First new vax in ...30 years? :-)

[Ethan Dicks]

On Mon, Jul 5, 2021 at 9:37 PM Zane Healy <healyzh at avanthar.com> wrote:
> > On Jul 5, 2021, at 5:05 PM, Ethan Dicks via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, Jul 5, 2021 at 2:46 AM David Brownlee via cctalk
> > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> >> In case anyone was interested in an FPGA VAX implementation
> >> http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-vax/2021/07/03/msg003899.html
> >
> > I think this is fantastic, but getting the CPU running is only the
> > start.  I'll be curious what/how storage emulation goes, and
> > networking.  Bonus points for sync serial that can run a DDCMP line to
> > vintage machines.
>
> I found myself wondering what it would take to put this, RAM, network, and a SD Card “Disk” on a Q-Bus board. :-)

Adding a Qbus to it would certainly offload the work of implementing
storage - just put it on the user to find a Qbus SCSI card or a KDA-50
or a Qbone or whatever and you wouldn't have to worry about OS drivers
or (alternately) mimicking a vintage disk controller.

I would hope it would use its own RAM.  No point in forcing anyone to
use vintage RAM.

For convenience, it would be nicer to have some sort non-spinning disk
rather than a $$$ vintage controller.

-ethan