28 Feb
2008
28 Feb
'08
9:40 a.m.
On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 11:33 AM, John Floren <slawmaster at gmail.com> wrote:
I'd really like to have something like one of the
old
mainframe/minicomputer control panels for my PC, but I'm just not sure
how to implement it. Anybody here tried something like that? Ideally,
you could power it on, see registers, toggle stuff into memory, have
lights for interrupts, that kind of thing. Yeah, I know, as soon as I
bring up an operating system, the ability to toggle things into memory
would be rather dangerous, but I just can't resist the charm of the
idea :)
So... doable? Impossible? Improbable?
My first thought was "That's a lot of lights and switches!" On a
modern, 64-bit, PC we're looking at roughly what, 128 switches?
Yeowch!
Now I do know of this kit, in prototype stage from Briel Computers:
http://www.brielcomputers.com/altairpc.html
Certainly not exactly what you were thinking of, but in a similar vein.
Josef