30 Jul
2007
30 Jul
'07
9:08 p.m.
On 7/30/07, woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> wrote:
Devon Stopps wrote:
> I believe you're thinking of the book "The Art of Digital
> Electronics"...I don't remember who wrote it.
Close... "The Art of Digital Design" by Prosser and Winkel (I'm home
and staring at the book).
> I too have been
> considering building an 8/i compatible, and wouldn't mind some insight.
Well... owning an -8/i, my only complaint of it is how
difficult/expensive it is to expand the memory. Peripherals aren't
bad, but it takes 8K internally (I think I have all the parts I need
to take mine from 4K to 8K), but the external 24K is rare and
expensive.
I own one or more of nearly every style of -8 (lacking -8/f, -8/m,
WT78), but even so, a TTL and/or an AMD29xx-based -8 is still
fascinating to me. I already happen to have a small stack of '181
ALUs, and need to locate a few '83s to keep my pile of TTL -8s
working. The F20 uses the '183 adder, so hopefully I can find some at
the same place that has '83s.
From reading through the F20 design and, obviously,
using a pair of
modern "by 8" SRAMs instead of the now-ancient 6147 4Kx1
SRAM, I think
I already have 95% of the needed parts in my parts bins. FWIW, I
don't see as much value in building a TTL -8 design that doesn't have
a memory extension register, since I could just build an IM6100 board
if I wanted a 4K TTY-only PDP-8. I'd want to expand the design to
have at least 8K, so why not go on to 32K. At least with 8K, OS/8 is
possible, but why implement one memory extension bit when 3 bits just
isn't that much harder.
Switches are not cheep!!!
I disagree. I have tubs of C&K switches with various sizes and shapes
of paddles. What isn't cheap is *new* switches with *particular*
toggles/handles. Those are easily $5 each. Surplus "match only
themselves" can be had for $0.50 at Hamfests or places like BG Micro.
I've built Elf toggle panels for $5. A PDP-8 needn't cost more than
$15 unless you want very specific switches to match an existing
design.
-ethan