21 Jul
2014
21 Jul
'14
4 a.m.
On Sun, Jul 20, 2014 at 8:10 PM, Rick Murphy <rick at rickmurphy.net> wrote:
I don't know anyting about a PDP-14,
The machine is question is a VT14, not a PDP-14. The VT14 is a
specialized terminal used to develop ladder logic programs for a
PDP-14.
but it it used a VT8-E,
It didn't.
it had to be an Omnibus machine with Omnibus memory,
It was.
so it could easily be turned into a PDP-8/E
That doesn't necessarily follow, any more than it would follow that
because some sort of embedded device contains a Z80 CPU chip, it can
easily be turned into a CP/M system.
with the right CPU card set.
It had a KK8-E CPU card set. To get it to run general-purpose PDP-8
software, you're going to have to replace the memory, as the MR8-F
isn't too useful for that. The power supply isn't suitable for core
memory, but it might be for semiconductor. The keyboard and display
are going to be useless. The backplane, CPU, power supply, and
teletype interface are the only parts of the VT14 that you're going to
end up using. I wouldn't call that "easy", nor would I call the
result a "PDP-8/E".