere slogan, an empty litany. No
arguments are heard, no evidence is weighed. It isn't news at all,
only a source of amusement for idlers. --W. Gibson
--... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -...
tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio)
"HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB ADDRESS http//www.mixweb.com/tpeters
43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc
WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531
Hi Folks.
Being a student of Engineering at Carleton University, every day I
walked by an old PDP-8 that was on display in the halls. However, over
the years it got bashed up and abused, since there was nothing
protecting it.
Recently, I spoke to the chair of the department, and he (excitedly)
agreed to provide me with space and the machine to restore, in hopes
that the faculty could display it in its original glory (and even better
if it is functional!).
I started the restoration this past Thursday. It shall be one hell of a
job to say the least. The machine was on display for close to 20 years,
I figure, and as such took quite a beating.
One of the parts in the worst condition is the bank of switches on the
front. These were trashed by students walking by and playing around with
them over the year.
So, the statistics for switches:
7 Brown Switches irreparable
4 White Switches irreparable
6 Brown Switches reparable
5 White Switches reparable
2 White Switches are perfectly intact
1 Brown Switch is perfectly intact
Also, unfortunately, certain flipchips (according to my schematics,
anyways) are missing. The ADC option was installed, I know for sure,
while the memory parity and power control stuff was not. At any rate,
the first 11 flipchips from rows A and B on the processor side of things
are missing in action.
The following flipchips are missing:
W501
R302 * 2
S603
R002 * 5
S111 * 9
R111
S603 * 2
S602 * 2
R405 * 2
S202
S203 * 2
S107 * 3
S151
R203
G209 * 3
R202 * 3
R503
The power supply unit for this machine has already blown in my face
once, any advice on how to test/ensure that the PSU is functional?
I'm keeping a log of my progress at http://www.cowpig.ca and would
appreciate any feedback people offer and any suggestions people have
over the course of the project.
I'd really like to try to get this machine working. If anybody has any
of the parts needed, and is willing to part with them, I would greatly
appreciate it!
Regards,
Phil.
Anyone know how to replace the little felt pad on an RX01 floppy.
It is the pad that is opposite the head to hold the floppy
against the head. One of mine has come off, and without a dentist
mirror thingy I can't see what holds it in place. Are these available
still?
_______________________________________________
Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com
The most personalized portal on the Web!
>From: woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca>
>What about switches for the front panel, that is a big expense too.
There are 20 inexpensive tactile-feedback pushbuttons on the 8/A programmer's panel, not paddle switches. IIRC they were less than $1 each including the separate keytop. Vince would have the exact figure.
>>The other major ticket item for this project is the front
>>plate. Anyone know where we can get those done inexpensively?
>What about a local machine shop?
The front panel runs $90 in single quantities from Frontpanelexpress.com. (They get cheaper in quantity too). NO way a machinist with a Bridgeport would be able to do one for that! $90 would pay for 2 hrs labor (if you're lucky) and I think it would take far longer to do each one. Not even counting the engraved, color-filled legend at each LED and switch position. All of that is done by computer-controlled machine in minutes directly from the panel design software's output file.
-Charles
ps still looking for a bootable OS/8 RL02 pack for my 8/A, can anyone please help?
>From: "Tequi Lizer" <tequilizer at gmx.net>
>
>I recently acquired a HP 9845C option 280 (was looking for it for a
>really long time).
>
>The machine is in an overall good condition, however it hangs during
>memory test ("MEMORY TEST IN PROGRESS"), even after cleaning all board
>connectors, resocketing all ROMs & repeated control-stop's. Before
>entering nirvana the printer outputs a couple of memory addresses.
>Although lots of defects may be responsible, I assume there is a
>combination of both a bad RAM chip and a ROM failure, since a RAM defect
>alone should (?) not crash the system during the test.
>
>The printout looks like this:
>
>000000 100112 052525
>000000 110112 052525
>000000 120112 052525
>000000 130112 052525
---snip---
Hi
It looks like it is more likely that you are having a data bus
buffer or address buffer issue than a massive RAM/ROM failure.
You might look at things with a 'scope or logic analyser.
Dwight
On Mon, 24 Oct 2005, "Peter C. Wallace" <pcw at mesanet.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Oct 2005, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>
> > On Sun, 23 Oct 2005, "Peter C. Wallace" <pcw at mesanet.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Well since its pretty easy to get microcode to run at 75-100 MHz or so in
> >> current cheap FPGAs, I'd say that 10 X a 780 should be trivial...
> >
> > I'd say that's wrong. Considering that the VAX8650 microcode engine runs
> > at 68 MHz and manages about 7 times the 11/780, you're optimistic.
> > The 8650 have a very large microcode word, actually have three (or was
> > it four?) microcode engines running in parallell, and some very advanced
> > cacheing and pipelining to speed it up to get even that far.
>
>
> Not sure, but my guess is that a lot of that sophisticated caching and
> pipelining was needed to get the microengine to run at that 68 MHz because of
> the chip-chip delays in a large multi-chip design.
The 8650 is all ECL, man. We're talking really fast gates here...
> Current cheap FPGAs can manage 75-100 MHz with no pipelining. They can
> also do 32 bit adds/subtracts in < 7 or so nS. I doubt if the 8650s hardware
> could manage that. Would be interesting to know the average number of
> microinstructions per macroinstruction on the 8650...
It probably can do that. Without actually knowing, I would guess it
requires much less than 7 ns for an add/substract. However, since we're
talking about a pipelined machine here, you also have register copyback in
the pipe, fp stuff, the memory management with page relocation, TLB cache,
internal processor registers, and lots of other stuff going on. There is a
lot of things to cover. And since you have several micromachines, register
updates also needs to get duplicated to the other micromachines. I think I
have the documentation for the microcode for the different engines, and I
also have the binary microcode files... Anyone want to take a crack at
this? :-)
And of course, with a VAX, you have the bloody instruction fetch and
decode stuff which really is a pain. Get first byte, figure out how many
arguments it takes. Get the next byte and start parsing for the first
argument, which might be a whole number of bytes, then continue with the
next argument. Worst instructions take five arguments if I remember
correctly.
On Mon, 24 Oct 2005, woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> wrote:
> Johnny Billquist wrote:
>
> >I'd say that's wrong. Considering that the VAX8650 microcode engine runs
> >at 68 MHz and manages about 7 times the 11/780, you're optimistic.
> >The 8650 have a very large microcode word, actually have three (or was
> >it four?) microcode engines running in parallell, and some very advanced
> >cacheing and pipelining to speed it up to get even that far.
> >
> >
> >
> Also compared to a smaller machine -- remember you have floating point
> stuff as well
> as the basic instruction set. I forgot about that too. That is a fast
> engine -- about 15 ns.
Yeah, there are some reasons why I like the 86x0 series... They are quite
brutal in their way... A number of patents DEC made on the 86x0 series
(among others) were what the fight with Intel about the Pentium and
patent infringement was about in the mid 90s.
Johnny
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at update.uu.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
On Sat, 22 Oct 2005, "Curt @ Atari Museum" <curt at atarimuseum.com> wrote:
> I know of one person on the list who owns such a beastie, I'm curious if
> anyone else owns an 11/725 and would consider possibly selling/trading it?
You'll probably hate me for telling that I threw an 11/730 away less than
a year ago.
But it was in Sweden, and I doubt anyone would want to pay for the
shipping.
But the hardware I still keep around is much more interesting... :-)
Johnny
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at update.uu.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
>
>Subject: Re: FPGA VAX update
> From: William Donzelli <aw288 at osfn.org>
> Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 14:43:59 -0400 (EDT)
> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>
>> The 8650 is all ECL, man. We're talking really fast gates here...
>
>The 8650 was pretty slow for an ECL machine, as I think it was just
>10K. That really is not a big step above something using 74ASxx series
>technology. 100K, MECL III, 10G and 10E were the fast ECLs.
>
>William Donzelli
>aw288 at osfn.org
Yep, 86xx was ECL10k and a little of the early ECLx (early next generation).
The 9000 was the ECL100K+ packaging. So an 86xx was still above 10nS for
a full adder with lookahead.
There is also something that came out of the RISC camp. The more stuff
running in (hopefully) lockstep (multiple microengines) the more work
on timing margins needs to be done. Critical paths for logic dominate
and system speed will be slower.
the MicroVAX-I was almost the other end of the spectrum. It was almost
how much can be taken out and still be a creditable vax. That simplification
was an important clue for the VAX on silicon (uV-II) as to hove much had
to be there and how fast.
I'd think if you simplify the 780 to eliminate the busses other than local
ones and then implement using new tech the scalar result could be quite fast.
However if the goal is to make a 780 with all the busses common to it for
the IO and storage you'll end up with a more logic to implement the busses
than the core CPU in hardware. One look at the microVAX series will show
even though the cpu was reduced to trivial number of chips the total board
space wraped around it was for busIO. the best contrast is the uVaxII (qbus)
and the uVAX2000. They are close in performance (exact same CPU) but miles
apart in power needed and chip count. This pattern occurs throughout the
industry with just about every cpu that comes to mind.
Allison
