21 Jul
2004
21 Jul
'04
2:13 a.m.
Here's my 2 cents:
I think quite a substantial effort has been in replicating/reproducing
the mystical "blinkenlights" effects of a real PDP8..culminating in the
FP6120, a brilliant effort I must say (although price is a bit steep for
me personally).
Perhaps it's time to veer away from the "lights and switches" track.
Perhaps I can suggest this:
Use the 6100 to build a minimal system. Memory to the max; i.e. 32kW
(battery backed to emulate core). A standard console. No lights no
switches to save costs. No IDE/ATA, again to save cost. With the money
saved in the IDE interface we can plunk in more core (err..SRAM) to
emulate storage, I dunno, say a dual TU56 worth of storage? 512kW.
So now we have PDP8/E with a maxed out core and a dual TU56.
Now, I'm just thinking as I type..
Just thought of cool idea. Why don't we add an Omnibus slot into our
little 6100-based PDP8? That'll be cool to the neo-hardware hackers!!
Or maybe we increase that to 4 Omnibus slots, so that we can test
existing boards...RK8E, etc.
Heh. How about a 10/100Mbps Omnibus board? :-)
Or a Omnibus sound card?
Wow! The list is endless...
Wonder if you could squeeze a rudimentary TCP/IP stack below 32kW?
You know what I'm getting at.. :-)
Run www.pdp8.org with a real PDP8!!
I think I've rambled enough...
Robert Armstrong wrote:
Hi Guys,
I built the SBC6120 (a PDP-8/E clone based on the HD6120 chip,
http://sbc6120.SpareTimeGizmos.com) but a bunch of the people in the
SBC6120 group also have IM6100 chips, sometimes tubes of 'em. We've
been having a little discussion about what to do with them on the
SBC6120 mailing list, and when I heard about this thread I thought I'd
open up the discussion.
To start off, I can think of a couple of ways to go with the 6100:
* Another machine with a real lights and switches front panel (a
simplified SBC6120+FP6120). To save money we'd have to use cheap metal
handle (e.g. "Altair style") toggle switches instead of paddle switches.
There'd be no fancy silk screened faceplate like the SBC6120 - if we had
any faceplate, it'd probably be some laser printed graphics sandwiched
between two clear sheets of plastic (again, "Altair style"!). You might
even have to drill your own faceplate - STG might not offer a precut
one.
* An Intercept Jr clone, including the octal keypad and octal display.
Maybe even powered by 3 or 4 "D" cells like the original Intercept Jr.
* A single board computer with an onboard EPROM to talk to a terminal
using something like LSI-11 CODT. No lights, no switches. Basically a
simplified (and less capable) SBC6120.
All of the options would have 4K of memory and a console terminal
interface. They'd run FOCAL-69, DECUS CHESS, or any other 4K paper tape
software. No mass storage and no OS/8.
Would anybody like to cast a vote? Does anybody have another idea?
Thanks,
Bob
--
/wai-sun