Is it Time to Start the Pi 5 Conversation?

[Ken Caine]

I am looking to buy the new Pi 5 which is scheduled to come out later this month. I am hoping the Pi5 will work 'out of the box' in the PiDP-11. I am planning to repurpose my Pi 4 to control my telescope and try my hand at astrophotography.

The new Pi 5 is much faster and other significant hardware changes. Any thoughts on compatibility? I would imagine that the they are plug compatible.

ken

[Rodney Hester]

re: the Pi 5, given that it _requires_ active cooling and offers no real-world benefit in terms of PDP-11 emulation, I would actually think it would be a poor fit (no pun intended) for the application.

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[Ken Hansen]

The differences will most likely be in the software, RPi 5 hardware requires 'bookworm' based Raspbian OS.

The first step would likely be to load 'bookworm' on an RPi 4 to identify any software/library/etc issues before the RPi 5 hardware becomes available next week (10/23/2023)...

As for the hardware and benefits for PiDP-11, it is likely 'massive overkill' but in a little while the RPi 4 hardware may not be easily sourced in the retail outlets...

The RPi 5 has higher power requirements (5.2v, 5A), thermal issues (benefits from active cooling, to avoid throttling), and has some nice on-board features like an RTC clock, a power switch connection, and a PCIe 2.0 1x connection for an NVMe SSD, along with a faster MicroSD interface, along with 2-3x increased performance (based on early reports).

A mixed bag of benefits and increased requirements.

Ken

On Oct 17, 2023, at 19:05, Ken Caine <ken....@gmail.com> wrote:

I am looking to buy the new Pi 5 which is scheduled to come out later this month. I am hoping the Pi5 will work 'out of the box' in the PiDP-11. I am planning to repurpose my Pi 4 to control my telescope and try my hand at astrophotography.

The new Pi 5 is much faster and other significant hardware changes. Any thoughts on compatibility? I would imagine that the they are plug compatible.

ken

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[Alan Abbott]

On 18/10/2023 02:10, Rodney Hester wrote:
> re: the Pi 5, given that it _requires_ active cooling and offers no
> real-world benefit in terms of PDP-11 emulation, I would actually
> think it would be a poor fit (no pun intended) for the application.

Hence my question a little while ago about migrating to other SBC's like
RISC V.

To me (and my opinion is worth nothing), The PI foundation has moved
away from the original use for the PI and are now trying to compete with
all the mini computers out there.

It wouldn't surprise me if some one some where has not got SIMH running
on say an ESP32! Hell people have got Doom running on everything these
days! lol

Alan

"Those who do not learn from Dilbert are doomed to repeat it"

[Heinz-Bernd Eggenstein]

I don't see a need to migrate to anything, not Raspi 5 and certainly not RISC V. Note that the Raspi 5 is meant to extend the product portfolio, not replace  existing products like the Raspi 4.

As stated here:  https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-4-model-b/specifications/

"Raspberry Pi 4 Model B will remain in production until at least January 2031"  (!)

While the Raspi 5 doesn't require active cooling when it's just executing PiDP-11 (and it will just throttle down, not self destruct if you put other more demanding applications on it), using the Raspi5 instead of the earlier models would just be a waste of money, power, and software development time for any needed changes, if you ask me.

Cheers

HB 

[isy...@gmail.com]

Dear All,

 Well, Simh on the ESP32 .... see:  Spritetm/esppdp: ESP32-based PDP11 simulator, based onSimH (github.com).

 This is stripped down version but it works very well and runs BSD 2.11 + networking. Just added an update

for IDF 5.0. Just telnet in and you wouldn't know the difference!!

I also agree that a rush for the Pi 5 is probably unnecessary. The current issues with the PiDP11 arise from updated distros

and the move to 64bit. Just having to fix the GT40 spinoff because of this. There is a problem with the 64bit SDL2 library.

As luck would have it, the fix is obscure but easy but I do wonder if there is a better scheme.

BW, Ian.

[Clem Cole]

On Wed, Oct 18, 2023 at 10:01 AM isy...@gmail.com <isy...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear All,

 Well, Simh on the ESP32 .... see:  Spritetm/esppdp: ESP32-based PDP11 simulator, based onSimH (github.com).

 This is stripped down version but it works very well and runs BSD 2.11 + networking. Just added an update

for IDF 5.0. Just telnet in and you wouldn't know the difference!!

https://spritesmods.com/?art=minipdp11 is the whole project [very cool IMO]
 

 

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