12 Aug
2006
12 Aug
'06
1:07 p.m.
Dave McGuire wrote:
Don wrote:
Huh? I don't think so, at least not for me. I'm totally in love with
my SBC6120, which is at least a move in that direction. I can run it
24/7 and just have it available on a serial port which I can get to when
I'm not home, for some OS/8 hacking when I get the itch.
But, you can make the move all the way "in that direction"
and just run an emulator. :> I.e. the appeal is having
the actual hardware. And, while PDP's are reasonably
commonplace, having a *tiny* one (imagine a 10x10x10 8/i
sitting on your COFFEE TABLE :> ) would be truly unique.
A
variation on this theme might be to build a very small number of
different types of boards, but with a CPLD on each one...a small,
cheap one like a Xilinx XC9536 (something like $3/ea qty. 1)...then
have a JTAG connector on each board, and squirt the "personality"
into the board that way. I've not had a chance to work closely with
FlipChip-based machines (unfortunately) so I don't know how much
consistency there is on things like power pins and such, so I don't
know if this'd be practical, but I think it's an interesting idea.
I think that skirts the appeal of a *real* "miniture PDP".
E.g., why not just do the whole design in an FPGA? It would
be a pretty boring accomplishment.... :-( That said, though, it'll never replace my
"real" -8 machines. I have
several 8/e and one 8/m system, sadly no others...anybody got one (8/i,
8/l maybe) that might be up for trade?
Quite interesting as the ballistics are very different
as you scale things down. And, the mechanisms need to be
completely reengineered as they don't scale well, either!
OTOH, having the exact same design done in
"miniature
technology" would be cool!
I've a friend who had a miniature pinball machine (intended
as a "bar top" device). Roughly 10"x24" with everything
scaled down (and made in stainless!). *That* was cool!
Wow, that does sound cool!