Building 'classic' PiDP-8, RPi question

[Ken Hansen]

I've got a 2nd generation PiDP-8 kit I'm going to build, and I've got a question about building/preparing the RPi. (When I look at the build instructions, I see three distinct builds, or generations, for the PiDP-8.)

The build instructions (2017-2018) describe downloading an image for an RPi Zero, but the latest build instructions link to instructions for actually starting with an RPi OS installation, then download and actually build (compile) the code on the RPi, and the instructions encourage the use of an RPi better than RPi Zero.

It seems to me the "best" solution would be to follow the build/compile instructions on an RPi Zero 2 W, it has the quad processor "umph" to handle to handle the glowing LED processing and requires no cutting of the cabinet to attach a USB peripheral.

Has anyone done this? Any advice?

I assume I'd want to install bullseye OS, not bookworm, is there a concern about the user ID I use ("pi")? Are there any other concerns I should look out for?

Thanks in advance,

Ken

[Clem Cole]

On Wed, Mar 20, 2024 at 9:40 AM Ken Hansen <n2...@w5fc.org> wrote:

I've got a 2nd generation PiDP-8 kit I'm going to build, and I've got a question about building/preparing the RPi. (When I look at the build instructions, I see three distinct builds, or generations, for the PiDP-8.)

The build instructions (2017-2018) describe downloading an image for an RPi Zero, but the latest build instructions link to instructions for actually starting with an RPi OS installation, then download and actually build (compile) the code on the RPi, and the instructions encourage the use of an RPi better than RPi Zero.

RPi0 works just fine, as does a RPi2 - which I believe is currently driving mine.   

It seems to me the "best" solution would be to follow the build/compile instructions on an RPi Zero 2 W, it has the quad processor "umph" to handle to handle the glowing LED processing and requires no cutting of the cabinet to attach a USB peripheral.

That should works fine.   The newer release has some updates.  For instance, the original had an issue running TSS/8. 

Has anyone done this? Any advice?

I assume I'd want to install bullseye OS, not bookworm, is there a concern about the user ID I use ("pi")? Are there any other concerns I should look out for?

You might want to consider:  https://tangentsoft.com/pidp8i/doc/trunk/doc/OS-images.md 

ᐧ

[Alen Shapiro]

I am using a Raspberry Pi-Zero 2W in my PiDP-8. The extra oomph was needed to simulate the variable brightness of incandescent yellow lamps. It works **Great**.

FYI:

Linux PiDP-8-Zero2W-33 6.1.21-v7+ #1642 SMP Mon Apr  3 17:20:52 BST 2023 armv7l GNU/Linux

OS: Raspbian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye) armv7l

Host: Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W Rev 1.0
Kernel: 6.1.21-v7+
CPU: BCM2835 (4) @ 1.000GHz
Memory: 73MiB / 426MiB