MiSTer?

[Bill Saltzstein]

Any thought of porting (perhaps Sytse’s) the PDP-11 work to the MiSTer platform? I think there are even the IO pins to potentially drive Oscar’s front panel.

Or is that (unintentional) heresy?

Take care,
Bill

[Ken Hansen]

The MiSTer is a DE-10 Nano at heart, and this is all I could find:

Terasic/Altera/Intel boards
Terasic makes very nice boards, but one of the things that I really don’t like is their habit of creating confusion with their product names. There are for instance boards named DE0, DE0-Nano, DE0-Nano-Soc, DE0-CV, DE10-Nano – and all of those are radically different. So take care which one you get…

From: https://pdp2011.sytse.net/wordpress/pdp-11/fpga-boards/more-boards/

And this from the vendor: https://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=English&CategoryNo=167&No=1046

But I have no idea what this is missing (PS2 keyboard, sd card slot, etc), but I have no idea what I'm looking at. 

Ken

On Sep 26, 2022, at 13:52, Bill Saltzstein <bills...@gmail.com> wrote:

Any thought of porting (perhaps Sytse’s) the PDP-11 work to the MiSTer platform?  I think there are even the IO pins to potentially drive Oscar’s front panel.

Or is that (unintentional) heresy?

Take care,
Bill

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[Bill Saltzstein]

Just got one of these; it’d have all the necessary resources from my limited work with Sytse’s great designs. 

----------------

Bill Saltzstein

+ 1 425.442.5854

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On Sep 26, 2022, at 3:04 PM, Ken Hansen <n2...@w5fc.org> wrote:

The MiSTer is a DE-10 Nano at heart, and this is all I could find:

[desa...@gmail.com]

MiSTer provides a framework for the usual I/O stuff (storage, video, input), so you don't need to re-implement all that on the development board.

For PDP2011, I would foresee being able to change some peripheral toggles right from the MiSTer menu - which would be really nice for changing the disk controller on the fly.

Some links:

• MiSTer Wiki
  
• Core porting notes
• More framework stuff
  
• Template core
  

[Sytse van Slooten]

Yes, I even have had several thoughts :-)

I have a de10-nano, and have wanted to add support for the SoC based boards for quite a while. Not necessarily mister (I'm not sure it would coexist with some of the plans I have for the fpga-hps bridging). But it could certainly use the same hardware addon boards that mister has.

But you can also 'just' run a pdp2011 system on the de10-nano, and not use the HPS at all - I tried, and unsurprisingly, it works. There's a couple things though:

- there is no memory on the board that pdp2011 can use. So either you'd need to add one of those sdram cards that mister uses; or you'd have to use the internal fpga blockrams (which, since the fpga is positively huge, would probably get you 64K words, but not 1920K).
- the sdcard connector is mapped to the HPS, so for PDP2011 you'd have to wire another one directly to the fpga
- the hdmi connector is of no use, PDP2011 can't do HDMI - yet.

My longterm plans are something like
- run a terminal on the hdmi, same as the current boards use vga;
- use the file system on the hps-linux as backing for the pdp2011 disks, instead of directly connecting an sd card;
- do very nifty debugging tricks on the pdp2011, by making lots of the pdp resources accessible from the hps. A virtual console, at least, and maybe a lot more.

There are two major projects ahead in the queue though: finishing some hardware stuff for the MINC, and a wifi alternative for the pmodnic100. And all PDP2011 work has secondary priority to finishing my endless home improvement work, obviously.


Cheers
Sytse

[Bill Saltzstein]

Thanks for your thoughts Sytse! Just looking at the wealth of IO and memory in the MiSTer kit that I got, it is a very tempting platform. I found one link where it seemed like someone had tried to port the Russian clone of the PDP-11 CPU to MiSTer with questionable results. And of course, its support of the PDP-1 led me further down that path.

When you’re tired of sawing and painting, have a quick look at the full platform if you haven’t. Otherwise, I certainly look forward to your list of goodies…

Take care,
Bill

[Ramón Martínez]

Hi.

  I have a stable MiSTer version running (thanks Sytse for support and Bill for testing)

  I have uploaded binaries, sources, and the nankervis images renamed (and the RL images converted to pdp2011 format to mega.

https://mega.nz/folder/e0RTUbgJ#5YeohR7yLmCTc3MZBHJ8mg

Also a link to the README as i have posted to misterfpga.org

https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?t=5847

[sunnybo...@gmail.com]

I am trying to get the PDP2011 core on my MiSTer. I loaded it and select it, and it boots with "Hello, World: vt100 t42" followed by four sets of 6 numbers. As an 11/70 mine says "000024 000000 000000 000000" then I get an @ symbol. I can't seem to type anything (two letters) then it gives another @ symbol.

If I "mount an HD image *.DSK, IMG" from the control panel (F12) "211bsd-rp06.dsk" nothing in particular happens. I'm back to the @ prompt.

What am I missing? (is it some boot command)? It will sit at the @ prompt forever if I let it.

Thanks.

[Sytse van Slooten]

Hi,

Read up on booting:

 

and if you want to know all possible detail, search for the M9312 documentation on bitsavers.

but otherwise, something like typing 'db0' should sort you out.

Cheers

Sytse

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pidp-11/4d9cbf37-ae68-4a0b-b481-39f4bbac5fc1n%40googlegroups.com.

[sunnybo...@gmail.com]

Yes, I read the M9312 document (3-3) and see that for my device, I need DB, or as the next answer said, DB or DB0 (both work). I'm running 11/70 with 4MW memory, and after DB (or DB0) I immediately get

70Boot from xp(0,0,0) at 0176700

:

If I press enter I see "xp(0,0,0)unix

but then nothing.

Should I be using a different boot command to get unix up and running? 

(apologies for all the questions, but I build the PiDP11 years ago and was running the same BSD2.11 for years, but the boot process seemed to be quicker on the PiDP11 under SIMH.) (plus it's been years since I even booted my PiDP11, as I was building several other systems since, including the PiDP10).

I figured the BSD boot should be quicker once I a have the 70Boot... prompt.

[sunnybo...@gmail.com]

I am reading along on this page https://pdp2011.sytse.net/wordpress/pdp-11/sessions/211bsd/

about BSD2.11 booting, and it seems like it should be booting a lot quicker. Everything I've done mirrors what is there (reproduced below) except the next line "Boot: bootdev=05000 bootcsr=0176700 never appears. It's just hanging at the ": xp(0,0,0)unix" entry

Hello, world [t44]: cpu 11/70
boot from rp:

70Boot from xp(0,0,0) at 0176700

: «
: xp(0,0,0)unix
Boot: bootdev=05000 bootcsr=0176700
2.11 BSD UNIX #115: Sat Apr 22 19:07:25 PDT 2000
    sm...@curly.2bsd.com:/usr/src/sys/GENERIC
phys mem  = 3932160
avail mem = 3708224
user mem  = 307200
June  8 21:37:09 init: configure system
hk ? csr 177440 vector 210 skipped:  No CSR.
ht ? csr 172440 vector 224 skipped:  No CSR.
ra ? csr 172150 vector 154 skipped:  No CSR.
rl ? csr 174400 vector 160 skipped:  No CSR.
tm ? csr 172520 vector 224 skipped:  No CSR.
tms ? csr 174500 vector 260 skipped:  No CSR.
ts ? csr 172520 vector 224 skipped:  No CSR.
xp 0 csr 176700 vector 254 attached
erase, kill ^U, intr ^C

[Sytse van Slooten]

Hi,

not sure if my earlier mail came through, so apologies if I'm repeating myself

the '70Boot' etc tells me that the first read from the disk image is ok. So the hardware appears to work.

that things hang between the 'xp(0,0,0)unix' and 'Boot' etc I think points to a mismatch in the type of the disk image and what the controller is set to. Or possibly the disk image is corrupted.

what is your controller set to? rp06 is the default.

does this image work in simh, if simh is set up for rp06?

did you try the image on my download page?

Cheers

Sytse

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pidp-11/49262a85-4e55-41bb-8abf-ceb309d3d839n%40googlegroups.com.

[sunnybo...@gmail.com]

Hi Syste, 

Current status. I'm still somewhat stuck at the boot page for BSD. Again, this is a MiSTer version in hardware (FPGA), not software with SIMH. I downloaded the main file pdp2011_20221207.rbf from https://github.com/MiSTer-Enhanced/PDP2011_MiSTer/tree/main/release, and the BSD image pdp11-20230202.tar.gz from the site https://pdp2011.sytse.net/wordpress/download/. Since having issues I downloaded both files several times and compared bits so the downloads are good.

Once I put the rbf file on the MiSTer under computers and the pdp11 (BSD) file unzipped in games/pdp2011 I selected the PDP2011. It booted with the Hello World: vt100 t42 header and then I configured it for PDP11 model 70, 4MW memory, Controller RH11 and disk image 211bsd-rp06.dsk. Reset and close and I get the :000101 000000 165212 000000' @ prompt. I typed DBand get the correct "70Boot from xp(0,0,0) at 0176700. I press enter and now all I get is "Trap in Boot, illegal instruction at loc 13342 registers: r0-0, r1=56520, ps=140351, nps=30341. That is what I now get every time.

So somewhat stuck. I'm wondering re-reading your readme on https://pdp2011.sytse.net/wordpress/download/ where it says 

  Latest update
  Latest source code (including wireless XU), see the Feb 2 blog post for more details:
  pdp11-20230202.tar.gz 
  Previous version (ok to keep using if you don’t need the wireless XU):
 pdp11-20210530.tar.gz

I wonder if I should be using the previous version (2021) not the 2023 version I downloaded.

Thanks,

-R

[Sytse van Slooten]

Hi,

I'm not sure what you are trying to do.

The MiSTer port is complete in itself, so if you are using that there is no reason to download the vhdl from my website. 

And thus there is no reason to worry about the two versions - and that would be irrelevant anyway since the main difference is in the wireless backend for the ethernet, because the ethernet controller won't work with MiSTer.

Again, the output you get suggests that there is a mismatch between the disk controller and the disk image you're trying to boot, and also it seems like the cpu setup has been changed?

I would suggest you take a few steps back and try to set up your MiSTer from Rampa's work. Then try to get something simple running on that, like rt11 from an rk05 image.

Other than that, please understand the MiSTer port isn't my work, and I'm not sure I can easily help you with it - it'd take me a lot of time to set up my workbench for it, and in fact more time than I have this season.

Cheers

Sytse

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pidp-11/bd70aafb-3e9e-4b43-af0d-8f890fb2a9c3n%40googlegroups.com.

[sunnybo...@gmail.com]

No worries. I suspect sometimes I do "too much" reading, if you will. There's so much available on the internet now that one can get caught up trying to read ALL the materials, and often some of them have nothing at all to do with what you are doing. 

I'll start over with the proper stuff and go from there.

Thanks.

-R