Create a VAX CPU with FPGA?

The 730 was also the slowest VAX on the planet.. save the Microvax I. They used the 2901s bit slice data path chip, but I'm not certain they used the AM2910 usequencer. VHDL and verilog models ~are~ available for both those chips. I think though, it would be quite a bit of work to verbatim copy/translate those schematics.. Then you'd have to scarf the microcode from a 730 boot tape ;) I can help there since I have both a working 730 and a boot tape! btw - the pdp11/40 and VAX/780 have already been implemented on an FPGA!

A better way would be to look at what this prof in Japan did -he's written a complete working pdp11/40 on a smallish altera fpga- - it even runs UNIX V6! and had an IDE hd interface. http://shimizu-lab.dt.u-tokai.ac.jp/pop11.html pictures here: http://shimizu-lab.dt.u-tokai.ac.jp/pop11pics.html here is the paper http://csdl.computer.org/comp/proceedings/asp-dac/2004/2543/00/25430571.pdf Get the files here: http://shimizu-lab.dt.u-tokai.ac.jp/ and note the VAX 780 project announcement. They show here that they are nearly complete on their VAX 780 on a chip project. Both the 780&11/40 are written in SFL - a nice but unpopular C-like HDL. This PDP is not microcoded. The tools are freely downloadable as well as the PDP11/40 source - so you can play on winblows and linux. I got both versions of the 11/40 to run but alas.. they don't boot V6. The makefile compiles SFL to verilog using a closed compiler SFL2VL written by the prog. It seems to run run fine on Icarus/verilog and simulate, but I have been unable to import that verilog successfully into Alteras or Xilinx's free software targetting a spartan2. Sad, as I wanted to use this as a front end to my PDP10 project written in SFL;) As far as PDP11s go - I'd be curious to try to implement an SFL WD1611/1621 and runing LSI11 microcode on an FPGA..

regards Heinz Patrick Finnegan wrote: To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Create a VAX CPU with FPGA?