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

[Josh Dersch]

On Sat, Nov 16, 2019 at 4:59 PM W2HX via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:

> Is the BBB not fast enough to do Qbus? Meaning, for qbus, would a FPGA be
> necessary? Or was this just the op's choice among many possible options?
>
> It does seem useful to have this thing run linux and ethernet and be able
> to pass files (data and programs) back and forth very easily. the FPGA
> approach seems more technically challenging but seems less universal (to my
> limited mind).  It would seem a BBB you could load software, test, and
> reload as easily as copying some executable code (I dont know if that is
> correct or an over simplification). whereas the FPGA sounds like it needs
> to be recompiled/re-burned each time?
>

My personal experience with the Unibone is that it's very easy to work
with.  Starting with zero knowledge of Joerg's platform I wrote an
RK11/RK05 emulation in about a week.  MSCP took longer (about a month), but
that was entirely due to the complexity of the MSCP spec.  Joerg has done
all the hard work here and has provided a really useful set of tools for
building device emulations.

I hope to have some time to do a few more devices soon -- TMSCP is on my
list, along with TC11 and RX11... I'm taking requests if anyone has 'em :).

- Josh

>
>