4 Mar
2000
4 Mar
'00
11:30 a.m.
This may be old news to most. I have never been exposed to the PDP-11
series, but I know a lot of you are big fans. I accidently came across
another RPI alum who offers his PDP emulator free for non-commercial use, so
I though Id post some info about it:
D Bit
Developer of Ersatz-11, a software PDP-11 emulator for MS-DOS PCs giving
emulation speed far faster than the PDP-11/93. The free demo version may be
used for 30-day commercial evaluation, or unlimited personal/hobby use.
Information about commercial versions is available here. Take a live RSX11M+
V4.5 system for a test drive here.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
PDP-11 Emulation System
Try out a live RSX11M+ V4.5 demo system
Ersatz-11 emulates an entire PDP-11 system in software while running on
low-cost PC hardware. It outperforms all of the hardware PDP-11 replacements
on the market, outstripping them by a particularly wide margin in
disk-intensive applications. Hardware PDP-11 replacements that use a Q-bus,
Unibus, or ISA bus for I/O can't come close to Ersatz-11's disk performance
because they are limited to the speed of the I/O bus for all disk transfers,
regardless of actual disk (or disk cache) speed. Ersatz-11 avoids this
bottleneck since it uses the PC's main memory and takes advantage of the
tight disk-to-memory coupling in modern PCs.
Ersatz-11 is by far the least expensive PDP-11 replacement product on the
market. It quickly pays for itself in reduced maintenance, power, and
climate control costs. Since its CPU is powered by the PC's processor and
not a special-purpose processor card, there's no expensive custom hardware
to maintain, and future upgrades to the PC's processor will make its PDP-11
emulation even faster.
Orders for Ersatz-11 are usually shipped out the same day.
Ersatz-11 features (Note: not all are available in Demo version)
Processor emulation:
PDP-11/23, PDP-11/24, PDP-11/34a, PDP-11/40, PDP-11/44, PDP-11/45,
PDP-11/53, PDP-11/70, PDP-11/73, PDP-11/83, PDP-11/84, PDP-11/93, or
PDP-11/94 CPU with individually selectable CPU features
FP11/FPF11/FPJ11 floating point processor
4 MB main memory (248-400 KB in Demo and Lite versions)
KW11L line clock (50/60 Hz, settable)
Display register (using special hardware)
Disk devices:
UDA50,RQDX3/RAxx,RDxx,RXxx MSCP disks; number limited by available memory
(not present in Demo version)
RK11D/RK02,RK05 disk drives; up to 8 per controller
RL11,RLV11,RLV12/RL01-02 disk drives; up to 4 per controller
RK611/RK06-07 disk drives; up to 8 per controller
RP11C/RP02,RP03 pack drives; up to 8 per controller
RX211/RX02, RX11/RX01, or RXT11/RX01 dual 8" floppies
RH11,RH70/RM02/03/05/80/RP04/05/06 removable pack disk drives; up to 8 per
Massbus (full version only)
RH11,RH70/RS03-04 fixed-head disk drives; up to 8 per Massbus
RF11/RS11 fixed-head disk drives; up to 8 per controller
RC11/RS64 fixed-head disk drives; up to 4 per controller
Tape devices:
KLESI,TQK50,TQK70/TU81,TKxx TMSCP tapes; number limited by available memory
(not present in Demo version)
RH11,RH70/TM03/TE16,TU45,TU77 magtape drives; up to 64 per Massbus
TM11/TU10 magtape drives; up to 8 per controller
TS11,TSU05,TSV05,M7454,TQK25/TS04,TS05,TU80,TK25 magtape drives; up to 8 per
controller (most configurations use just one)
TA11/TU60 dual cassette tape drive
TC11/TU56 DECtape drives; up to 8 per controller
PC11 paper tape reader/punch
Communications devices:
DL11 terminal ports; console and up to 31 others (16 total in Demo and Lite
versions)
DHQ11,DHU11,DHV11 serial multiplexers (full version only)
DZ11,DZV11 serial multiplexers (full version only)
LP11 printer ports; up to 4
DELUA Ethernet ports; up to 4
DEQNA Ethernet ports; up to 2 (not in Demo version)
Other features:
Versatile command language for controlling and monitoring emulation
Configuration may be modified without halting or rebooting emulator
Extensive logging facilities for capturing controller commands, terminal and
line printer output, and Ethernet traffic
Automatic configuration of floating CSR/vector addresses
Automatic selection of controller types based on emulated CPU type (for
devices such as the RL11/RLV12 whose Q-bus and Unibus versions have
programming differences)
PC hardware support
Block devices:
Disk images contained in DOS files
Raw SCSI disk drives (full version only)
Raw floppy drives (directly compatible with many types of DEC media)
8" drives may be attached using the D Bit FDADAP floppy disk adapter board.
RAM disks in DPMI memory (full version only)
Tape devices:
Tape images contained in DOS files
Raw SCSI tape drives (full version only)
RAM tapes in DPMI memory (full version only)
Character devices: (see comparison of multi-serial boards)
Emulated VT100 on SVGA -- can flip between up to 12 virtual screens, VESA
and Trident 132-column modes are supported; keyboard is fully customizable
using scripts for each key, default keyscripts emulate VT100 keyboard
including keypad
COM ports (FIFOs supported if available, including 16C650A etc.)
LPT ports
Comtrol RocketPort/PCI multi-serial boards (full version only)
Chase Research PCI-FAST multi-serial boards (full version only)
Boca multi-serial boards (full version only)
Digi AccelePort Xe (and older PC/Xe) multi-serial boards (full version only)
Sound Blaster MIDI port
Network devices:
Any Ethernet interface with a packet driver
NE2000 clones, ISA or PCI (built-in driver)
Bus adapters:(note PCI vendor change)
H & L Associates model UPG3600-PIO ISA/Unibus bridge (full version only,
limited support now, full support in a future update)
The Logical Company model BCI-2103 PCI/Q22 bridge (full version only)
The Logical Company model BCI-2003 PCI/Unibus bridge (full version only)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more information contact info(a)dbit.com
D Bit
11 Bank Street
Troy, NY 12180
Voice: +1 (518) 271-6824
FAX: +1 (518) 272-3853
I have no idea if this is new - no idea if the product is good, bad or
indifferent. Just thought somebody might be interested.
Bob Stek
Saver of Lost SOLs
bobstek(a)ix.netcom.com
4 Mar
4 Mar
2:49 p.m.
This may be old news to most. I have never been
exposed to the PDP-11
series, but I know a lot of you are big fans. I accidently came across
another RPI alum who offers his PDP emulator free for non-commercial use, so
I though Id post some info about it:
John has also been a list member for a few months :^) Downside of his is
you have to *OWN* a copy of the OS to use it legally. You can't use the
Hobbyist Emulator license. That only applies to Bob Supniks emulator.
Zane
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
| healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast |
| healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
4:56 p.m.
On Sat, Mar 04, 2000 at 05:49:08PM -0800, Zane H. Healy wrote:
Downside of his is
you have to *OWN* a copy of the OS to use it legally. You can't use the
Hobbyist Emulator license. That only applies to Bob Supniks emulator.
There's always the SCO antique Unix license. It's not free, but at least
it's affordable. But what I'd really like to do is write a set of free
replacement RT-11 utilities to be used with Fuzzball etc. I started on
DIR.SAV a while back but haven't had time to finish it (it does do a nice
Y2K compatible dir listing including the TSX+ time stamp, but doesn't
support all those innumerable switches yet), PIP.SAV and DUP.SAV would be
some work but not impossible at all, and also I've always meant to flesh
my puny FORTH mini-OS into something real. Cause what I'd really like to
see is something you can legally run on a real PDP-11 w/o any "hobbyist"
restrictions, since you never know when you might actually make some money
by accident with these old machines. Media conversion, consulting, whatever.
For a lot of us it's a really fine line between job and hobby!
John Wilson
D Bit
5 Mar
5 Mar
4:48 a.m.
>This may be old news to most. I have never been
exposed to the PDP-11
>series, but I know a lot of you are big fans. I accidently came across
>another RPI alum who offers his PDP emulator free for non-commercial use,
so
I though Id
post some info about it:
John has also been a list member for a few months :^) Downside of his is
you have to *OWN* a copy of the OS to use it legally. You can't use the
Hobbyist Emulator license. That only applies to Bob Supniks emulator. 
6:49 a.m.
Hi everybody,
A person can learn some really interesting things on this mailing list
:-) As a result of this thread, I discovered PDP-11 emulation.
Many years ago (and then some), I cut my teeth on a PDP-11 at the local
college. Was only in junior high at the time - had to sneak into the
computer lab to get some time on the terminals. I was used to FORTRAN
batch jobs with a 2-day turnaround. Real-time interaction was a whole
new ball game. This is when programming really became fun (except when
the school's sysadmin would see me :-/ and gently remind me that the lab
was for college students only).
BTW, Bob Supnik's emulator is the one I downloaded, and it includes the
hobbyist license for certain versions of OSes.
Too cool, flying RSTS again! Thanks for the tip, and helping me relive
a memory.
- Earl
8910
days inactive
8911
days old
4 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
-
bobstek＠ix.netcom.com -
earl＠evansweb.com -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
wilson＠dbit.dbit.com