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?

At 2:14 PM -0500 3/4/05, Heinz Wolter wrote: OK, this is seriously cool, and it's the first time that I've heard about this project. I'll have to take a good look at this and update my Emulation website to contain information about this (I've got an FPGA section that covers all FPGA implementations of DEC CPU's that I'm aware of). I'm wondering if they don't have a modified Unix V6 to handle the HD, or are they emulating a known DEC Drive? Any idea what it would take to boot something like RSTS/E, or RSX-11M+ on this? Your what project? Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 23:47:06 -0500, Curt @ Atari Museum <curt at atarimuseum.com> wrote: Are you talking about the boards made by Charon-VAX? Yes, it would be an interesting project. I am now a self-made expert on the Q-bus side. I'd be happy to help if some PCI guy want to do the work. vax, 9000

At 1:17 PM +0800 3/4/05, Wai-Sun Chia wrote: I'm one of the lucky ones, all of my main PDP-11's have SCSI adapters. However, only one of my two -8's (/m & /e) have a disk controller, though I've not found time to get either -8 fully running :^( One thing that really worries me is that the days of being able to get new SCSI disks that will work with a PDP-11 are coming to an end, if they aren't already over. One of the vendors that is very good with getting 3rd party disks to work with VMS has reported that the new U320 drives don't sync down to Narrow SCSI right. What I'd really like to see is some sort of MFM HD emulator. That's something that would be of use to more than just us DEC users. For those of us that would use it with DEC HW, something that would emulate a RD51-RD54 would be great for those OS's that expect a specific HD type. Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

I don't know of anyone having used the Acard adapters on a PDP-11 (doesn't really make sense at this point, since cheap small SCSI drives are still easy to get). OTOH, there are people using them with OpenVMS on DEC Alpha's. The downside is that they don't fully support the SCSI standard, and as such, they can't be used if you want to cluster the HD's. At least this was the case, the last I heard, I'd love to be proven wrong, as I'd like to get a pair of UW ones for my VMS server. Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 13:17:32 +0800, Wai-Sun Chia <waisun.chia at gmail.com> wrote: No plan yet. :(

On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 00:21:32 -0500, Patrick Finnegan <pat at computer-refuge.org> wrote: I was scared away by PCI too. Their are PLX PCI chipsets, and FPGA PCI cores but you still need to read the PCI protocol. ISA is easier but less attractive, because people who are after PCI QBUS are after the speed of newer CPU's. vax, 9000

Joshua> Why would PCI be a stumbling block? Joshua> Check out http://www.fpga4fun.com/PCI.html They make PCI look Joshua> easy. I don't speak Verilog so I can't dig deep, but from a cursory scan I'd say that what they do is make very small subsets of PCI look easy. Sure, that makes sense. But the full PCI standard is pretty large, and PCI cells for FPGAs are also pretty large. You may or may not end up with problems if you pull out much of the spec. paul

I still think, a PC with simh and a PCI to Qbus adapter to allow the use of Qbus peripherals that is more at hobbyist cost levels is a far better solution, I wish the companies current selling those $2,500-$3,000 cards would reduce their costs to more in line with a $500 range, I 'm sure a lot of us would buy cards and they'd make it up in quantity of sales. Curt Paul Koning wrote: