PDP2011 board

[Rob Doyle]

On 10/22/2015 8:44 PM, Don North wrote:
> On 10/22/2015 6:11 PM, jwsmobile wrote:
>>
>> I'm not sure if the author of this nice bit of work is on here, but
>> I'm looking at a board for this, the Altera DE-1. Unfortunately there
>> are a plethora of Altera DE-1 boards and much puzzlement by me as to
>> whether this is the right one.  The page with the info is deficient in
>> details to tell.
>>
>> The actual part which the author used is the key thing here, and not
>> just the name of the board.  I'd appreciate opinions here as to
>> whether these will run PDP2011 or whether it will be a nice learning
>> board for my mistake pile.
>>
>> http://pdp2011.sytse.net/wordpress/pdp-11/fpga-boards/de1/
>>
>> There is currently what I think is a good specimen available if anyone
>> is interested.
>>
>> http://www.ebay.com/itm/131621388597
>>
>> It includes the software and docs.  The current one I have was a
>> student version sans the documents and software.
>>
>> I hope to get the thing going to play with sometime soon.   There are
>> so many small boards out there for very little money once I get this
>> done and understand more about targeting this board and others I'd
>> like to see how cheap a board this could be made to run with give the
>> current boards.
>>
>> There is currently an Arm/fpga Zilog chip board now made available
>> that would be a nifty board to make into a PDP11 if it comes out as
>> cheap as they promise it to be.
>>
>> thanks
>> Jim
>
> I have one of the DE1 CycloneII device boards and at this point that
> family (CycloneII) is a bit old.
> If you can get it really cheap (<<$50) go for it, but the last Altera
> toolset that supports CycloneII is v13.0sp1 (v15.0 is current).
> I have moved most all my new experimentation on to the CycloneIV and
> CycloneV family devices.
>
> If you plan to use a board going forward for some time, the newer
> CycloneV based boards are a better choice:
> http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=English&CategoryNo=13&List=Simple#Category167
>
>
> In particular the DE0-CV has a lot of nice features for implementing a
> PDP-11 ($150):
> http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=English&CategoryNo=167&No=921&PartNo=1
>
>
> Or if you want to go light on the hardware design and lean more on
> embedded software, the DE0-NANO-SOC  board ($99):
> http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=English&CategoryNo=167&No=941
>
>
> The DE0-NANO CycloneIV  board ($79) is also a good choice:
> http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=English&CategoryNo=139&No=593
>
>
> At this point I would stay away from CycloneIII or CycloneII boards
> (unless you can get one very cheap) as the tech is older.
>
> Don

FYI -

I designed a daughter board for the DE0 nano that has the ENC424J600 
Ethernet Device that he uses, an SD Card, and a FT4232 with four serial 
ports over a USB interface.

I've got one built but haven't tried it out. Yet.

I think I've got a few spare bare boards if someone wants to try one. 
It is fine pitch SMT.

Rob.