Remote job submission from PDP-11

On Wed, Oct 7, 2020 at 5:07 AM Peter Allan via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: I used to do this with specialty hardware... http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/softwareResults/Software_Results_Comboard_Broc… ... and there were "non-intelligent" mostly-software HASP and 3780 emulators, but I say mostly-software because you still needed a serial interface that could do Bisync (BSC) - like the DP(V)11 or DU(V)11. ISTR these chewed up a bunch of CPU, even on a VAX, and that's why we had a market for a $2,500 card and $20,000 license. While I do have all the code (and a fair amount of the hardware) from Software Results, writing a COMBOARD emulator would be rather complex - the core is a 68000 (easy enough to start from) with a COM5025 or Z8530 for a USART (probably not a ready-to-drop-in chunk of code) plus a DMA engine to the host bus implemented in two ways (different COMBOARD models). That last bit would require deep understanding of the original hardware. There were also intelligent sync serial engines for this from other vendors, including DEC (KMC11, and probably a later one but the device name escapes me).