Which HP9000
do you have?
I *think* (now you're making me work here) it's a 9000/320. I know it's a
68020, I just don't remember if it's a 320, 330 or 350. It's in my storage
unit, but it must live again, it was a delightful unit.
Right... I think I prefer the 9000/200 series. The 300s and later are
'just another unix box'. OK, that's very unkind, they _are_ HPs and are
built very nicely, but they're full of custom silicon (some of the data
sheets are on bitsavers!), and it's rare to run anything o nthem other
htan HP-UX. The older machines have lots more standard ICs in them, and
oftne run thigns like GHP BASIC or UCSD Pascal.
[FWIW, and to avoid flame,s I do like Unix-like ORes, but there are
plenty of machines old and new, that can run such software. I like to use
my classics ot run thigns I can't run on other machines]
play.
(Plus I don't know the first thing about restoring PDP-11's. -__-)
That is the perfect reason to get one. I suspect many of use knew
little/nothing about resotring a particular machine before it ended up in
our workshop. That certianly applies to me.
I'd rather learn on something a bit smaller that wouldn't dim the lights
as much. ;)
It depends on wht you want to learn....
Smalelr PDP11s, including all Q-bus models, have a custom DEC processor
IC or chipset. In that respect they're rather like microcomputers, THe
older, larger machines may well have a processor built from SSI and MSI
chips. Whith those you can (and do) connect a logic analyser to the ALU
outputs, or look athe carry flag with a logic probe, or...
As a hardware hacker, I feel everyone should get at least one machine
(not necessarily a PDP11) with a CPU built like that and fully understnad
it. It takes away a lot of the clouds of 'magic' that seems to be
associated with the operation of a processor.
-tony
