PDP2011 board

[Don North]

On 10/22/2015 9:27 PM, ben wrote:
> On 10/22/2015 9:44 PM, Don North wrote:
>
>> 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.
>>
>
> Well just give him your unwanted DE1 card (or sell it to him)
> The GOTYA on the PDP11 stuff is it still uses the old SDC card
> format 1GB or less.
>
>> 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 
>>
>
> If I said what I want to say about that
> I would be banned from the list for foul language.
>
>>
>> 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 
>>
>
> Too small and for some reason I can't get a keyboard to work with it.
>
>
>> 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 
>>
>
> More fowl language comes to mind! I don't see any AHDL code
> for using the dynamic ram. You mean I have BUY that code.
> I think AHDL is cleaner to program in than the other options.
> Is program the right term for hardware?
>
>> At this point I would stay away from CycloneIII or CycloneII boards
>> (unless you can get one very cheap) as the tech is older.
>
> Sometimes older is better. They dropped both async set and clear from the
> flip flops and just left clear. That is a BUG not a feature in my mind.
> [sarcasm] wait Verlog and VHDL only use latches [end sarcasm]
>
>> Don
> Ben.
>
> Back to building a nice LS TTL computer in a FPGA.
> Any one know the time the 74LS382 came out. The TTL data
> book says Jan 1981/revised march 1988 for S and LS chip

Wow. What can I say. AHDL. I never used that even when it was current.
Proprietary to Altera. All of the warts of VHDL with none of the benefits.

For PDP2011 direct compatibility then the path of least resistance is probably
the DE0-NANO with CycloneIV for $79. I have several; nice little boards for 
experimentation.
You can get it from Adafruit ($99) or Digikey as well. Direct from Terasic has 
high shipping cost.

And if you are going to learn an FPGA development language look at 
SystemVerilog/Verilog,
OpenCL, or VHDL. Certainly not AHDL. It was bad even when it was new. It does 
not get better with age.

Don