14 Mar
2007
14 Mar
'07
6:33 p.m.
On 3/14/07, Vincent Slyngstad <vrs at msn.com> wrote:
From: "Ethan Dicks"
Looking at an IOB6120, that's clearly no stretch (and the VHDL is
already in there for a VT52 w/PS/2 and VGA ;-)
Perhaps this is yet another thing better done
with a microcontroller
and emulation software...
I was thinking of something more like an FPGA demo board -- mine has
tons of gates, memory, PS2, VGA, the serial and parallel port are no
problem, etc. If an additional terminal type is needed, it would be
some ROM dumps
and VHDL tweaks.
As long as there's room for a bunch of ROM. I've seen raster
terminals with 68000s and a *lot* of 28-32-pin ROM chips.
Hey, if it can do a PDP-8, it ought to be able to
emulate a VT100 :-).
Entirely so. The question I have now is... what would it cost to make
one of these? If it's under $100, then will have a much larger
audience than if it costs $250. I spent quite a bit for an IOB6120
bag of parts, and I suppose that board as rigged to be a generic
classic terminal would already be cheaper than 2-3 real classic
terminals, but, as with anything non-essential, the cheaper you can
make it, the larger the potential audience.
Still... sounds like an interesting proposition to me.
-ethan