Hi,
The author of this project http://www.pdp11gy.com
<http://www.pdp11gy.com/doneE.html> built a wire-wrapped board to interface
an RL02 controller (RL11, RLV21, or RL8A) and an FPGA development board
(which does all the heavy lifting for the disk emulation).
I decided to build one of these emulators and to design a printed circuit
board rather than using wire wrap.
The schematics and layout of my RL02 interface board can be found here:
http://sierracircuitdesign.ddns.net/temp/RL02
I made changes to the original design (e.g. I used different driver and
receiver chips) but I think it should be plug compatible with the original
wire-wrapped design.
Feedback on this project is most welcome.
Regards,
Scott
On 21 October 2016 at 16:37, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
> A friend of mine is working on an emulator for this Burroughs Large
> Systems beast.
[..]
> I have suggested to him that it might be easier to work under an
> existing mini/mainframe emulator, such as SimH or maybe even
> MESS/MAME, but he is highly resistant to this idea, for reasons I do
> not really understand.
>
> I'm interested in opinions: do folk think that it would help, or not?
I fully understand. Not everything is easily tweaked to fit into those
frameworks. When I wrote my two minicomputer emulators I couldn't see
how on earth I could get that working inside simh without increasing
the work needed ten or fifty times. There wasn't anything there that
would help me for what I had in mind.
> From: Paul Koning
> 1976 Peripherals Handbook, page 6-4. It specifies the driver output
> low voltage at 70 mA sink, not 50...
Differing editions give slightly different numbers. I was looking at the 1972
edition (which was the one that was closest to hand, no other reason); the
number I gave is on pg. 204. I haven't checked later ones to see if there
were further revisions.
The later 70mA sink spec is probably a slightly more robust number to work
with.
Noel
A friend of mine is working on an emulator for this Burroughs Large
Systems beast.
There is an existing one -- https://github.com/pkimpel/retro-b5500
But it's web-based and in Javascript. Mark wants one that can be run
as a proper local binary, under Linux. I believe he's using part of
this emulator but trying to port it to either C, FreePascal or a
mixture of both.
I have suggested to him that it might be easier to work under an
existing mini/mainframe emulator, such as SimH or maybe even
MESS/MAME, but he is highly resistant to this idea, for reasons I do
not really understand.
I'm interested in opinions: do folk think that it would help, or not?
Also, anyone who might have any info that would aid him and are
interested, I can put you in touch.
He claims the system was influential in the design of the original
Intel 8088/8086, which is news to me. Comments?
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven
Skype/MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? LinkedIn/AIM/Yahoo: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R)
> From: David Bridgham
> the right threshold voltage to meet the receiver spec
The UNIBUS spec says the 4 crucial receiver parameters are input thresholds
(high and low), and the input currents (high and low); the crucial
transmitter parameters are the output low voltage (at 50 mA sink), and
the output high leakage current.
Noel
> From: Lars Brinkhoff
> Emacs in 1983 would have been Gosling Emacs, I guess.
Prior to that one, someone else at BBN (whose name I have forgotten, alas)
did an Emacs intended for PDP-11's running Unix. It wasn't programmable (the
way 'real' Emacs is), perhaps because there was not enough room for that on a
PDP-11.
I should have that on my MIT-CSR backup tapes, but if you're interested in a
copy, it will be a while before I can excavate it; the tapes had some
dropouts, which may have made the dump (a straight 'dd' of a 4.3 filesystem)
unreadable.
Noel
Folks,
We have another pedestal ES40 and rackmount ES45 to give away, as well as a
half-height Compaq rack (20U?). Has to be collected from CB8 7NY before the
end of next week otherwise they get recycled.
Anyone fancy an early xmas present? :)
--
adrian/witchy
Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest home computer collection?
www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk
> From: Lars Brinkhoff
>> someone else at BBN (whose name I have forgotten, alas)
> Sounds vaguely like MicroEMACS by Dave Conroy, but I suppose this is
> something else? Unix V6 you say? Was it BBN PEN by David Barach, David
> Taenzer, and Robert Wells?
None of those names rang a bell.
I just read the entire backup tape (in file form) into an editor, and
searched for "Emacs", and I found some things which indicate the version I'm
thinking of was written by Warren Montgomery, of Bell Laboratories (that's
what I get for relying on memory, sigh). It was apparently written in the
1980 to early-1981 timeframe.
Googling 'Emacs Warren Montgomery' turns up some interesting early things,
including this:
http://org.ntnu.no/emacs/implementations.htmlhttps://www.finseth.com/emacs.html
Perhaps you already have this content, though?
> Yes, I am! I don't think I can take on every single variation of Emacs,
> but a version this early is interesting.
OK, I will keep this in mind if/when I ever manage to read the dump.
Noel
For those curious about the equipment that sold last week, I put together an album from my brief stop on Saturday. Let me know if you have trouble viewing it.
https://goo.gl/photos/yb83SJSj67gS96n39
On closer inspection it appears the documentation for that GP-4, as well as some of the other computers, sold to different parties (the value being in the shelving and cabinets).
I'm still losing sleep over that GP-4. From all appearances it was a turn-key setup (in theory). Unfortunately, the auction site immediately removes closed lots from their webpage so no idea what it sold for, or if it went to a scrapper. I suspect it was billed as 'cabinets of aviation equipment'. Being 3 hours away I can't exactly run over there and pin a note on it.
Some further digging on the net revealed a photo in the Motorola Annual Report 1965 featuring the machine touting Moto's new ECL logic. Apparently it was designed for aviation simulation but included facilities for being a general purpose machine. -C
There's someone local who's seen my assortment of computer hardware
twice and has, each time, told me I should set up a museum.
This is tempting, but I don't know the first thing about doing it.
About all I'm sure of is that it would involve a lot of stuff I
currently have no idea of.
I know that there are at least a few people here who've been involved
in such things. While all the examples that come to mind are in the
USA, and mine would be in Canada, I'm sure there are many respects in
which the issues are jurisdiction-independent - and, who knows, there
may be such a person in Canada that I just can't recall offhand.
So, I'm wondering if there's anyone who'd be willing to share
experiences, thoughts, issues, whatever, on the possibility.
I'm not looking to make a lot of money off this. If I can turn my
computers from money-sink to money-neutral, I'll be content. (They are
currently soaking up money in the form of causing me to be renting
significantly more storage than I would be if they were to vanish.)
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