who's working on PDP10 hardware emulators/fpgas ?
Heinz Wolter
Commercial Machines:
1. XKL has the Xilinx XC40-10E based TOAD-1, microcoded, standalone KL class
2. SC Group has the SC-40, a microcoded, standalone KL class
32K x 80 CS
Hobby/for Fun Machines:
3. Neil Franklin, Xilinx Virtex based, Jbits, standalone KI class
state and random logic
Status: in progress
4. Daniel Seagraves, mentioned he's working on a hardware emulator - no more
details
Status: unknown
5. Heinz Wolter, Xilinx Spartan II based, microcoded, VHDL, PC hosted PCI
board, KL class
32K x 96 WCS
Status: replacing initial wirewrapped 2901 design with FPGAs, just
started
Anyone know of any others or have additional info to add?
Perhaps we could set up some repository for useful documentation
like original DEC schematics (KS, KL), all the known microcode versions.
Someone mentioned the 2901 brochures/notes. It would be nice to have it all
together.
Most people I'm sure have found the PDP6 schematics and mcr.262 microcode
as well as Tim Stark's emulator for reference material. I'm still looking
for those
guys that made off with 40 pounds of fiche with schematics and FE docs for
everything DEC ever made that was worthwhile...
Regards,
Heinz
David G Conroy
h.wo...@sympatico.ca wrote on 3/10/01 10:21 PM:
I'll probably tackle it eventually as I work
my way through the DEC product line, but I have to finish my 18-bit
machine(s) first. I spent most of yesterday laying out the
universal 18-bit PCB (universal in the sense that it has 64K of memory and
a connector into which a display board could be plugged so that
SPAACEWAR on the PDP-1 could live again). The logic for the PDP-1/4/7
is done, doing the PDP-9 would be easy, and I'll probably never
get around to doing the PDP-15.
I've got a lot of sketches of bits-and-pieces of
a PDP-10 design. I expect the design will be microcoded using a
fairly vertical control word. I've mainly been thinking about the design
of the ETB/UTB in the MBOX, and how I would build the MBOX/PCI
bridge. I expect it will use modern peripherals, although I could imagine
making a modern peripheral look enough like an old one to somewhat
satisfy an old device driver with microcode.
dgc
Neil Franklin
> 1. XKL has the Xilinx XC40-10E based TOAD-1, microcoded, standalone KL class
Nitpick: XC4010E-3 based.
> 3. Neil Franklin, Xilinx Virtex based, Jbits, standalone KI class
> state and random logic
> Status: in progress
Small addition: Xilinx Virtex/Spartan-II based. It should run on both
families. Same applies to your design, BTW. Spartan-II and Virtex of
same sizes are bitstream file compatible, says Xilinx.
Totally nitpicky: it is JBits. BiCapitalisation, grrrrr.
> 4. Daniel Seagraves, mentioned he's working on a hardware emulator - no more
> details
> Status: unknown
If I understand his post correctly, it is an hardware-level software
emulator:
"I'm also playing with an
emulator that emulates the KS10. But at the hardware level."
> 5. Heinz Wolter, Xilinx Spartan II based, microcoded, VHDL, PC hosted PCI
> board, KL class
> 32K x 96 WCS
> Status: replacing initial wirewrapped 2901 design with FPGAs, just
> started
So you are doing it. Great. Congrats.
> Most people I'm sure have found the PDP6 schematics
I have them. I should go and print them. So far only first 3 pages.
--
Neil Franklin, ne...@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/
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