UniBone: Linux-to-DEC-UNIBUS-bridge, year #1

Jörg Hoppe j_hoppe at t-online.de
Sat Nov 16 11:45:56 CST 2019


Stefan,
>> *What it is:*
>> In case you forgot: UniBone is a plugin board to DEC PDP-11 UNIBUS
>> systems containing a BeagleBone Black.
>>
>> See http://retrocmp.com/projects/unibone.
>>
>> This combo can simulate PDP-11 devices embedded in a physical
>> machine.
>> So you can operate and repair incomplete UNIBUS PDP-11s and even
>> VAXes,
>> just by emulating the missing parts.
>> Disk drive emulators accept SimH image files, which can be ftp'd to
>> the
>> emulator (no SDcard changing!).
> 
> Ethernet or FC connection ??
> If so it would be possible to build an PDP-11 who is datacenter-
> compatible today year 2019 ...
> 
> One requirement for todays datacenter (for some owners at least) is the
> ability to directly connect the system to the storage system (ie
> FC/SCSI or IP/iSCSI.)
> 
> Hint: with that requirement as far as i know it an ARM device in the
> form of a Samsung S9 can't be data center compatible....
Mot clear to me what "data center compatibility" for a PDP-11 means.

Anyhow, the BeagleBone runs Debian Linux, has an Ethernet port and the 
emulation software is a plain Linux application.
So all emulator binaries and all PDP-11 disk images or other data can 
reside anwhere in the world and are not bound to the UniBone SDcard.

Joerg


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