15 Oct
2012
15 Oct
'12
5:57 p.m.
On 15 October 2012 20:17, David Riley <fraveydank at gmail.com> wrote:
On Oct 15, 2012, at 7:42 PM, Jay West wrote:
If I can get some more money, I'd be willing to contribute -- for a
QBUS version though; preferably with the ability to be an RH11+disk
controller (workalike) with an RM05 or two.
What I'd really like to see is something that could replace a TM11 or
RH11+9-track tape drive controller and drives with modern CF or SD
cards instead. Would make it easier for those of us who don't have
9-track to install software off of 9-track.
-- C. M. Gauger-Cosgrove
Most of the discussion on this that other people
have brought up, is why I liked Brad Parkers "udisk" approach so much. His
design goals were:
Create a low cost unibus adapter card which can emulate a small number
of popular controllers (RL11, UDA50, etc) and use an IDE or CF disk as
the actual media.
Make it easy for others to write personality modules for different
controllers.
Should allow use of a IDE/CF disk to boot a PDP-11 (or vax).
Specifically, I was enamored of the approach that allowed a user to write their own
personality module to change it from acting like a SCSI controller vs. SDI vs. etc.... all
via software. This would seem to me to be the most functional approach for the most
people.
I'll pony up a bounty of $300 to get someone to take those design goals through to a
kit form. Anyone want to add to the bounty? Or take up the gauntlet? :)
I'd love to, but $300 is probably about enough to build a single board
in quantity 5 or so. If I do it, it's not going to be for money. :-)
However, something like a Kickstarter would at least be able to
guarantee the availability of funds to manufacture the damned thing,
which is what's hung me up in the past (now it's more the availability
of time, since I have a 13-month-old timesink who refuses to learn how
to solder).
Those are very much in line with my general design goals, though, as
well as a wide variety of media to interface. I'd be very interested
in working with someone to accomplish what I can't myself in a
reasonable amount of time.
- Dave