using an FPGA to emulate a vintage computer

Mon Feb 08, 2010 7:40 pm   

On Feb 5, 2:13 pm, Michael Schwingen
<news-1235297...@discworld.dascon.de> wrote:

Sehr kewl!

Thanks, that's what I was looking for.

Eric

Mon Feb 08, 2010 7:43 pm   

On Feb 5, 3:10 pm, james <bu...@bud.u> wrote:


I have a SWTPC 6809. I will look into John Kent's project. Looks like
lots of fun.

Eric

Mon Feb 08, 2010 7:46 pm   

On Feb 5, 4:57 pm, glen herrmannsfeldt <g...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:

Yep, that is the idea. I run a small Vintage Computer Club near
Greenbelt/College Park, MD and one of the gusy suggested we do such a
thing, so we are trying to get ideas. This thread is really good stuff
for that purpose.

Eric

Mon Feb 08, 2010 7:52 pm   

On Feb 6, 5:23 am, "HT-Lab" <han...@ht-lab.com> wrote:

Ouch! Heck even the govt. facility's excess warehouse where I work
saved back the remaining PDP-11s knowing they had collector value. I
believe that they have all been sold off as of about 5 years ago.

Mon Feb 08, 2010 7:55 pm   

On Feb 5, 7:57 pm, Alex Freed <alex_n...@mirrow.com> wrote:

Very cool.

Eric

Mon Feb 08, 2010 7:57 pm   

On Feb 6, 7:35 am, n...@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel) wrote:

Yes, no doubt. I want to do it too, along with others in my Vintage
Computer Club. Perhaps we'll pick something that hasn't been done yet.

Eric

Mon Feb 08, 2010 7:59 pm   

On Feb 6, 1:34 pm, Jecel <je...@merlintec.com> wrote:

Thanks, for the link.

Eric

Mon Feb 08, 2010 9:54 pm   

Al Kossow <aek_at_bitsavers.org> writes:

That's a line that deserves to be put above the entrance to a computer
museum.
--
As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should
be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours;
and this we should do freely and generously. (Benjamin Franklin)

Mon Feb 08, 2010 10:14 pm   

On 2/8/10 12:54 PM, Joe Pfeiffer wrote:

Typo, this was what I actually meant to say

"Reanimating early computing dinosaurs from surviving DNA is difficult."

Mon Feb 08, 2010 10:31 pm   

In comp.arch.fpga Al Kossow <aek_at_bitsavers.org> wrote:
(snip)


The B5500 was the first computer I did any programming on, when
I was about nine. Not so much later, it was sold. I then
rediscovered programming some years later, first on an HP 9810A,
and then OS/360 Fortran.

It would be nice to try the B5500 again, though software emulation
(instead of FPGA emulation) would probably be just fine.

(snip)


I thought someone had copies of the microcode, but then again
maybe that is what they meant. Are there no copies of the
actual ROS available in museums?

-- glen

Mon Feb 08, 2010 11:27 pm   

Jecel wrote:

From the sound of the projects being done, it sounds like it's a
challenge to use FPGA to emulate even simple instruction sets, no?

Mon Feb 08, 2010 11:31 pm   

Al Kossow wrote:

If not, you'd have to cob up some Algol compiler to cross-compile ESPOL,
and then bootstrap MCP, Algol, and ESPOL using that. Difficult, but
do-able, once the code gets OCR'd (or, having looked at the listings,
more likely re-keyed.)

Mon Feb 08, 2010 11:46 pm   

Peter Flass <Peter_Flass_at_Yahoo.com> writes:


In the same sense that emulating them in TTL chips is a challenge --
it's a comparable task, but done by writing VHDL or Veriolog instead of
by using a wire-wrap gun.

If you really want to embed a simple computing core in an FPGA project,
they're available off-the-shelf in libraries and can just be stuck in as
needed. But that's not the goal of these projects.
--
As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should
be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours;
and this we should do freely and generously. (Benjamin Franklin)

Tue Feb 09, 2010 12:04 am   

On Fri, 5 Feb 2010 21:57:28 +0000 (UTC), glen herrmannsfeldt
<gah_at_ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:

|In comp.arch.fpga Eric Chomko <pne.chomko_at_comcast.net> wrote:
|> Has anyone created a copy machine of an old system using an FPGA? I
|> was wondering if it would be possible to take an entire SWTPC 6800 and
|> compile the schematics and have it run on an FPGA board.? Wouldn't
|> even have to be the latest Xylinx product, I suspect.
|
|I haven't done it yet, but I am interested. I have a Digilent
|Spartan3E board for that purpose. I think it is big enough for
|the whole system for many of those machines.
|
|-- glen
|==============

Glenn

The XC3S500e is big enough to do most if not all.

james

Tue Feb 09, 2010 1:22 am   

In comp.arch.fpga james <bubba_at_bud.u> wrote:
(snip)


Well, I have thought as far as the Sparcstation 1.
That might require a bigger FPGA.

Sun has released verilog code for more recent SPARC processors.
It is likely that those, along with the rest of an actual system,
would be too big for even the larger XC3S devices. Maybe the
Spartan 6 is bigger.

Another one to consider is the Macintosh Plus or SE. That is,
68000 based Mac. Also, 68010 or 68020 based Sun systems.

-- glen