Whaaa? That's actually something a little bit different; I didn't even know there was such a thing as a TOAD-2. Does anyone here know how many units of the TOAD-2 were ever sold? Who bought them? That board looks so close to mini-ITX form factor... they should start selling them bare... it would look great next to my Atom boxes!!

Best, Sean On Fri, Nov 28, 2014 at 10:44 AM, Pontus Pihlgren <pontus at update.uu.se> wrote: > On Fri, Nov 28, 2014 at 04:26:09PM +0100, Jacob Dahl Pind wrote: >> >> <qoute> >> Unfortunately I do not have much details. I was at the Living >> Computer Museum and talked with RIch Alderson, who used to work at >> XKL. And he showed me a >> newer generation router from XKL, opened up, at LCM. And they use a >> PDP-10 on a chip, and it was actually running TOPS-20, and I could >> play around at the >> EXEC level in there. >> </quote> > > The system refered to above is visible next to the TOAD-1 in this video > clip, arround 30 seconds in. > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=We3BEaiz194 > > I've know for a while that it's been a 36 bit machine under the hood but > I was told that it is limited in some way, perhaps not a full pager. It > would be fun to get some details. (And if you can get one for yourself > of course). > > Regards, > Pontus. >

On Fri, 28 Nov 2014, Johnny Billquist wrote: How does one obtain one of these boards?

Sorry, I was just alluding to the "board" inside the ~1U device labeled as "XKL TOAD-2" in the video at around 0:30 in. Watching it a second time through, however, it appears that the TOAD-2 box shown in the video actually contains two discrete boards! I don't think that's an off-the-shelf product, LOL. I assume the board is a common system controller used in their network equipment product line and the TOAD-2 is a one-off; a few system controllers from stock, a chassis with plexiglas lid swapped in and a few extra holes drilled... produced per request of a good customer ;) I'm wondering now, do you think the TOAD-2 actually does anything? Or is it just a static display to demonstrate minimization of the PDP-10 over time? Can it run TOPS? Or is it just a router lacking any network interfaces?

Best, Sean On Fri, Nov 28, 2014 at 5:28 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at update.uu.se> wrote: > On 2014-11-28 23:19, David Griffith wrote: > >> On Fri, 28 Nov 2014, Johnny Billquist wrote: >> >> On 2014-11-28 17:13, Sean Caron wrote: >>> >>>> Whaaa? That's actually something a little bit different; I didn't >>>> even know >>>> there was such a thing as a TOAD-2. >>>> >>>> Does anyone here know how many units of the TOAD-2 were ever sold? Who >>>> bought them? >>>> >>>> That board looks so close to mini-ITX form factor... they should start >>>> selling them bare... it would look great next to my Atom boxes!! >>>> >>> >>> As far as I understood it, they are still selling them. >>> >> >> How does one obtain one of these boards? >> > > Boards? It's a group of products for networks... > If you deduct the name of the product from the name of the firmware > (Darkstar), you can see a whole bunch of products at www.xkl.com that are > "Darkstar". I don't know if all of them use the TOAD-2, but it is > possible... > > Johnny > > > -- > Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus > || on a psychedelic trip > email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books > pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol >

Not disputing seeing the evidence of a 36-bit machine behind the curtain in the XKL Darkstar firmware updates but I wasn't clear on whether or not the TOAD-2 board just had some PDP-10 provenance in it, or whether or not it was a full-on clone that could run the historic operating systems.

I don't see the TOAD-2 listed a a product on XKL's site anywhere, though. As far as I can tell there's no Darkstar product listed on their site with exactly the same port punch-outs as the TOAD-2. Maybe it's a special order item? Unfortunately it's not in my price range any way you cut it ;)

Best, Sean On Fri, Nov 28, 2014 at 5:56 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at update.uu.se> wrote: > On 2014-11-28 23:49, Sean Caron wrote: > >> Sorry, I was just alluding to the "board" inside the ~1U device labeled as >> "XKL TOAD-2" in the video at around 0:30 in. >> >> Watching it a second time through, however, it appears that the TOAD-2 box >> shown in the video actually contains two discrete boards! >> >> I don't think that's an off-the-shelf product, LOL. I assume the board is >> a >> common system controller used in their network equipment product line and >> the TOAD-2 is a one-off; a few system controllers from stock, a chassis >> with plexiglas lid swapped in and a few extra holes drilled... produced >> per >> request of a good customer ;) >> >> I'm wondering now, do you think the TOAD-2 actually does anything? Or is >> it >> just a static display to demonstrate minimization of the PDP-10 over time? >> Can it run TOPS? Or is it just a router lacking any network interfaces? >> > > It runs TOPS-20. I've seen and played at the EXEC prompt of the TOAD-2. > And XKL are not making these as one-offs. > Yes, the one at LCM has been modified for display purposes, with such as > the plexiglass top. > > But if you read the thread, someone actually went to XKL and fetched the > firmware upgrade image they provide, and it's clearly for a 36-bit machine. > This is the firmware they provide as a general download to customers. > > This would not make sense if it were, as you suggest, a one-off product. > > Johnny > > > >> Best, >> >> Sean >> >> >> >> On Fri, Nov 28, 2014 at 5:28 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at update.uu.se> >> wrote: >> >> On 2014-11-28 23:19, David Griffith wrote: >>> >>> On Fri, 28 Nov 2014, Johnny Billquist wrote: >>>> >>>> On 2014-11-28 17:13, Sean Caron wrote: >>>> >>>>> >>>>> Whaaa? That's actually something a little bit different; I didn't >>>>>> even know >>>>>> there was such a thing as a TOAD-2. >>>>>> >>>>>> Does anyone here know how many units of the TOAD-2 were ever sold? Who >>>>>> bought them? >>>>>> >>>>>> That board looks so close to mini-ITX form factor... they should start >>>>>> selling them bare... it would look great next to my Atom boxes!! >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> As far as I understood it, they are still selling them. >>>>> >>>>> >>>> How does one obtain one of these boards? >>>> >>>> >>> Boards? It's a group of products for networks... >>> If you deduct the name of the product from the name of the firmware >>> (Darkstar), you can see a whole bunch of products at www.xkl.com that >>> are >>> "Darkstar". I don't know if all of them use the TOAD-2, but it is >>> possible... >>> >>> Johnny >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus >>> || on a psychedelic trip >>> email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books >>> pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol >>> >>> > > -- > Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus > || on a psychedelic trip > email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books > pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol >

The system refered to above is visible next to the TOAD-1 in this video clip, arround 30 seconds in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=We3BEaiz194

I've know for a while that it's been a 36 bit machine under the hood but I was told that it is limited in some way, perhaps not a full pager. It would be fun to get some details. (And if you can get one for yourself of course).

Given that a PDP-10 only supports a virtual address space of 256 KW,

Rich Alderson <RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org> writes: It was? During my stint at XKL, I was told the Toad-1 I was working with was an FPGA implementation. Maybe it was an experiment, but it seemed to work pretty well. But then, I was a telecommuter, so maybe some information was jumbled in long-distance transmission.

From: Eric Smith Lars, Eric is correct. The Toad-1 is a multi-board computer system (at minimum, the XKL-1 CPU, one XMG-1 memory, one XNI-1 Ethernet interface, and one XRH-1 SCSI interface, in a 7-slot backplane). Each board used several programmable parts, from Altera and Xilinx. In particular, the CPU was a pair of Xilinx parts for the microcode engine, with an AMD 2900 family sequencer (I forget the particular part number). The Toad-2 (and the 1U rack mount unit is *not* a Toad-2, but it does contain two of them, thus the label) is a single FPGA implementation of the Toad-1 (mutatis mutandis: no SCSI, but it talks to SD cards, for example).